Mastodawn

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Apr 1, 2024

#MangaMonday 01 “Delicious in Dungeon” by Ryoko Kui

I bounced off this when I first encountered it. The premise seems simple: a group of fantasy adventurers going through a dungeon defeating and cooking monsters. Cute idea, but I didn’t feel the need for more than a volume’s worth.

When the #Anime came out I picked the #Manga back up, and I was impressed by where it went from there. From cooking monsters you get to their biology, then the ecosystem, the origin of the dungeon, the politics surrounding it, etc. Even the art, which was excellent to begin with, manages to improve. The supporting cast expands drastically, but every one of them is given a unique look and personality.

Complete with 13 of 14 volumes in English (Yen Press.) The 14th drops in July.

#DeliciousInDungeon

Note: It’s a new (Japanese school) year, so I’m making a slight change and numbering and linking these entries for the next year. If you’re backtracing, the previous year’s are just hashtagged.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Apr 8, 2024

#MangaMonday 02 “Medalist” by Tsurumaikada

Inori Yuitsuka is a fifth grader who dreams of figure skating. Unfortunately, her older sister quit skating lessons and her mother doesn’t want to waste more money on them.

Tsukasa Akeuraji is a 26 year old skater who’s trying to find his place in the world after failing to make Japan’s Olympic team. After recommending a former skating partner’s club to Inori, he finds himself hired on as an assistant coach.

This is a sports #Manga with the usual progression through ranks, rivalries and friendships with competitors, and minutiae about the sport. The unusal part is that the coach is as much a main character as the athlete (moreso in the very beginning.) They even split the opening color spread.

The art is very expressive and—crucially—allows us to follow the jumps and choreography.

Ongoing with ten volumes. Nine are available in English digitally, and the first two in print (Kodansha.) An #Anime is due in January 2025.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑

#MangaMonday 03 “Dinosaur Sanctuary” by Itaru Kinoshita

Suma Suzume is starting out as a rookie dinokeeper at Enoshima Dinoland, a middling dinosaur zoo that is struggling amid a downturn in popular interest in dinosaurs.

This is an episodic workplace slice-of-life/drama #Manga that mostly follows Suzume learning about her job and the #Dinosaurs, although some chapters follow visitors or other zoo staff. The world’s backstory is a hand-wavey combination of a discovered population and genetic engineering.

The art really shines when the dinos appear. There’s a lot of thought as well as effort put into their posture and appearance (some are feathered, some not.) Research Consultant Shin-ichi Fujiwara contributes a page of text every chapter that usually touches on the current story (e.g., at one point explaining why Triceratops probably loafed like a house cat.)

Ongoing with four of five volumes released in English (Seven Seas.)

#DinosaurSanctuary

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Apr 22, 2024

#MangaMonday 04 “Since I Could Die Tomorrow” by Sumako Kari

Tired of High School hijinks? This is the #Manga for you. Sawako Honna is a single 42 year old woman working at a film marketing company. It’s a hectic job at the best times, and her irresponsible coworker isn’t making her life easier.

She starts to experience the symptoms of menopause and begins reflecting on her life. Unexpectedly, she finds herself making new connections and renewing old ones. A childhood friend reaches out. A business acquaintance reveals he has cancer. A former coworker starts her thinking about turning freelance.

This originated as a web release, but the art has a very analogue look. The line work is confident and restrained. Honna has a pair of pajama bottoms that must have been a pain to draw, but really sell a particular scene.

Note that the second volume touches on suicide from a variety of perspectives.

Complete, with two of four volumes in English (Tokyopop.)

#SinceICouldDieTomorrow

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Apr 29, 2024

#MangaMonday 05 “Ruri Dragon” by Masaoki Shindo

Ruri Aoki is a young girl going through some changes. In her case, that means waking up one morning with horns growing out of her head. Her mother had neglected to mention some things about her absent father, chiefly that he’s a dragon. Feeling otherwise fine, Ruri heads off to school.

The twist is that everyone treats her relatively normally, even after other ‘perks’ of her heritage start to emerge. It’s a surprisingly wholesome fantasy-tinged slice-of-life tale.

The art is impressive, with a distinct preference for hatching instead of screens. Take note of her eyes during the first chapter.

