Natsume's Book of Friends

Welcome to Kuriousity

News, reviews and features with a focus on manga, self-published works and a Canadian perspective. Enjoy fulfilling your Kuriousity!

SITE RETIRED - Thank you for the years of support and readership!

Posts Tagged Manga

Swag Bag – Gotta Catch ‘Em All

I still haven’t completely finished unpacking what I bought at the recent New York Anime Fest (or finished my write-up about it for that matter – eep!) but that certainly hasn’t stopped me from my weekly trips to Strange Adventures for all that’s new, shiny and on sale.

First off, I couldn’t help but pick up Dark Horse’s omnibus edition of Cardcaptor Sakura. I already own the floppies, Mixx tradebacks and Tokyopop editions of the series but this one was too shiny and high quality to ignore. If you’ve been looking to replace some old copies or haven’t had the pleasure of owning one of the most adorable and magical manga series ever made, then you owe it to yourself to pick this edition up. It’s printed on high-quality paper, has nice lettering work and a thus-smooth translation plus it’s stuffed with full colour illustration inserts. This is a beautiful book indeed!

Next I spelunked through the stack of new Yen Press books out this week and decided on the third volume of Black Butler. This series has so much fan-service that is absolutely, perfectly and deliberately tailored to me. Or at least that’s how it feels sometimes and judging by it’s time on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list, I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

Next to enter my awaiting arms was the omnibus edition of Strawberry Panic which looks super pretty. I’ve heard good things so hopefully I am rewarded! I’m really falling in love with these omnibus editions, they’re fantastic.

Viz Media had a whole bunch of new books to choose from and there seemed no solution other than picking up most of them. For a new series, I picked up March Story (Vol. 01) and continuing a personal-favourite, Pokemon Adventures (Vol. 09). Naturally I had to make sure I nabbed a copy of 20th Century Boys (Vol. 11) while there was still one remaining and I was happy to see the second volume of Kingyo Used Books.

And rounding off my purchase of new releases and a new edition of a series I already own, I bought volume of boys’ love classic, Kizuna. It’s another beautiful omnibus edition of a great series. I will be enjoying some nostalgic reading this week for sure!

Then there was the discount shelf, full of snazzy and affordable little surprises to round out my purchases of the day. I picked up the first two volumes of Aegis from NetComics. I don’t own many of their books but have bought a number lately and liked the majority (though I have my share of complaints about their lettering – pet peeve of mine!). That said though, the lettering in Aegis actually looks quite a bit tidier than the others of theirs I’ve read so good start! Apparently it’s “a heart-thobbing sci-fi epic that echoes Lord of the Flies!“.

Lastly I got La Corda d’Oro (Vol. 08) and Togainu no Chi (Vol. 02), both of which I felt sort of lukewarm about prior volumes but I’m always up for giving series another book to impress me! I had opposite thoughts on them both – La Corda d’Oro has fantastic art but a meh story, where as I really disliked the art of this Togainu no Chi manga but like the original story. We’ll see where these volumes lead!

And to top it all off, though not manga, I had to buy a copy of UDON’s Vent anthology. It’s a collection of artwork from their company’s collection of contributing artists and it’s gorgeous.

Those were my purchases this week – what about yours?


Review: Kobato (Vol. 03)

Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo
Kobato (Vol. 03)

Manga-ka: CLAMP
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: September 2010

Synopsis: “Kobato’s mission to fill up her magic bottle might just be on the backburner. It seems that the members of Yomogi Kindergarten’s staff are no strangers to wounds of the heart, but despite Kobato’s efforts, she’s no closer to healing either Sayaka-sensei or the ever-solemn Fujimoto-kun! Moreover, the center is still on the verge of being shut down by unscrupulous gangster types! Leaving Kobato to her own devices, Ioryogi-san meets with some odd characters from his past and uses his otherworldly connections to investigate Yomogi.”

Kobato’s quest continues! She’s still out to fill a jar with the healed hearts of those she’s helped, yet I can’t help but notice her accomplishment level still sits so slow, it leaves one to wonder how long this series could go. Currently her big project remains the daycare at which she’s been given work, an establishment with a loving clientele but a looming shadow above. Unfortunately while the potential for progression and drama is there, the will to carry it seems more lacking. Choppy chapters and a serious case of far-too-much-plush-dog left me a bit cold.

