Ran and the Gray World by Aki Irie contains some classic fantasy genre ideas, but the overall tone is unfocused with a touch of creepy. Ran is a magical little girl who appears as a well-developed young woman when she dons a special pair of tennis shoes. Her absent mother temporarily returns in a cloud of magical cakes, with everything too much, showing us where both Ran’s potential for power and her lack of discipline come from. Her older brother […]

When it came out last year, I criticized the previous volume of Arina Tanemura’s age-changing fantasy for not giving us enough of the older version of the character. Idol Dreams volume 5, after wrapping up a competition between the singers, which means plenty of glamour shots of the cute girls in pigtails and short skirts, gives us more with the adult Chikage. However, the storyline isn’t about her. It’s about her patching up the relationship between her friend Tokita and […]

It’s been quite a while since I tried Food Wars — the last book in the series I read, I think, was volume 16 a year and a half ago. I checked out Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma volume 25 because the publisher was nice enough to send it to me, and at least I could tell what was going on. That’s thanks to the main content being two cook-offs, which are the best part of the series. There are […]

The concept behind Shortcake Cake by suu Morishita (alias for writer Makiro and artist Nachiyan) had promise, but I couldn’t keep the characters straight, because none of them are particularly distinctive. Ten lives two hours away from high school, so she moves into a boarding house to avoid the commute. Her friend Ageha already lives there, as do these stereotypical guys: * Riku, the flirtatious charmer who doesn’t understand why he instantly crushes on Ten * Chiaki, the cute boy […]

This charming schoolgirl shojo gets its title, Ao Haru Ride, from author Io Sakisaka’s vision of her story as a portrait of the characters on a ride through their youth. That age, according to her, is about feeling overwhelmed most of the time. In Ao Haru Ride, Futaba doesn’t like boys, except for Kou. She thinks that he’s different for being gentle, among other reasons, and when he shows her small kindnesses, she develops a crush on him. Then he […]

I thought, if you give something enough time, it can grow on you, but each new volume of Takane & Hana just reminds me how far it’s fallen from the potential I saw in the first book. Take the latest, volume 4. Hana and her friends are finishing up a vacation trip with the guys, conveniently summed up by one of the girls on the first page: “Their group was so random! I mean, a Japanese heir, a rich Italian, […]

I enjoyed the first volume and was disappointed by the second. Was Takane & Hana volume 3 more to my taste? No, but I think I have a better handle on the approach author Yuki Shiwasu is taking to extending this series. (I can’t believe it has 10 volumes out in Japan!) In this volume, the misunderstanding with Takane’s foreign playboy friend Luciano is resolved, and Takane helps Hana study after her grades drop. (Once again, she tells him to […]

After learning that their relationship would have to go long distance in the previous book, Everyone’s Getting Married volume 8 ramps up the drama of their separation. I thought this plot twist would be more plausible, but I underestimated author Izumi Miyazono’s ability to create various obstacles for the key couple. Everything reminds Asuka of how much she misses Ryu, particularly when she’s under the weather and wants comforting. His trip to the US is going very well for his […]