Manga Recon has been a big part of my life these last two years. I know that goes for our team of reviewers too, so, in order to give it a fitting sendoff, we participated in one final roundtable, sharing our gratitude, memories, and directions on how to find us elsewhere online. Thank you for reading, now and at all times past and future.

MICHELLE: While I’m obviously saddened by the news of PCS’ closure, I’m still extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend two years working with talented writers and honing my reviewing skills. Before getting tapped by Kate Dacey to join the Manga Recon team I was toiling away in obscurity on my own modest blog, and the idea that someone as well-respected as she (for, yes, I knew her name already) was reading my reviews was pretty mind-boggling. In a very real way, Manga Recon changed my life.

MELINDA: My experience was very similar, Michelle, at least in terms of Manga Recon’s impact on my life, though I did not even consider myself a reviewer when you and Kate brought me on. I learned how to write reviews from the two of you and that was key in expanding my world and introducing me to the many wonderful minds in the manga blogosphere, something that has enriched my offline life as well. Without Manga Recon, it’s difficult to imagine what the last year and a half of my life might have looked like.

SAM: My experiences with Manga Recon are very close to Melinda’s: this website was really my start, my jumping-off point for becoming a reviewer. I never once thought that I would meet anyone so significant in a comic book shop and I am very fortunate to have met Kate that day in Comicopia.

Manga Recon overall has helped me become a better writer in general (I wasn’t great when I started out) and that is largely due to the wonderful editors I have had. Doing reviews and roundtables has fueled my creative interests, pushing me to go out and research series, authors and industry news. Manga Recon even helped me to increase my online and convention presence, driving me to start actively using Twitter, as well as taking part in panels. This has really been the best experience that I could’ve had; it has opened the door to countless opportunities and I hope to continue to take what I have learned here and carry it on into the future.

Thanks to all the readers over the years, especially my close friends who’ve supported my writing, and thanks to the wonderful staff of writers that I have had the pleasure of getting to know. You will be missed.

KATE: Thanks for the kind words, guys!

Like everyone else who’s chimed in so far, Manga Recon was the place where I cut my teeth as a reviewer, where I learned the difference between snark and criticism, where I learned how to write for an audience instead of myself, and where I learned just how passionate fans are about their favorite series— woe to her that pan Vampire Knight! I’d never been to a comics convention before contributing to PCS, so Manga Recon provided me with a crash course on the manga publishing industry, not to mention the various subcultures within the fandom. And Manga Recon gave me a place to let down my hair and experiment with my writing, something that’s a lot harder to do within the narrow confines of academia. Put simply: Manga Recon was an educational experience for me.

None of this would have been possible without Jon Haehnle, who originally invited me to join PCS back in September 2006. Lord knows what Jon saw in my writing—it was pretty uninformed—but reviewing turned out to be an exciting way to explore what was then a new interest for me. Jon was patient with me in the early going, and an indispensable collaborator when Manga Recon blossomed from column to blog to full-fledged website. I owe Jon a big debt of gratitude for his support.

I also wanted to thank Michelle for her excellent stewardship of Manga Recon. She’s raised the editorial standards well above the benchmark I established, she’s developed some exciting new features, and she’s recruited some great talent for the site. Michelle is a natural-born editor; not only does she have a keen eye for detail and a good ear for language, she is one of the most organized people I know. (This from a woman who alphabetizes her spice rack—I know organizational skillz when I see ‘em.) Michelle also has a terrific, dry wit that I really came to appreciate when we worked together in 2008: who but Michelle could work in a Robert Goulet reference to a review of Slam Dunk?

MICHELLE: Thank you, Kate. You and Jon know how hesitant I was to attempt to fill your shoes, but it ended up being a lot more fun than I had expected! Sometimes you have to take risks to realize that you’re capable of doing something, I guess.

Sadly, I think you’re the only person who ever really appreciated the Goulet!

CHLOE: I, too, tip my hat to Kate on this one—you’re an excellent curator of talent, and I feel exceedingly privileged to have been scooped out of the big pond and dropped in the lovely little enclave that is Manga Recon. Reviewing has been one of the most fun, exhausting and thrilling things to do and pushed both my creative and analytical skills to new areas, not to mention getting my hands on some cool books in in the process. I’m going to miss the reviews, the community and, of course, these roundtables!

ERIN: My friend and Dungeon Master Hal Johnson, a clerk at Midtown Comics, asked me if I’d like to earn some free manga by writing reviews back in 2006. I enthusiastically and foolishly agreed. Free comics! Oh boy! A crate of yaoi from DMP arrived and promptly took up a lot of space in my living room. (My boyfriend complained about it and tripped over it a lot.) I was quickly overwhelmed and buried in books.

Jon Haehnle and I worked together to come up with the ninja-themed name “Manga Recon” to go with my podcast persona. I started the “Ninja Consultant” podcast in 2005. It was always my intention to tie Manga Recon into the podcast, or give it its own podcast. I commissioned a logo from E.K. Weaver but only ever produced a few shows.

In the early days I picked manga randomly from the shelves of Midtown Comics and reviewed it in “monthly” columns, with no regard to publication dates. Without an editor to reign me in I rambled on and on for hundreds of words. I couldn’t meet my self-set goals and only ever produced a few columns.

