Made in Abyss (rank 2)

Publisher: Seven Seas
Volumes 1-8+ (Ongoing), In Print (Read: 1-8)
Seinen
Genre: Adventure, Body Horror, Horror, Scifi

Summary: An enormous pit called the Abyss lies next to the city of Oosu, and inside is a complex labyrinth of caves so deep and dangerous that no one has ever been to the bottom and survived to tell the tale. Inside the caves are a number of dangers, both from the dangerous creatures that live inside it, as well as an ancient force-field that causes ill effects upon ascending each layer. 

Inside the Abyss lies many tantalizing mysteries of lost technologies called artifacts, which the cave raiders collect and sell. One of these young cave raider trainees, a girl named Rico, wishes to meet her mother, a famous cave raider, who might be at the bottom of the Abyss. One day when exploring the Abyss, she meets a young boy robot who saves her life. She names him Reg since he has lost his memory. Together they go on a journey to the bottom of the Abyss in hopes of finding what they have lost.

Review: Don’t be mistaken by the cute artwork, this is definitely Seinen and for older readers. The story starts out very innocent and like a fun adventure story, but then quickly takes a very dark horrifying turn around volume 3 and then only gets more horrifying after that.

The story has a really fascinating adventure setting that sounds amazing to explore. The Abyss is both beautiful and deadly and it is filled with all sorts of almost magical artifacts that can do amazing things. As well as all sorts of interesting creatures that live inside the Abyss, some harmless, but many deadly and horrifying. And as Rico and Reg get deeper into the depths, they learn more and more of the dark secrets of the Abyss.

Recommended: This unique blend of adventure and horror is a really interesting read so far, and highly recommended. But be aware of the Horror part. Unfortunately this series is coming out really slowly, but at least each volume has a lot happen in each one.

Not Recommended: Please do not give this to children unless you want them to have nightmares.

Age Rating: Older Teen: a lot of horror content of the slowly eaten alive variety, or being corrupted into something else. There’s also a few vaguely inappropriate scenes with child nudity (but only one brief scene that’s really out there)

Mythical Beast Investigator (rank 3.5)

Publisher: Seven Seas
Volumes: 2/2 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Fantasy, Mythical Creatures

Summary: This is a collection of short stories about Ferry, a young girl who is a Mythical Beast Investigator in training. She travels with her protector, a beast named Kushuna, who looks like a rabbit gentleman in a top hat. They are tasked with keeping the peace between humans and magical beasts, and she also tries to educate the populace to understand these creatures instead of fearing them or trying to kill them. 

Review: I really wanted to like this manga because it deals with mythical creatures, but unfortunately it has several glaring issues with it.

First of all, this manga has an annoying inconsistent art style. It has about three different art styles, one a more typical cute manga style, mostly for the girl. Then there is a jagged, dark, shadowy exaggerated style used for some of the creatures, including Kushuna. Lastly a more generic fantasy manga style for the various villagers and etc. in the manga. I would have greatly preferred they had picked one style and stuck with it. The different art styles clash terribly and it looks even worse when they’re all in the same story, and sometimes even on the same page.

Secondly, the other major thing that bothered me was the lack of chemistry between Ferry and Kushuna. They are supposed to be the main characters, and I think the writer was trying to shoot for like a sort of princess and her knight relationship, or maybe more like a priestess and a bodyguard sort of relationship. Instead Ferry comes across as kind of friendly but also impersonal to Kushuna, and meanwhile Kushuna considers her to be absolute perfection and his reason for living. To me, it came across as more creepy and stalker than a protector. 

The Mythical Beasts stories overall were good, but only make up volume one and ⅓ of volume 2. The remainder of the volume 2 deals with Ferry and Kushuna and how they met. The Mythical Beasts stories cover a Wyvern, a very short story about a Basilisk egg, a Mermaid, the Water Horse Eachuisage (aka. Kelpie), and lastly the Cait Sith. I enjoyed these stories but wish they had been more of these and less of the focus on Ferry and Kushuna.

Recommended: TLDR; Overall there are still some good stories here of the mythical beasts stories, but I did feel like they were drowned out by the manga’s insistent focus on Ferry and Kushuna. I would really recommend something else like Ancient Magus’ Bride for more magic and more mythical creatures over this. 

