First off, let me extend my gratitude to Vertical for supplying me with another fix of Inio Asano.  It’s been almost two years since “Nijigahara Holograph” came out and I was starting to get antsy.  Kudos to Viz as well, with their forthcoming two-in-one releases of “Goodnight, Punpun” starting next month.  But what about this […]

I consider it the crown jewel of Tokyopop’s publishing efforts.  Fans of “Sailor Moon,” “Fruits Basket,” “Love Hina,” or their many CLAMP titles may disagree, but that’s how I roll.  (Can I get a shout-out for “STONe?”  Anyone… Anyone… Bueller…)  One of the rare manga published here that manages to combine hard science with serious […]

Is this it? Kodansha Comics has already gone on record as saying that this will be the last volume of “Vinland Saga” published in the U.S. unless sales pick up.  So if you like this series and haven’t already picked up all seven volumes, you’d better go do it now!  If you haven’t, then vol. […]

Hiroaki Samura has done a couple series since wrapping up his epic masterpiece “Blade of the Immortal.”  This one is just the first to reach our shores.  Expecting something on the same level of brilliance as his signature series would just be an exercise in setting myself up for disappointment.  Yet this is likely to […]

The series comes to a satisfying end, even though I was expecting a bit more after the build-up from the previous volume.  By all rights the highlight of vol. 12 should’ve been the cat-and-mouse duel between Amuro and Char given the way their paths have crossed over the course of the series and the sheer […]

The previous volume left off on a dramatic cliffhanger as Elias, enraged by the wounding of Chise, began to lose his human form and revert to his natural one.  What follows is a rousing sequence of action and drama as the two, and those in their immediate vicinity face off against Joseph, a.k.a. Cartaphilus, a.k.a. […]

Um… yeah, this volume was a surprising misfire for me.  Mainly because I’ve been enchanted by mangaka Kaoru Mori’s works for years and this is the first time I’ve read something from her that has really failed to satisfy or entertain me.  While she’s always had stellar instincts for characterization, they’re not employed well enough […]

The second volume of “Haven’t You Heard?  I’m Sakamoto” does get a little more creative in its antics.  Where I was worried that seeing the title character effortlessly succeed in the face of any obstacle he faced, mangaka Nami Sano displays a little more inventiveness in showing us how he does that in this volume. […]

Low points don’t get much lower than what we got in vol. 10 of this series.  Just about everything that could go wrong for the good guys in this series did, leaving them either dead or out of favor with the new government.  Then we left off with the premise of the series being partly […]