Read more…


Review: Octopus Girl (Vol. 01)

Reviewer: Shannon Fay
Octopus Girl (Vol. 01)

Manga-ka: Toru Yamazaki
Publisher: Dark Horse
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: April 2006

Synopsis: “Teenage monsters lose their hearts and heads in a relentlessly gory collection of dark humor and horror! Carving a comical niche in modern horror manga, Toru Yamazaki’s Octopus Girl serves up the most disgusting dishes of heartbreak and revenge found on land or at sea. Have a side order of nervous laughter with your main course of bloodcurdling fear, some gore with your teen angst, and some killer instincts with your kawaii!”

Octopus Girl is a horror-comedy with a sense of humour as black as a smoker’s lung. It is gross, disgusting, and morbid – the manga equivalent of a thousand dead baby jokes. But it is also alternately hilarious and horrifying, playing the different elements against each other in a way that enhances it all.

Read more…


ANN Review: Your Love Sickness

Your Love Sickness

I guess it’s more a good sign than not that I’m having trouble keeping up with my reviews being posted over at AnimeNewsNetwork, right? You can check out my thoughts on a new boys’ love short story collection, Your Love Sickness.

In short: I really liked this one. So did Shannon, which made me happy. For me this artist’s work screamed ‘Naono Bohra!’, who is one of my favourite manga creators. The stories were all pretty good in this one and the art was lovely – pretty but not pretty-boy kind of pretty. Okay, maybe a little pretty but still mostly masculine. As a one-shot this is a nice low-risk purchase too, so for that and all reasons already given in my review, I recommend it happily to fans of boys’ love.


13 Days of Halloween: Kindaichi Case Files

Shannon, here – Halloween is my favourite holiday and to honour it I’m counting down 13 manga throughout the month that I think best capture the Halloween spirit. They aren’t all horror manga, as to me Halloween is about more than scares: it’s about a sense of fun and wonder. It’s about discovering that there may be more to this world than meets the eye. So with that in mind, there’s everything on this list from action-packed shounen to romantic-comedy to children’s manga to some lock-the-doors-and-leave-the-lights-on horror. (See all 13 Days of Halloween so far…)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

8. Kindaichi Case Files

Kindaichi Case Files is one of two manga on this list that has no supernatural elements to it whatsoever. In fact, one of the major points of the manga is that there is a logical explanation for everything. Sure, it might seem like some supernatural creature (like a snow demon, or a ghost, or Michael Jackson) is running around causing trouble, but by the end of the volume the main character lays out the clues and explains how a human culprit was able to pull the whole thing off.

The manga is a mystery series that follows Hajime Kindaichi, a high school slacker who is actually a genius when it comes to solving crimes. It’s a good thing too, because the people around him tend to drop like fruit flies. Where ever Kindaichi goes, be it a fancy hotel, a secluded island, or an elite prep school, people die by the boatload. It’s amazing this kid gets invited anywhere.

Because it’s so firmly grounded in the real world, Kindaichi Case Files may not seem like an obvious Halloween manga. But the series is great at creating a creepy atmosphere and tense moments. Also, each case is basically the manga version of a slasher film, where victims are picked off one by one by a seemingly omnipotent killer. Slasher films have been a staple of Halloween since, well, ‘Halloween‘, so it seems fitting that the manga equivalent of the genre should make the list.

A good overview of the series can be found here at Manga Worth Reading.


Review: Bokurano Ours (Vol. 01-02)

Reviewer: Andre
Bokurano (Vol. 01)

Manga-ka: Moiro Kitoh
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: February 2009

Synopsis: “Saving the world is hard. Saving yourself is even harder. One summer, 15 kids innocently wander into a nearby seaside cave. There they meet a strange man who invites them to play an exciting new video game. Sounds like fun, right? This game, he explains, pits a lone giant robot against a horde of alien invaders. All they have to do is sign a simple little contract. The game stops being fun when the kids find out the true purpose of their deadly pact.”

Mohiro Kitoh’s Shadow Star was an unsettling yet somehow charming series. It combined the wonder of the assorted adorable battle monster anime that populated fandom around the time it debuted in North America, with a dark take on the unpleasant aspects of adolescence as its heroine Shina and her new friend Hoshimaru confronted other teens with decidedly less chipper attitudes and sinister friends of their own. Bokurano continues the strange combination of childhood wonder with the grim nature of humanity that Shadow Star had, this time in the giant robot genre. In some ways, it is a more tranquil series, yet in others just as brutal as Shadow Star.

