I thought, by this point in the series, I wouldn’t have much to say about My Neighbor Seki volume 7, but then I remembered the earlier books. Back then, Rumi watched Seki’s creative transformations of his desk. She was an observer and interpreter for the reader, putting his actions into context. Now, it’s quite a contrast, as Rumi and Seki often wind up interacting. I mentioned this when commenting on the two books before this one, but this volume takes […]

Missing cat manga now that Chi’s Sweet Home has concluded? Never fear, author Konami Kanata has a new series with an adorable kitten. FukuFuku: Kitten Tales has an advantage over the previous series, in my opinion: the cat here doesn’t have an internal monologue in a cutesy dialect. In that way, it’s more true to cat ownership, as we simply observe the little kitty in her everyday life. She lives with an older lady, who works to give FukuFuku a […]

It’s interesting to see how Takuma Morishige’s My Neighbor Seki, based on a classically simple premise, has changed over its run. Previously, Rumi used to observe the crazy things Seki did during class, narrating to the reader in a way that added stories and context to his activities. Seki operated in his own, individual world. That was entertaining enough. But as the stories have continued, Rumi and Seki began interacting, and the stories occasionally wander away from their two desks. […]

Chi’s Sweet Home volume 12 concludes the cute cat manga series with a lengthy exploration of what “home” means. From the beginning, Chi has been troubled by memories of her time with her mother. The kitten doesn’t always understand her wants, but she feels something’s missing, although she enjoys her life with little boy Yohei and his parents. As this volume opens, Chi and her mother come face to face. Yohei immediately sweeps up his pet/friend and runs away with […]

My Neighbor Seki is the kind of series it’s difficult to continue talking about, because it’s full of stand-alone chapters, all of the same consistent high quality. As I’ve previously explained, Seki comes up with all kinds of distractions during class, which drives Rumi crazy, since she’s trying to pay attention, but Seki’s activities are so much more interesting. In volume 3, they’re so wide-ranging: Digging for fossils in his desktop Snow sculpture — with an adorable bunny! A variety […]

What Did You Eat Yesterday? volume 9 may be the last volume of the series by Fumi Yoshinaga we see for a while. There’s no volume 10 listed yet at Amazon, and sales reportedly haven’t been great. That’s a shame, since this is a wonderful manga, blending gorgeous art, well-realized characters, realistic interpersonal challenges, and a deep dive into a particular skill. In this case, it’s cooking, with Shiro making tasty-sounding everyday meals to feed himself and his boyfriend Kenji, […]

The more time I spend with Shiro and Kenji, the couple behind What Did You Eat Yesterday?, the more I like them and their stories. Particularly now that they’re celebrating Christmas with another couple in volume 7. Mr. Kohinata makes sense for them to get along with, since he’s relatively well-behaved and shares some of the same interests, but Gilbert seems to exist just to make smarmy cracks about how they’re not “being gay” right. (He was the one criticizing […]

My hopes for this series raised in volume 1 weren’t completely fulfilled. Instead of thoroughly exploring the nature of computer crimes and behavior online, Prophecy volume 3 follows up on the manhunt started in volume 2, focusing on more human motivations of loyalty. It’s certainly a more dramatic way for Tetsuya Tsutsui to wrap up the series in this book, and it makes for a tighter character arc, but I liked the themes of how growing computerization are affecting society […]