I was surprised and a little territorial when Kate was hired on as Chief Editor or Head Manga Reviewer or whatever. When did I get demoted? Worse still, Kate’s reviews were all very polished and much smarter than mine, and she was able to write on a near-daily basis. When I met her in real life it was even more upsetting: she’s gorgeous and doesn’t look nerdy at all, outside of a classy CLAMP bag. I was slouching around conventions in black T-shirts with frizzy pink hair and a Katamari hat.

When I first starting writing the column I figured the readers were probably the same high school-aged manga fans who crowded the aisles at Barnes and Noble. Then I met Brigid Alverson at New York Comic Con, and she really opened my eyes. Traffic was going through Manga Blog to PCS, and it wasn’t a bunch of Fruits Basket fourteen-year-olds at all—it was librarians, the publishers themselves, and other literary manga fans like Kate! I had to re-think how I was writing my reviews.

My most-viewed review is undoubtedly the Kare Kano comic I drew. I was unemployed in early 2007, and it took a couple days to put together the comic when I should’ve been job hunting. I also painstakingly reviewed individual volumes of the series with the idiotic idea that fans could save money by not buying the unimportant volumes. Nowadays I realize that’s ludicrous; even the most casual of manga fans can’t stand to miss a single volume. I wasted months writing those things, and the comic was a last-minute addition to the much-longer piece.

A horrifying thought occurred to me later: what if Masami Tsuda sees my comic? It’s been passed around the internet a lot, and even linked to from The Comics Journal website! After all, Rivkah herself commented on my review of her OEL manga Steady Beat. That really freaked me out! What if I ran into Rivkah at a convention (very likely)? Would I have said those things to her face? Tsuda probably can’t read English, but I drew myself slapping her…!

Through a combination of podcasting and writing for PCS I got a lot of press passes and went to a lot of conventions. I loved the ICv2 conferences and learned a lot about publishing. I met Ed Chavez of the Manga Cast, who hooked me up reviewing manga for Publishers Weekly. I used my Manga Recon reviews as writing samples for the job. When an opportunity came up to write about the Tekkonkinkreet movie for the second issue of Otaku USA Magazine, I pointed to my writing samples and got the job. Earlier I had reviewed the first issue of Otaku USA on Manga Recon with some harsh design notes. Ironically, I quickly became a staff anime reviewer for the magazine.

Paying gigs took up more of my time and I couldn’t contribute as much to Manga Recon (not that I ever contributed all that much per year). Fortunately, Jon and Kate kept adding more staff. I feel lucky to have met (almost) everyone on the incredible staff, and to have done some great panels with a few of you at conventions.

Last October I was approached to take over Bamboo Dong’s Shelf Life column on Anime News Network. It never would have happened without Manga Recon. In the last nine months, my writing has improved more than it has in five years of Manga Recon, thanks to tight deadlines, a tremendous volume of work, and extra editorial oversight. Obviously the paychecks also help. It bothers me that the readers there treat me like a n00b, even though I’ve been a reviewer for years!

In 2006 I worried that no one was reading my reviews, but now, thanks to Manga Recon, I have a tremendous number of readers. Otaku USA has a circulation of about 100,000 and Shelf Life has about 35,000 readers. I’m not sure how many readers my Publishers Weekly reviews have reached, but some of them turn up in Amazon’s database under “Editorial Content.” I have no idea of how many readers Manga Recon has reached over the years, but oddly enough I have found my Manga Recon reviews quoted in Wikipedia as “Critical Reception.”

MICHELLE: That’s an awesome glimpse into Manga Recon’s early days! I know that I had the Kare Kano review bookmarked for a long time before joining the staff myself. I’m not sure of Manga Recon’s readership levels myself, but I’ve seen some things I’ve written here turn up on Amazon, too, so they definitely get around.

Your account of your reviewing journey reminds me to encourage everyone to let readers know where you can be found! Just because PCS is closing down doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop writing about the manga that we love! Personally, I still have my original blog, Soliloquy in Blue, and also intend to ramp up my contributions to the Comics Should Be Good blog at Comic Book Resources.

Where will y’all be?

KEN: I had been writing long, rambling reviews for movies, comics, novels and more since ‘05, but those were mostly only read by friends and folks who stumbled across my livejournal. It wasn’t until I joined the TOKYOPOP site that Kate found me and brought me into the MR fold, which in turn served to introduce me to the larger online manga community. Thanks to that I’ve not only learned a little self-control in my reviews, but I’ve also met a number of interesting people, both online and off, that I probably never would have encountered otherwise.

Thanks to Kate, Jon, Michelle, the rest of the MR team and the readers. It’s been a fun and interesting few years.

ERIN: Oh yeah, I’m tagging my livejournal entries with “manga” if I put up an odd scrap:

erinfinnegan.livejournal.com/tag/manga

I believe you can subscribe to an RSS feed for a specific tag.

KATE: Jeez, Erin, you’re embarrassing me—without you, there’d be no Manga Recon at all! You were the person who puts PCS on the map as far as manga is concerned, and your reviews of Kare Kano and the Death Note movies were among the site’s all-time most-viewed articles during my tenure. I know we had some awkward moments, but I will always regard our Definitive Guide to Fumi Yoshinaga one of my proudest moments at PCS; I’m particularly fond of your Flower of Life cartoon review, and might even like it better than your legendary Kare Kano piece. Heresy, I know.

