Category: Manga of the Month

Manga of the Month: May

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Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura

There are plenty of manga about ninjas. About robots. About zombies. About pirates. Even space pirates. But there is one division of cool that has gone neglected far too long: Vikings. Enter Makoto Yukimura. I won the first book of Planetes in a contest and I really loved the concept of garbage men in space plus the well written characters. When I found he had another series I rushed to see what it was about. Unfortunately when I first looked there was not much translated. I recently decided to go back and see if any progress had been made. Thankfully they are now up to date!

Vinland Saga opens with an army besieging a Frankish fortress to no avail. A band of Viking mercenaries led by Askeladd note the situation then cautiously offer to assist in the raid with both sides planning to betray the other after the fortress has fallen. A young man named Thorfinn makes a bargain with Askeladd. If he can take the head of the fortress’s commander, Thorfinn will be granted a boon. Then we are treated to an amazing surprise attack from Askeladd troops and Thorfinn’s remarkable one man battle to gain the enemy commander’s head. After the battle Thorfinn asks to duel Askeladd to avenge his father’s death. We we then begin jumping back and forth through history learning how Thorfinn became part of this mercenary band and the ramifications of Thorfinn’s quest for revenge.

Vinland Saga has all the strengths that drew me to Planetes while showing Makoto Yukimura’s range as an author. We have another well researched topic. Who does not want to read a manga where Leif Ericson is an important minor character? Also Vinland Saga has just as strong a cast as  Planetes. Askeladd is a charming and manipulative bastard. Thorfinn is a complex character who we see change from a bright a cheery boy to an obsessed young man. The biggest difference between  Planetes and Vinland Saga is the number of amazing action scenes. Planetes is mostly a dialog filled manga with brief moments of tension and action. Vinland Saga is an action manga that is deftly able to keep the excitement high while still telling a good story.

Short Program by Mitsuru Adachi

Short program is just three volumes long but they are collections of short stories usually one (but sometimes two or three) chapters long. The pieces are looks into different people’s lives through a moment or situation. Each volume of these vignettes takes your through a wide array of emotions from surprise to joy to sadness. Many of the stories have a little lesson in them while others are just there to warm the heart or make you laugh. Unsurprisingly the most common scenario deals with romantic entanglements of varying degrees. Some highlights include: the title work “Short Program,” which deals with a boy and girl who live just across from each other; “Plus I” about a girl and the repair guy that fixes her stereo; and “Memory Off” about a guy who finds a girl with sudden amnesia at his front door. Adachi’s simplistic art style combined with his succinct ability to convey traits and emotion makes Short Program a delightful piece of work. And reminds me how unfortunate it is that Adachi’s manga have not gained much of a fan following state side.

Manga of the Month: April

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X-Day by Setona Mizushiro

This is a very short title that came out a number of years back. It easily caught some attention with the surface premise. Four people, three students and one teacher, come together through various  tragedies and decide to blow up their high school. But rather than being a look at an anarchistic plot, it is a story about the meaning of friendship. Rika was high on the social ladder till her injury and her break-up with her boyfriend. She no longer views her world the same way. As she tries to adapt she stumbles across a chat room where she meets three people who change her indefinitely. These people bond together and no one is more surprised about it than themselves. As the story goes on, and as the characters better learn about themselves, the plot against the school takes a backseat to them helping each other. This is a good short story, just two books, which is able to develop its characters in the limited amount of time.

Addicted to Curry by Kazuki Funatsu

Addicted to Curry is definitely a senien manga. Koenji Makito is clearly a senien hero because he basically starts off as a godlike curry chef. He might perfect his craft slightly or learn a minor lesson but he’s already an expert. You also have more of the healing manga setups than tournament manga ones. This means someone will have a problem and Makito will show them the answer with one of his dishes. That is not to say that there aren’t cooking battles. They are just more one on one battles over some point of ideology than tournaments. Being senien manga also means more fan-service and racy content but it’s nothing prevalent.

We start with Sonezaki Yui whose father, the owner of a curry restaurant, has disappeared after saying he was going to sharpen his skills. Despite her best efforts she will soon have to sell the restaurant due to mounting debt. On the way home she finds Koenji Makito starving on the street and accidentally throws food at him when trying to feed him. When he tracks her down it turns out he is a friend of her father and was hoping to work at his restaurant. He soon agrees to be the curry chef until her father comes back. It is going to take a lot of work for Yiu and Makito to get back into the black. There also seems to be an evil corporation that wants to buy the curry house and will do anything to buy the land.

Most chapters have a full recipe for whatever was made in it so you can make your own dishes. It is always nice to see a cooking manga that teaches you while entertaining you at the same time.

Manga of the Month: March

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Maria+Holic by Minari Endo

In an effort to save the ailing TokyoPop I have decided to cover another recently licensed manga that has a charming story and wonderfully delightful characters. Just like Future Diary. OK. I lied. Most everyone is both series is a bunch of horrible human beings. But like Future Diary it turns out Maria+Holic is quite fun.

Kanako Miyamae decides to go to her mother’s former alma mater and all girls Catholic high school. She hopes to find her true love among her fellow students. The first person she runs into on campus is a charming blonde girl named, Mariya Shido and her maid. Kanako instantly falls in love with Mariya only to later find out that Mariya is actually a secret, cross-dressing boy. Mariya attaches himself to Kanako to make sure she does not give away his secret. Kanako learns that the seemly sweet Mariya is a sadistic controlling monster. Will Kanako ever find her destined love? Is it the boy who is torturing her?

This series has something for everyone. Cross-dressing boys, yuri subtext, comedy, drama, and tentacle monsters from the sea. Most of the humor comes from Kanako being a complete and total yuri crazy moron. So you have to enjoy humor at the expense of another because it is almost always at our protagonist’s. The supporting cast is quite amusing with Mariya’s maid who by admission is 100% tsun and 0% dere; the female samurai who does more harm to those she protects than anyone out to get her charges; and the eternally happy girl who can pull anything out of her school bag. I am curious if it will ever focus on the potential relationship between Kanako and Mariya or will it stay pure comedy. But no matter which way it goes, it is a fun series. Please do read this mother up in heaven.

Spiral: Bonds of Reasoning by Kyo Shirodaiya and Eita Mizuno

Ayumu is brilliant in his own right but he constantly struggles with the shadow his brother left. Since his older brother’s disappearance Ayumu and his sister-in-law Madoka are still seeking the truth about the last case he was working on, The Blade Children. When a murder takes place at Ayumu’s school and the words Blade Children are uttered, he he becomes entangled in a world where nothing is simple. Ayumu’s amateur sleuthing is charming and his aloof attitude makes him the right amount of eccentric. Hiyono, the nosey school journalist, sticks herself like glue to Ayumu during his first case eventually becoming his indispensable partner. Her energetic and bubbly nature contrasts Ayumu perfectly. Many mysteries arise during the series, everything from a locked-room murder to riddles and puzzles, each one brings Ayumu closer to understanding The Blade Children. Spiral is an example of one of those rare occasions when the writer is not the artist. This is also the first manga for both creators. In its pages unfolds a good mystery with science fiction elements and a boy detective who, through wit and brains, unravels it.