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….

It’s just the girls this time as the Manga Villagers discuss the latest title for the Manga Movable Feast this month, Fruits Basket. This is a shojo title created by Natsuki Takaya and published by Tokyopop. This 23 volume series was among the first big hits in the US, and was Tokyopop’s biggest seller. It’s the story of Tohru Honda, a high school girl who has recently lost her mother, and through some circumstances, comes to live in a tent in the mountains, which also happens to be near the home of classmate Yuki Sohma, who is living with his cousins Shigure and Kyo. The Sohma family has a secret. They are cursed by the thirteen signs of the zodiac. Tohru accidentally learns their secret, but after promising to keep their secret, she is allowed to live with Yuki, Shigure and Kyo. What were your initial impressions of this title? Connie: (as a disclaimer, I re-read the series a few years ago, and read the ending two years ago, but haven’t picked it up since then. I didn’t have the volumes with me to re-read it for the feast. my impressions aren’t terribly fresh.) I couldn’t wait to read it…

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!

News broke today that Tokyopop was shutting down it’s publishing division as of May 31, 2011. While the news comes as a shock, no can say it wasn’t a complete surprise. The warning signs were there, with the round of layoff in February, and the bankruptcy of Borders, their biggest outlet. For 14 years they entertained and frustrated fans with new ventures and a catalog that can be called interesting to say the least. But now, we must say goodbye to a long standing pillar in the manga industry, and truly agree that it is an end of an era.

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

For this month’s Manga Movable Feast, the reviewers of Manga Village got together to for a roundtable discussion of the featured books Aqua and Aria. Aria, and its prequel Aqua, is a science fantasy about a girl Akari Mizunashi, who goes to Aqua (previously Mars before terraforming) to become a Undine, or gondolier tour guide. It’s slow paced, with each chapter being a slice of life of Akari’s adventures in gondoliering, the city of Neo-Venezia, and Aqua itself. What are your first impression of this manga? Justin: I was drawn to check it out because I’d read some good reactions to it from a few bloggers I trust. When I first took a look at it, I remember being impressed. The art is lovely, the pacing subtle and lyrical, and the narrative takes time to linger on small, slice-of-life details. However, I remember after a short time getting easily distracted. It was very easy for my attention to fall elsewhere because there was a static, muted quality to the first volume. I almost felt like, after I’d read a few pages, I knew everything I needed to know. So, initially, I had two conflicting impressions of the work. Lori: I…

A mediocre supernatural shoujo that has the potential to be much more.

This review was originally posted by former reviewer Alain Mendez who writes as part of the Reverse Theives blog as Hisui. You can follow him on Twitter as well. First a little history lesson before I begin my review proper. The title more commonly known as Aria started as Aqua in Monthly Stencil. When the title was moved to Comic Blade the title was changed to Aria but the story of Aria picks up seamlessly from where it ended in Aqua. When the anime was made this series it kept the title of Aria all the way through. You can think of Aria as the sequel to Aqua but it’s really more of one continuous story. By: Kozue Amano Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: Teen (13+) Genre: Slice of Life Price: $9.99 There are some titles that just have this hardcore fan following you can never understand until you have experienced the work itself. Sometimes you totally understand what everyone is talking about and other times even then the appeal is lost on those who cannot connect to the vibe the series puts out. Kozue Amano’s Aria is just one of series. I have always known people who will go on…

The old cliche is that pictures are worth a thousand words; The cover of DearS volume 1, is the epitome of the cliche. One look at the tight rubber suit-like clothing, gratuitous bosoms, and the giant dog collar around the girl’s neck, and you get a pretty good idea about what this manga is about. By: Peach-Pit Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: Teen (13+) Genre: Comedy Price: $9.99 We start of with this loner, kind of losery guy named Takeya, and he lives by himself in an apartment. Everyone is obsessed with DearS, these  aliens that crash landed on Earth one year ago. They’re beautiful, strange, and, well, actually, they’re slaves. Great plot, right? It doesn’t get any better, I assure you. Takeya, in his own way, comes across one of these DearS and in saving her life, she becomes his slave forever. Of course, you don’t get that at the beginning of the book, but later on, it becomes readily apparent.. What isn’t apparent is why anyone would read this drivel. There is not a speck of plot to it; just a girl in a skin-tight plastic suit walking around and buying groceries in an apron. It’s like 7 different…