Age Rating: PG

Attack on Titan Anthology (rank 3.5)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 1/1 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Tribute Anthology

Summary: A Western Tribute Anthology of full color American Comic short stories inspired by Attack on Titan.

Under the Surface: A story about the downfall of San Francisco in the Titan Apocalypse in the near future.

Attack on Attack on Titan: One page each gag comedy strips of the original Attack on Titan series.

An Illustrated Guide to the Glorious Walled City: A travel guide to the walled cities done in the style of old Victorian newspapers.

The Titan’s Laugh: a humorous story about killing Titans with bad jokes.

Live and Let Die: A Survey Corps member gets separated from the others and then discovers a group of survivors living outside the safe zone in a network of tunnels. 

Good Dog: A Girl and her Dog escape the Fall of Shiganshina.

Attack on Playtime: A little girl with a pet Titan has it eat all the teachers she doesn’t like.

Skies Above: A lesbian couple seek to escape the walled city through the secret invention of an aeroplane.

Bahamut: a playwright famous for a play where a Titan-shifter eats the one he loves, gets eaten by a Titan-shifter who was his girlfriend.

Attack on Demoncon: some cosplayers cosplaying as Survey Corps members encounter some women cosplaying as Titans. After one of the cosplayers harasses one of the women they fight a mock battle.

Fie Fie Foh: a druidic settlement in old England is regularly attacked by Titans, but keeps them below the cliffs with bait made of human blood. One day their hero forgets to set the bait and their settlement is wiped out.

Memory Maze: an elderly couple living together in a remote area are attacked by a Titan, and it stirs up old memories.

Review: Overall, I felt like a lot of these stories felt they were rushed on a tight deadline, they aren’t bad but not great either.

The best ones IMO, were Memory Maze and Attack on Attack on Titan. Memory Maze has beautiful artwork and the story is very poignant and tragic. Attack on Attack on Titan is a bunch of gag comedy strips and they were all pretty funny, definitely recommended. Lastly I would say two runners up for best story, The Titan’s Laugh and Skies Above were also pretty good.

Recommended: A lot of these stories aren’t going to appeal to manga readers just from the art style alone. After that, a bunch of these stories are underwhelming and some are confusing. But there are a few gems in here that are worth checking out.

Age Rating: PG13: mostly for violence. One lesbian kiss.

Attack on Titan: No Regrets (rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 2/2 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Fighting

Summary: In this Attack on Titan prequel, a young gutter rat Levi, meets Erwin. Along with two of his friends, Furlan and Isabel, they are all recruited for the Survey Corps because of their exceptional skill with stolen 3D maneuver gear. However they have no intention of actually joining the Corps, they just want to steal some papers they could use to negotiate their freedom to live above ground. But before they can steal the papers, they are sent on a dangerous Titan scouting mission. 

Review: This series isn’t bad, but it is a bit frustrating. We get the first meeting between Erwin and Levi, but it goes down pretty much exactly the way you would expect from the description of it in the original Attack on Titan manga. Then things start to heat up on their dangerous mission, and then the series just kind of ends.

It really could have used another volume minimum to show the aftermath of the mission and Levi answering Erwin’s speech instead of just kind of getting back on his horse and getting back to the mission. The absolute loyalty between Erwin and Levi has always been one of my favorite things from the original manga, and I wish it would show more of how that came about.

Lastly, Levi’s friends, his fellow gutter rats are so obviously marked to die, they didn't even bother giving them much backstories or personalities at all, which was annoying. Levi doesn’t make friends easily, it seemed like a lost opportunity to tell us something more about Levi’s story before he joined the Survey Corps.

On the upside, we do get to see some of Levi and Erwin's early conversations, and Levi being a badass. Just wish there had been more.

Recommended: For Attack on Titan fans who want to see Levi and Erwin's first meeting, and first mission together. Overall it did have its moments, but really could have been better too.

Age Rating: PG13, some moderate violence and one implied off-screen rape.

Attack on Titan: Lost Girls (rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 2/2 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Fighting, Mystery

Summary: This Attack on Titan Side Story contains two stories of one volume each.

