Blue Box, Vol. 10 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media – There is, thankfully, a bit more sports in this sports-based romance this time around. Chinatsu’s team is headed for a tournament, so they’re practicing harder than ever. Actually, Chinatsu’s practice habits may be starting to affect the rest of the team. Indeed, that’s the plot of this volume, where we hear about her childhood friend and mentor Yumeka, who quit basketball after junior high and departed on bad terms. Taiki being who he is, he finds out what really happened… though that gets him a healthy slap across the face from Yumeka, who does not need another shiny paragon of sports in her life, as it turns out that it was the pressure to be Chinatsu’s hero that broke her. This remains one of Jump‘s best series, and I hope the upcoming anime does really well. – Sean Gaffney
Cocoon Entwined, Vol. 6 | By Yuriko Hara | Yen Press – The large gap between each volume and the tendency of some of the characters to look the same has sort of dimmed my desire to review Cocoon Entwined, which I haven’t done since the second volume. But this is the final one, and it again succeeds better when read for pure mood than it does for plot reasons. That said, I did enjoy the burning of the hair and the realization that a tradition that had been optional and fun suddenly became this required chain around every student. And yes, there’s a yuri ending, which makes me happy, though it requires a breakup as well—a love triangle will tend to do that. I’ll still think “hair” whenever I think of this series, but it was a stylistically striking manga in the end. – Sean Gaffney
Friday at the Atelier, Vol. 1 | By Sakura Hamada | Yen Press – I was looking forward to this as I’d heard that it was very weird, but I don’t think I was quite ready for how weird it was. At its heart, this is a vague romance between two people who are bad at communicating and also possibly bad at life. Ishihara is a popular artist who draws nudes with fish surrounding them. He needs a model to pose on a couch with fish draped over her. He finds Tamaki, an office lady who, when we meet her, cannot decide if she should get the groceries and then kill herself, or vice versa. There’s a lot of amusing stuff going on here, and Tamaki’s obliviousness is amusing given that we usually see it coming from the guy. But her attitude towards life is terrifying, and Ishihara agrees with me. Lots of nudity, and some odd situations, but compelling. – Sean Gaffney
Kase-san and Yamada, Vol. 3 | By Hiromi Takashima | Seven Seas – These volumes are coming out every two years. On the good side, that means that the artist is presumably not being dragged through the hedge that is the Japanese manga experience, so I’m glad they are able to relax a bit. On the down side, it means I don’t get as much of Kase-san and Yamada, which is a shame, as these two are adorable. Much of this volume is dedicated to Yamada’s gardening club, which has a celebrity guest joining them from a pro gardening show—and he’s a gorgeous guy! Naturally, Kase-san is jealous, but at least is cognizant of it immediately. That said, she should have more faith in Yamada’s love for her, as it’s clear the only feelings between her and the guy are plant-based. Always sweet and cute. – Sean Gaffney
Magus of the Library, Vol. 7 | By Mitsu Izumi | Kodansha Comics – Somehow I did not review the sixth volume of this series, possibly as I had forgotten its main cast of 752 people once more. But it remains compelling. The first half of the volume is taken up by librarians deciding whether to ban a violent book that’s popular with children but also possibly an allegory for racism. It doesn’t help that those who want war and unrest are inciting riots about the book. Mixed in with this are the adventures of Theo and the library trainees, who are learning lots of cool things… and also that it can be hard to tell truth from lies, even if they’re written down. I also really liked an examination of one of the trainees who seems to be autistic, and how they’re (relatively) accepting of her. Always worth a read. – Sean Gaffney
My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 9 | By Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka | Seven Seas – We’re transitioning into the new arc, which starts towards the end of this volume. That means new hot guys, but also a “sequel” to the Fortune Lover game, which Katarina sees in a dream. Theoretically getting executed should be impossible given all she’s done so far… but we know how fate and otome games go, so it’s best she try hard to avoid it anyway. On the down side, this has the “Keith pushes Katarina down on the bed” scene, which Western fandom liked about as well as an appendectomy when it was in the anime, and unfortunately gives the sleepover bits short shrift. In any case, we’re now firmly in the second arc in the series, for better or worse, which is bad news is you like Mary, Sophia, Alan, or Nicol. – Sean Gaffney
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You, Vol. 10 | By Rikito Nakamura and Yukiko Nozawa | Ghost Ship Another volume, another girlfriend, another fetish. For the most part, Kishika seems to be on the relatively normal side of the girlfriend spectrum, as an upright, mature kendo captain. But that maturity has been forced on her since she was a little girl, and inside her is a desire to be babied. Which is fine, that’s the heartwarming part. It also leads to a desire to suck on Hahari’s breasts. That’s the fetish part. Aside from this, it’s the usual 100 Girlfriends toxin of heartwarming romance, ridiculous comedy, jaw-dropping ecchi stuff, and shattering the fourth wall. Oh yes, and Hakari and Karane kiss again. Twice. At this point they’re practically an official couple on their own. For the fan. – Sean Gaffney
Second Hand Love | By Yamada Murasaki | Drawn & Quarterly The second volume of Yamada Murasaki’s manga to be released in English, Second Hand Love, makes a marvelous companion to the first, Talk to My Back, in its compelling and honest examinations of the lives of women. But this time, Yamada intentionally turns her creative focus towards the “other woman”—the leads of the two manga collected in the volume, “A Blue Flame” (serialized 1983-1984) and the titular “Second Hand Love” (serialized 1986-1987), are both women who are having affairs with married men. Yamada’s characters are complex, with nuanced but largely sympathetic portrayals which recognize both the emotional freedoms and tolls brought about by relationships of this type. Also included in the collection are Yamada’s illustrations for Mita Masahiro’s novel A Loving Family as well as an interview from 1985. Second Hand Love is an exceptional work and extraordinarily easy to recommend. – Ash Brown
