#mangamonday — Public Fediverse posts

#MangaMonday 124 “Spacewalking with You” by Inuhiko Doronoda

Kobayashi is a high school delinquent. He’s disengaged from school, but unable to hold down a job. When Keisuke transfers into his class Kobayashi is bemused by his loud voice and odd mannerisms. He ends up looking out for him, and then befriending him, to the annoyance of his current friend group.

It’s not stated outright, but Keisuke is probably #autistic. Kobayashi, who has thought of himself as a screw-up, realizes he may have some kind of learning disability and adapts one of Keisuke’s coping strategies to break down the complex tasks that have always befuddled him. It doesn’t go completely smoothly—among other things, Kobayashi has face-of-a-thug syndrome—but he gets there in the end. Eventually his coworkers realize what he’s doing is also useful for them. An unstated theme of this #manga might be “there is no neuro-standard.”

Ongoing with three of six volumes available in English (Kodansha.)

#SpacewalkingWithYou

#MangaMonday 123 “The Journey of a Dark Elf with Fading Powers” by Daisuke Itabashi

This is a world where magic is common. Most people can manage small feats, but a few very talented individuals are renown as sorcerers. Amira was a sorceress of such talent that she was known as the “Omnipotent Caster.” And then, one day, she had no power at all.

She’s a dark elf (as in complexion, not alignment,) so she’s had a couple hundred years to adjust. She’s embracing a magic-free existence when she’s tracked down by an erstwhile rival who is unaware of her situation.

It’s an engaging premise with great characters. Admittedly, Amira being an extremely long-lived non-human means that she is quite formidable even without magic. Which is fortunate, because this can go from slice-of-life to action manga quite quickly.

This is a new #manga with all eight chapters available on Kodansha’s K Manga web/app. A collected English volume is due next March.

#TheJourneyOfADarkElfWithFadingPowers

#MangaMonday 122 “Draw This, Then Die!” by Minoru Toyoda

“Write what you know” is common advice, so unsurprisingly we get a fair amount of manga about #manga (see MM 60, 61 & 112.) This one is about a group of high school girls on a rural Japanese island.

As is usual in these things, there’s the Writer and the Artist. Unusually, a third member of the friend group is the Reader. Also unusual, there’s a failed mangaka to provide guidance and caution. (Yet another novelty is that most of the manga, mangaka, etc. are referred to by their actual names, thanks to a diligent editor securing permissions.)

Another oddity is that its one-shot wasn’t a test run of an underdeveloped story, but the backstory of one of the characters. It’s included as a bonus chapter, which is good because it explains the title.

Ongoing with one of ten volumes in English (Seven Seas.) An #anime is currently airing that makes a few alterations to the story, most notably weaving in the one-shot.

#DrawThisThenDie

#MangaMonday 121 “Dragon Circus” by Eiichi Shimizu (story) & Tomohiro Shimoguchi (art)

Near future militaries fighting mysterious “dragons” alongside urban fantasy versions of witches, vampires, and sentient robots.

This is an interesting #manga, with the tone slightly shifting between the first two volumes and again at the very end of the second. It’s ongoing in Japan on the Comiplex website. Kodansha publishes the English volumes.

Volume 0 serves as an introduction to the world and the various characters, particularly Shikigami—the latest model of dragon slayer robot—and his non-humanoid partner Princess.

Volume 1, which resumed after a three year hiatus, is a soft reboot that introduces Momo. The pink-haired girl was bullied at school for her love of mecha shows and models. Fortunately her Dad heads a robotics development lab and she was all too happy to “get in the robot” (well, advanced fighter plane. Mecha style robots aren’t realistic, are they?)

#DragonCircus

#MangaMonday 120 “A Witch’s Life in Mongol” by Tomato Soup

Sitara is a young slave girl in eastern Persia. She is brought into a scholarly family and learns the value of knowledge… only to be captured by raiding Mongols.

Sitara is based on a historic person who rose to some fame in the Mongol empire under a different name (no spoilers here!) This #manga necessarily takes some liberties filling in the gaps, including her original name. Soup has obviously done the research, not just on the Mongols but also the various peoples they interacted with (and there were a lot!)

