Manga Village

Viz is gearing up for the holiday season with three box sets this week of titles that if you missed, you should rectify. They also have a mix of Shonen Sunday and Signature titles. Kodansha releases a few more former Del Rey titles including the well received Arisa and Digital Manga has more BL for the fujoshi in you/your life.

“This darkness leads to where you want to go. You must not stop. You must not look back.”

It’s a big BL week with a long list from Digital Manga Publishing including the well received Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf. Kodansha is also dabbing in the BL genre with the second volume of Until the Full Moon. Viz releases some Shonen Sunday titles as well as two titles for kids; the latest Pokemon Black and White and the hardback Mameshiba Love Winter. The List: DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING Bad Teacher’s Equation Volume 2 GN (Of 5), $19.95 Border Volume 2 GN, $12.95 Great Place High School Student Council Volume 3 GN, $12.95 Mr Tiger And Mr Wolf Volume 1 GN (Of 2), $12.95 Only Serious About You Volume 1 GN (Of 2), $12.95 Private Teacher Volume 1 GN, $12.95 Seven Days Volume 2 Friday-Sunday GN (Of 2), $12.95 Yakuza Cafe GN, $12.95 KODANSHA COMICS Until The Full Moon Volume 2 GN, $10.99 UDON ENTERTAINMENT Mega Man Gigamix Volume 3 TP (Of 3), $13.95  **Weekly Pick** VERTICAL Princess Knight Volume 1 GN (by Osamu Tezuka), $13.95  **Weekly Pick** Twin Spica Volume 10 GN, $10.95  **Weekly Pick** VIZ MEDIA Dogs Bullets And Carnage Volume 6 TP, $12.99 Inuyasha Volume 9 GN (VIZBIG Edition), $17.99 Mameshiba Love Winter HC, $12.99 Pokemon Black…

Case Closed Volume 40 By Gosho Aoyama • Viz Media • Mystery • Older Teen • $9.99 Conan and his friends have more cases to solve, though only one murder in this volume. First he gets dragged into disrupting a date that ends up involving a drug deal, a suicide that looks suspicious, and a search for Dr. Asaga’s first love. After reading so many shonen, shojo and thriller titles lately, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the chase of a good mystery manga, so it was great to get back into a volume of Case Closed. The cases in this volume are mostly light fare, involving the relationships of supporting characters Sato and Takagi and Dr. Asaga. The mysteries involve solving puzzles and reading people. It’s a lot of fun watching the deduction process with Conan and the Junior Detective League. The one murder is fairly obvious about who the culprit is, it’s the way the murder is committed that is the mystery. This was a fun, light read, with three complete cases, and the last chapter being the hook for the next volume. If you need a mystery fix, Case Closed is sadly your only option at the…

When their high school’s pop-music club is about to be disbanded due to lack of interest, four girls step up to fill the membership quota. Unfortunately, lead guitarist Yui Hirasawa has never played an instrument in her life. Ever. And although she likes the idea of being in a band, standing in front of the mirror posing with her guitar is a lot easier than actually playing it. It’s gonna be a while before this motley crew is rocking out, but with their spunk and determination cranked to 11, anything is possible! By: Kakifly Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Young Adult Genre: Comedy Price: $11.99 Enjoying tea, friendship, cake, and sometimes picking up their instruments to play Kakifly’s K-on! is a 4 panel manga about four girls coming together to create a pop-music club. This slice of life series shows the struggles the girls face with both creating the pop-music club and maintaining it’s existence; through recruiting new members and showing their worth to the school through putting on a show. The color pages throughout the volume are a lovely addition to the volume. Though the girls didn’t play their instruments that much throughout the first volume, enjoyable nonetheless, the…

The beginning of a new month usually means a depletion of the wallet as so many new titles come out. Viz has the longest list as usual, with their shonen and shojo releases, including the soon-to-end Shonen Jump magazine. Kodansha isn’t doing so bad, as it fills in Del Rey’s spot very easily and debuts another old title with an omnibus and a new translation, Tokyo Mew Mew. Veritcal releases the Usamaru Furuya adaptation of one of the all-time bestselling novel in Japan, No Longer Human.

The genre of horror isn’t as easy to pin down like sci-fi, fantasy or romance. It doesn’t have to be in a certain time or place, or have certain characters to work. Horror is an emotion. The creator of a horror story is trying to elicit specific feelings from the reader, mostly feelings of fear and/or dread. Horror manga is no different. For the Horror Manga Movable Feast, the Villagers will be looking at the elements of horror manga, and talking about what they think works, or doesn’t work, in many of the titles available. John: What I love about horror manga is what I love about manga in general: the ability to know no bounds. Great horror manga has to be rooted in reality, but then stretch itself to the edges of believable be truly scary. A couple of favorites that do this darn near perfectly are The Drifting Classroom and Uzumaki. The Drifting Classroom is set in a graspable reality (a typical elementary school) that is teleported suddenly to a barren, hellish netherworld. Uzumaki is set in a small town in Japan that is infected by a plague of spirals. On paper neither sounds particularly compelling, but in…

Halloween is this coming Monday, and Yen seems to have prepared for it! Black Butler, Highschool of the Dead and Higurashi: When They Cry are squarely horror titles, and diverse enough to appeal to a wide audience. Dark Horse continues their lone shojo-manwha with the next volume of Bride of the Water God, and Vertical releases its high anticipated title Drops of God.

Reviews are subjective things. A reviewer is drawing on many things when they write their review. Besides technical things such as story structure, character development and art, a reviewers personal preferences and experiences can affect their feeling about a book. And sometimes, even their gender can make a difference as to whether a book gets a good score or bad. In the following discussions, reviewers Alex Hoffman and Lori Henderson will look at different books and examine the similarities and differences they have over each of them. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan Volumes 1-2 By: Hiroshi Shibashi Publisher: Viz Media – Shonen Jump Age Rating: Teen Genre: Action/Supernatural Price: $9.99 ISBN: Vol. 1: 978-1421538914 Lori Henderson: That was quite a debate we got into with Degenki Daisy. Will Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan be just as contentious? Alex Hoffman: I don’t know Lori – I guess that depends on what you think of the series. Want me to give the rundown? LH: Please do. AH: Here goes nothing. Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan is a series about a boy named Rikuo who is the descendant of one of the most powerful yokai in Japan. Being ¾ human…

Another short list, but at least with more than one publisher. Just in time for Halloween, Dark Horse releases the next volume in the gory horror title Gantz, and Vertical reaches the penultimate volume of the Tezuka classic Black Jack. And Viz has the next volume of their uncensored Tenjo Tenge omnibus.