As for where to find me, I have my own website, The Manga Critic, and I’m also a contributor to Good Comics for Kids, a blog at the School Library Journal.

SAM: In terms of future projects, I am moving aside from reviewing content and am currently working on a podcast project that explores the comics community as whole; who the people are who love comics, who shell out money week after week, why they attend cons, the relationships they’ve built through comics etc.

I really want to explore why people are so passionate about the artform in general and I want to do this through a series of themed interviews and stories. Think of it as a much nerdier approach to This American Life.

So I will be keeping people posted through my Twitter, @SamKusek, and hopefully you all will be able to hear the first episode within a week or so!

MELINDA: Sam, that sounds great. I think you are just the person to undertake a project like that. I really look forward to it!

As always, you can all find me at Manga Bookshelf, which also serves as the home for Off the Shelf, a new weekly discussion column that is a collaborative project with Michelle. We’ve got a couple of other such projects in the works as well. I’ve also just started a new manhwa-specific blog as a companion site, Manhwa Bookshelf, where I’ve been hosting this month’s Manhwa Moveable Feast.

Speaking of Twitter, I’ve put together a Manga Recon Twitter list to make it easy to keep up with everyone’s future exploits!

GRANT: I was both shocked and thrilled when I was recruited to write for Manga Recon last January. I knew that there were review sites for manga, but never imagined I’d ever find myself writing for one (let alone being quoted on Wikipedia or landing a blurb for the Cirque du Freak manga series in a Yen Press promotional flyer). In a lot of ways, this was a huge learning experience, from poring over the MR article style guide to coming up with new ways to write reviews without falling into a pattern. I also found myself revising my reviews several times before submitting them: there was a standard of quality that all of you established and I had to make sure my work was always at that level.

Being able to write for Manga Recon truly helped me show other people what it is I see in graphic novels. Our review site was full of insightful breakdowns of what makes manga worth reading. Even better, it served as a reminder that there are plenty of other people out there who read manga with a critical eye. My students often tell me that their parents refuse to consider manga to be proper reading. I think our site proves that it is a legitimate story-telling form a thousand times over.

It has been a dream to write for MR. Just like many of you, I plan on continuing to write reviews. I look forward to commenting on your blogs and websites.

CONNIE: Manga Recon was one of the most fun projects I’ve been involved with, and I’m very sorry to have to say goodbye. I’ve been involved with other review sites before, and have had my own blog at Slightly Biased Manga for almost six years, but it had been a few years since I’d written real reviews for a site that was not my own when Michelle asked me to join the Manga Recon crew. I enjoyed the guidelines and deadlines I worked with at Manga Recon. Most of my writing is informal, off-the-cuff responses after I finish a book, so writing with purpose and coherency for Manga Recon was both fun and very good for me.

Most of all, though, I think I’ll miss the roundtables and the sense of community. I’m naturally very shy, so it’s hard for me to jump into a conversation or comment on things, even on the internet. But watching Twitter conversation and participating in roundtables has been an experience I haven’t had at any of the other sites I’ve worked at, and it’s what I’ll miss the most.

I’ve only been here a year and a half, and it’s felt like no time at all. I feel sorry that I couldn’t contribute more, but I am very, very happy with the time I’ve spent here. Thanks a million.

MICHELLE: Thanks again to all of you for being part of Manga Recon. It was a lot of fun working with each of you and, like Melinda mentioned, becoming part of a warm and welcoming manga blogging community. Although we won’t be writing here, I hope we still continue to follow each other’s endeavors in the future.

After a fairly big online push from TOKYOPOP, the first volume of Kenji Sonishi’s Neko Ramen has arrived! Within you’ll find the highly entertaining adventures of Taisho, an adorable kitty who happens to run a ramen shop. With a setup like that you’d assume that hilarity ensues, and you’d be right!

This first volume is a collection of various 4-koma strips depicting the humorous day-to-day life of Taisho and his ramen shop. Many of the strips involve his attempts at garnering business through marketing, experimenting with flavors, promotions and more, often while using his one steady customer Tanaka-san as his guinea pig. From time to time, the story breaks away from the 4-koma format. This is usually accompanied by an extended flashback detailing some humorous aspect of Taisho’s life. For whatever reason, the humor in Neko Ramen really clicked with me in a way that a lot of manga humor doesn’t. On more than one occasion I found myself chuckling at Taisho’s antics. For his part, Tanaka-san is a fairly good straight man; a lot of the humor involves his reactions or under-the-breath commentary to Taisho’s off-the-wall schemes.

Neko Ramen’s art works with the stories perfectly. It’s simple, cute and incredibly charming. Furthermore, Sonishi seems just at home in the 4-panel strips as he does in the more conventional non-4-koma tales and his storytelling and comedic timing within both are dead-on. Taisho’s character design is brilliantly simple: instantly recognizable and utterly adorable. Frankly, it seems like he could be a hugely marketable character and I can easily imagine Taisho plushies, key chain charms and more.

In addition to the stories, TOKYOPOP crammed the back with extra features, including a look at their web campaign, and a nice four-page interview with Sonishi himself. There’s also an incredibly addictive flip book portion! I’ve got to admit that I went into this with a little trepidation. Like I mentioned earlier, what a lot of people find hilarious in contemporary manga just doesn’t click with me, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I ended up enjoying it. In the end, I found Neko Ramen to be an incredibly fun read, which should work its charm on just about anyone who gives it a look.

