Once more, it is January, so it’s time to talk about the past few months of manga. I had a few car repairs, so not a great time for my wallet overall. That said, looking back on the stack of books from this season, I clearly got more than I remembered. I have new books right now that I’d like to read, an all-star group, and I can’t until I finish this and have my opinions on the previous releases on paper. So let’s get started!
I want to start by addressing Coffee Moon by Mochito Bota. I have raved about this book, and I stand by all my praise for the first couple volumes. The third came with an unexpected turn, from a darker Groundhog Day sort of story into straight-up magical girls, and I thought there was time for the story to reorient itself in volume four. We saw enough to get our bearings, and then, one would expect, we’d slow down for a couple chapters at least to talk about what this new status quo means. All the characters have to face “dilemmas” in their lives before they can claim control of their apparent superpowers, so it would make sense that we see each character go on a slow, in-depth journey as they face down their dilemmas, right? Maybe not as long as Pieta’s, but a whole volume on average. We don’t get that. Volume four dives straight into the middle of full-on war between groups of magical girls with agendas we don’t learn, and characters are getting powers left and right. It’s not simply that the story changed so dramatically from what came before, it’s that the overall quality of storytelling has fallen. It’s scrambling around to try and sell a dramatic battle story with an art style that’s not well-matched, having done no set-up for the stakes. There are glimmers of the original charm, but glimmers are not lighting this room up. I still recommend reading the opening arc, which comprises the first two volumes and the first chapter of volume three, but I don’t think the series is currently worth reading past that point, and likely won’t be moving forward. It’s really very disappointing.
My Dress-Up Darling by Shinichi Fukuda continues to knock it out of the park! So, to start, I want to say that I was surprised with the reveal of where we’d seen Akari before. I looked through the whole series, looking for any hint in the mentions of other cosplayers, and I found her way back in volume one, when Marin is first showing cosplay accounts to Gojo. Akari is the one with the sword, who Marin said makes her own props! So yes, I was very surprised that she was “supposed to” be found way more recently. Boss move on Fukuda’s part to not let us hear the story about why Akari dislikes Marin, too, when we see where she told Gojo. Coffin looks like a really cool game, and will make an excellent shoot for them. Ten is a great volume! This series will continue to be really strong for however long Fukuda wants to draw it.
The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This by Takashi Ikeda came to an end with volume four, and it was a good enough ending. I still say check out the series, but I do have some thoughts. Most importantly, this volume sees the introduction of a new character. In the last volume. Already not a smart idea. She’s a trans teenager who’s only now coming to terms with her identity; that’s actually the main thrust of her storyline. Her story is pretty good, and I like her quite a bit. However, it feels both too short for itself and too long for the rest of the book. Given the nature of this slice of life story, one would expect that her deciding to embrace being a woman would be the start of her journey, not the end; it feels like a midpoint moment here, and she’s in the mix with cameos throughout the rest of the volume. Her story also doesn’t directly tie into the two main threads of the series, since she has no romantic interests and isn’t related to the main characters through work. The main characters aren’t even that invested in her journey, you know? If she were to be incorporated into the story, her own niche would have to be carved out, and it hasn’t been; her story feels out of place and unfinished. At the same time, there are a few side characters whose stories get no closure by the finale, and one can surmise that we’d have gotten something for them had we not spent several chapters on a new person. Too little, too much, too sweet to simply trash. The endpoint also isn’t the best. Throughout the story, Wako and Ellie have been such a solid couple, the idea that they’d get married eventually isn’t a dramatic reveal. They’re basically married from the start, they just hadn’t yet prepared themselves to make it official. The story wasn’t trending towards them getting over their last few humps. They just lackadaisically propose the idea, and then we don’t actually see them get married. The story ends with them moving into a new apartment, one assumes in an area of Tokyo where they can get married, but we don’t see a marriage. Despite these critiques, you should know that it’s still overall a fun and sweet book, just like the rest of the series. I just don’t think this is the best landing it could have made.
