Honestly, I was worried that the direction of this new arc meant that this title’s best days were behind it.  Flipping the premise to put the Shadow Student Council in prison and the boys on the outside felt too obvious a way to mix things up for “Prison School” going forward.  The good news is […]

“Blade of the Immortal” certainly had plenty of irreverent moments strewn throughout its thirty-one volumes.  In reading mangaka Hiroaki Samura’s other works it becomes clear that’s his default mindset and he was doing his best to suppress it while working on his magnum opus.  While such irreverence can get a little wearying at times and […]

Kodansha Comics should be applauded for bringing an old-school (read:  originally published in the 70’s) manga to our shores.  Ditto for the fact that it’s coming from mangaka Leiji Matsumoto, who is probably better known for the anime spun off of his works out here than the manga they’re based on.  The art is also […]

Longtime readers will know that I’ve been very passionate about seeing the rest of Hiroki Endo’s excellent “Eden:  It’s An Endless World!” published in English.  Sadly, we’re coming up on the third anniversary of vol. 14’s publication and there’s been no word as to when (or even if) we’ll see vols. 15-18 in print.  Until […]

This volume actually starts out leading to a moment of triumph for Makoto.  After surviving the attack by an unfriendly vampire at the end of vol. 2, he uses his newfound instincts to track down the missing Yuuki and brings him back to the hospital.  Which is all well and good, until it’s revealed that […]

Here’s a new title from Seven Seas that I feel owes its existence on these shores due to the success of “The Ancient Magus’ Bride.”  That’s mainly due to the number of superficial similarities the two titles share.  Like that other great title, “The Girl From the Other Side” is about the relationship between a […]

In case you weren’t convinced that Hiro was the bad guy in this story after the past couple of volumes, mangaka Hiroya Oku goes to make the case again here.  After a Japanese S.W.A.T. team busts into Shion’s home in the middle of the night, wounding the girl and her grandmother in the process of […]

If you’ll recall, I wasn’t all that impressed with the first volume of this new “Gundam” series.  It delivered all the familiar “War is Hell” moral musings you’d expect as seen through the Federation and Zeon’s struggle to take control of the strategically important Thunderbolt sector without doing much to distinguish itself.  Some steps are […]

The latest Moto Hagio manga to come from Fantagraphics features a first chapter that is confusing, weird, and likely going to turn off readers unaccustomed to the kind of strangeness this old-school shojo mangaka likes to traffic in.  It takes place on the island of Barbara and focuses on young Aoba and her two friends, […]