Volume One follows Annie Leonhart on the eve before her battle with Eren. She trades favors with her roommate, Hitch. In exchange for Hitch covering for her and helping her call in sick the next day, Hitch asks her to take over a small job of looking for a lost girl. At first it seems like a straightforward mission to find the missing daughter of a wealthy merchant, but soon she finds out that the girl, Carly, was involved with something dangerous.

Volume Two follows Mikasa in a dream she has of an alternate timeline. When Mikasa is told by Armin of Eren’s apparent death, she has a strange dream of an alternate timeline where the slave traders that killed her parents were instead killed by a pack of feral dogs before reaching their cabin. She and Eren still become friends, but strange things keep happening that urge her to kill, as if her fate is still trying to take her and Eren on a similar path.

Review: Volume One of Annie’s story was very good, and shows a different side of Annie than what you see in the original manga. It’s told from her point of view, and narrates her thoughts, so this normally very reserved character for once you get to find out what she’s thinking and feeling. The story itself was a solid mystery story too, revealing bit by bit as she pieces together clues and the story has some interesting twists before the truth is revealed.

Volume Two was… odd. The story itself of a dream of an alternate timeline was interesting and yet also very strange. It seemed way too detailed to have been just a daydream and yet there is no other explanation for it except that it is a dream. I guess that it’s supposed to represent her struggle to go on after she thinks Eren is dead, and yet it seems a bit lacking for that somehow. It ends up reading like a sort of destined fate story, since her alternate dream self ends up converging with reality, and her and Eren end up in the same place.

Then, in the end of this series, it wraps up with a clunky ending where Mikasa and Annie meet, both in the past (during training) and in the “present” where Mikasa helps take down Annie.

Recommended: For Attack on Titan fans. All in all, I really enjoyed Annie’s side story and I especially liked that this had a new story with a fresh perspective we haven’t heard before, plus a father and daughter theme that allows Annie to reflect on her own circumstances.

But Mikasa’s story was very strange. It almost felt like it was trying to say something about fate or destiny but it kind of stops before it tells us what any of that story was supposed to mean, and just leaves you wondering.

This manga was originally adapted from a spin-off Novel, which is out in English from Vertical. Someday I might read that and see if it explains Mikasa’s story better. And then I’ll update this review. 

Age Rating: Older Teen: for some drug use, violence and some moderate gore

Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 17/17 (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Fighting, Horror

Summary: In this prequel spinoff to Attack on Titan, Kuklo was born from a half eaten body of his mother that fell out of a Titan’s mouth. Called the son of a Titan, he was treated like a sideshow freak and hated and feared until one day he’s rescued by a young noblewoman, Sharle. She realizes he is human and teaches him about the world. They fall in love and escape together.

Kuklo, determined to wipe out the source of fear that he thinks caused people to treat him as cruelly as they had, wishes to join the Survey Corps and fight the Titans. Sharle is determined to support him anyway she can. Together they get swept into the attempt by a select few to prevent the Survey Corps from being permanently disbanded, through the development and testing of a strategic new device: the 3D maneuver gear!

Review: Overall, this series wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it wasn’t as bad as some of the other spin-offs either.

On the good side, it’s got plenty of interesting things for Attack on Titan fans. It spends a lot of time detailing more of the walled kingdom’s past 55 years before the events of Attack on Titan. It’s got the almost extinct Survey Corps that are at threat of being disbanded because they have no way of killing a Titan. And then goes on to cover events such as the first Titan ever killed by the Survey Corps as well as the discovery of their weak point.

The main plot concerns mostly the development, testing and then training of the 3D maneuver gear, and to a lesser extent also the anti-titan blades and the discovery of iceburst crystal as well. Perhaps of the most interest is the hidden industrial city that manufactures all the weapons and equipment seen in Attack on Titan (AoT).

Kuklo is a lot like young Eren, determined to save humanity from the fear of Titans. Maybe a little too much. He also has the enhanced strength and speed of those like Levi and Mikasa, and yet also lacks training to use his skills to their best advantage until near the end.

For better or worse, this series echoes heavily the early stages of the original manga, when they were having a tough time fighting normal Titans. Some fans really appreciated regular Titans being a fearsome presence again. Personally, I preferred the later anti-Titan strategies that they came up with later, of course those don’t exist yet in this series.