She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat, Vol. 4 | By Sakaomi Yuzaki | Yen Press – Last time I called Yako the normal one in the series, but as much as I love this series when its characters sit around and eat food, it also has an agenda, and it’s one I love. Yako is a lesbian but also asexual, and that’s upset people in her life. As for our main couple, well, Kasuga is finally ready to move on from her abusive family entirely, but that will also mean moving out of her apartment. Could this be the impetus to finally force Nomoto to admit her feelings and confess? And there’s also tons of delicious food, which looks great when it’s cooked and great when it’s eaten. We even get more of Nagumo, who is starting to narrow down the specifics of her hatred of eating. This is one of my favorite manga to read whenever it comes out. – Sean Gaffney
A Sign of Affection, Vol. 8 | By Suu Morishita | Kodansha Comics – Yuki is ready to introduce her parents to Itsuomi, given that they’re about to move in together. That said, it turns out there’s family stuff that’s been kept from her, but is told to Itsuomi, who needs to understand that this is why they’re wary of him. He handles it as you’d expect—this is not a series to read if you want the romantic male lead to be imperfect and flawed. Meanwhile, there’s also Emma and Shin, who are at a hot spring and going through the most awkward “wait, shit, he loves me? What do I do now?” stuff. Theoretically they’re going to get together, but I suspect it’s too soon for her to get over Itsuomi for this to go anywhere. This remains a charming, if somewhat lackadaisical, shoujo manga. – Sean Gaffney
Skip and Loafer, Vol. 9 | By Misaki Takamatsu | Seven Seas – Shima likes Mitsumi, something that is relatively obvious to everyone around the two of them. Unfortunately, his past experiences have also left him with a somewhat ass-backwards idea of what loving someone else is, to the point where he needs a powerpoint presentation in the sauna (one of the funniest scenes in this series) to get it. More to the point, he has Mitsumi on a pedestal as someone who knows what she’s doing. In this volume, which shows the main cast visiting Mitsumi’s home for the break, he sees what she’s like in her own environment, and moreover meets her best friend Fumi, who’s able to clue him in: what makes him think Mitsumi understands love and her own heart? “She’s good at book smarts and nothing else.” I adore this series too. – Sean Gaffney
365 Days to the Wedding, Vol. 3 | By Tamiki Wakaki | Seven Seas After finally managing to get to Takuya’s hometown and let his family know why they’re doing this fake marriage thing, everything seems to be solved… except Rika runs into what appears to be a classic “childhood friend romance” that the oblivious Takuya is already involved in. Is this true? Probably not. Does it fill Rika with anxiety? Yup. By the end of the volume, the two of them have finally gotten to the point where they realize they’re actually attracted to each other, and he asks her on a date. But what will this mean for the fake marriage, which has to keep moving towards happening or their workplace will send them to Russia ASAP. I enjoy seeing how these are two people who are bad at communicating in very different ways. – Sean Gaffney
We’re New at This, Vol. 16 | By Ren Kawahara | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – The odd balance between heartwarming, overly syrupy romance between a husband and wife and their sexual exploits remains what makes this series interesting, and it’s nice to see Ikuma gradually realize that you don’t necessarily get pregnant the very first time you don’t use a condom. The ending to the volume seems to imply that it doesn’t take long after that, though. And we’ve also gotten word that this series will end with the eighteenth volume, which I guess answers my questions about whether the author can keep it horny despite a newborn child. In the meantime, these two really are blessed—we see how well they bonded even as little kids, and other couples around them break up even as they cruise along. – Sean Gaffney
Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 12 | By Kamome Shirahama | Kodansha Comics – For all that we’ve been having fun watching our girls learn cool witch stuff, there is still a definite schism between things a witch does and things a doctor does, and if the witches try to cross that line, as we see here, they’ll be threatened at best. Which is kind of a shame, as there’s black leech tentacle beasts ravaging the city, and I think they need all the healing they can get. Coco once again proves to be able to come up with clever ideas on the fly, but she also has a nagging tendency to have bad luck, which means that she sees the evil witch who started all this, and now she has to be killed so that no one can know. Fortunately, she has teachers, and in this series, they’re definitely good guys. Still a fantastic and fascinating fantasy. – Sean Gaffney
You and I Are Polar Opposites, Vol. 1 | By Kocha Agasawa | Viz Media – Every once in a while you get one of those titles that decides to thrive on lack of conflict, and the media usually hype it up as not being like those other girls… erm, manga. I saw a lot of that with this series, a shonen romance that apparently avoids shoujo tropes, mostly as, well, it’s a shonen series. It is, however, pretty sweet. Loud goofy Suzuki likes quiet, stoic Tani. He likes her too. They date, and any conflicts they have barely last half the chapter. They’ve got fun friends as well. The art is very “busy,” and reminded me at times of the old messy Hana to Yume style of the early 00s. But if you do like romantic comedies, this is a good one to pick up, even if it doesn’t have all the drama folks assume regular manga has. – Sean Gaffney
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