This one slipped under my radar until the #anime “Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia” started airing last month. It’s an excellent adaptation which uses a watercolor palette, while the manga has a crisp black and white style with flat grays but lots of patterns. It’s ongoing with three of six volumes in English (Yen Press.)

#Jaadugar

#MangaMonday 119 “Are You Lost?” by Kentaro Okamoto (story) & Riri Sagara (art)

Four schoolgirls are stranded on a Pacific island after an airplane incident. They’re your typical #manga characters: a rich girl, a busty girl, a glasses girl, and Homare.

That last one makes this interesting. Homare is the daughter of a survivalist, and has spent a lot of time in extreme situations growing up. Some of her skills are not applicable (like which part of a moose you can eat raw) but many are, and she teaches the others what they need to do to survive, often to their chagrin.

There’s a fair amount of humor, and the girls strip down to their underwear somewhat frequently, if diegetically (e.g., diving for shellfish.) The story is taken seriously, otherwise, and the girls get character arcs, especially Homare and glasses.

Complete with all volumes available in English (Kodansha.) An anime of 12 half-length episodes aired in 2019.

#AreYouLost

Beach Manga Read - Donald Duck Visits Japan

I bring this on vacation every year for like the past 5 years and read it on the beach. It's one of my regular beach reads.

The story - Donald and his friends work for Duck Furniture. They want to branch out to Japan, so they send the trio to work at a hot springs resort with very traditional and strict management. And silliness ensues.

It's silly, it's self-contained, it's funny, and it's very easy for me to pick up and put down while chilling on the beach with my kids.

Easy annual read.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #MangaRecommendation #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #MangaMonday #DonaldDuck #DisneyManga #DonaldDuckVisitsJapan #Beach

#MangaMonday 118 “Bat Kid” by Inoue Kazuo

“Bat Kid” was the leadoff serial in the influential magazine “Manga Shōnen,” starting in 1947 (cover date Jan. 1948.) It was immediately popular, with this book collection published in June 1948. Sadly, Kazuo died young—less than a year later.

The #manga itself is a slice-of-life, which was novel at the time, about a #baseball obsessed kid named Bat. There’s a puzzle section at the end that includes a description of a baseball inning that reads like something by Ryan North.

This volume (Bubbles Zine, 2nd Ed. 2024, print only) is a gorgeous reproduction, with alternating color and monochrome spreads. The original is 107 pages, but this edition adds 62 pages of material, mostly translator Ryan Holmberg’s excellent essay on Kazuo, manga, and Japanese baseball with accompanying illustrations. I assumed that baseball in Japan was a result of American Occupation, but it dates back to the 1890s—before Honus Wagner took the field!

#BatKid

#MangaMonday 117 “Short Game” by Mitsuru Adachi

While Major League Baseball enters the All-Star Break, check out this collection of Adachi’s #baseball short stories.

Adachi has been putting out #manga since about 1970, and he’s best known for sports and romantic comedy, often together. This collection of stories all involve baseball, but rarely are about baseball. Instead, it’s the means of assembling the characters, most notably in “Over the Fence,” which makes it generational.

Between the, er, longer shorts are short shorts of about five pages. These can be quite meta, e.g. “Detective Fivepages.” They also have the most tenuous connection to baseball, if any.

This volume (Denpa) is a translation of a 2014 collection. The copyrights put most of these in the teens, with one short short dating from the eighties. Amusingly, the second oldest is from an Adachi thirty year retrospective.

#ShortGame

#MangaMonday 116 “Hitoner” by Tomohiro Yagi

The world is shocked when an alien craft splashes down in a lake. Even more shocking, the creature that emerges looks like the mythical beings known as “Hito.” The creature, dubbed “Hito 01,” is taken into custody to be studied.

