Manga News, Reviews and Commentary
What a wonderful treat to find in my mailbox! Viz Media has rescued 07-Ghost, a title originally published by Go! Comi before they went out of business. I know 07-Ghost wasn’t a popular title with everyone. Even I had a few difficulties with the first volume, but I was still sucked into the story and absolutely loved the character designs. I’ve only been able to get a hold of the first three volumes, the third being a lucky ...
Week 10 comes to an end, and I almost didn’t make it. Fortunately, I chose a short series this week and could easily catch up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read this series, but my kids are on spring break, and it meant a week where I could go walking, and catch up on some podcasts, and not worry about their homework. Well, my youngest anyway. I don’t have to worry about my oldest. The series I finished this w...
Playing catch-up doesn’t just mean reading manga, it also means writing reviews of titles I’ve read, but hadn’t got around to reviewing. So here are a couple of Seven Seas Entertainment titles that I’d read a while ago, but needed some time to figure out what I wanted to say....
I really liked Dazzle when I first started reading it, but I was starting to lose interest by volume 5. Unfortunately volumes 6-10 didn’t do anything to reverse the course. Any charm that I may have felt at the beginning was not only gone by volume 10, it had been stomped into the ground. With these next 5 volumes, I was really hoping to seem some real plot development. You would think with 10 volumes under its belt, the reader wo...
ANN has two news stories today that make me go “Want Want Want Want!” Two new manga series are starting, or more accurately, re-starting in Japan. And there’s probably a better chance of a snowball fight happening in hell before we see either of them in English. Kindaichi Case Files is a murder mystery series that was originally licensed by Tokyopop. They released 18 volumes and then put the series on hiatus. Then Koda...
After a short Tezuka break, I’m back to playing catch up. Of course, mid-week I realized I had at least two other Tezuka manga titles I could have read for the MMF, but I barely got the two I had planned to do done, so there was no way I would be able to squeeze in two more! But I think three reviews here and two at Manga Village should be sufficient. I dug back into Dazzle this week, an older Tokyopop title that was never complet...
Apollo’s Song follows the tragic journey of Shogo, a young man whose abusive childhood has instilled in him a loathing for love so profound he finds himself compelled to acts of violence when he is witness to any act of intimacy or affection whether by human or beast. His hate is such that the gods intervene, cursing Shogo to experience love throughout the ages ultimately to have it ripped from his heart every time. From the Nazi atro...
Set in a medieval fairy-tale backdrop, Princess Knight is the tale of a young princess named Sapphire who must pretend to be a male prince so she can inherit the throne. Women have long been prevented from taking the throne, but Sapphire is not discouraged and instead she fully accepts the role, becoming a dashing hero(ine) that the populace is proud of. By Osamu Tezuka Publisher: Vertical Age Rating: All Ages Genre: Fantasy Price: $13....
Toshiko Tomura is a genius; she has already been an established international stage actress, and up-and-coming architect, and an award as Japan’s best new writer. Toshiko is also the mastermind behind a series of murders. The ultimate mimic, she has plagiarized, blackmailed, stolen and replicated the works of scores of talents. And now as her star is rising within the world of the elites and powerful she has amassed a long list of...
With February’s Manga Movable Feast being about Osamu Tezuka, I spent this week concentrating on the few titles I had left that I hadn’t reviewed yet. In going back and looking for the links of older reviews, I couldn’t believe how much Tezuka I had actually read over the years. The first manga by Tezuka I ever read was MW, which was a serious eye-opener for me. Next came Dororo, a title I enjoyed a lot, and thought wa...
It’s an epidemic of accidental death! Multiple college students receive odd voicemails from themselves, messages from the future, and all they contain are the screams of their own deaths. A few days later, at the date and time of the message’s posting, they die in mysterious accidents, and oddly enough, each have a candy in their mouths. Original Story by Yasushi Akimoto; Manga by Mayumi Shihou Publisher: Dark Horse Comics A...
This week I didn’t work on any particular series. I said it was because I wanted to catch up on some newer review copies, but really, I couldn’t decide what series I wanted to to work on next. I thought I would be making some room on my review copy shelf, and I will be moving 3 volumes off my shelf, and on to my younger daughter’s shelf. Another 5 may be moving on my keep shelf, with another 3 to add to them. First, I ...
