Another week, another round of shiny new manga purchases! Hard to believe it’s already nearing the end of April, especially with chilly days like today. The rain at least I was expecting. My thanks as always to my phenomenal local comic shop, Strange Adventures, for always having the newest books rain or shine.
My two bittersweet purchases of the week were Shinobi Life (Vol. 07) and Silver Diamond (Vol. 09) – two series that still have a number of volumes until their completion and now we’re unlikely to ever see them in English. It comforts me a little that I’ve found Silver Diamond severely lacking for the last few volumes but I’m still really curious how it manages to go for another 15+ volumes. This volume of Shinobi Life left me a bit disappointed too but it’s still one of the most enjoyable shoujos I’ve read in a long while – time-travelling ninjas in love!
Viz Media dominated my purchase bag this week with four new books. First and quickest to my bag was Cross Game (Vol. 03). Having already read it, I can attest to the fact it’s fantastic. I was a little let down by volume two, but volume three completely renewed the faith I had in the series after finishing the first book. Amazing stuff. 20th Century Boys (Vol. 14) was also a given. The series is dragging on a bit long for my tastes but each volume is still a real page-turner.
To add another relaxing read to the pile (which goes comfortably next to Cross Game in that regard), I picked up House of Five Leaves (Vol. 05). I also bought Itsuwaribito (Vol. 02) after finding the first volume enjoyable, though not overly exciting. I always try to give those not-sure titles at least two volumes however so we’ll see how that goes!
Last, but certainly not least, there’s Black Butler (Vol. 05)! Flipping through makes a little annoyed to see more of those gosh-awful background characters who ‘tend’ to Ceil’s estate but I’ll do my best to ignore them for more of Sebastien’s fantastically swoon-worthy butler-ness.
What made up your swag bag this week?
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volumes 1-2 of Kaze Hikaru and Fate/Stay Night and volume 3 of Kingyo Used Books a sereis I have to thank this website for introduceing me to.
[…] And Sean Gaffney takes the longer view and looks at next week’s new manga. Lissa Pattillo shows off the results of her latest shopping trip at […]
Yay, Aaron! I hope you enjoy Kaze Hikaru—it's one of my dearly-loved favourites!! :D
I haven't gone out shopping anywhere this week, but I ordered some books from Midtown Comics when they had their 40%-off-(or-more) manga sale (it looks like they've still got a bunch of Tokyopop books for 45% off though the sale has ended). I decided to pick up NG Life, since it just finished up here and I feel I should give all Hakusensha shoujo a fair chance. I also ordered three volumes of Qwan (since I had promised Kate Dacey I would), a few of +Anima, and Cross Game 3! And on Tuesday I got a shipping confirmation from TRSI, so the last Tokyopop volumes of Gakuen Alice (v16), Karakuri Odette (the end! phew!) and Neko Ramen (v4) are on their way to me too. I have a lot of reading in store; I'll have to savour it since my buying for the next few months has been nearly cut in half :(
(I plan to pick up Shinobi Life in-store whenever I get to one, but I'm sad you found it disappointing! I've been impatient with the last couple volumes because of the separation of certain characters; if that isn't resolved, maybe I don't want to read this volume but just keep it on my shelf and hope that another publisher eventually picks it up…)