This #Manga started serialization in Shonen Jump in June, 2022. It was well received, but after just six chapters the story went on hiatus due to Shindo’s health and only just resumed this March. There’s no English volume announced yet, but the story is simulpublished on the Manga Plus website/app under a “first read is free” scheme.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑May 6, 2024

#MangaMonday 06 “Whoever Steals This Book” by Nowaki Fukamidori (story) and Kakeru Sora (art)

Mifuyu Mikura is the youngest in a famously literate lineage. She hates books, in part due to the drain on her family of maintaining their ancestral library. This becomes a problem when the theft of a book activates a curse that plunges the whole town into a magical realist story. A mysterious girl named Mashiro reveals that Mifuyu must read the story and then work out who triggered the curse.

This is an adaptation of an untranslated novel. The #Manga handles the stories within the story rather nicely, with a column of text that fades out before the illustrated story (in a different style) begins. You can literally see Mifuyu’s resistance to reading fading. The curses placed on the library are apparently genre-specific, and the last chapter of volume one sets up neo-noir story.

Completed with one of three volumes in English (Yen Press.) The next drops in June.

#WhoeverStealsThisBook

ChurchHatesTucker ☑May 13, 2024

#MangaMonday 07 “Adults’ Picture Book: New Edition” by Kei Itoi

Souichirou Koudou’s beloved friend Haruki “left the world without so much as a Good-Bye.” He DID leave his four year old daughter, Kiki, in Koudou’s care. Resolved to bring up his friend’s child, he impulsively proposes to a woman, Fusako, who reminds him of Haruki. Equally impulsively, she accepts and they take their first steps towards forming a family.

The art helps the story by giving Haruki, Kiki, and Fusako the same eyes so you instantly see the reminders of his friend that Koudou sees.

This volume is mostly setup, and leaves you with a lot of questions. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m intrigued enough to look forward to the next volume (due mid June.) There is no ‘old edition,’ BTW. The title is playing with the idea of a visual dictionary of adults being revised.

Complete with one of three volumes in English (Yen Press.)

#AdultsPictureBook #Manga

ChurchHatesTucker ☑May 21, 2024

#MangaMonday 08 “Call the Name of the Night” by Tama Mitsuboshi

Mira is a young girl with an unusual affliction. Whenever she gets anxious, she brings forth a tangible version of night. Potentially, it could cover an entire town and even cause her to lose her sense of self. To address this, she lives with a doctor/magician, Rei, who is looking for a treatment.

This is mostly a slice of life fantasy #Manga. Mira spends most of her time—of necessity—on Rei’s estate, something the #Manga draws attention to in one chapter. Still, in some ways it feels like a scaled-down “Witch Hat Atelier” (and may scratch that itch for people waiting on the next chapter.)

The art is good, but the character designs are unusual. Well, most of them are late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century Western designs at heart, but the featured magicians have unique dress sense.

Complete with four of five volumes in English (Yen Press.)

#CallTheNameOfTheNight

ChurchHatesTucker ☑May 27, 2024

#MangaMonday 09 “Hirayasumi” by Keigo Shinzo

Hiroto Ikuta is the type of guy who is immediately trusted by grannies, but clams up when confronted with attractive women his age. He had a bit part in a movie when he was young, and moved to Tokyo to pursue an acting career. Unfortunately that thing with women meant it ultimately went nowhere and now, at 29 years old, he works at an artificial fishing pond. Still, he’s easy going and mostly content with his life.

Hiroto’s cousin, Natsumi, was just accepted into a Tokyo art school and it’s been arranged for her to stay with him (don’t worry, it’s not THAT kind of #Manga.)

This is an urban slice-of-life, albeit with plot development. Natsumi’s adjusting to art school moves rather quickly. Hiro’s life is slower paced, but a series of unfortunate encounters with an overworked office lady appears to be building up to something.

Ongoing with one of seven volumes in English (Viz.) The next drops in August.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jun 3, 2024

#MangaMonday 10 “Tokyo These Days” by Taiyo Matsumoto

Shiozawa is a #Manga editor ‘on the wrong side of fifty’ who quits his job after the magazine he headed was shut down. After a mangaka he worked with dies, he decides to work on one more manga and begins recruiting artists he admires.

From there it’s a meditation on art, commerce, and mortality. Many of the artists Shiozawa seeks out have left the industry for their own reasons. Some are thriving. Few are happy. Meanwhile time is subtly slipping by.

The art perfectly matches the story, with a scratchy pen style. It’s similar to his work in “Tekkonkinkreet,” but with more detail and shading.

Complete with two of three volumes in English (Viz.) The final volume drops in September.