Bow your heads for a reverent moment of silence. This most recent volume five of School Zone Girls by Ningiyau came with a somber announcement. Ningiyau has decided to put the series on an indefinite hiatus while she pursues other stories. According to the message, she didn’t know how many more years it would take to complete SZG, and there are other subjects she wants to work on. She intends to come back to the series in the future. While I’m going to be very sad to not have more new School Zone Girls in the near future, I’m very happy that Ningiyau chose a hiatus over prematurely ending the series. Because I get it; you can hate something you love if you have to focus on it over other priorities for so long. I’m also very happy to hear that there’s still so much more left in the story, potentially! Because let me tell ya, volume five is the best of the series so far! This is a book that only gets better over time, from its humble roots as a fun romcom hiding deeper drama into this full-blown, soul-searching, character-intensive comedy. Right at the end, we get everything flipped on its head for an amazing cliffhanger to kick off this hiatus, and I’m here for it! I wish Ningiyau the best of luck, I highly recommend you pick up this book and literally anything else with her name on it that comes out in the future, and I will be waiting ever-so impatiently for the return of School Zone Girls!
Volume three of Cinderella Closet by Wakana Yanai came out earlier in the season, and it got me so excited that I’m dying looking at an unread volume four on my desk. Mainly for the ending, where we finally see some light for Hikaru. Especially through this volume it’s gotten hard not to yell at Haruka for being so blind to their feelings. That’s the biggest thing I’m looking forward to. We also got introduced to a new character, an ex of Kurotaki’s, and she’s going to be a blast. We have some real romantic conflict brewing in the future. This remains a very sweet and endearing story, and it looks like things are starting to heat up. Check it out while it’s still early.
SHY by Bukimi Miki had two volumes this fall, and it’s going pretty well. They’re definitely making the softer, more sentimental thing work while keeping the superhero action at the forefront. We see the Russia storyline come to an end in volume four, and the beginning of a new challenge with ninja in volume five. The cast is expanding in a healthy and organic way, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the current team is going to handle the next fight. I’m also really excited for the bonus story at the end of volume five, because it’s about our new character, Ai, teases Iko about how close she is with Teru, to play up romantic tension. Since Iko is a little out of focus for not going into the fights and all of the conversations in this series are so heartfelt as to sound a little romantic, I wasn’t clear if Miki was going for Iko as romantic interest. I’m happy to get that kind of confirmation. So anyways, this is a good and sweet superhero story focused on the emotional damage of the world, rather than the physical, and it’s well worth reading.
We got a new volume for both Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid by Coolkyoushinnjya and the spin-off Fafnir the Recluse by Nobuyoshizamurai this fall, and it’s a great moment of contrast for me. I’ve been following Dragon Maid for a long time, and I’ve been really into the Elma and Fafnir spin-offs, as well. When Dragon Maid is good, it’s really good; it can remain a fun gag comedy while also building out great individual moments and larger dramatic storylines for the characters. But when it’s bad, it’s also pretty bad. As we’ve seen in this series and in others by Cool, most notably Ojojojo, he’s capable of some really good, affecting storytelling with rich characters, but he just as often sets that aside to draw and talk about boobs, like with Mononoke Sharing. The fact that he chose to draw all but one of the adult women in Dragon Maid with oversized breasts is the least interesting thing about the story, and the clumsy way he handles the sex “comedy” and has women characters talk about their breasts is really sleazy and painful. It’s easy for some to excuse this sort of thing as appealing to young boys, but let’s face it: It’s not hard to find boobs in this world, and it’s not the series author’s job to supply fans with their erotic fantasies unless that author is making romance or erotica. Coming off of the dramatic, romantic, polyamorous love story for Tohru and Elma into several chapters of Cool finding a flimsy excuse to draw breasts is really disappointing. There’s also this whole transphobic thing with the Holy Sword that nearly made me stop reading the book. Contrast that with the newest volume of Fafnir the Recluse, and we see a spin-off author who knows how to tell funny stories in the vein of the original work and maintain the core traits we like about these characters, all while charting a separate, relatable course in the life of two adult nerds. Elma’s Office Lady Diaries by Ayami Kazama is similarly good, and does boob jokes well, when appropriate. It’s strange to think that the spin-offs are more on the ball than the original series, at least in some volumes. Makes me want to pick up Kanna’s Daily Life again; volume 13 of Dragon Maid is making me feel foolish for dismissing it. At this point, it’s large enough and expansive enough as a franchise (not merely one series), I’m not sure I would recommend diving straight in, knowing how rough the waters get with the main series. But it has some great moments, and the spin-offs are genuinely good, and you need to read the main series to get them, so…
Dandadan by Yukinobu Tatsu continues to be among the best books on the market right now. It took me a moment to really warm up to Jiji, because he’s so aggressively weird that it’s hard to take him seriously. In the end, he really is a great guy, and that shines through loud and clear in the battle with the Kito Clan. The Kito Clan are great villains, by the way. They’re so fun and are such powerful representations of the corruption of power. The bonus story included in volume five is pretty great, too. I’m always deeply impressed with how effectively Tatsu can put together these complete nonsense visuals and gimmicks and still tell such an emotional and affecting story. He’s a real master of these times on the rise. Volume six is staring daggers into me right now, too.
