Category: Reviews

Manga of the Month: Skip and Loafer

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Skip and Loafer by Misaki Takamatsu

Mitsumi has moved from a small town to Tokyo to live with her aunt and start a new chapter of her school life. She has grand ambitions of becoming a public servant (and mayor of her hometown someday)! Only come to find out, she is a bit less astute than one might imagine. She get hopelessly lost on the first day of school, pukes on a teacher after her opening ceremonies speech, but befriends a handsome slacker along the way and thus her new school life full of missteps begins.

I honestly picked up Skip and Loafer because the girl’s face on the cover made me laugh (and sums up the character perfectly btw). It just got better from there. The series balances the things you expect from a school comedy (navigating friendships, low-stakes misunderstandings, budding romance) with a willingness to show how flawed everyone is. Mitsumi has the classic can-do, nothings-gonna-get-me-down attitude of a shojo lead (despite running in a seinen magazine), but all her intelligence is in book smarts. In contrast, she lacks self-awareness, making for a protagonist who feels normal but not average. That robustness of character extends to every member of the cast and is what makes Skip and Loafer comedy gold while also being incredibly endearing.

It has been sometime since a school life story really captured me, but Takamatsu has given the genre a fresh twist with a heroine who is earnest and well-intentioned but also an overconfident blockhead.

-Kate

Manga of the Month: A Sign of Affection

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A Sign of Affection by Suu Morishita

“Ever since you showed up and widened my world it feels like even my breath is a different color. I want this to be love. I choose love.“

Cute and fashionable Yuki has made her college debut. She is spreading her wings, expanding her world, making new friends, and, when she has a chance encounter with friend of a friend Itsuomi on the train, falling in love for the first time. Itsuomi loves to travel, learn new languages, and has a generally curious nature. With a little encouragement, Yuki decides pursue Itsuomi and put in the effort to get to know him. And Itsuomi finds himself more interested in somewhere (someone) closer to home than he ever has before.

Yuki is a Deaf character who uses a hearing aid. The manga incorporates many different forms of communication: sign language, speech, lip reading, writing, and texting. Each way is portrayed in a specific way. There’s also notes from Morishita about the way they’ve depicted sign language, the different forms of sign, and real-life details about living without hearing.

The romance in A Sign of Affection is the swoony, stomach butterflies kind. Every time Yuki and Itsuomi have a close moment, the pages illuminate; the intimate moments are stretched out and indulged in. This is my favorite current romance manga and winter is the perfect time to pick up this cozy love story!

-Kate

Manga of the Month: Kowloon Generic Romance

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Kowloon Generic Romance by Jun Mayuzuki

While the story of Kowloon Generic Romance does take place in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, it is anything but generic.

Real estate agents Kujirai and Kudou work side-by-side day in and day out at Wong Loi Realty Co. dealing with eccentric residents and maintaining the properties around the neighborhood. There’s more than a little sexual tension brimming between the two but Kujirai isn’t quite sure what to make of Kudou or her feelings for him.

Kowloon Walled City is a character itself. Based on the real area which was demolished in 1993, Mayuzuki brings the walled city back to life in vivid detail using a nostalgic 1980s art style. An immensely crowded place filled with shops, restaurants, apartments, vice, crime, and maze-like corridors, it is a place that has inspired endless curiosity. In the KGR version, the neighborhood is also dealing with two corporations trying to exert their influence on it. The walled city is a place where the past, present, and future collide.

From the start you’ll figure out that the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek as little details about the setting are just off. And by the end of volume one the story really starts to reveal itself. Honestly, I hope I have you intrigued because I don’t want to give away too much. As soon as I finished the first book, I wanted to read it again with the new information.

Part romance, part comedy, part science-fiction, part mystery, Kowloon Generic Romance blends so many things that it becomes hard to define but it all intertwines mirroring the walled city’s mesmerizing existence.

-Kate