As promised in the previous book, Kim, the former dog-hater, gets a Shiba puppy. As he learns how to care for his new pet, so does the reader, with insert text from a pretend guide called “The Day the Puppy Comes”. This volume would make an excellent read for a young new pet owner, because it covers subtleties the owner should be aware of, like the need to not spend too much time fussing over the new puppy. The book-within-the-book […]

The concept of the makeover is an important part of shojo manga. It’s important for the shy girl to be revealed, with a better haircut, as surprisingly beautiful or the geeky girl to become popular when she pays more attention to working on her looks. This series by Kiyoko Arai takes that concept and knocks it on its ear. Kiri is a very talented hairstylist who knows the transforming power of the right cut. She doesn’t much care about her […]

I do love this series by Yukiya Sakuragi. I know it’s predictable and flawed — it’s almost a case study in the way it infantilizes its two-dimensional heroine — but it makes me so happy to read it. How can you not enjoy being reminded of how dogs make people happy? After getting hired at the pet shop in volume 1 to take care of the dogs, now Suguri has to learn to sell them in volume 2. Except for […]

It’s a standard manga premise — young girl doesn’t know what to do with her life, stumbles into something she’s good at and starts becoming an adult as a result of the experience — made palatable through the many pictures of very cute dogs in Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs by Yukiya Sakuragi. Suguri is, to be blunt, a cheerful idiot. When a dog pees on her, for example, she laughs and says, “Oh, that always happens.” The story begins when […]

Just when I thought this competition manga by Takashi Hashiguchi had settled into a steady routine — naive country boy with innate gifts for baking bread rises to each challenge, creating a new twist on whatever type of baked good he’s assigned — the author shakes things up with the latest volume. It opens with two digressions. The first features the store manager telling the trainees how he became a master baker. It’s an over-the-top high school satire of young […]

In Monster, Naoki Urasawa turns the usual expectation of good and evil on its head. Dr. Tenma is a brilliant Japanese surgeon working in Germany. He’s a rising star due to his skills, and he’s engaged to the daughter of the chief of the hospital. She’s got his advancement all planned out so she can be the wife of a rich and powerful man. He’s got bigger concerns, though — his risky operation on an opera star brought the chief […]

The final volume of Hot Gimmick came out months ago, but I’ve put off talking about it because it was such a disappointment. This was the series that, with volume 1, got me reading manga; now, I can no longer recommend it. Originally, I loved the emotional drama by Miki Aihara. Hatsumi was shy and self-effacing, but I had great hopes that, as she learned to love and be loved, she would develop more confidence and gain experience standing up […]

The Train Man story is a modern romantic fairy tale. (“Densha otoko” means, unsurprisingly, “train man”.) It has captured the imagination of readers to the extent of inspiring multiple manga versions, as well as a novel, a movie, and a TV show. The story is simple: A geek on a train aids a girl being hassled by a drunk. He likes her, so he asks for help impressing her on a message board. Thanks to the advice, the two get […]