Kowloon Generic Romance by Jun Mayazuki is another of the best books out on the market right now, with volume five further cementing its status. It’s honestly hard to come up with new praise for this book, because it’s so good that most of what I can say about it is that it’s so, so good. Through series antagonist Hebinuma, we’re slowly learning more about what’s going on, while characteristically finding more questions than answers. Reiko is moving closer to a place of confrontation with her past self, Yaomay is quickly becoming my favorite character with her fiercely loyal friendship, and Kudou is getting more suspicious by the second. On every level, this is a masterpiece, and you really need to check it out now. You’ll scarf down the whole series in a day.
I checked out The Ice Guy and the Cool Girl by Miyuki Tonogaya on the recommendation of coworkers who really liked the anime. It’s a good book. It’s a sweet and simple romcom about a snow spirit guy who works in an office alongside a put-together, aloof woman. The chapters are all very short and move fast, but overall you get enough from each of the characters to learn about them and stay invested. I will say that I’d have liked more time at the start of the series seeing how cool the “cool girl” is, like just a chapter or two specifically on that topic, but it’s not missing much. Two volumes are out right now, so get them like some kind of cold, sweet treat you’d eat quickly as a refreshment.
Run On Your New Legs by Wataru Midori came to and end with volume five. It’s still overall a good series, and something worth reading. It’s about a boy, Kikuzato, who lost his leg before high school started, derailing his dreams of being a soccer star; he then comes into contact with a prosthetist who wants to help him get into para-athletics. The pandemic happened partway through the creation of this series, so Midori decided to incorporate it into the story, altering whatever plans he had before. I think it’s a bold and brave choice to make, given that most fiction from the time of the pandemic won’t directly reflect that reality; it’s fiction, and most authors won’t change how they tell their stories just because something big happened in real life, which is fair. That said, I’m not sure it entirely paid off for this series. You can tell the pandemic plot was put together more on the fly than the rest of the story, and that does affect the reading experience. The final volume does stick the landing, though. It’s a good, heartfelt ending, the one that was originally planned and that wasn’t derailed by the swerve in the plot.
