Manga Village

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 control the overwhelming power of his star, but will she have enough time to impart her wisdom before tragedy strikes? By Hiromu Arakawa Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Historical Fantasy Price: $10.99 Taitou and co. continue their journey to the Capitol, though the stories are less serial than the first volume and focuses more on their purpose; getting the Kenkaranbu back. Taitou gets some real training on how to control his star’s power, and more is revealed about Taitou’s and Ryuukou’s past, where they seem to have a surprising connection. Needing to find a less direct route to the capitol, Housei leads everyone to his Master, Kouei Kuju. Known as the “Font of Knowledge,” she spends her…

“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 the case of basketball, one of those manga is The Object of My Affection, though as you might have guessed from the genre label, the basketball is less the focus of the stories than an excuse to bring the main characters together. The collection begins with four linked one-shots, “Desolate Days”, “Favorite”, “Cellular Trap” and “Another Day With You”. These stories cover the beginnings of a romance between Wakamiya, an eager freshman and new member of Kanan University’s basketball team, and Anzai, a junior who was Wakamiya’s idol back when he was in middle school due to his outstanding basketball skills. Wakamiya discovers that Anzai never turns up for practice, and learns from Anzai’s childhood friend that Anzai has suffered an injury that will prevent him from ever playing basketball…

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 aspirations . . . and his life!? By Sesuna Mikabe Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Seinen Price: $10.99 Sesuna Mikabe’s Tena on S-String revolves around a tuner named Tena and her “slave” Kyosuke. Tena is a spoiled and bossy tuner that has Kyosuke wrapped around her little finger. Kyosuke is Tena’s “slave” and essentially takes care of her and two of her other tuner friends. Kyosuke, the male lead, is an aspiring musician and composer. In this 2nd volume of the series just when Kyosuke thinks he has enough dealing with tuners 24/7, dealing with the bratty Tena both in and out of his home, he runs into another tuner! Despite what the quick synopsis may claim I didn’t…

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 Black Jack meets the girl who he modeled Pinoko appearance from. She and the people of her village are dying from beryllium poisoning, and the corporation responsible will do anything to keep that fact from getting out. In “Hurricane”, a young wife wants Black Jack to keep her old husband alive, but only until she can get him to make her his beneficiary. Comeuppance theater ensues. And in “Black and White”, a “reputable” Doctor takes a patient away from Black Jack, believing he is saving him from a quack, but gets in way over his head. The main theme of this volume though, seems to involve animals. In several of the stories, Black Jack is either working on an animal to save it directly, or saves a person important to an animal. “A Cat & Shozo” has…

“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 the cakes and pastries it depicts, Antique Bakery is so exquisite that it’s tempting to swallow it all in one go, but with enough layers that it’s worth lingering over, to savour the interplay of different elements and the way minor details later prove to be essential. It’s clear that it’s been crafted with care and loving attention, and the skill of an artist at the peak of her career. Set in and around a pâtisserie-café that opens late and features antique silver cutlery as well as an immensely skilled pastry chef, Antique Bakery comes across at first as an episodic, slice-of-life series; as with the bookshop in Kingyo Used Books, the bakery seems to be less the setting for an ongoing tale and more a focal point where a diverse cast of minor characters can have…

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 younger children. Let’s just say that Naruto, while interesting, isn’t written for 23 year-olds. By Housui Yamazaki Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Age Rating: 18+ Genre: Horror Price: $10.95 Seinen manga, or manga for men, is a little scarce, but Dark Horse is one of the few publishers that bucks the trend;  the majority Dark Horse’s manga in print are seinen works. Thankfully, the publishing house does an admirable job with their manga. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Oh! My Goddess, Eden, and Gantz are all for mature readers, and they’re all great series. One of DH’s shorter manga installments is a three-volume horror collection by mangaka Housui Yamazaki (the illustrator for Kurosagi). In it, he tells the story of the vengeful dead, delivering their hate as…

“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 element in the mix (like, say, vampires, or ninjas, or robots, or… well, you get the picture). I get impatient with characters who are too dim to figure out what’s going on when it’s obvious to the reader. What’s more, I have a low tolerance for vicarious embarrassment — when a fictional character is humiliated or embarrassed, I get embarrassed right alongside them, and it often gets so bad that I can’t keep reading or watching because I’m cringing too hard. It seemed from the reviews that the plot of Itazura na Kiss mostly revolved around the main character being hideously humiliated again and again, and that made me think it would be painful to read. But despite all those reservations, so many people were so enthusiastic about the series that I decided to…

Global warming, animal rights, organic foods, military conflict, school funding, balanced national budgets, urban development; all of these buzz word topics cause a lot of discussion and argument in political circles. I imagine that many others, like me, have said, “What would I do differently if I were in charge and could make decisions?” It’s a daydream that I visit constantly. The struggle for power is one that dominates people’s lives and fills their imaginations. As Tears for Fears so eloquently puts it, “Everybody wants to rule the world.” By Megumi Osuga Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen+ Genre: Mystery/Drama Price: $9.99 But what would you do to rule the world? What is right and wrong, and what sacrifices will you have to make to ensure your vision reaches completion? That question is the central theme that runs between the covers of Viz Media’s latest Shonen Sunday book, Maoh: Juvenile Remix. Longtime residents of Nekota City are troubled by rapid modernization. It threatens old ways, promises to destroy current businesses. Progress is correlated with corruption. Up until now, though, no one has stood against the strip-mall building, profits-checking businessmen who threaten to destroy the traditional Nekota City way of life….

“If there really are two minds inside his body, then they’re both the real one. Saying that one is fake is twisted.” By Tooko Miyagi Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing Genre: BL/yaoi Age Rating: YA/young adult/16+ Price: $12.95  Il Gatto Sul G deals with topics so often covered in manga as to be virtually clichéd: childhood abuse, multiple personalities, youthful ambitions, love triangles. It could very easily have turned into a godawful melodrama or a trivialisation of some very serious issues; indeed, I’m so used to certain issues being trivialised in manga (especially BL manga, where artists often dispense with realism the better to indulge their whims) that I tend to let it slide, filtering out the more offensive elements in otherwise satisfactory stories. Throughout my reading of Il Gatto Sul G, I held back a little, leery of trusting Miyagi to handle the difficult subject matter with enough delicacy and respect; but I needn’t have worried. Miyagi approaches her story with all the care necessary to do it justice, and the end result is deeply moving. As befits its title, Il Gatto Sul G is a stray cat story, beginning when college student Atsushi Ikeda finds a teenage boy unconscious…

Kaname Otonashi is gifted with a super-hearing ability, so much so that he can even hear voices from the “other side”…the dead. Having once worked as a top-notch detective specializing in Sound Engineering Investigation, Otonashi resigned to work as a private investigator. His partner, Yasuhide, aka Hide, collaborates with the police department to take on unsolved and mysterious cases. Surrounded by a string of mysterious deaths, the police turn to Kaname’s findings to identify suspects…but can Kaname handle the non-stop screaming of the dead? By Youka Nitta Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing Age Rating: 16+ Genre: Drama Price: $12.95  Otodama: Voices of the Dead is a detective buddy story with a supernatural twist. It’s premise of the voices of the dead remaining behind long after the deed has become a staple in ghost investigations, but to this title’s credit, the voices of the dead don’t solve the cases as much as Otonashi’s abilities and Nagatsuna’s determination do. Otodama is about two men. Kaname Otonashi is a former researcher at the National Police Research Institute where he specialized in aural forensics. He analyzed sounds and recordings for clues to help in cases. Otonashi has very acute hearing. He can hear things others…