Read more…


ANN Review: Stepping on Roses (Vol. 03)

If you’re interested in reading my thoughts on a shoujo series that goes past guilty pleasure into just ick, you can check out my review of Stepping on Roses (Vol. 03) over at AnimeNewsNetwork.

It’s always had that hokey harlequin-romance quirk to it but it officially crossed the line in volume three to just flat-out WTFery. Someone put that girl out of her misery already; see to it her brother has a horrible but well-deserved end and let the pretty butler-man appear in some other series consisting of more likable people. Silver-lining: the art is still pretty.


BLU Titles Available for Purchase at eManga

BLU Manga on eManga
As of today Tokyopop and Digital Manga are collaboration buddies and offering a number of Tokyopop’s  BLU boys’ love titles over on Digital Manga’s digital eManga website. You can check out the press release for the details.

There are a bunch of things about this that makes me happy – 1) Manga publishers working together is awesome. 2) BLU titles, which are some of the most expensive out there, are only $5.99 in full on eManga. 3) There’re even a couple of not-yet-in-print titles up there for the extra eager. 4) Even those like me who aren’t too keen on the reading-comics-on-screen option can still find this useful with the Sample feature which makes good use of eManga’s smooth software to test out some titles before buying.


Vertical’s Announcement of No Longer Human ‘Premature’

Vertical has made an announcement on their website today that their license announcement of Furiya Urusama’s No Longer Human was “prematurely disclosed”. The license was originally announced just this past weekend at New York Anime Fest.

“Due to a communication error between the company’s New York and Tokyo offices, the property was falsely presented as slated for publication. While the licensors for this series and Vertical are currently actively in contract negotiations, the North American rights have not been secured. Vertical, Inc. will continue to work with the rights holders for No Longer Human with hopes to properly acquire the license, and it apologizes to all parties involved in this unfortunate and unintentional error.”

This isn’t the first time this has happened with Vertical in particular. News of their acquisition of Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako was out to the public prior to finalizations of the contract after the listing appeared on Amazon and, in an unrelated event, was revealed by a representative at one of their Vertical Vednesday presentations.

Incidents like these always make me wonder – what kind of guidelines do companies generally follow when it comes to proper handling of yet-to-be-finalized titles? For a good while, and still to some point today, it was common place to find out new licenses some time before they were officially announced simply by searching the newest manga additions on sites such as Amazon, RightStuf and AAAAnime. But in some instances it’s even been said the revelation of said titles immediately jeopardizes the license itself. Why then do companies make the thus presumably very risking decision to submit these books to distribution channels so early?

Read more…


13 Days of Halloween: Cowa

Shannon, here – Halloween is my favourite holiday and to honour it I’m counting down 13 manga throughout the month that I think best capture the Halloween spirit. They aren’t all horror manga, as to me Halloween is about more than scares: it’s about a sense of fun and wonder. It’s about discovering that there may be more to this world than meets the eye. So with that in mind, there’s everything on this list from action-packed shounen to romantic-comedy to children’s manga to some lock-the-doors-and-leave-the-lights-on horror. (See all 13 Days of Halloween so far…)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

9. Cowa!

Cowa! is simply adorable. Set in a town where monsters and humans coexist peacefully, it follows Paifu, a kid who’s half-vampire, half-werekoala (that’s right, werekoala). He spends his nights playing with Jose the ghost and fighting his rival, a demon named Arpon. When the monster population starts getting sick from monster flu, Paifu takes it upon himself to find a cure. Paifu and his friends enlist the help of a human named Maruyama, a scary dude who even frightens monsters, and set out into the big bad human world.

In my review from last year I called Cowa! Yotsuba&! with monsters. Both series are sweet and funny and share a childish sense of wonder. As I wrote in my review, “If Halloween is your favourite holiday (or at least in your top three) then this is worth checking out. Cowa! is a cute and funny all ages manga that is all treat, no trick.”

I don’t think I really need to spell out why Cowa! is a Halloween manga, but since that is kind of the point of this list I will do it anyway. Aside from the obvious point that most of the cast is made up of classic monsters, Cowa! really captures how it feels not only to be a kid, but to be a kid on Halloween. The monster kids set out into the world with a sense of excitement and apprehension that is similar to what every kid feels when they set out trick-or-treating for the first time.

To read my full review of Cowa!, go here.


Take me back to the top!