Manga Village

Asuka takes Ryo to an amusement park where he plans to confess his feelings to her.  Too bad all the rides Ryo wants to go on frighten Asuka! Can he overcome his fear for the sake of love?

“Since you may die at anytime…your civic duty is to live as well as you can.” Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit is a new manga from Viz, and despite the dark premise, this new series has some bright surprises. By Mase Motoro Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: M for Mature Genre: Drama Price: 12.99 USD At some point in the future the Japanese government issued the National Welfare Act. This is a three-tiered government program that immunizes all children, but one-in-one-thousand will be infected with a nanocapsule that will open up sometime between the age of 18 and 24 and kill the carrier. The thinking is this program will improve people’s value of life. As a result suicides go down and the birthrate goes up. Our “hero” is Fujimoto, a young man who has survived his 24th year and is recruited as an ikigami delivery man. An ikigami (literally “death paper”) is notice delivered to Welfare Act victims  24 hours before the nanocapsule initiates heart failure. I put hero in quotes as Fujimoto at least initially hardly questions the obvious moral ambiguity of the government program that now employs him. This first volume is divided into two stories (and it appears…

Towering above the sleepy village of Tepes are ancient ruins once erected by the Nobility.  One day, four of the town’s children wander into the ruins and vanish without a trace, only to mysteriously reappear a few weeks later.  But only three return, bearing no memory of what had happened to them. Adapted by Saiko Takaki; Story by Hideyuki Kikuchi Publisher: Digital Manga Publishers Age Rating: 16+ Genre: Horror ISBN: 9781569707876 Price: $12.95 Ten years later, a new breed of vampire emerges; one which can seemingly hunt during the daytime.  Losing the safety daylight offers, panic and mass hysteria begins to grip the townspeople–inciting riots and lynch-mobs.  Amidst the turmoil, the enigmatic vampire slayer known only as “D” is called in to investigate.  Can he solve the mystery of the walking dead’s newfound powers and unravel the truth behind the missing children’s connection to the secret of the ruins? After all the action in the first volume for this series, volume 2 pulls back a little, letting D flex his brain more than his brawn.  There’s a lot more talk than taking of heads, mostly about the nature of the Nobility.  Those who like more variety in their manga will…

Series Description: “The son of a famous pianist, music student Shinichi Chiaki dreams of studying abroad and becoming a conductor like his mentor. Unfortunately, his fear of flying grounds his lofty plans! As he watches other classmates achieve what he has always wanted, Shinichi wonders if he should quit music altogether. “Then one day he meets fellow student Megumi Noda, also known as Nodame. This oddball girl cannot cook, clean, or even read a music score, but she can play the piano in incomparable Cantabile style. And she teaches Chiaki something that he has forgotten: to enjoy his music, no matter where he is.” By Tomoko Ninomiya Publisher: Del Rey Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Romance Price: $10.99 Several weeks ago my local comics shop finally put chunks of their older, gathering-dust manga on sale. There were boxes and boxes of manga from the last decade or so, plenty of stuff that really should be consigned to quarter bins, or given away as a promotional tool, anything just to flush them from inventory. But there were some gems there. I picked up the elusive second volume of Bakune Young, a fantastic series from Viz’s sadly defunct PULSE imprint. I also…

Black Jack is a shonen manga created by Osamu Tezuka. It’s about an unlicensed doctor what lives and works in the underworld. A “scalpel for hire”, he will take on any surgery, anytime, anywhere, for anyone that is willing to pay his price. It’s an episodic series, with each chapter being a self-contained story about some situation Black Jack gets involved in. Much like most TV shows, there’s no origin story or over-arching plot to follow. By Osamu Tezuka Publisher: Vertical, Inc. Age Rating: Teen+ Genre: Medical Drama Price: $16.95 Black Jack’s background itself is a mystery. Though, throughout these volumes, we meet people from his past that lets us start to piece his story together. The Doctor that saved him and became his inspiration to become a doctor himself. The boy that reminds him of his own rehabilitation. The boyhood friend that donated skin to Jack that gave him his distinctive facial coloring. The stories are scattered, so that in order to get the whole story on Black Jack you have to read them all. The stories aren’t linear either, as some chapters in volume 2 have Pinoko being able to cook properly, while other stories in volume 3…

