Crown Prince Shin and Crown Princess Chae-Kyung are the picture of happiness as they celebrate their first wedding anniversary in a lavish, high-profile public display…but all is not well behind those loving gazes and wide smiles. With the tension between her and Shin growing, Chae-Kyung can’t help but look for a way out of her situation. But when the Queen, who is with child, decides to have Chae-Kyung be her proxy, the pressur...
I’ll start by throwing this out there: I was a compulsive World of Warcraft player for a solid six months of my life in college. Eventually, despite having a blast playing with my friends, I quit the game, permanently deleted my character, and haven’t looked back since. Written by Richard A. Knapp; Illustrated by Jae-Hwan Kim Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: 13+ Genre: Fantasy Price: $12.99 I have a fairly good grasp of the...
Yayoi – the 78th Head of Household of the Suzuka Clan – is a mystic with a tremendous power over the spirits. Of course, along with great power comes those with the desire to steal it! Enter Ura, who wants to become the King of the Demons. He comes to the human world to challenge Yayoi, but ends up stripped of his powers – and is sealed away as a black cat instead! Although Ura is still hell-bent on “eati...
With the Imperial Army in hot pursuit, Housei leads Taitou and the others on a little detour to the home of his master. But the “mean old devil woman” he had described turns out to be nothing of the sort. Master Kouei is a veritable font of wisdom; in addition to knowing a more covert route into the capital, she is well versed in the legends of the Hokushin-Tenkun. There is much she can teach Taitou as he struggles to contro...
“I don’t know what kind of history you two have got… but Anzai was really happy at the thought that he was going to get to play ball with you, Wakamiya.” By Nanao Okuda Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing Genre: BL/yaoi Age Rating: M/Mature/18+ Price: $13.95 Ah, sports: hotbeds of drama, competition, and sublimated homoeroticism. Name a sport, and there’s probably a manga about it, if not more than one; in ...
For all Kyousuke’s resistance to Tena and her bossy ways, he seems to have settled in quite nicely to being a sort of househusband to her and the other tuners. But while Mezzo and Sopra have agreed not to collect Kyousuke’s viral notes, there’s no telling what might happen if he meets yet another tuner! So when Kyousuke runs into Arun, an elite tuner at the top of her class, could this spell the end of his musical aspi...
A new volume of Black Jack means another volume filled with stories of our favorite medical mercenary saving lives, fighting against corporate greed and cover-ups, family betrayals and “legitimate” doctors pitting their pride against Black Jack. By Osamu Tezuka Publisher: Vertical, Inc. Age Rating: 16+ Genre: Medical Drama Price: $16.95 Some of the stories that exemplify these themes are “The Two Pinokos”, where ...
“I also highly recommend the strawberries-and-white-chocolate mousse. The strawberry compote filling will melt in your mouth as the genoise soaked in lime syrup sings in perfect harmony with the milky flavour of the white chocolate mousse.” By: Fumi Yoshinaga Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing Genre: Slice of life/drama/comedy/food Age Rating: YA/young adult/16+ Price: $12.95 What a joy! What a delight! What a treat! Like t...
Being a guy that’s aging, and probably faster than my inner-child would like to admit, I enjoy it when a comic book caters to me as an adult. While this is rapidly becoming the policy in mainstream comics, where the entire readership is a bunch of 30 year-old man-children, manga published in the USA generally tends to hit the 13-18 crowd. The most popular titles are from Shonen and Shojo anthologies, weekly magazines that target y...
“Ha! As if you could keep from causing trouble!” “Urk! Y-you’re right… but I can promise you a life full of excitement, though!” By Kaoru Tada Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing Age Rating: T/Teen/13+ Genre: Shoujo/romance/comedy Price: $15.95 Itazura na Kiss sounds like it would be very much the opposite of my kind of thing. Shoujo romantic comedies tend to bore me unless they have some extra elemen...