Volume one of Neko Ramen is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Daniel Legend is a bounty hunter, tasked with tracking down the various criminals of LA. After one busy night on the job he arrives home to discover an old postcard in the mail, apparently sent to him from his long lost sister. With the card as the only clue as to her whereabouts, Daniel heads off to the place pictured on the card in search of answers. He heads off to Shinjuku.

Going from that description, Shinjuku doesn’t sound half bad, does it? Well, I fooled you because it is half bad. Which half? Well, it’s certainly not Amano’s half that’s for sure. Shinjuku is a weird hodgepodge of near-future sci-fi, Eastern mysticism, crime stories and more. All of which could and should jell together nicely to give an intriguing, weird, maybe even pulpy piece of fiction. Sadly, in Mink’s hands it falls a bit short. For one thing, all of the characters are incredibly flat and bland. Daniel Legend, aside from a rather snazzy name, is a fairly unmemorable protagonist. The main antagonist, Shi, is only a bit more memorable thanks in part due to his tattoos. Neither is terribly compelling, though, and for the most part their personalities are incredibly thin.

They move through the plot with little to no explanation given for their actions beyond the idea that Shi wants to rule the universe and Daniel Legend is the key to this. I’m still a bit foggy on how, though. There was something going on involving a bull god named Togensa, some things about cycling through realities and Daniel’s father, but beyond that a lot of what happens just seems to happen because the writer wants it to. There’s no natural flow or progression and a lot of action and plot points occur off the page, such as a subplot dealing with an LA gangster coming to Tokyo in search of Daniel and his sister, and… oh, the entire climax of the story.

Still, there was one redeeming thing about Shinjuku, namely Amano’s artwork. Unlike other illustrated novels, there’s more than just a few pieces here. In fact, nearly every single page is adorned by some kind of artwork from Amano, ranging from incredibly striking two-page spreads to small, half-page pieces. It’s definitely a rougher and less clean style than I’m used to from Amano, and he focuses heavily on the use of black, gray and red, with the odd blue or gold tossed in for kicks. But yeah, his artwork is the highlight of the story and it looks gorgeous in this oversized format.

In the end, Shinjuku was a rather disappointing read that boasts some lovely-looking artwork by Amano. I was left feeling confused, bewildered and wondering what I had just read and what was the point of it. But who knows, maybe all will become clear in the next two planned installments of the series.

Shinjuku is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

For over a decade, Blade of the Immortal has been a mainstay of my manga reading diet and a big reason why is Hiroaki Samura’s absolutely gorgeous artwork. So, when Dark Horse announced a massive, oversized, art book full of his covers, chapter breaks and more, I was excited to say the least.

Within this tome you’ll find many of the series’ most memorable covers, chapter breaks and more. The images are reproduced wonderfully and look even better than when originally published. There are even several pieces that I don’t immediately recognize and suspect this may actually be their first official US release. I’m thinking particularly of two double-page spreads, one showing a more recent incarnation of the Itto Ryu roster, and the other depicting the main three Mugai-Ryu members. Then again, given the sheer size of the series it’s quite possible that I’m simply forgetting them. In addition to the material from the Japanese edition, the Dark Horse edition includes an extra 32 pages of material including a few splash pages from the manga itself, the art pieces from the novel Blade of the Immortal: Legend of the Sword Demon, and a few black-and-white pieces that were colored to be used as covers for the US monthly comic edition of the series.

Notable by their absence are the pieces that arguably set Blade of the Immortal apart from other series at the time: the full-page death scenes. Anyone familiar with the series will know exactly what I’m talking about, but for those who aren’t, try to imagine a full-page shot of someone’s body slowly coming apart after being hacked to bits, set against a background of, oh, say a massive lotus unfurling its petals. I’m really not doing justice to the amount of detail these “death mandalas” actually contain, as they’re absolutely beautiful and blew my mind when I first encountered them. One has to wonder why something that was a prominent feature in the series’ early days was omitted. In his afterward, Samura does discuss having problems looking at his older pieces, so perhaps it’s simply a case of him looking back at these pieces and seeing nothing but their flaws and imperfections.

This release is a fantastic, must-have for any fan of Blade of the Immortal or Hiroaki Samura’s artwork. The price ($29.99) might seem a bit steep at first, but it’s such a high-quality product with art from one of the best manga creators and manga artist around that it’s well worth it.

The Art of Blade of the Immortal is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The dirty, run-down city known as “The Hole” is a playpen for a group of other-dimensional masked sorcerers. Using their magic, they hop in and conduct experiments upon the non-magic-using population, mutating them into various inhuman forms, altering the environment and more. Caiman is the result of one of these experiments. For reasons unknown he was abandoned in an alley where he was discovered by Nikaido, a restaurateur and all around tough chica. The experiment left him with four things: a massive reptilian head, an immunity to magic and a desire to find out who did this to him so they can return him to normal. Oh, and a man living inside of his mouth. Welcome to the world of Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro.