Unfortunately this series suffers from some major issues as well. I think the worst of it is the slow pacing it settles into after the initial strong start. This series really could have easily been 12-15 volumes instead of 17 without losing much at all. While it never quite got as bad as outright filler, many times I would see something take 3-5 pages that really would normally take only 1 page in a normal fast paced Shounen manga. 

I also thought having Xavi, Sharle’s brother, as the main antagonist outside of the Titans and the political enemies of the Survey Corps was… eh. It’s hard to take him seriously when he starts the series beating up Kuklo chained up in the basement and thinking he’s such a tough guy for it. Even if Kuklo was a Titan how much honor is there in beating up a chained and helpless opponent? 

That being said the most stand out character was Sharle, IMO. Once Kuklo decides to join the Survey corps, of course she doesn’t want him to join. But instead of trying to get him to change his mind, she decides to support him in any way she can. She ends up becoming an inventor’s assistant and apprentice blacksmith to help give him the best chance of survival with the best equipment and weapons possible.

All in all, I did enjoy this series, but it doesn’t really stand on its own outside of being an AoT spin-off. There was also not really much depth to it, I can’t imagine reading this series again the way I’ve enjoyed the original Attack on Titan.

Recommended: For Attack on Titan fans interested in the development and other details about the creation of the 3D maneuver gear, the early days of fighting the Titans, and etc. 

Not Recommended: TLDR; It doesn’t really stand on its own as a normal Shounen manga. Read Attack on Titan first before reading this manga, or don’t even bother with it, IMO.

Rating: PG13: a lot of moderately graphic violence and one short attempted but not graphic rape scene. 

The Golden Sheep (rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 3/3 (Complete), In Print
Shoujo (reads like), Seinen
Genre: Friendship, Dreams

Summary: When Tsugu left her hometown, she was just a kid and part of a group of four best friends, with two boys Yuushin, Sora and a girl, Asari. They all cried when she moved away and swore to be friends forever. Now her parents have divorced, she moves back again as a high schooler, only to find out that things have changed while she was gone- her friends are no longer friends. She stops a very depressed Sora from committing suicide and suggests they run away to Tokyo to start new lives. Can they all ever go back to those nostalgic days of being friends again? 

Review: There were many things I felt like this story did well, with the majority of it being around Tsugu. It’s a good coming of age story where she has to accept that as they have been growing up, her relationships have changed with her former friends and also her parents’ divorce has changed her family as well. But even though things change, perhaps the most important things stay the same.

That being said, it was hard to watch former friends be cruel to each other, but it does fit with the story, where they are basically lashing out at each other.

Overall it’s a good story, and I liked the intensity of it. But it also felt a bit lacking somehow. Towards the end especially, I felt that the mangaka was trying to say something about childhood dreams not necessarily being the meaning of life or that they don't need to be the focus of adulthood. But it doesn’t quite come out clearly and I was left wondering what she intended. There were also some hints at romance that are left unresolved.

Technically this is Seinen but it reads more like some sort of Seinen/Shoujo hybrid, bit closer to Shoujo than Seinen though. 

Recommended: Overall, it’s a good story about friendship and growing up. Only so-so about dreams.

Rating: PG13: warning for attempted suicide, bullying and some mildly sexual situations

This mangaka’s other works in English: The Gods Lie and Immortal Rain are much more popular.

Those Summer Days (rank 3.5)

Publisher: Kodansha 
Volumes: 5/5 (Complete), digital eBooks only
Shoujo
Genre: Scifi, Time Travel, Friendship, Romance

Summary: A group of 6 friends meets at their high school reunion 9 years after their graduation to talk about old times. It comes out that back then, Takumi and Tamaki actually both liked each other, but a lie from one of their other friends made it so they never knew about each other’s feelings. There is also someone missing, a 7th friend who should be there, but isn’t.

The next morning they all wake up as 17 year old teenagers again, only with knowledge of the future. Can they change the future? Who keeps sending them threatening texts? Most importantly, can they save Taru from having his accident?