#TokyoTheseDays

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jun 10, 2024

#MangaMonday 11 “The Fable: The Second Contact” by Katsuhisa Minami

The Fable’s anime is currently airing, but since I recommended the manga back in February (https://mefi.social/@ChurchHatesTucker/111879778394194266) you must be caught up and curious about the sequel. Long story short: almost everything has been dialed up a notch, for good or ill.

This is a shorter series and the fist-blurring action takes center stage. Akira and Yoko are back in town during the Covid lockdown and soon face off against a peer adversary of Fable. Yoko even gets to be a badass this time around.

Unfortunately the sexual violence is also dialed up, and even Yoko isn’t safe. If it bothered you the first time around, you may want to skip this #Manga.

The art continues to be excellent, but the backgrounds now get more detailed shading that borders on photorealistic.

Complete at nine volumes. So far it’s only been released in English as chapters on Kodansha’s K Manga website/app (as a continuation of “The Fable.”)

#TheFableSecondContact

ChurchHatesTucker ☑ (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images #MangaMonday “The Fable” by Katsuhisa Minami “Akira Sato” has been trained since childhood to be an assassin, and he’s very good—perhaps TOO good. His boss orders him to lay low for a year, on pain of death. He and his driver—now “sister”—are given safe houses by an Osaka yakuza group that owes his organization a favor. However, the yakuza are having their own internal problems that threaten to pull the Satos in. This is mostly an Action/Thriller, but Minami adds humor and heart. E.g., Akira’s only pop-cultural touchstone is a low-brow comedian whose attempt to branch out into daytime drama is funny in its own right, but provides Akira with inspiration to take his ‘normal life’ seriously. The art is good; Minami has a gift for faces and expressions. There is graphic violence and mostly only incidental nudity but note volume 6 has a sex trafficking plot that gets very explicit. Complete with all 22 volumes in English (Kodansha.) An #Anime is due in April. #Manga #TheFable

mefi.social

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jun 17, 2024

#MangaMonday 12 “No Longer Allowed in Another World” by Hiroshi Noda (story) & Takahiro Wakamatsu (art)

Stop me if you heard this before: A depressed Japanese guy is hit by a truck and transported to another world where he is greeted by an elf who is surprised to discover that his stats are the very weakest.

Wait, I’m not done! The guy—simply addressed as “Sensei”—is heavily implied to be Osamu Dazai, famed (and real) melancholic author and serial #suicide. He refuses the task he was summoned for and seeks to resume his interrupted double suicide. Along the way he takes an interest in people’s stories—especially other Otherworlders’—and, almost inadvertently, makes the world a better place.

It’s actually a fun comedy/deconstruction #manga, but be aware that a lot of the humor revolves around Sensei’s cavalier attitude toward his own life.

Ongoing with five of ten volumes in English (Seven Seas.) The 6th volume and an #Anime are due in July

#NoLongerAllowedInAnotherWorld

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jun 24, 2024

#MangaMonday 13 “Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.” by Sekka Iwata (story) & Yu Aoki (art)

Kana Sakuragi is a recent college grad looking for her first job. She’s on her 16th interview when a monster attacks (it happens.) Kana is able to assist the Magical Girl who responds and is subsequently recruited as a Magical Girl herself.

This #manga leans into ‘Magical Girl as a job description’ (a growing sub-genre; I covered “Witch Life in a Micro Room” previously.) Spells are essentially code and tranformation items double as employee IDs. Kana’s new employer is a small start-up, which is contrasted with the established companies. The workplace comedy is light (e.g., post-chapter panels assure us that anyone fired from the big companies immediately found more rewarding positions elsewhere) but the monster (“Kaii”) fights are taken seriously.

Ongoing with two of twelve volumes in English and a third due in August. An #anime is scheduled for this fall.

#Magilumiere #WitchLifeInAMicroRoom

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 1, 2024

#MangaMonday 14 “Dungeon People” by Sui Hutami (sometimes rendered as Futami)

Clay is an Explorer/Thief delving a dungeon. Her father disappeared there three years ago and she’s determined to find out what happened to him. During a fight on the eighth floor, an accidentally destroyed wall reveals the dungeon’s administrative area(!) and she ends up getting hired onto the managerial side.

This #manga falls into the “Mystery Behind the Fantasy World” sub-genre (c.f. “Delicious in Dungeon” and “Helck.”) This particular dungeon is different from others for some reason, and Clay still has to find her father (or his fate.)

