Category: Reviews

Manga of the Month: Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san

1 Comment

Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san by Honda

While the names and faces (heads? masks?) are changed to protect the innocent, Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san is an autobiographic, day-in-the-life series about working in a Japanese bookstore chain that nails retail life in every hilarious moment.

“To those of you who commented, ‘Now I want to work at a bookstore!’–Thanks, and think again!”

Honda, our titular skull-faced bookseller, works in the American comics and manga sections of a large bookstore. She helps customers both Japanese and foreign, works with publishers and wholesalers to keep books in stock, and lends a hand to her fellow booksellers. The series is brimming with details of the bookstore industry, and depicts working in retail in a most wonderful-terrible-relatable way.

From enthusiastic BL fangirls to sales reps who won’t take no for an answer, from creating a book fair to the worst customer service training session, Honda’s honest and self-depreciating humor, attention to detail, and spot-on observations lead us through the charming chaos.

If you, like me, have ever worked in a bookstore or in retail in general, then you’ll probably feel Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san deep in your heart. But even if you haven’t, the camaraderie between Honda and her coworkers, the disdain-pride you get from the job, and the love-hate relationship you have with customers is drawn with laugh-out-loud humor that will have you chuckling long after you put down a volume.

-Kate

Manga of the Month: Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Leave a comment

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card by CLAMP

The first Cardcaptor Sakura manga debuted in 1996 and quickly became a high bar in the magical girl genre which is still beloved all these years later.

Despite CLAMP’s evolving art style, the current of which is much more clean and simplified, they were able to return to an earlier form embracing the chibi faces, asides, screentones, and many other staples of their 90s manga which allows this new Cardcaptor Sakura story to feel seamless. The only thing that points to a different era is a more decompressed storytelling as Clear Card surpasses the length of the original CCS stories.

In Clear Card, Sakura is making her middle school debut! As the school year opens, Syaoran returns from Hong Kong to join Sakura and their friends. Sakura is excited by all the new possibilities of the future, but soon she is having strange dreams of a cloaked figure and the Clow Cards mysteriously turn clear.

It probably goes without saying, but you should definitely read the original CCS to follow along with Clear Card. Although there are new characters and a lot of new developments, the core cast and their relationships are still at the center of this story. I don’t think I would have been quite so moved by seeing Sakura and Syaoran meet again without knowing the history.

As the series progresses and they start to unravel why the Clow Cards have evolved, this becomes a story about adolescence. Sakura is growing and changing, her magic powers are as well, and the path ahead is one of her own making.

CLAMP came back to one of their iconic series after two decades away and it feels perfectly aligned.

-Kate

Manga of the Month: Heavenly Delusion

Leave a comment

Heavenly Delusion by Masakazu Ishiguro

Heavenly Delusion introduces us to a devastated Japan. After “The Collapse,” modern civilization as we know it was destroyed and much of the population perished. I was pulled in by the intriguing, mysterious dystopian landscape which they let wash over you instead of trying to frontload the story with a lot of explanation.

Tokio and other kids are part of a facility that completely encloses them from the hellish outside world. One day she gets a strange message and her friend makes a prediction that someone with Tokio’s face will come to rescue her. The children in this facility come off as ordinary teens going to school, joking around, and awakening to new feelings. But other things are odd, there are secrets here; off limits areas, a lack of information, and you get the distinct feeling that some of them know more than others.

In a parallel story, Kiruko and Maru are wanderers of the dystopian wasteland seeking two people Kiruko carries photos of and the nebulous “heaven,” the final words of a friend. Kiruko is supposed to be Maru’s bodyguard on this journey but their rapport is more of that of friends or siblings, and Maru does his fair share of defending against threats. Their easy manner contrasts nicely as they encounter survivors, monsters, and their own internal struggles along their perilous journey.

What has happened to the world? Who is Kiruko? Why do Maru and Tokio have the same face? Where did the monsters come from? When will this rescue occur? How does Maru know how to fight the monsters? Heavenly Delusion leaves me contemplating so many questions after each chapter I read. The story has layers upon layers, both in terms of the plot and the interior lives of the characters that keeps me turning the pages.

Heavenly Delusion feels like a classic sci-fi story with the added bonus of Ishiguro’s off-kilter characters.

-Kate