The first volume of the series focuses on Nikaido and Caiman’s various attempts to track down the sorcerer behind Caiman’s mutation and the resulting fallout of their search. Apparently the sorcerers don’t take kindly to having their cohorts disappearing into The Hole without a trace, and so the wheels are set in motion for the forseeable future. This is possibly one of the most interesting things about the series: while Caiman and Nikaido are ostensibly the main characters, Q Hayashida often pulls the story away from them and instead focuses on the sorcerers and their efforts to unravel the mystery surrounding Caiman. Not only does this allow us to get a glimpse at both sides of the world—the sorcerers and everyone else—but it also helps build suspense, making us wonder just when the two worlds with their separate-but-linked plots will collide.

It also furthers the mystery around Caiman, because if the people he’s hunting down are apparently clueless, then you really have to wonder who and what are behind him and what purpose does he serve? Lest you think it’s all grim and gritty, though, there is a nice dash of dark, cynical humor throughout as well. The bizarre clothing, an odd “nomnom” here and there and more. The story doesn’t take itself too seriously, just seriously enough to be dramatic and intriguing.

Q Hayashida’s artwork is incredibly detailed and, in my opinion, really quite lovely. She does a fantastic job at evoking the built-up and run-down urban sprawl of The Hole. Her character designs are great and the setting gives her the ability to run wild with them. Weird tribal facial tattoos or scarification, people in fashionable suits and ties, folks decked out in leather looking like they’d be at home in a fetish club, are all right alongside folks whose clothes look like they were thrown together from scavenged bits, heavy ski parkas, winter hats with ear flaps, striped tights and more. It’s a lovely mishmash of clothing ranging from the stylish to whatever works. To make things even more interesting, the sorcerers aren’t your stereotypical cloak and robe set; instead, they’re just as much of a visual mishmash as everything else within the story, identifiable through their masks. These masks themselves are far from uniform in appearance, though, and they run the gamut from modified bondage masks to anatomically correct representations of the human heart.

With some wonderfully rough and gritty artwork, an interesting premise and setting, a myriad of mysteries surrounding the main characters and more, Dorohedoro is an absolutely fantastic read. After having finished this volume I found myself wanting more immediately, so it’s probably a good thing that the SigIKKI site has several chapters up that continue directly on from this volume, because having to wait until August for the second volume seems like it would be killer otherwise.

Volume one of Dorohedoro is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

At the age of 40, Shizuo Oguro is going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. He’s left his job of fifteen years in an attempt to find himself. Unfortunately, his small family is less than supportive of this. His father berates him constantly while his relationship with his teenaged daughter is the definition of awkward and distant. Now saddled with a job at a fast food restaurant, Shizuo will attempt to follow his dreams and become a manga-ka! Fresh from the SigIKKI web site is the first volume of Shunju Aono’s I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow!

Despite the fact that it’s rated T for teens, I’m not sure there’s much here that teens would really enjoy. It’s a bit of an awkward comedy about a man who was clearly miserable with his life but is unable to get his act together to become the kind of person he’d like to be. The comedy is heavily based around Shizuo’s humiliation and horribly uncomfortable moments, the highlight of which consists of him bumping into his daughter at the most awkward after-school job I can imagine.

Still, it’s hard to deny that Shizuo’s got a certain amount of charm. He tries, but he’s just not very confident in his abilities, and the abilities he seems to be confident in he’s not very good at. Throughout the volume we see him try and try again to win respect and to achieve his goals, only to fail each and every time. Well, almost every time. There is one moment where he achieves a certain measure of success and it’s a moment that had me wondering how much of his story was informed by Shunju Aono’s own life.

The art’s hardly flashy, but it certainly fits the material. Shizuo is suitably round and vaguely pathetic-looking, which will hopefully help folks who haven’t gone through mid-life crises sympathize with him. On top of that, there’s a distinctly harmless feel to him as well. He’s almost like a big cuddly bear who’s a bit of a slob and a slacker. There aren’t too many backgrounds present, but I think this helps with the sense of barrenness that seems to permeate poor Shizuo’s life.

While I did enjoy I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, I really wonder how wide its appeal will be and whether it’ll be able to find an audience among the current generation of manga fans. The awkward humor and the genuine look at someone miserable with their current life and yet being unable to really enact change definitely give it the feeling of a niche title that most folks would pass on. Still, I think those who are willing to give it a shot will find an entertaining, and maybe even a touching read.

Volume one of I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow, Vol. 1 is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Ratman is a bit of a manga rarity in the US. It’s a superhero series from Japan. Generally speaking, these don’t make it over to our side of the Pacific very often, at least not in manga form. You’re far more likely to encounter the Japanese take on the superhero in terms of live action, whether it’s in the form of the Americanized version of the Super Sentai series known as the Power Rangers, or the odd and rare release of a Kamen Rider movie on DVD. So when I found out that Ratman was a Japanese superhero title I couldn’t help but be a little intrigued. Thankfully, the first volume doesn’t disappoint as it unveils the origin of the titular character in a rather humorous series of events.

Young Shuto Katsuragi has a dream: he hopes to someday become a superhero! Normally, these kind of dreams are rather silly and come to naught, but luckily for him Japan’s in the middle of a superhero boom with new corporate-sponsored heroes popping up every day. Still, things look grim as he’s not terribly athletic and at the age of fifteen he has yet to break the five-foot mark. Still, dreams can come true and his are about to in a most unexpected way thanks to an evil organization known as Jackal. Through an elaborate setup and for reasons unknown, Jackal enables Shugo to become a superhero, but only after he’s unwittingly signed a binding legal document. Now Shuto is on the wrong side of the law, or is he?

