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?  […]

A few months back, I was really bitchy somewhat critical of the titles Kodansha announced after they assumed control of Del Rey’s line.  It’s not that any of those titles sounded bad, just that there didn’t seem to be any targeted to me to a more mature readership.  Flash forward to earlier this week and […]

This volume represents the longest story the series has told to date.  In fact, it’s so long that I didn’t realize at first that it actually started in the previous volume.  Go figure.  Anyway, Misaki is still on vacation at a hot springs resort in Hakone, trying her best to escape from the pressures and […]

Yes, it’s still incredibly awesome.  I’m not going to bore you with the details since you’re all well aware that I drank the Kool-Aid for this series quite some time ago.  Instead, some observations: If you told be back when I was reading, say, vol. 3 that twenty volumes later that the Itto-Ryu’s ambitions would […]

We’re entering the home stretch here as the series is set to conclude with vol. 6 in May.  In exploring this strange new world, Zoichi is taken to the village of the “people” he met at the end of the previous volume.  They’re such a peaceful and friendly people that it should surprise no one […]