Sometimes great talents emerge fully-formed from the start.  Most times it takes them a little while to show what they’re really capable of.  In Tatsuki Fujimoto’s case, the latter is what’s true here.  Republished in the wake of his monstrous success with “Chainsaw Man,” these early stories show an artist who’s still trying to find […]

Well, this is embarrassing. In the almost fifteen years that I’ve been podcasting and writing about comics, I’ve never had a problem with that most basic of rules when it comes to following a series.  You know, the one about reading every volume in order and not skipping over any of them.  It’s a pretty […]

Based on the way vol. 9 ended, it looked like Mob’s biggest challenge for this volume was going to be placing in the top ten of his school’s 5K run.  All so that he could get enough confidence to confess to the girl he likes.  That’s… not the case here as this is the volume […]

Vol. 5 set up a hell of a situation for Narancia to overcome.  With his mouth possessed by a Stand that caused him to say the opposite of whatever he means, he had to convince his friends that they were all under attack.  I don’t need to tell you that he eventually finds a way […]

Nearly three years passed between the release of volumes two and three of this series, and I can still remember sections of vol. 2 like I had just read them.  Particularly the opening fight between Shinobu and her friends, and the villains who moved into her house on Ishikunagijima island.  It wasn’t just proof that […]

Osaragi and Ino were once the best of friends.  Now their relationship is on the outs about how they feel about Ishigami.  It’s this fracture that drives vol. 24’s opening chapters as they slowly work through their issues in ways that are more dramatic than comedic.  The comedy comes back in subsequent chapters as Chika […]

Had I engaged in a bit more planning and/or patience, I’d have talked about this volume when I did the podcast for the series.  In the end, I was left hoping that the stories collected here would offer some additional insight into the ending we got with vol. 11.  That’s not the case here.  Vol. […]

The last time we caught up with the crew of the Quin Zaza, Vannie had run away to take part in the civil war in her homeland while a good chunk of the crew followed after her.  That storyline is wrapped up halfway through vol. 12 with the same level of quality that you’d expect […]

Asa, with a little help from Keiichi, managed to avert a kaiju attack on the Japanese coast in the previous volume, saving countless lives, averting lots of property damage, and allowing the ‘64 Olympics in Tokyo to start without a hitch.  Vol. 6 doesn’t continue that momentum as Asa and Kasuga are placed on standby […]