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Review: Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf (Vol. 01)

By Shannon Fay on Sunday, December 18, 2011

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Manga-ka: Ahiru Haruno
Publisher: June
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: August 2011

Synopsis: “It was fierce love at first sight! When the adorable cub Mr. Wolf carries away to his cave turns out to be a wily tiger boy, little does the sly hunter know that he’ll soon become the submissive wife to his manipulative (but charming) captive! When Mr. Tiger calls the shots, Mr. Wolf can’t help but bend to his every whim. After all, who could possibly resist such a handsome, furry face?”

Lots of yaoi manga feature anthropomorphic animals and it’s easy to see the appeal: cute guys plus cute animals equals win/win. Mr. Tiger and Mr. Wolf doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but it at least delivers on both sides of the equation.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, DMP, June, Manga

Digital Manga Imprint Shifts with Starry☆Sky to DMP

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, December 11, 2011

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Following up on recent news of Digital Manga licensing Starry☆Sky, the company’s website has now been updated to show the series is being released under their Digital Manga Publishing line. Originally the site’s listing had the title being published in their boys’ love imprint, June.

Starry☆Sky now joins Digital Manga’s other series such as Itazura na Kiss and The Beautiful Skies of Houou High, which seem much more suiting company to this series about a girl pined after by a group of attractive young men in private school. The book’s cover image has also been replaced with a new look sporting the recent DMPBooks cover design instead of the ‘Yaoi Manga’ sidebar it was posted with previously.

Fans of the series were confused over what seemed like Digital Manga’s original decision to release the title as a boys’ love series. Whether a mistake or a change of heart, this switch-up looks like a much better fit and should appease Starry☆Sky‘s fans and those who like having faith they’ll get boys’ love in their BL.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, DMP, Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – December 7, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, December 7, 2011

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It’s like Christmas come early with release weeks like this – a whole bunch of must-have manga titles! My top pick goes to Princess Knight (Vol. 02) but Blood Alone (Vol. 05) and a slew of Viz Media titles aren’t far behind it.

You can read the full list of titles shipping out this week, along with my usual random synopsis and price-noting, over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

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Categories: News, Release Lists
Tags: Kodansha Comics, Manga, Seven Seas, Vertical Inc, Viz Media

Review: Wandering Son (Vol. 01)

By Shannon Fay on Sunday, December 4, 2011

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Manga-ka: Shimura Takako
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: July 2011

Synopsis: “The fifth grade. The threshold to puberty, and the beginning of the end of childhood innocence. Shuichi Nitori and his new friend Yoshino Takatsuki have happy homes, loving families, and are well-liked by their classmates, but they share a secret that further complicates a time of life that is awkward for anyone: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy.”

What makes Wandering Son work is its slow-burn pace and calm atmosphere. It takes a delicate subject – transgender children- and explores it slowly and carefully. Much like its characters, it moves at its own pace, easing the reader into the characters’ lives.

The ‘wandering son’ of the title could refer to either of the main characters. Shuichi is a young boy drawn to girl’s clothes and dresses. Yoshino is a tomboy who likes to wear her big brother’s old high school uniform. When they end up in the same grade five class, the two become friends even before they find out eachothers’ secret.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Fantagraphics, Manga

Review: Tokyo Mew Mew (Vol. 01)

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, December 1, 2011

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Author: Reiko Yoshida
Manga-ka: Mia Ikumi
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: October 2011

Synopsis: “On her first date with the cutest boy in school, Ichigo is exposed to a mysterious ray that meshes her DNA with that of the endangered Iriomote wildcat. She soon discovers that she has developed super-human abilities and enhanced agility. Her new powers are put to the rest when she leads a team with four other girls, each endowed with special abilities of their own. Together, they must now protect the Earth from an alien menace known as Deep Blue.”

Tokyo Mew Mew comes on the coat tails of Kodansha’s release of Sailor Moon, offering another magical girl story for those eager for another fix. The premises between the series are similar – five girls are all granted special powers that transform them into warriors sporting cute little short-skirt outfits and oddly worded attack names. They’re charged with the duty of protecting the Earth from evil, which in Tokyo Mew Mew‘s case is a group of aliens out to destroy the Earth’s environment by possessing animals.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Kodansha Comics, Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – November 30, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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It’s Wednesday! And the fifth Wednesday in the month too, that’s an extra week of new comics. You can see the list of new manga out over at my On The Shelf article for Otaku USA.

The big titles out today are the long-awaited new volume of MPD Psycho from Dark Horse, and the seventeenth and final volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical Inc. I may very well cry when I finish that one – it’s never easy when one of your favourites comes to an end!