Gimmy, along with his younger twin brother and sister, lives in a desert town. But this desert town is unique: It is overshadowed by a humongous tree that is the home to a town’s rain goddess, who provides water to the town. Originally reviewed by Dan Polley By Atsushi Suzumi Publisher: Del Rey Age Rating: 13+ Genre: Action, Fantasy Price: $10.99 Every so often, the town must provide an offering to the deity so that she continues to bless the town with rain. This time, Gimmy is tasked with that. So he sets off to create a doll, only he faces tremendous difficulty. But while he is trying to create a doll, his kid twin siblings overhear him, and they create a plan. Instead of Gimmy’s doll as an offering, they wrap themselves up and hide in a wooden box and the villagers and village head mistake them for the offering. Gimmy eventually realizes what has happened and insists upon journeying to the top of the tree — it’s a really long climb — and bringing his twin siblings back home. But when he gets to the top, he is met by a rude girl, and the two of them…

One of the announcements made at this year’s Comic-Con International was the live-action production of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Dark Horse and Universal. (Actually, I seem to remember some talk of this a couple of years ago, but regardless, it is good news.) Does the story of a rag-tag group of Buddhist diviners and dead talkers trying to make a living delivering corpses to their proper final resting places merit a big screen release? Written by Eiji Ōtsuka; Illustrated by Housui Yamazaki Age Rating: 18+ Genre: Horror Price: 10.95 USD I didn’t expect so much blood…Did you? Summarizing it like that, it seems like it might, but I am even more hopeful that the news of the big screen production will bring people to this excellent manga series now. Nine volumes are available now from Dark Horse Manga, but I realized that we have only a spattering of reviews here at Comics Village, so I am going to try to fill in the blanks as I painstakingly reread some of the earlier volumes of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. The first volume of Kurosagi is not my favorite, but it is the necessary introduction of thankfully small band…

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…

Karin continues to come to terms with her feelings for Kenta, but her flirting will have to be put on hold for now. Karin’s grandmother is in town, and that’s enough to put her entire family into a panic. Elda Marker is no silver-haired, cookie-backing matriarch. She’s a hot and heavy vampire vixen with a taste for blood, but a distaste for everything else having to do with the human race. So how can Karin possibly tell her about her new human almost-sorta-not-quite boyfriend? It’s going to be one freaky family reunion! By Yuna Kagesaki Publisher: Tokyopop Rating: Older Teen Genre: Comedy/Horror Price: $9.99 After 4 volumes of almost all comedy, Chibi Vampire is starting to get some real drama going.  The awakening of Elda Marker works as an introduction into the more vampiric side of this series.  Up until now, it has mainly been about Karin living the human world.  With this volume, we start to see more of the issues vampires have to deal with. Elda’s awakening of course brings lots of troubles for Karin.  Elda has a taste for young blood, and hates humans in general.  So no one wants to tell her about Karin’s “condition”.  And…

Blurb from the back cover: “Haruhi holds the fate of the universe in her hands…lucky for you she doesn’t know it! “Meet Haruhi–a cute, determined girl, starting high school in a city where nothing exciting happens and absolutely no one understands her. “Meet Kyon–the sarcastic guy who sits behind Haruhi in homeroom and the only boy Haruhi has ever opened up to. His fate is now tied to hers. Meet the S.O.S. Brigade–an after-school club organized by Haruhi and Kyon with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy…because even though she doesn’t know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe.” Written by Nagaru Tanigawa; Illustrated by Nozi Itou Publisher: Little Brown Books/Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Sci-fi/comedy Price: $8.99 So, I know this is not manga, but it is the light novel (a term used in Japan for something like YA lit) that the manga is based on. I work in a kidlit bookstore, so when I saw this come in, I couldn’t help checking it out. This is an insanely popular book in Japan, spawning something like eight sequels, a manga adaptation, an anime adaptation, and translations…