The art style is a simple one, but it gets the job done and the action is never confusing. There's no fanservice—appropriate for a character like Clay—and Hutami even pokes fun at some fantasy tropes.

Ongoing with three of five volumes in English (Seven Seas.) The next drops in September. An #anime starts this Friday.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 8, 2024

#MangaMonday 15 “Tales of the Tendo Family” by Ken Saito

Our hero doesn’t even have a name; the old man who raised her after she was abandoned just called her “Pipsqueak.” She loved him though, and when he died she tried to follow by #suicide. She took her failure as a sign, and now seeks to help others—ideally dying in the process—to earn a place by Grandfather’s side. (Fortunately, the old man also trained her in martial arts.)

She rescues another attempted suicide and takes her place as a bride promised to a feared family. She’s IMMEDIATELY found out, but can’t disentangle herself from the family’s handsome bad boy scion.

This is a romance/action/intrigue #manga with a side of dark humor (e.g. Pip offers her life to resolve any kind of debt.) The art is good, but the English typography is… unusual. Most obviously, a different font is used for members of the Tendo family.

Ongoing with two of 14 volumes in English (One Peace.) A third is due late August.

#TalesOfTheTendoFamily

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 15, 2024

#MangaMonday 16 “Guyabano Holiday” by panpanya

panpanya is known for stories with a surrealist bent, and most of the stories in this collection are in that vein. They tend to have a dream logic and touch on things like the nature of human perception, but they’re all quite fun. If you’ve read their previous volume “An Invitation from a Crab” it’ll be very familiar.

The eponymous (and longest) story in this #manga is a little different. It shares the usual protagonist—an unnamed child with shoulder-length hair—and is inhabited by the same vaguely humanoid creatures, but appears to be informed by an actual trip to the #Philippines and reads more like a travelogue.

panpanya is a skilled artist, and is comfortable varying style to match the needs of the story. This usually happens from panel to panel, but sometimes they’ll do it within a single panel.

Complete with the one volume in English (Denpa.)

#GuyabanoHoliday #AnInvitationFromACrab #panpanya

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 22, 2024

#MangaMonday 17 “Shakespeare Manga Theater” by Osamu Tezuka

This is a collection of stories from the Godfather of Manga that borrow plot elements—to a greater or lesser degree—from Shakespeare’s plays. Tezuka is best known in the west for Astro Boy, and in the case of the “Romeo and Juliette” adaptation it is an actual Astro Boy story.

If you’re already a Tezuka fan, you’ll be more interested in the back half of the book, which consists of stories from his otherwise (offically) untranslated #manga “The Vampires” and “Rainbow Parakeet.” The former takes a page from “MacBeth,” while the latter provides chapters referencing “Hamlet,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and “Othello.”

The opening story, “The Merchant of Venice” is the only straight-up adaptation. It does a lot in forty pages, although it makes some cuts that seem strange to Western eyes. Shylock is more of a straight-up villain, and his Jewishness isn’t mentioned at all.

One-shot (Ablaze Publishing.)

#ShakespeareMangaTheater

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 29, 2024

#MangaMonday 18 “With You and the Rain” by Ko Nikaido

Fuji is an introverted novelist/copywriter. One day she finds a tan^H^H^H dog. She finds a dog with raccoon-like markings. This is a particularly smart dog. Some people suspect he is not a dog, but he insists that he is. In writing.

OK, he definitely resembles a tanuki. Fuji even recognizes this in the first chapter, but she refuses to acknowledge it subsequently. Much of the humor comes from other people’s varied reactions to this. (There's also a meta joke in that tanukis can supposedly shape-shift but this one does not, despite wearing the requisite leaf most of the time.) At its heart, though, this is a slice-of-life #manga about a woman and her pet.

The art is very good, especially considering Nikaido has upped the degree of difficulty by not depicting the main character’s eyes (presumably they blend into his facial markings.)

Ongoing with all six volumes available digitally in English (Kodansha.)

#WithYouAndTheRain

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Aug 5, 2024

#MangaMonday 19 “Sketchy” by Makihirochi (sometimes rendered Maki Hirochi)

There are #manga about skateboarding, and there are manga about thirty-something women taking stock of their lives. In the tiny sliver of Venn overlap between them, there is #Sketchy.