One of the key themes in Ratman is “What makes a hero?” Does a real hero need a license? Does he need special powers? It’s something Shuto encounters again and again throughout the first volume, from the opening scene to a rather disillusioning encounter with the corporate-sponsored hero, Ankaiser. Never fear, though: the book is far from a dour examination of the superhero genre and what it takes to be a hero. In fact, it’s a rather lighthearted and fun read. The book is brimming with gags and humor which range from Shuto’s fanboying over the various superheroes, to a rather unfortunate altercation Shuto has with a local gang member on his school’s roof, to the bizarre mute antics of Jackal’s henchmen known as Jackies. Inui Sekihiko’s struck a nice balance between humor, ponderings on the nature of a hero, an interesting plot involving the organization that governs superhero activities in Japan, and just enough character development to make Shuto a likeable, down-on-his-luck hero.

Inui Sekihiko’s artwork is okay, though it’s not terribly flashy or unique-looking. It’s perfectly acceptable middle-of-the-road stuff for the most part. I think the real standout visuals are probably his superhero designs. They’re all fairly snazzy to look at and seem to be something of a mash-up of Japanese style transforming heroes and the more westernized capes set. With the helmet and full body suit, Ratman looks like he owes more to Japans tokusatsu heroes than he does to the their American counterparts. Ankaiser, another hero he encounters during his first mission, clad in a cape, no mask, and a sleeveless top displaying his rippling physique, feels like a take on the traditional American superhero designs.

I get the feeling that Ratman will be facing a bit of an uphill battle. Contemporary manga and anime fans seem to shy away from superhero stories, but hopefully they’ll be willing to give this title a fair shake. It’s interesting, fun, and personally I’m curious to see what Inui has in store for us.

Volume one of Ratman is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Set between the two World Wars, Gosick is the tale of a Kazuya Kujo, a Japanese student sent to attend an exclusive private school in the tiny European country of Sauville. As the only Asian, Kujo finds himself as an outsider with few friends in the school. That is, until he’s ordered to take care of another rather odd student in the form of Victorique de Blois. A young girl of incredible intellect and perceptive powers, she too is an outsider at the school as rumors fly surrounding her origins, rumors that may just tie into the local myth of Grey Wolves. Together, the odd duo finds themselves tossed into mystery after mystery. Their latest may just reveal the secret behind Victorique’s intellect, her apparent imprisonment at the school, and more!

The central mystery in the volume involves a decades-old murder in an isolated mountain village. Kujo and Victorique find themselves drawn into it through an odd ad in the local newspaper, one that references the myth of the Grey Wolves. Victorique, with Kujo in tow, makes her way to the village. The mystery that follows has links not only to her past, but possibly to a centuries-old question regarding a near-mythical race of super people who served to inspire the world’s myths and religions.

I have to admit that I approached Gosick with a bit of trepidation. This is the second volume in the series and I’ve not read the first. On top of that the image of Victorique on the cover, all decked out in frilly lace, had me wondering how this could possibly appeal to me. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was wrong and that it does have quite a bit to offer. The mystery that’s at the center of the novel not only provides a nice jumping-on point, completely erasing any fears I had about coming in on the second volume, but it’s also fairly well put together with red herrings and some fairly interesting characters as well. The interplay and relationship between the two leads, Victorique and Kujo, is enjoyable to watch and feels believable throughout. It’s really one of the highlights, though Kujo’s lack of ability to fire back with much snark was a bit disheartening. Still, he gets his jabs in from time to time.

Hinata Takeda’s artwork is actually quite nice throughout the book. The attention and detail given to the clothing designs and the backgrounds really help to drive home the era that the book’s set in. My only real issue with it is that it absolutely fails to convey the race of the characters. This normally wouldn’t be much an issue, but when one of the major elements in a character’s outsider status comes from the fact that he looks nothing like anyone else, being unable to convey that through the art feels a bit off. Kujo, apparently the only Asian in the country, has nearly the exact same facial features as Victorique, a girl who’s virtually the Aryan ideal.

Overall, the second volume of Gosick was a pretty enjoyable read, though I think I enjoyed the character interaction between Kujo and Victorique more than the actual mystery itself. That said, I’m not a big mystery fan to begin with and I honestly don’t feel compelled to go back and read the first volume, or to pick up any subsequent volumes. It’s not that it was bad; I think it’s just a matter of it not really being my thing.

Volume two of Gosick is available now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Deadman Wonderland, Vol. 2

Written by Jinsei Kataoka, Art by Kazuma Kondou
TOKYOPOP, 208 pp.
Rating: OT (16 +)

The plot thickens as yet another layer to the Deadman Wonderland park and prison is revealed! The second volume in the series keeps the action coming and provides some tantalizing hints to the true purpose behind the park and Ganta’s imprisonment. Not to mention that it expands the cast and raises even more questions, namely just who’s running Deadman Wonderland anyway?

One of the things that I really liked about this volume is how Jisnei Kataoka is beginning to move Ganta from a traumatized passive wreck into a plucky shonen protagonist. The change isn’t sudden, as he’s still fairly scared and prone to freakouts and bouts of naivety, but it’s clear that Ganta’s heading in that direction. Meanwhile, Kazuma Koundu’s artwork continues to be stylish and highly energetic with several dynamic fight scenes scattered throughout the volume, along with a rather trippy sequence where Ganta nearly passes out. The designs for the new characters are rather eye-catching as well.