The natives of this world are “Kemo,” humanoid animals of various types. “Hito” is Japanese for “person” or, in this case, “human.” It’s “Planet of the Apes,” but with #furries at an early 20th century tech level. Interestingly, our main POV character isn’t Hito, but Tonelico, a cat Kemo serving as press secretary to the committee studying him. Most of our information about “Hito” comes from her and others in contact with him. There’s some humor (mostly from Tonelico,) compelling characters, and the beginnings of some social commentary.

This is a new #manga with just eight chapters, simul-published biweekly in English on the “Manga Plus” app/site.

#Hitoner

#MangaMonday 115 “Dungeons and Crayons” by sonagbi (webtoon) & Milcha (original novel)

Ten years ago “The System” arrived and imposed a video game logic over parts of the world. Dungeons appeared and some individuals began to be “awakened” to supernatural powers. Han Groo is recently awakened, and with a rare high power level. She’s four years olds.

Western fantasy arrived in the east in a jumbled order, with games often showing up before the stories they were inspired by. Thus, game mechanics have been common in #manga and anime fantasy settings long before the recent Western “LitRPG” boom (e.g. “Dungeon Crawler Carl” MM108.)

This Korean #webtoon (based on an untranslated novel) plays with the genre by having a cute little girl as the main character. The other characters have more typical stories, although there’s a heavy emphasis on relationships.

The first “season” is complete, with English chapters on on the Tapas website/app (signup required past the first three chapters.)

#MangaMonday 114 “The Walking Man” by Jiro Taniguchi

A middle aged man takes a series of walks.

This being a #manga by Taniguchi, they’re extremely well illustrated walks. It almost reads like a sketch diary, except the sketches have been turned into fully realized drawings. Not much happens, but that’s not to say nothing happens. Our unnamed hero looks through a bird watcher’s monocular, retrieves an errant model airplane from a tree, and goes skinny dipping in a local pool (there is some nudity.) It is slice-of-life sliced very fine.

This is the “Expanded Edition” (Fanfare/Ponent Mon, 2019, print only) although there’s no indication what that means, exactly. You need to visit the publisher’s website to learn that this edition “contains 3 extra stories.” That makes sense in retrospect, as a few stories push the boundaries of the established format—more surreal or self-reflective. Unfortunately there’s no afterword to contextualize, or even identify, them.

New Manga Read - The Bride Was a Boy

The Bride was a Boy is an autobiographical manga written by Chii, a trans artist and writer. This single volume originated as a blog, but with her husband's support she made it into a book.

The story is hers, about her life and experiences as a trans woman in Japan. Between chapters, she talks about LGBTQ+ rights and laws in Japan to help explain what she went through.

It was a very interesting read and a cute one, as she also talks about her love story with her husband.

Cute and informative. Glad I read it.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #MangaRecommendation #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #Photograph #Bookstodon #MangaMonday #LibraryFinds #TheBrideWasABoy #HanayomeWaMotodanshi #PrideMonth #Chii #花嫁は元男子。

#MangaMonday 113 “Stories from 311” & “Stories from 311—3 Years Since That Day” by various

On March 11th, 2011, eastern Japan was hit with a massive earthquake and tsunami. The news came to be dominated by the Fukushima nuclear plant’s eventual meltdowns, but the disaster was already widespread when that happened.

Satoru Hiurao, at the suggestion of a friend who was volunteering in the area, organized her fellow #manga artists to capture the stories of people affected by the disasters. The various artists have their own styles and interviewed different people. (One story in the second book is first person.) The result is a collage of snapshots of the events and the paths people are taking forward.

The stories were first published online and then collected in the first of these volumes (Kodansha) on the second anniversary. The second volume (Kadokawa) was published the following year. Both are available in English at Bookwalker. All royalties go to relief efforts.

New Manga Read - The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy At All, Volume 3

It's been since September that I've caught up with these two girls? My library network FINALLY got in Volume 3 for me to borrow and I am glad I did.

Great volume. Mitsuki is finally starting to be herself in school. Aya is jealous. There's a rift.

Also, the subplot with the uncle and his girlfriend. Oof. Emotional.

