Manga Village

While we here at Manga Village love all the new manga coming out each week, there’s over 20 years of manga releases that we love and want to recommend too! So, in each column, we will look at a genre, or creator, or even publisher to come up with the best titles that we want to recommend to you! This Month: School Manga! September is traditionally the time kids go back to school, so this month we’re looking at titles that take place mainly at school. School is a big part of life and is often used promptly in teen manga titles. So here’s our some of our favorite manga that takes place at school! Alex Hoffman: There are a veritable ton of manga series that are set around a school – more shojo series than shonen, I would think, but there are quite a few of my favorite shojo series set in a school – Monkey High!, Kimi ni Todoke, and Otomen, just to name a few. If you are looking for specialized schools, well, there are plenty of those too! Mixed Vegetables is set in a cooking school, and Twin Spica is set at a school for astronauts….

Souka and her recently divorced mother move to a new place to start over. In looking for a school to enroll in, Souka decides to leave her preppy, private high school behind and transfers into a technical high school. To her surprise, she’s the only girl student in the entire school! The first day of school is nothing like she ever imagined — boys crashing through the window, fighting for all they are worth. One day, the school’s current “Bancho” (a term for a gang leader) ambushes Souka. Determined to protect her, Yu, one of the classmates, comes to her rescue, but Yu ends up in a struggle. Trying to help, Souka swings her book bag and ends up taking down the Bancho herself! What Souka didn’t know was that when someone takes down the class’ leader, you became the leader of that class. This wasn’t a role she was expecting for herself, but will she be able to relinquish it? By Mayu Fujikata Publisher: CMX Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romance/Comedy Price: $9.99 Mayu Fujikata’s debut manga My Darling! Miss Bancho is a lighthearted high school comedy that takes place in a technical high school. Souka moves with her single…

On Tuesday, May 18, DC Comics announced that CMX would cease publishing on July 1, 2010. CMX had a turbulent start, with the controversy of editing/censoring of Tenjho Tenge, but with the right staff behind it, it became a company that licensed and released solid titles that appealed to everyone. But DC has pulled the plug, citing the “challenges” in the marketplace right now. So now we must say good-bye, just as CMX was finding its legs and bringing out some really interesting titles. Katherine Farmar: Noooo! Swan! It isn’t finished yet! ARGH! …okay, I’ve calmed down now. This is sad but not exactly unexpected news. CMX was always a Cinderella for DC — the neglected, barely-promoted stepdaughter that the bigwigs didn’t seem to know existed most of the time. And that’s a terrible shame from my point of view, because CMX published some seriously good titles. I have a particular interest in the works of the Year 24 Group — the legendary, groundbreaking shoujo artists all born in 1948 who changed the face of manga in the 1970s — and CMX was one of the few publishers/imprints to give us English-language versions of their works. Swan and From Eroica…

Canary Darlberg is the princess of the Linaria kingdom, and she’s just received some life-altering news: She’s set to have an arranged marriage begin soon. Her father tells her that she is to marry Prince Heath of Gazania, but he is renowned to be, well, an idiot. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Asuka Izumi Publisher: CMX Age Rating:Everyone Genre: Romance/Fantasy/Comedy Price:$9.99 Canary does not think very highly of the prince, but her father insists. Fortunately, her father offers a deal: Meet him once and if she doesn’t like him, the marriage is off. But the prince, who has a pet lizard that talks, asks a favor of the lizard. He wants the lizard to take some magic medicine that would make him switch bodies with someone — the prince — and live out that person’s life. (But just for the day, the prince says.) The date went well for Canary and the lizard. But when he changes back to lizard form and Canary encounters the real Heath, Canary is less than enthused. Immediately she knows it is not the same person she met before, even if they both look like Prince Heath. But the two cannot remain separated for…

A police detective goes undercover in this series, but he becomes a fifth-grade teacher, replacing the role left when the previous fifth-grade teacher was murdered. Now he is set to investigate what happened. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Tamio Baba Publisher: CMX Age Rating: Teen+ Genre: Drama/Suspense Price: $9.99 However, the plot is pretty fun and interesting. Toyama comes into the classroom and finds fifth-graders with some interesting quirks. But one in particular is Makoto, who is shunned by his classmates and left alone in social circles. He’s a target for the other kids’ mockery, and he takes it and doesn’t engage back with any of the other students. Toyama ponders whether the bullying of Makoto could have a connection to the murder case, and he begins to investigate. When he begins to investigate, he finds out that the young boy Makoto has previously said he could see visions of monsters. Eventually, Toyama comes to understand Makoto a little bit better, and the two of them form an alliance of sorts to help sort out the mysteries of the murdered teacher. Despite that set-up, there are quite some hiccups. For one, Toyama, the detective, is quite the chatterbox when…