The series is starting to grow on me. I’m still not exactly blown away by it, but Kondou’s artwork, the way Ganta’s slowly growing as a character, and the myriad of mysteries floating about are engaging and interesting enough to make me want to read more.

Volume two of Deadman Wonderland is available now.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Maria Holic, Vols. 1-2

By Minari Endou
Published by TOKYOPOP
Rating: OT (16+)

Kanako is a high school student seeking true love. Since she despises men, she decides to look for it at the same all-girls’ school where her parents met (her father was a teacher). Unfortunately, the first “girl” she falls for, Mariya Shidou, turns out to be a cross-dressing boy! Worse still, in order to keep her from revealing his secret, Mariya installs himself as Kanako’s new roommate, so that he can watch her every move.

What could have been a thoughtful-yet-funny manga about a teen girl dealing with her sexuality, love, and Catholicism at an all-girl’s school in Japan (as unlikely as that manga might have been) is unfortunately not much more than a non-stop barrage of fanservice and male-centered fantasy. In the most obvious of these fantasies, of course, though Kanako lusts after nearly every girl she meets at her new school, it seems clear that she’s being set up to ultimately fall for a man.

The saddest thing about this is that in the midst of the series’ endless boob jokes, nosebleeds, and cries of, “pervert!” Kanako is actually a fairly rich character who, in another manga, might be both funny and touching. She’s smart and idiosyncratic, and is genuinely conflicted about her feelings for her classmates as well as her lack of connection with the Catholic church (in which she struggles to find meaning). Even her schoolmates, whose primary function is to facilitate fanservice, are a quirky, well-defined bunch. The series’ second volume, in particular, has maddeningly untapped potential, which is somehow much more upsetting than if it was just complete trash. The same could be said for Minari Endou’s artwork, which is actually quite expressive, even if what it’s expressing is most likely to offend.

Alternating between tragically wrongheaded and just plain crass, Maria Holic sadly fails to live up to the potential of its premise.

Volumes one and two of Maria Holic are available now.

–Reviewed by Melinda Beasi

Yokan: Premonition, Vol. 1

By Makoto Tateno
Co-published by Oakla Publishing and Digital Manga, Inc., 200 pp.
Rating: Mature (18+)

Akira is the lead singer of a visual kei band and has somewhat of an attitude. He doesn’t care about the fans’ enjoyment, only his own, and refuses to sing anything he didn’t write himself. That is, until he overhears mainstream entertainer Hiroya Sunaga singing one of his own compositions. For the first time, Akira’s obsessed by someone else’s music and makes it his mission to get Hiroya to abandon his “adequate” career and really sing seriously.

Once again, Makoto Tateno has crafted a BL story with a fair amount of plot and a minimum of romance. Yes, Akira and Hiroya eventually become lovers, but there’s always an atmosphere of challenge to their encounters. In dragging Hiroya back into a world he left behind, Akira is creating a rival for himself, setting up a standard to be surpassed.

While this concept is promising, Yokan: Premonition is far from perfect. When Akira first expresses interest in singing his song, Hiroya demands payment. Readers expect this to be sex, but in fact, he only claims a kiss. This led me to hope the story would be free from a nonconsensual scene, but this is unfortunately not the case. The bonus story, “Sinsemilla,” is also pretty horrible, featuring one character dosing another with an aphrodisiac and said victim later suggesting that the drug made him gay. “I was completely hetero before!”

I liked Yokan: Premonition well enough to continue to the second volume, but it probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

Volume one of Yokan: Premonition is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

Review copies provided by the publishers.

Blood+: Kowloon Nights

By Hirotaka Kisaragi
Dark Horse, 176 pp.
Rating: 14+

In the world of Blood+, a girl named Saya and her trusty servant Hagi battle against chiropterans, a race of blood-sucking creatures. This one-volume prequel focuses on Hagi’s 1993 stay in Hong Kong, during which he teams up with a hot-headed cop named Nishi to put down a man-made pack of chiropterans that’s been leaving corpses in a certain area of town.

Unlike the other manga series in the franchise, Kowloon Nights is definitely intended for a female audience. BL artist Hirotaka Kisaragi (best known in the US for Innocent Bird) excels at depicting attractive male characters and infuses Nishi and Hagi’s interactions with a definite boys’ love vibe. Although there’s not so much as a kiss between them, Nishi frequently blushes and experiences heart palpitations in Hagi’s presence and there are two occasions in which Hagi slurps Nishi’s blood in sexy fashion, including one particular panel that suggests a different bodily fluid entirely.

The plot itself starts promisingly, but soon becomes muddled when a crime boss of some kind reveals his intent to develop a drug that grants immortality. The story probably would’ve been better if it had focused solely on Nishi and the fascination and concern he feels for Hagi, but I suppose they did need a villain to fight so that Hagi could demonstrate that he cares for Nishi, too, in his own way.