It ends at the prom. It's about to go down.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #MangaMonday #LibraryFinds #Bookstodon #TheGuySheWasInterestedInWasntAGuyAtAll #SumikoArai #AraiSumiko

New Manga Read - Otaku Elf, Volume 11

Volume 11 of this series continues to be low stakes and chill. This volume, Elda and her Miko visit Osaka for a festival ran by her fellow elf Yorde. It's a fire based festival and it rains, so they work together to make due.

Again, it's low stakes, slice of life of an elf being treated like a goddess who is a massive introvert. It's fun, silly, and a quick read.

Also, Elda saying she people'd too much cause she's such an introvert? I get it.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #MangaRecommendation #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #AkihikoHiguchi #HiguchiAkihiko #OtakuElf #江戸前エル #EdomaeElf #Bookstodon #MangaMonday

#MangaMonday 112 “Axed Mangaka and Doujin Creator” by Hibito Sumi

Manga about mangaka (manga creators) are not unusual; I’ve recommended a couple before (MM60 & 61.) Mainstream #manga about doujin (fanfic, often about same-sex pairings) creators are much rarer.

Yukuru (pen name Robou) is a mangaka who’s just had his series cancelled. It was never very popular but he had one vocal fan, Chirita, who creates #doujin about the two male leads. Out of a sense of gratitude, he goes to a convention where she’s selling it and buys a copy. She assumes he’s a fellow fan and he begins to use her as a touchstone to gauge his next work.

Chirita is a fun character; she’s personable and fashionable—her day job is in retail. There’s no romantic tension so far (unless you notice the similarities between Yukuru’s editors and his male leads) and it’ll be interesting to see what happens when Chirita figures out Yukuru is Robou.

Ongoing with nine English chapters on Shueisha’s “Manga Plus” website/app.

I recommended the “Chainsmoker Cat” #manga earlier this year (#MangaMonday 92) https://mefi.social/@ChurchHatesTucker/115884929571593097 but missed when it was announced as an #anime. It should be out next month.

You can see a subbed version of the second promotional video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQXPBUFIro Unfortunately, I don’t see any licensors for outside Japan.

While I’m at it, “Clevatess” is a manga I’ve been waiting on since seeing the first season of the anime last year. It’s a dark fantasy with engaging world building and gray morality. Its second season also airs next month and the main characters are... going to high school? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsbyAix6lUY Yen Press should finally have English manga volumes starting late August.

#ChainsmokerCat #Clevatess

#MangaMonday 111 “The Swamp” by Yoshiharu Tsuge

Tsuge is one of those artists who was influential when manga was becoming #manga.

He got started in the postwar rental book market (think DVD rentals, but for books (ask your parents about DVD rentals.)) When that market started to dry up he was recruited by the seminal “Garo” magazine—literally. Nobody on staff knew how to contact him so they put a notice in the magazine asking him to get in touch.

This volume (Drawn & Quarterly, 2020) collects eleven of his stories from that period. (Technically they’re all from “Garo,” but four of them were redraws of his earlier works.) Series editor Mitsuhiro Asakawa contributes a fifteen page afterwards that alone is worth the price of admission.

It’s an interesting collection that shows inklings of Tsuge’s later, more influential, work. “Chirpy” is probably closest to that, but it falls in the middle of this (temporally arranged) volume.

#TheSwamp

New Manga Read - Chi's Sweet France

Have you ever read / watched Chi's Sweet Home or Chi's Sweet Adventure? If not, let me give you the rundown.

Chi is an adorable little kitten who lives with a small family of a Mom, Dad, and son. The kitten gets into trouble doing kitten stuff and running around out in the neighborhood.

It's an all ages series, but largely for kids.

This series is a single volume series where Chi's family moves to Paris. Basically, more cute stories about a kitty getting in to silly situations, set in France.

Very cute. Glad I got it.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #MangaRecommendation #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #Photograph #Bookstodon #MangaMonday #ChisSweetFrance #KanataKonami #CatherineBouvier

#MangaMonday 110 “Confession” by Nobuyuki Fukumoto (Story) & Kaiji Kawaguchi (Art)

Ishikura confesses to Asai that he murdered Sayuri.