Lightning round! Crossplay Love: Otaku x Punk by Toru had another good volume, except for how much Yuuma was staking his (Yuuma’s current pronoun) flag as a boy. Like, Toru, you wrote an obvious trans character. Let us have this. Yuuma could still come around, of course, so let’s see. Kemono Jihen by Sho Aimoto was pretty good. We had a fun volume-long battle with a pair of foxes, so I’m looking forward to the war with Inari even more. Dinosaur Sanctuary by Itaru Kinoshita is a great book. When we met all the department heads, I was worried there might be too many to go through, but I think it’ll work out alright. Dark Gathering by Kenichi Kondo is pretty darn great, too. We’re ramping up into the next phase of the story, and it looks very exciting. This is an amazing book, and you’ll wanna get on board now. Delinquent Daddy and Tender Teacher by Tama Mizuki had a good second installment. I really liked how effectively Mizuki created these subtle conflicts from the inner lives of the characters. The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated by Wakame Kombu is aging well. We’re seeing real signs of Jahy’s growth as a character now, and it’s great. Now that she knows Saurva’s name, I’m hoping she can be integrated into the main cast more. Blade of the Moon Princess by Tatsuya Endo is good. It’s by the Spy x Family guy, after all. It definitely feels like an earlier work, but it’s got the same charm and sensibilities as an action-comedy as his modern work. Candy and Cigarettes by Tomonori Inoue is a blast, as always. We’ve gotten beyond the Great Chain and into some fun new territory. They really could keep making this book forever. The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses by Koume Fujichika had two volumes out this season, and it’s maintaining its edge. I was a little worried how much longer it would last, because it was starting to feel drawn out, but the seventh volume pulled things forward with a really mature moment for Kaede. Helck by Nanaki Nanao is still up there with the best of them. This volume was less immediately somber than the last, to keep the war action moving nicely, and we got the most amazing couple chapters from Asta the master spy, who’s the absolute best. Tsugumi Project by ippatu is moving along well. It’s definitely an interesting book, and we’re learning a lot about Tsugumi that makes her more likeable. Leon will need her presence, as his weariness is making him too distrustful as time wears on. The world of this story is getting more interesting over time, as well. Oh, I almost forgot that we got another volume of Night of the Living Cat by Hawkman and Mecha-Roots, and it’s so great. Just a lot of fun, as we see grown men, “the toughest around,” getting trapped in a mall and dramatically shooting water at cats. It’s a perfect book.
Over on the Shonen Jump app, we got Green Green Greens by Kento Terasaka recently, and I’ve been pretty into it. It’s a golf manga. Our main character, Haku, starts out not wanting to stand out from the crowd, and gets a wakeup call from a golfing classmate named Oga. He takes up golf on a whim to see what it’s like to actually try for something, for once, and gets hooked. It’s fun, the characters are enjoyable, and the art is pretty top notch. This book makes golf look really impressive and exciting. It’s just five chapters old right now, so check it out.
While we’re talking about Jump, I want to address Nue’s Exorcist by Kota Kawae. I previously endorsed it as a fun supernatural adventure, and I really wanna talk about what’s turned me off from it. So, the protagonist Yajima doesn’t have a lot going for him. He’s boring and not that good and isn’t particularly good-looking, but he tries hard. For a while, that was working in the story’s favor. But they’ve taken it a step too far, for me. They introduced his sister as a member of his squad, and when they were able to reconnect, she went out of her way to say that they’re not blood related. It’s the kind of thing you’d only put in a story because you plan on having the siblings get together romantically. The weird future incest romance that implies is immediately emphasized by another girl freaking out about the revelation, because “Yajima’s so close with a girl he’s not blood related to.” So like, first off, I’m not playing the “how related is too related” game with any story; family is family, which means incest is incest. I see this sort of plotline far too often, and it’s really annoying. Second, Yajima has nothing going for him. He kinda sucks, except that his heart’s in the right place. Besides the part where the stacked Nue hangs off him (while disguised as his sister, actually), he had two love interests before this; three is a harem, and he can’t pull it off. I’m just not buying it. I don’t care if it sounds silly that’s what’s straining credulity here, but I think a protagonist with a harem should at least be cute and have a second redeeming quality. Harems are often kinda gross anyway, and this one includes a sibling, so it’s officially out for me.
Let’s also talk about some movies here. I was really impressed with Butcher’s Crossing, based on the book of the same name. It’s a historical fiction starring Nicholas Cage, which is why I went to see it. I didn’t hear anything about the movie, and then I saw Nic on a poster, and I decided to give it a try. The movie takes place in the late-1800’s, when the buffalo population was already nearly hunted to extinction for fur and railroads. It follows the son of a preacher from Boston who drops out of Harvard to go West and join a buffalo hunt for a taste of the real world and nature, like he could never get back home. He joins up with Nic Cage’s character, a skilled hunter so obsessed with getting back to a remote field in Colorado to hunt the last true buffalo herd that he’s willing to risk his and everyone else’s life. It’s a powerful story, it’s well-shot, I enjoyed the performances, and Nic Cage is in it, reminding us that he can be one of the greatest actors around if he wanted to be.
