After “20th Century Boys” ended last year, I and everyone else who followed it were left without our bi-monthly Naoki Urasawa fix.  For years Viz had been serializing his most famous works — the aforementioned title, along with “Monster” and “Pluto” — and now we were left with nothing.  What was going to take its […]

Leave it to Japan to find a way to combine the alien invasion and inspirational teacher genres.  After a multi-tentacled alien demonstrates his power by destroying a huge chunk of the moon and promises to destroy the Earth in one year, he makes a proposal to the leaders of the world.  He’ll become a teacher […]

We’re in the home stretch now.  “Claymore” ended its magazine serialization back in October and the final, twenty-seventh, volume came out earlier this month in Japan.  That’s actually quite reassuring as things have been steadily building towards a climax over the past few volumes, so it’s likely things will be going out on a high […]

Back when I reviewed Kon’s “Tropic of the Sea,” I made the mistake of going into the manga expecting it to be the last great work of a genius who was taken from us too soon.  (I was also mistaken about its length — this is his longest manga work.)  As it turns out, my […]

I picked up this volume out of hope that the series would improve after the inauspicious start it presented in vol. 1.  Guess what?  Things did improve!  Granted, the nature of the improvement doesn’t immediately turn this into a must-read title.  In fact, the way things play out here make me wonder if mangaka Gamon […]

A man with a cut-out newspaper mask streams videos of his threats of violence on the internet before carrying them out.  Now it’s up to the members of the Metropolitan Anti-Cyber Crimes Division to catch him and his helpers before he and his partners commit more crimes in the real world.  However, public sentiment is […]

I was planning on writing up my thoughts on “Prophecy,” a new manga from Vertical, but then I read this earlier today.  After putting out five nice two-volumes-in-one hardcover editions of “Vinland Saga” in the space of a year, Kodansha U.S.A. has “temporarily” suspended publication of this excellent title.  As announcements of this such go, […]

“Tragedy?  Or one last moment of triumph?” That’s what I wrote last year when the previous volume left off with wrestler “Scorpion” Shiratori preparing to head back into the ring.  Never mind the fact that his rehabilitation unfinished, the man is unable to even stand up without assistance.  How the hell is someone like that […]

There are certain volumes in some of my favorite series that I just dread re-reading when I get to them.  “The Sandman vol. 9:  The Kindly Ones,” “Blade of the Immortal vol. 11:  Beasts,” “Berserk vol. 13,” and I could go on.  Even though I love these series, I always dread getting to these particular […]