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Categories: On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Black Jack, Dark Horse, DMP, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Manhwa, Osamu Tezuka, Otaku USA, Vertical Inc, Yen Press

Review: Gunslinger Girl – Omnibus (Vol. 03)

By Victoria K Martin on Tuesday, November 29, 2011

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Manga-ka: Yu Aida
Publisher: Seven Seas
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: October 2011

Synopsis: “There is a secret counter-terrorism unit for the Italian government known only as the “Social Welfare Agency.” Its mission: to rescue troubled girls and turn them into heartless cyborg assassins using the latest advances in cyber-technology. The newest inductee into the Agency is a second generation cyborg called Petrushka, who may be the Agency’s most powerful operative yet. Petrushka is given a formidable trial-by-fire mission, together with her handler Allesandro, to foil an assassination attempt. Can she prove she’s got what it takes in an impossible mission she may not even survive?”

Gunslinger Girl fans, myself included, have waited a very long time for the arrival of this book. The series license was once held by ADV, who started publishing the book, stopped, started again, and then had the whole manga section fold, placing the series in indefinite limbo. Thankfully, Seven Seas stepped in to pick the title up; however, getting to new material took quite some time as the first six volumes were re-published in two omnibus additions. But finally volumes seven and eight are here, together in the third omnibus, and the question about what happens next can finally be answered.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Manga, Omnibus, Seven Seas

Review: Butterflies, Flowers (Vol. 08)

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, November 27, 2011

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Manga-ka: Yuki Yoshiara
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: November 2011

Synopsis: “Choko Kuze is in a relationship with Masayuki Domoto, her current boss and former servant. Their relationship has withstood interference from the Senior Director as well as Masayuki’s ex-girlfriend. But now Choko is facing an arranged marriage by her father, and Masayuki is doing nothing to stop it…?!”

I can see how this ending is supposed to signify some big turn of the table, a testament to how far the couple has come. That Choko is the one who spends page after page chasing after Masayuki with marriage papers was definitely something, showcasing that their relationship, after seven volumes of ‘growing’, is still decided by one side’s incessant demands. Could it be they haven’t really come very far at all..!?

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Butterflies Flowers, Manga, Shoujo Beat, Viz Media

Where’s the (Boys) Love – Digital Manga Licenses Starry Sky

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, November 25, 2011

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Digital Manga’s newsletter came out yesterday, re-confirming their license of My Cute Crossdresser and listing another title, Starry☆Sky. The first volume of the series is due out in April 2012.

Starry☆Sky is a manga series based on a visual novel game of the same name published in Japan. It’s one of several manga adaptations of the story which follows a girl entering a private school that was until recently an all boys’ school. Over time she makes friends with a group of boys who’re based on the Western zodiac and romance ensues.

Starry☆Sky seems like an odd choice for releasing as a June book, similar to what I thought when I first saw My Cute Crossdresser licensed for Project-H. My confusion wasn’t helped by the genre listing of ‘shonen’ on Digital Manga’s website. This manga series was originally released in a magazine, Comic B’s-Log Kyun, that publishes shoujo series. Some of them look to have some BL-implication – such as a version of Togainu no Chi – but none implicitly boys’ love in nature. With that in mind, plus that it’s based on a shoujo girl-is-surrounded-by-a-harem-of-young-men-who-could-love-her game, is Starry☆Sky being published under their June line for actual BL content or just having a high pretty boy count?

Update (11/12/2011): Digital Manga has switched Starry☆Sky‘s imprint to DMP.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, DMP, June, Manga

Review: Afterschool Charisma (Vol. 04)

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, November 24, 2011

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Manga-ka: Kumiko Suekane
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: October 2011

Synopsis: “St. Kleio Academy is a very exclusive school. To enroll, a student must be the clone of a historical figure. Wolfgang Mozart, Queen Elizabeth, Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, Adolf Hitler – with such a combustible student body, it’s only a matter of time before the campus explodes! – Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) – British nurse who made tremendous contributions to the modern nursing system.”

The violence and dark drama of volume three really surprised me, and to my surprise yet again, volume four has taken things a step even further. More characters lose their lives in the attack against St. Kleio Academy and more come face to face with other clones. As the previous generation of clones goes up against their newest incarnations, their individual motivations are a mystery. Some feel they’re doing them a favour, others seek their salvation. The big questions remain – who brought all these clones together and what is their true goal? And what does that mean for the survivors?

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Afterschool Charisma, Manga, Viz Media