Everything happens because some skater girls try to rent the skateboarding drama “Lords of Dogtown”, only to find it’s out and overdue. The bored video store clerk is intrigued by the girls. She takes a class in skateboarding and then brings her co-worker along. Meanwhile, a disgraced editor discovers the DVD, left at her house by an ex. She’s touched by the movie and ends up at the same class as the other two. Along the way we get everyone’s backstory.

The actual skateboarding is like a secondary character so far. It gets a few chapters of focus (and you could learn the basics from them) but usually hovers in the background.

Complete with two of six volumes available digitally in English (Kodansha.) The third drops next week.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Aug 12, 2024

#MangaMonday 20 “Dandadan” by Yukinobu Tatsu

So the loner boy obsessed with UFOs and the angry girl who’s the granddaughter of a medium dare each other to go to scary sites and of course the boy gets cursed by a dick-biting spirit and the girl gets abducted by aliens who need human genitalia and the cursed kid tries to rescue her but is foiled by the aliens that she defeats with new spirit powers which she now has to use to keep his curse in check while they try to find his stolen schlong.

That’s chapter one.

This is a action/comedy #manga. It has an explicit tag, which—despite the premise—is largely unwarranted (no gore, no naughty bits) but is probably earned by a scene in chapter one that is rapey in a Cronenbergian way. Fortunately, that is atypical.

Tatsu was an assistant to Tatsuki “Chainsaw Man” Fujimoto and the art is on par, albeit willing to get cartoony to sell a joke.

Ongoing with 8 of 15 volumes in English (Viz.) An #anime airs in Sept.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Aug 19, 2024

#MangaMonday 21 “False Child” by Taku Kawamura

A tanuki who was mistreated by humans in the past decides to take revenge by sneaking into a random house and shapeshifting to match the picture of a little girl she finds, planning to cause mischief. What she doesn’t understand is that the picture was in a memorial shrine.

This is a surprisingly lighthearted tale of grief. The tanuki doesn’t fool anyone for long, but she gives the family and friends of the dead girl a second chance at closure. At the same time, the parents take an interest in the tanuki herself. This being Japan, there’s a bureaucratic process for adopting supernatural creatures.

It’s a short #manga at only 20 chapters. I suspect it was forced to end early because the question of what originally happened to the tanuki is never addressed. That aside, it comes to a satisfying–if not surprising–conclusion.

Complete with all three volumes available as individual digital chapters (Manga UP! and Bookwalker.)

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Aug 26, 2024

#MangaMonday 22 “Offshore Lightning” by Saito Nazuna

Saito Nazuna did not start off as a manga artist. She was an illustrator, and during the seventies she drew a column (mixing journalism and her sketches) for a Sankei newspaper. When she entered a “Newcomer” #manga contest, she was forty years old.

Her stories are snapshots of life, usually of an adult nature but only occasionally of an “adult” nature. Her early art style isn’t super realistic in the technical sense, but her characters are individuals. There is a noticeable art shift demarcated by the decade she was on hiatus, teaching in a manga program while caring for her ailing mother and husband. After that point the art is more detailed and the stories are more concerned with death.

To a Western eye, she has a lot in common with indie comic artists. Unsurprising, perhaps, that this anthology is published by Drawn & Quarterly and has been nominated for a 2024 Eisner Award (Best Anthology.)

#OffshoreLightning

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Sep 2, 2024

#MangaMonday 23 “Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san” by Honda

A manga about selling #manga. This recommendation is long overdue.

This was (mostly) written while Honda worked on the manga floor at a large Tokyo bookstore. All of Honda’s co-workers are given face-concealing headgear and matching names (e.g., Chief Clerk Armor wears a Western knight’s helmet) while Honda is rendered as a skeleton. The stories are otherwise non-fiction, a mix of the details of selling books in Japan, and dealing with customers/sales reps/etc.

It’s not completely unexpurgated. Honda had to get chapters approved by the bookstore. There is only mention of one chapter that was nixed (I suspect that story was the basis for a ‘fantasy’ bonus chapter in volume three.)

Complete with all four volumes in English (Yen Press.) There was an #anime in 2018 that’s pretty good, but at only 12 half-length episodes there’s still a lot of the manga it didn’t adapt.

#SkullFaceBooksellerHondaSan

brennen Jul 29, 2024

@ChurchHatesTucker this looks charming.

ChurchHatesTucker ☑Jul 29, 2024

@brennen That's a good word for it. It's a charming story.

James Young Jul 1, 2024

@ChurchHatesTucker yes thank you this is relevant to my interests!

sickos2_haha_yes