Freelance is pretty fun. It’s an action-comedy starring John Cena, Allison Brie, and Juan Pablo Raba. Cena is a former soldier who was drummed out of the military due to an injury and feels bereft of meaning in his law practice. He takes up a bodyguard job from an old friend to take Brie’s character, a washed-up journalist looking to get her name out of the mud, into a fictional country ruled by Raba, an eccentric dictator. While they’re there, there’s a coup, and they’re on the run. There are elements of the story that don’t mix together very well, but overall it’s a fun movie. The characters sell it.
I saw It’s a Wonderful Knife the day my movie theatre lit on fire, so I still haven’t seen the end of it. As the title implies, it’s a horror-comedy based on the classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life, wherein our main character, a young woman who killed a killer local real estate mogul, wishes she had never been born, and is transported to a world where she hadn’t been there to stop the killer. She teams up with the class weirdo to put a stop to the continued killings that have happened since. It’s a lot of fun and has the right balance of drama, gore, and comedy. There are things I can’t know about the movie without the ending, but I’ll say check it out.
I also saw Silent Night, speaking of nontraditional Christmas movies. It’s an action movie by John Woo starring Joel Kinnaman, about a man who trains to get revenge on a gang for killing his son on the previous Christmas. The movie isn’t completely silent, as they make use of radios for people to tell information to the audience, but there’s only like two lines of dialogue spoken by characters on screen. So mostly visual storytelling and character work for Joel and the rest of the cast, which makes you pay attention to everything in a way you wouldn’t otherwise. It’s by the John Wick guy, so you know the action was good. You really feel how hard those hits are landing. There’s a thing with a detective that I don’t quite get the point of, but you know, it’s a pretty engrossing and entertaining Christmas action movie.
Godzilla Minus One is seriously the best movie of the year. Regardless of how much I love Godzilla already, it would be one of my favorites of the year. It’s a really powerful antiwar movie following a kamikaze pilot who didn’t complete his mission as he rebuilds his life in postwar Japan. I’ve talked about this already, so I don’t want to belabor the point. This is truly an amazing movie that tells a story we need to hear now more than ever, it shows the real potential of giant monster movies, and it’s the blockbuster that beat all the others this year while costing one-twentieth the budget. Go see it.
I most recently saw Anyone But You with Sidney Sweeney and Glen Powell. I ended up seeing it twice, because it was on at the time of day I wanted to see a movie. It’s a play on Much Ado About Nothing, which you can tell from all the quotes from the play throughout the movie. Sidney is a law student who has a wonderful one-night fling with stock trader Glen, which is followed by a misunderstanding that grows into hate. They’re brought back together when Sidney’s sister gets engaged to Glen’s friend, and the wedding party decides to force the two to make up so they don’t ruin the wedding. It’s fun and cute. The actors have good chemistry, and it has enough intelligence behind it that it doesn’t feel like a series of empty tropes.
While I’m here, not to make this too long, I have to tell you to check out Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV+. I have mixed feelings about the direction of the Legendary Godzilla movies, but believe me when I say this show is the best part of it. You don’t need to know the movies for it, really – I think they do a good job of explaining what you need to know – because it’s mostly a family-centered suspense thriller. We start with the meeting of two siblings, Cate and Kentaro, who didn’t know their father had a second family. That father, Hiroshi, disappeared after Godzilla attacked San Francisco. They end up going on a worldwide adventure that draws them deeper into the secret world of Monarch, the organization that monitors “titans” in this world. It’s a seriously great show. Can’t wait to renew my Apple subscription when the second season comes out.
So that’s it for this winter. I ended up with more than I anticipated, what with the big Christmas shopping I was able to do. Like I said, I already have a small stack drilling holes into me right now to get started for the spring. Because I haven’t been able to go to the store every week, I also haven’t been looking at the release calendars lately, so I’m not sure what to expect in the coming months. Given that we’re entering the retail slump, I don’t think it’s worth anticipating which books I’ll fail to catch up on in the future. There’s a lot I’d love to get back into, and a lot of current stuff I need to stay on top of. I’ll see you in a few months!
Life in the Gutters 