Blood+: Kowloon Nights is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

Cactus’s Secret, Vol. 2

By Nana Haruta
VIZ, 176 pp.
Rating: Teen

Miku Yamada has finally managed to make her dense crush, Kyohei Fujioka, understand that she has feelings for him, even though he doesn’t reciprocate. Meanwhile, a pompous classmate publicly declares his affections for Miku and attempts to get Kyohei expelled for stealing the answers to the midterm exams. Later, Miku and Kyohei are both assigned to the Sports Day Planning Committee, where the lovely chief gets too close to Kyohei for Miku’s comfort.

I didn’t have too great an impression of this series after the first volume, since I found the lead character abrasive and largely to blame for her own angst. Things improve in volume two, in which Miku’s tendency to rant actually helps clear up the cheating accusation and in which Kyohei exhibits sufficient obliviousness to justify her irritation. There’s also an especially nice chapter where the two of them get lost on their way to karaoke with friends and end up having a nice time together at the arcade, complete with some genuinely amusing photo stickers.

Unfortunately, we’re only in volume two and the cast already includes four romantic rivals. They do propel the plot along, at least, with the Planning Committee chief causing Miku some pain when she realizes that something Kyohei said to her is the same thing he’d say to anybody else and the new male character offering to reveal Kyohei’s mysterious secret if Miku goes out with him, but it’s still tiresome.

Volume two of Cactus’s Secret will be available on June 1, 2010.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

D. Gray-Man, Vol. 17

By Katsura Hoshino
Viz Media, 200 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

The latest volume of D. Gray-Man has some very important revelations that drive the story forward. Unfortunately, they’re far outweighed by filler moments. It turns what should be an enjoyable read into a hunt for the parts that get the story moving again.

In a way, the zombie outbreak chapters in the beginning should serve as a nice reprieve from the enormously serious events of the akuma attack in volumes fifteen and sixteen. Instead, they drag on, taking up far too much space to reach a conclusion that bears very little impact on the overall story.

The highlight of the volume is Cross Marian’s discussion with Allen about the true identity of The Fourteenth. It features Hoshino’s best artwork in the volume (including a striking negative image of The Fourteenth glaring down at Allen), proving that she can make a conversation just as lively as any of her battle scenes.

From there, things get a little clumsy. Allen and friends have to win a chess match with a spirit to reclaim some Innocence and a few new characters arrive from HQ. This is balanced out, however, by the apparent murder of a high-ranking member of the Black Order. It signals a return to the darker tone of past volumes, which I find most welcome.

Volume seventeen of D. Gray-Man is available now.

–Reviewed by Grant Goodman

Happy Boys, Vol. 2

By Makoto Tateno
DMP/DokiDoki, 188 pp.
Rating: 13+

The wacky, slice-of-life hijinx continue at Lady Briganza, the classy butler café staffed with young, good-looking men. We get peeks into the outside lives of the staff, learn all about seasonal teas, see a confrontation with the staff of a host club, and even get to watch as one of the staff members is recruited as a real butler for a genuine rich young lady.

I’m still surprised by how much I enjoyed this, especially given how much I disliked Happy Cafe, a very similar series. The weakest story in the volume is the first (the host club story), but it wasn’t terrible, and the stories only get better from there. There still isn’t a whole lot to sink your teeth into story-wise (I think this volume is the conclusion of the series, and ends with the longer and heavier “real butler” story), but it is fairly entertaining and endearing, and makes for a great light read.

While the characters aren’t ever really developed and act mostly in a group, each chapter does a good job of spotlighting an individual member of the staff, and I think the success lies in the fact that it doesn’t go for cheap gags and lets everything play out fairly realistically. My favorite was the story about one of the boys staying up all night to buy a video game, then going to a maid café on a whim afterwards and dressing the girls down.

The summaries for this series tell you pretty much all you need to know, but if you’re on the fence, it’s a solid enough series that you’ll probably like it. The second volume has even less BL content than the first, so you won’t find any innuendo between the boys, but I think it was a whole lot better without it.

Volume two of Happy Boys is available now.

–Reviewed by Connie C.

Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1

Written by Isuna Hasekura, Art by Keito Koume, Character Design by Jyuu Ayakura
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rating: M

I read this expecting a decent adaptation of the original novel but was blown away at just how accurate an adaptation it turned out to be! The manga is a near-perfect adaptation of the novel, just with better artwork. It’s so faithful to the source material that folks who read the novel will recognize almost every piece of text in it. I suspect this is due to a combination of the original adaptation’s accuracy and the fact that Paul Starr handled the English translation for both. Admittedly, certain subtleties in the character development are lost, or not as thoroughly explored, but if you’ve read the novel then the manga is sure to give you a strong sense of déjà vu.

The big thing that the manga has going for it that the novel doesn’t is Keito Koume’s artwork. Whether it’s the character designs or the backgrounds, everything is nicely detailed, and the use of tones and hatching serves to give the book a strong rustic look and feel throughout. From the bustling streets of a city to the empty, gently swaying fields of wheat in the countryside, the artwork does a great job at conveying the atmosphere and the setting.

I’m honestly a bit perplexed about this. It’s a very good adaptation and the artwork fits the material to a tee. That said, it’s so faithful that it almost feels redundant if you’ve read the novel. As an attempt to reach folks the novel missed, I think it should do fairly well as the core of the story remains and Keito Koume’s artwork is just lovely to look at.

Volume one of Spice & Wolf is available now.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Review copies provided by the publishers.