As a mature series, Master Keaton has settled into a groove that I find more enjoyable than I thought I would. That makes sense, since this volume seven is just past the halfway point of the eventual 12-volume Viz English run. (Assuming I’ve counted correctly. The Japanese series ran 18 books of 8 chapters each, but each translated volume contains 12 chapters, meaning that this volume 7 collects the original volume 10 and half of 11.) Each of these chapters […]

Ten Count, by Rihito Takarai and published by SuBLime, is the kind of yaoi manga I like — the kind with a plot beyond “let’s watch two cute guys make out”. In this case, it’s even based on a topic I’m immensely curious about. Shirotani is the assistant to a company president. He’s germ-phobic, to the extent of wearing gloves in daily life, and a compulsive hand-washer. He meets Kurose by accident. That’s fortuitous, because Kurose is a psychiatric counselor […]

I was about to give up on this series — I only read it for the food, and there are only so many times I can watch a cook-off — when this volume did something different that reignited my interest. But first, Food Wars volume 13 has to finish off the competition from the previous book, in which we find out whether Soma’s everyday cooking will make him the final champion of a tournament that began seven books ago. After […]

I don’t really believe the motivations of Asuka, the lead of Everyone’s Getting Married volume 1. She’s a successful career woman who can’t wait to give it all up to be a housewife and take care of her (future) husband. At a friend’s wedding, she meets Ryu, an up-and-coming newscaster. He prevents her falling down a staircase, which leads to her thinking, “I just met a great guy. Though we’ll probably never see each other again.” Of course, she’s wrong. […]

Given how many comics I read, I couldn’t recall the specifics of the mismatched school-age couple found in Honey So Sweet volume 3 — after all, finding romance across class or social boundaries is common in shojo manga — so I brushed up on my memories of the first two books. Plus, there’s a much-appreciated “Story Thus Far” that reminded me of the key names. Now that the core couple, Nao and Onise, have admitted their feelings for each other, […]

Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma volume 12, story by Yuto Tsukuda and art by Shun Saeki, finally brings us to the cooking competition finals, a challenge that began in volume 6. Because the judges couldn’t pick a winner in the semi-final competition in the previous book, for the first time, there will be three competitors in the last cook-off, another way to extend the storytelling. Our hero Soma, the champion of “common cuisine”, is facing off against Kurokiba, a bad […]

I rarely remember what’s been going on with twins Megumu and Mitsuru between volumes of So Cute It Hurts!!, but it doesn’t matter, since author Go Ikeyamada does a great job of catching us up as the various characters talk about who’s been doing what and the various relationship permutations. As volume 5 opens, Megumu has returned from her first date with tough-guy Aoi. It’s adorable young love, and predictably proceeding slowly and comfortably (complicated by Aoi’s only-in-manga condition of […]

This boys’ love manga series about two young actors has now been running long enough that it’s time to flip the premise. Previously, the more experienced Ryoma was pursuing Izumi. However, events in Love Stage!! volume 5 (published by SuBLime) amusingly make the opposite necessary. In volume 4, Ryoma was concerned by how pushy, abusive producer Kisaragi was getting his claws into Izumi. He’s so worried about his new boyfriend that it affects his performance. So Kisaragi “hypnotizes” Ryoma to […]