Does this volume lead “anywhere interesting?”  Well, it starts off by introducing us to Kei’s mother.  She’s a ruthlessly blunt and pragmatic person who has some choice words for her son in regards to the situation he has found himself in.  For a series that usually winds up going down the most conventional path I […]

It’s taken a few volumes but we’re finally back to this title’s expected level of quality.  The focus is, however, still almost exclusively on Pariya and her rocky road to engagement with Umar.  Pariya’s all for it, except that she finds herself at a loss when it comes to talking casually with the boy.  What’s […]

Yeah, it’s been quite some time since I’ve mentioned this series.  What happened?  Well, the series never really got out of its groove of providing familiar and competent modern adventure stories with a dash of action and/or archaeology.  It’s the kind of thing that goes down smoothly enough thanks to writer/artist Naoki Urasawa’s storytelling confidence, […]

The second volume of this early 20th century adventure manga has an interesting mix of the nice and the nasty.  Much of the “nice” involves former soldier Saichi “Immortal” Sugimoto and tween Ainu huntress Asirpa hanging out at her village.  We get to learn plenty about the Ainu culture, such as how the size of […]

I have a confession to make:  I’ve never read any of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.  It’s a major failing of mine considering how his work has influenced a lot of what I read, play, and listen to.  One of these days I figure to finally sit down and start reading my way through his canon, but […]

Why yes, part of my plan for burning through all those titles last week was so that I could talk up the latest volume of this excellent series some more.  With the New York Times having divested itself of reporting bestseller lists for manga (and graphic novels in general), there’s no way to tell whether […]

I look at my “to review (maybe)” shelf and realize that there are a lot of “next volume in a manga series” taking up the front half of it.  You’ve probably noticed there’s a certain trend to when I review manga on this site and it’d take me a solid month to get through some […]

I was hoping that the security measures taken by the community that Hideo and Hiromi joined in the previous volume were just a result of them being cautious in this post-collapse world.  Unfortunately it becomes clear very early on that this community is one of those awful quasi-fascist groups run by a crazy person that […]

A quick look through the archives tells me that I skipped reviewing vol. 3 of this series for some reason.  Let me tell you now that it continued the title’s upward trajectory with its focus on the Io Fleming-piloted Gundam versus Darryl Lorenz-piloted Psycho Zaku battle.  It was a thrilling fight that fittingly ended in […]

It’s been three years and five months since we last saw a volume of “Drifters” on these shores.  The only reason we’re getting a new volume now is because the series had a popular anime adaptation last year.  I just want to let that sink in for a bit.  The reason the “Drifters” manga — […]