Miel is a bit out of sorts with the rest of her family. Unlike them, she isn’t really interested in developing her magical powers, which are quite common in Savarin, the kingdom she lives in. As a member of the Violette family, which had been employed as sorcerers in the palace as recently as a couple of generations ago. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Natsuna Kawase Publisher: CMX Genre: Fantasy/Romance Rating: Everyone Price: $9.99 It’s under those conditions that Miel brews while taking a walk. And she absent-mindedly lets go of her purse. And it ends up hitting a boy, who was out walking just up the street, right in the head. She apologies and tries to make it up to the boy, who happens to have the same popular nickname — Radi — as the prince, by taking him out to lunch. The guy seems to think Miel is trying to pick him up, and they appear to be on different pages. The two seem to bond quickly. Radi gently tries to glide Miel to understand the path of magic and to help her want to learn, even while Miel doesn’t realize that he is doing this. And…

Rosemarie is content with life in the humble kingdom of Ardela.  But Mache, her brother, believes they need to align with the bigger and wealthier nation of Yurinela so he promises her hand in marriage to Reynol, Yurinela’s mysterious young Prince.  Not a girl to just go along with such an arrangement, Rosemarie decides to get a peek at this Prince and maybe sabotage the wedding plans while she’s at it.  Assuming the identity of “Marie,” she shows up at the Prince’s castle as a maid and begins her role as a spy.  But could it turn out that Reynol is not the ogre she imagined? By Natsuna Kawase Publisher: CMX Age Rating: Everyone Genre: Romance/Fantasy Price: $9.99 A strong female lead is a great way to pull me into a story, but add interesting supporting characters, and a premise that’s simple but layered, and you’ve got me hooked!  A Tale of an Unknown Country does all of this, creating a fun read. I love reading stories with strong female characters, and Rosemarie, Princess of the small, relatively poor country of Ardela is exactly that.  She isn’t your average princess.  Outspoken and impulsive, Rosemarie doesn’t take the announcement of her…

Jin is a typical high school kid who lives with his chiropractor dad and homebody sister. But one day he discovers that he has abnormal martial arts powers (great fighting, leaping and running skills). Mysteriously, however, he only has these powers one day a month. Jin has a core group of friends: an attractive girl named Fusano (who likes Jin but would never admit it) who’s also good at martial arts; former bad boy Choji; and brainy computer nerd Tomonori. After school one day, Jin and his friends go to an arcade, where he is called outside by some tough guys posing as cops. It seems they were hired to test his abilities, but unfortunately he doesn’t have any of his special powers on this day, so they beat him up until his friends come to help him. Almost more mysterious than his occasional powers is the truth about the gang of bullies…who were hired by his estranged older brother. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Shoko Fukaki Publisher: CMX Genre: Action, Martial Arts, Adventure Rating: Teen+ Price: $9.99 Jin and his female friend, Fusano, both have very good fighting skills. But Fusano is a much more adept student while…

The great Mongolian tribal leader is shown in this series, which follows the Genghis Khan from boyhood through to adulthood. Khan, whose name was Temujin, is shown at the beginning of the volume as a baby. Originally reviewer: Dan Polley By Seiichi Morimura Publisher: CMX Rating: Teen + Genre: Action/Adventure Price: $9.99 In the next sequence, he is shown as a young boy, and he embarks on a hunting trip by himself. But his father talks to someone else in the clan and confesses that there are others who doubt the bloodline of the young Temujin. There are those who claim he is an “outsider” and that he will eventually become a great leader. Meanwhile, on the hunting trip, Temujin encounters another boy from a different clan, and the experience will forever change his life. As the boys confront each other, wolves appear to attack. The boys save each other from the wolves and a bond is born — but the fact remains that the boys are from different clans. Later in Temujin’s life, once he has grown up and assumed the mantle of Ghenghis Khan, he engages in battle with the boy he swore as a blood brother, and…

In the darkness stands a girl draped in pure white. Don’t let her innocent appearance fool you; her hands grip a glistening scythe. Momo is the dark messenger of death who, along with her wise cracking cat named Daniel, is tasked with releasing humans from their mortal bonds and delivering their souls to the great beyond. First encounters with Momo always end in farewells. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley Written by K-Ske Hasagawa; Illustrated by Asuka Izumi Publisher: CMX Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Supernatural Age Rating: Older Teen Price: $9.99 (OOP) Momo is dead. She’s a shinigami, actually. But there’s something different about her. Unlike the other shinigami, Momo is not dark and scary; instead, she seems to visit those who are struggling in their lives. And she provides a sort of guidance counseling as only she can. In the first of three short stories, a young man is so self-involved in his depression that he can’t see the world around him for what it truly is. But Momo drops by and imparts some wisdom with him, and he tries to understand what she means. The second showcases a brother who has eternal regrets from something his sister did. And the…