Category: Manga

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Shojo Beat Vol. 1, Issue 1

By Ai Yazawa, Yuu Watase, Kaori Yuki, Taeko Watanabe, Marimo Ragawa, and Mitsuba Takanashi
360 pages, black and white, some color
Published by Viz Media

It’s hard to believe it was just a few years ago that Viz first started publishing the English-language Shonen Jump monthly magazine, packing hundreds of pages of comics from Japan into an affordable unit and letting it infiltrate not only comic stores, but newsstands and bookstores as well. Now they’ve got a new magazine ready, Shojo Beat, with six serials of shojo manga (or “girl’s comics”) from Japan. Can lightning strike twice?

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Club 9 Vol. 3

By Makoto Kobayashi
192 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

It’s been a little over two years since the last collected volume of Club 9, and reading this latest set of installments reminded me once again why I love it so much. Makoto Kobayashi’s probably better appreciated for his hysterical What’s Michael? series, but if you’re skipping Club 9 because it doesn’t feature dancing cats, you’re really missing out.

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Yotsuba&! Vol. 1

By Kiyohiko Azuma
232 pages, black and white
Published by ADV Manga

Every now and then, strange packages arrive at my home. They’ve usually got scrawled notes attached to reams of paper, and the notes say something like, “You’re going to love this!” or “Wow, check this out!” So often the end result is one of disappointment, as my secret sources let me down horribly. I keep hoping, though, because every now and then one of the mystery packages comes through with something that’s a lot of fun, and that’s exactly what happened with Kiyohiko Azuma’s new series Yotsuba&!.

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Shadow Star Vol. 6: What Can I Do For You Now?

By Mohiro Kitoh
224 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

It’s been a while since the last collection of Shadow Star was published in English—almost a year, and it was a year before that we saw the previous volume—and it’s safe to say that any momentum of interest and word-of-mouth may have gotten killed as a result. Now that the series is (hopefully) back on track, what better time to remind people of Mohiro Kitoh’s puzzling and intriguing series?

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Tarot Cafe Vol. 1

By Sang-Sun Park
192 pages, black and white
Published by TokyoPop

Sometimes I buy a book based on little more than a hunch, or a lightning-fast initial impression. That was the case with The Tarot Cafe Vol. 1, which seemed interesting enough. The more I read it, though, the more I began to wonder… had I seen this somewhere before?

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Samurai Executioner Vol. 1-2

Written by Kazuo Koike
Art by Goseki Kojima
312 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

One of my earliest exposures to the world of comics in Japan was First Comics’s translations of Lone Wolf & Cub. Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s epic enthralled me from the very first page, and when Dark Horse brought it back into print several years ago I was overjoyed that I could finally read the story that had grabbed my attention all those years earlier. Now Dark Horse is publishing Samurai Executioner, Koike and Kojima’s spin-off of a minor character from Lone Wolf & Cub. When it comes to the sense of wonder that the duo had with their earlier collaboration, the question quickly becomes: can lightning really strike twice?

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Ghost in the Shell

By Masamune Shirow
368 pages, black and white, with additional color
Published by Dark Horse

It’s always a little strange to finally read something that for so long has been considered a modern classic. After a while, people almost assume that you’ve read it, while you yourself can pick up some preconceptions on just what he work is like. That was very much the case for myself with Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell. With a new printing of the collection released late last year, the time to finally experience it seemed as good as any.

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Paradise Kiss Vol. 1

By Ai Yazawa
192 pages, black and white
Published by TokyoPop

All right, I’ll admit it. The first time around, I completely missed out on Paradise Kiss. A book about fashion designers just didn’t sound interesting enough to grab my attention in the sea of new series being unleased on the market, and then several of the books in the series briefly went out of print. Now that TokyoPop is bringing new printings of the series to out, I decided to give it another try and it turns out everyone else was right: I should have been reading this ages ago.

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Ray Vol. 1

By Akihito Yoshitomi
208 pages, black and white
Published by ADV Manga

Some comics show their hand in the first couple of pages; everything’s spelled out for you and you know exactly what you’re getting. Then there are comics that sneak up on you, slowly pulling you into their clutches with each new piece of information and plot twist revealed. It’s the latter that Akihito Yoshitomi’s Ray falls into; at the end of the first chapter, I wasn’t entirely sure about the book, but by the end of the book, I was most definitely hooked.

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