The two of them are lost in a snowstorm while attempting to scale Mt. Owari. It’s something both of them have done several times as part of a larger group—the murder occurred on one such expedition—but this time the elements combined with Ishikura’s broken leg mean that his is a deathbed confession. Then Asai discovers that the way station cabin they had been searching for is nearby. Ishikura’s life is saved, but the confession hangs heavily between the both of them.

This is a psychological thriller #manga, reminiscent of pre-code EC #comics. It’s a nicely compact story, at only 300 pages. It was first serialized in 1998, but due to the setting the only tell is the style of the cell phones. This English edition (Kodansha) came out in 2024, coincidentally the same year it was adapted as a live-action Japanese #film.

#Confession

#MangaMonday 109 “When Arika Went Missing” by Moyashi Fujisawa (story) and Kumakuzu (art)

Lyrical Trick is a popular idol group that is set back when their center girl, Arika Mamiya, mysteriously goes missing. When the police come up empty after a year, some of her biggest fans and her childhood friend team up to find out what happened to her. They soon find that some of the

This is a decent mystery (the final twist took me by surprise) and it has some interesting group dynamics. There’s a drug use subplot that’s a bit eyerolly, but probably the best they could do in “Young Magazine” (where this was serialized.)

I don’t know what was in the air in the early twenties, but we started to see #manga take a look at the dark underbelly of the idol industry while still upholding the idea of idols. If you’re missing “Oshi No Ko” this may scratch that itch.

Complete with six Japanese volumes. Kodansha has released digital English chapters on their K MANGA app/site.

#WhenArikaWentMissing

#MangaMonday 108 “Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman (story,) Tevagah (script,) & Kuzomari (lead art)

I think this is the first western work I’ve recommended here. It’s a #webtoon, though, and those have shown up before.

For those who don’t know, #DungeonCrawlerCarl is a series of novels about the earth being exploited by aliens, with the chief resource being the entertainment value of watching some of the survivors try to survive a video game-esque dungeon.

This is the latest adaptation—there’s been a couple audio versions—and it does its job well, condensing some moments and letting visuals handle things when appropriate. It started after the series has been well under way, so we get panels showing characters entering the dungeon who won’t appear properly for a long while. The art is quite good, although some fans have complained that Carl looks too young. (He’s only 27!)

Available at webtoons.com with a graphic novel (Vault Comics) coming this month.

#MangaMonday 107 “Inuta—My Canine Classmate” by Mattakumo-suke

Inuta-san is the cutest girl in class. She’s also dog. Literally.

This is a #manga in very short (usually four pages or fewer) chapters, all playing with the idea of a dog in school. Inu can talk and she walks on her hind legs, but she has the instincts of a typical Inu Shiba. The rest of her classmates are human (except for one who’s a cat.) It’s a very cute series that relies on the art to really sell the premise.

Available in English on the “Manga UP!” app/site, where the originals are grouped together to make still-short-but-not-ridiculously-so chapters.

#Inuta

#MangaMonday 106 “You and I are Polar Opposites” by Kocha Agasawa

What if the manic pixie dream girl was the main character?

Miyu Suzuki is a friendly bundle of energy. She’s smitten by the quiet, direct (and possibly on the autism spectrum) Yusuke Tani. What’s a girl to do? Confess by the end of chapter one, of course.

Agasawa’s previous work (in #manga time) was “The Ramparts of Ice” (MM105) and at a glance this covers very similar ground; introverts and extroverts navigating relationships in a high school setting. However, the overall tone here is lighter; there’s a lot of humor peppered with some heavy moments. It’s more of an ensemble piece as well, with two other couples in the friend group getting significant story time. Character work is where Agasawa shines and here there’s more opportunity for it.

Complete with all eight volumes in English (Viz.) An excellent #anime adaptation ran last season with the (concluding?) second due next season.

