Manga Village

Iku Kasahara has dreamed of joining the Library Forces ever since one of its members saved her book from a MBC raid when she was in high school. A new recruit in the Library Forces now, Iku is training hard to become a full-fledged member, but is finding that not everyone is like her Prince. Especially not Sgt Dojo, her drill instructor, who seems to have it in for her!

Raiko, the demon hunter who has been staying at Misao’s house, is determined to save her–even if that’s the last thing she wants! Kyo won’t allow a threat to Misao to go unchecked and plans to take care of the problem in his own special way. Misao, however, hopes that she can broker a peace between Raiko and Kyo before things get out of hand. But when Raiko’s attempts to “free” Misao fall, he hatches a devious new plan that will use Misao’s bond with Kyo to destroy him!

New maid Keiko Kinoshita enters the Ashida household under the guise of helping out, but she’s actually a spy for the vice president of Soichiro’s company. As Sumi struggles to keep her past a secret, will Keiko’s insidious schemes destroy the couple?

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. Oresama Teacher Volume 1 By Izumi Tsubaki Publsiher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romantic Comedy Price: $9.99 ISBN: 978-1421538631 Oresama Teacher is about Mafuyu, a delinquent who often got into fights. After being expelled from school, her mother sends her to an isolated school, where Mafuyu is determined to turn over a new leaf, and be more feminine, and not fight anymore. But her sense of justice gets her into trouble the night before her first day at school. She comes to the aid of a guy who is getting beat up, who also turns out to be her teacher. Now, Mafuyu has to struggle to keep her past a secret while…

A surprisingly fun title with great characters and good stories and just the right touch of that magic feeling.

A perfect inversion of Maria+Holic (i.e. a girl in a boys’ school rather than a boy in a girls’ school), with added conspiracies and shenanigans; extremely silly and very funny indeed.

Mistress Fortune is a light-hearted shojo one-shot that makes for a quick afternoon read. 

I have been reading quite a bit of shojo lately. I don’t think that my interests have changed all that much, to be honest. I still love Takahashi, and I am impatiently waiting for the next volume of Negima! to be released by Kodansha USA. Still, after putting off a few shonen series that I haven’t been following too closely, I realized that the bulk of my reading material was actually comics for girls. Which is fine with me, because, in the case of The Story of Saiunkoku, whatever sword-fight or display of power I could find in a shonen action/adventure, I also get in a more appreciable, subtle way with this odd-ball shojo love story. Written by Sai Yukino; Illustrated by Kairi Yura Publisher: Viz Media’s Shojo Beat line Age Rating: T for Teen Genre: Historical/Shojo Price: US $9.99, CAN $12.99, ISBN: Vol. 1 – 1421538342, Vol. 2 – 1421538350 The Story of Saiunkoku is a period drama based on light novels written by Sai Yukino, and it focuses on the headstrong and wily Shurei. Born of a noble family, her intelligence and strong will have made her a perfect candidate for public office – except she is ineligible…

Leaving her internship at Sushi Hyuga to go on her family’s annual trip to France is the last thing Hanayu wants to do. On the other hand, a pastry-research trip in Europe is Hayato’s idea of a dream come true–can the two aspiring chefs ever catch a break? Plus, Hayato has become suspicious of patisserie assistant Maezawa, who has expressed an interest in Hanayu. As it turns out, both Hanayu and Hayato may have their wires crossed about what Maezawa is really after! By: Ayumi Komura Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romance/Food Price: $9.99 I read the first 2 preview chapters for this series back when Shojo Beat was still around, and wasn’t impressed. Further reviews from fellow reviewers didn’t inspire me to look further into the series, and I’m not a foodie, so this volume had three strikes against it going in. But it actually wasn’t so bad. There wasn’t anything great about it. It’s a fairly average title, but I didn’t regret the time I spent reading it. Hanaya and Hayato, the leads that I found so annoying in the preview chapters of volume 1, aren’t so bad by this volume. Hanaya no longer has to…

Linear inequalities and masturbation are things that should be learned before the end of junior high!