I was telling a friend over the weekend how Vertical’s publishing efforts have reached the point where Dark Horse’s manga used to be for me.  In short, they’ve produced such consistently interesting and entertaining works that I’m willing to pick up something from them by an author or a title that I might not be […]

And so, all good things must come to an end.  That’s the case with this concluding volume which wraps up its tale of alien entities, evolution and friendship in much the same way that “The Incredible Hercules” did with “Chaos War.”  That is to say that it raises the stakes while building on what has […]

We’re going back to the old school for this one.  Now when I say “old school” I mean the old school of manga being released in America.  Back in the days when series were published one issue at a time.  Back when being an action manga set in America was considered a selling point.  Back […]

Fortunately for its reading audience, the “breakup” between artist Moritaka and writer Akito only lasts a couple chapters before they reunite to continue their plan to take the manga world by storm.  There’s really nothing else to add as, after that speed bump, the series maintains its usual level of quality with this volume.  Though […]

What I failed to mention in my last post was that I had already ordered vol. 10 of “Future Diary” from Amazon. It arrived yesterday with an unwelcome surprise: the glue binding the pages together had rotted out. So now I’m in the process of shipping it back for a replacement. I’d like to think […]

Tokyopop announced yesterday that their print operations in North America would be shutting down on May 31.   The writing has been on the wall for a while, but I still didn’t think that it would come to this.  After all, this was the company that started the manga revolution and brought affordable, unflipped manga […]

Well, this third volume doesn’t make me want to stop reading the series entirely, but it doesn’t give me much hope for its conclusion either.  We find out more about the Angels’ plans to spread their influence throughout the NERV Academy by way of a sinister computer game, but the overall plot never really becomes […]

Yes, it’s still awesome.  But… Most Shonen Jump titles have always struck me as very calculated affairs.  That’s “calculated” in the sense that you get the feeling that every plot twist, every shocking character moment, every last minute reversal occurs in a fashion to elicit the most emotional response possible from the reader.  As the […]

I was looking through the Dark Horse solicitations for June last night, and I saw something that I had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing.  According to the solicitations, vol. 13 of “Eden:  It’s an Endless World!” will be arriving in August.  Longtime listeners and readers will recall that I expressed some skepticism […]

It’s a testament to skill and focus of mangaka Nobuaki Tadano that the intimacy of this series isn’t lost when things start happening on a much larger scale than we’ve seen before.  With the entities Maelstrom and Horizon now both residing in Hikaru’s body, you’d expect a volume full of “Odd Couple” shenanigans.  Wouldn’t you?  […]