#YouAndIArePolarOpposites

#MangaMonday 105 “The Ramparts of Ice” by Kocha Agasawa

I picked this #manga up after being surprised by the anime “You and I are Polar Opposites.” That manga was preceded by this, although that aired last season and this is airing this season.

We follow Koyuki Hikawa, a quiet high school freshman with the titular barrier, and her best friend Miki, a newly minted popular girl, as they navigate relationships with their peers. There’s as much exploration of friendship and self-esteem as there is romance, and a lot of the introverts/extroverts dynamics that seem to fascinate Agasawa.

This was originally a self-published webtoon that was then picked for digital and print distribution in Japan. It’s currently being translated into English in webtoon form at mangaplaza.com. The first 48 chapters are free until April 30th, which makes me think that’s how far the anime adapts. At the current rate, they should have the completed series (117 chapters) by the end of June.

#RampartsOfIce

New Read - Animal Crossing: New Horizons Deserted Island Diary, Volume 10

This is, as always, an extremely silly and fun manga.

Volume 10 hit more of Happy Home Paradise, did some wedding season jokes, and other in jokes that are a lot funnier if you play Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

I do, so I really enjoyed it. Had a few chuckle out loud moments.

Lots of fun for Animal Crossing players.

#Manga #MangaReview #Mangagram #MangaCommunity #MangaPost #MangaRecommendation #InstaManga #MangaLover #MangaReader #AmReading #MangaMonday #VizMedia #ACNH #AnimalCrossing #ACNHCommunity #FediCrossing #Nintendo #NintendoManga #あつもり #あつ森 #Photograph #DesertedIslandDiary #KokonasuRumba #Bookstodon

#MangaMonday 104 “Let’s Make Ramen!: A Comic Book Cookbook” by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan

As the subtitle gives away, this is a graphic… #cookbook in the western #comics style, rather than a #manga. Hugh Amano is a half-Japanese chef, and it’s about ramen, so good enough!

It’s a surprisingly comprehensive book, covering the history and basics of ramen in its opening section, and then diving into the details of noodles, toppings, broths, and ramen-adjacent foods (e.g. yakisoba.) Recipes are provided with recommendations for products and details for how to make your own, but even if you plan to leave the cooking to the pros, you'll learn a lot from this book.

Sarah Becan provides color throughout, from copious illustrations to simple boxes for highlighting text, all in a watercolor style.

Published in 2019 by Ten Speed Press.

#LetsMakeRamen

#MangaMonday 103 “Sayuri” by Rensuke Oshikiri

Norio Kamiki’s father just bought his dream home out in the country. Nori, his parents, siblings, and grandparents all move in, but something is not right in this house.

This is a #horror #manga and, for the first half, a fairly typical one. Oshikiri wrote it as a response to Japanese horror films, so the second half goes in an unexpected direction. It was originally collected into two volumes and some people dropped it after reading the first. It is now collected in a single-volume omnibus edition (Kodansha) so you won’t miss the change up.

Note that there is some violence and depictions of #suicide, but it’s not particularly gory.

#Sayuri

April is here, so I’m starting a new thread for these (the fourth!) If you’re backtracking, the previous year ended here: https://mefi.social/@ChurchHatesTucker/116318726115424362

I said last year that I wouldn’t be as rigorous about posting weekly. I’ll try harder not to be as obsessive this year.

#MangaMonday #102 "I Think Our Son is Gay" by Okura

A very cute #manga about the mother of a closeted #gay high school boy. She's got her son pretty well sussed out, and she tries to be discreetly supportive, but mostly she observes her son and his relationships with his peers. She also has some telling interactions with the other adults in her life.

There's an interesting dynamic with the (frequently absent on work trips) father of the house, who has more traditional views and is inadvertently hurtful to his son. Mom doesn't want to out her son, and isn't very confident in her opinions, so she runs low level interference.

There's another, younger, son who is more of a mystery (and ends up stealing most of the scenes he's in.)

Okura is a gay man himself but, as he explains in an extra chapter, he didn't come out to his mother until after volume one was published.

Complete with all five volumes available in English (Square Enix.)

#IThinkOurSonIsGay