Review: This series is such a shame. It had such an interesting concept and a strong beginning, but it’s marred by contrived plot twists and overall the story just has too many plot holes that don’t make sense. Also Takumi and Tamaki are alright, but the other characters are somewhat flat and unlikable. Somehow things wrap up neatly for an ending, but it wasn’t a very satisfying journey at all.

Recommended: It’s alright, but really could have been way better than it turned out.

Rating: PG-13: some mostly implied prostitution and assault.

The Tipping Point (rank 4)

Publisher: Humanoids
Volumes: 2/2 (Complete eBooks), 1/1 (Complete Book), In Print
Seinen
Short Story Collection

Summary: 13 creators, both manga and western, contribute very very short stories around the theme of a Tipping Point.

Taiyo Matsumoto: Hanako’s Fart: Hanako farts, she blushes and no one notices. Around the world a number of other things happen at the same time.

Emmanuel Lepage: The Awakening: A loner boy at summer camp unintentionally has his first gay awakening.

Atsushi Kaneko: Screwed: A young guy in trouble with the Yakuza tries to figure out where his life went wrong.

John Cassaday: Huckleberry Friend: Huckleberry Finn tries to decide whether to tell the escaped slave Jim’s masters his location, or to commit what he was taught was a sin and let his friend go free. 

Eddie Campbell: Cul-De-Sac: An old man who has lost his cat, walks his blind dog and ponders a street with two dead ends and other wandering thoughts.

Naoki Urasawa: Solo Mission: A man and his wife argue about him going on a dangerous business trip to a third planet in a faraway solar system, but they really need the money for the house and the kid’s college tuition. He goes on the mission, and then a twist.

Bob Fingerman: The Unbeliever: A militant Atheist is sitting in a diner, eating greasy food and arguing about God with his friends when suddenly he finds himself in Hell.

Boulet: I Want to Believe: A man overhears his friends talking about urban legends, chuckles, only to find out they’re all true- all of them.

Paul Pope: Consort to the Destroyer: A half naked woman flees a burning ship, then fights a pirate in a lifeboat, and then jumps into the ocean and fights a shark.

Bastien Vives: The Child: Two astronauts discover a child in a hole and try to rescue him. But it might be a trap.

Keiichi Koike: Fish: A Psychedelic colorful story that follows a fish caught from the ocean.

Frederik Peeters: Laika: Laika, the dog that was sent to space, is back… for revenge.

Katsuya Terada: Tengu: a one page story about a Tengu who challenges a goddess only to land inside a mangaka’s head. 

Review: This graphic novel has a lot of famous comic creators in it, both eastern and western. There’s Naoki Urasawa (Monster, 20th Century Boys fame), Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkon Kinkreet, Ping Pong), Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Bacchus), Boulet (Bouletcorp.com a famous webcomic). And the others are not as famous but respectable.

That being said, basically this collection of short short stories is more about style than story. The mostly full color comics are beautiful and lavishly illustrated, but each story is about ten pages long or less. Some of the stories were interesting, some were funny, others were weird, but for the most part they read more like excerpts or prologues than complete stories. 

For the two most famous mangaka, I would say this, Taiyo Matsumoto: the art is beautiful, but it’s not really a story. It just kind of wanders. And Naoki Urasawa’s story was kind of amusing, but also kind of silly. Neither is their best work.

A surprise stand out was Boulet’s I Want to Believe. It’s short, but very funny. I also recommend his free webcomic to anyone who hasn’t read it yet. (http://english.bouletcorp.com/)

Recommended: TLDR; This is the kind of thing I’d borrow from the library, enjoy the lavish color art, and then I’ll probably forget I ever read it in a couple years.

Rating: PG13: some gore and violence, semi-nudity but nothing terrible.

Dementia 21 (rank 3)

Publisher: Book Loud (eBooks), Fantagraphics (Books, eBooks)
Volumes: 7/7 (Complete eBooks), 2/2 (Complete Omnibuses), In Print
Seinen
Genre: Surreal Comedy, Dark Comedy, Horror, Scifi

Summary: This is a bizarre collection of one chapter each short stories that are centered around Yukie Sakai, a young woman who works as a carer for the elderly. Except each story quickly warps into a surreal, dark comedy as poor Yukie gets stuck in ridiculous and impossible situations. These stories include things such as: a grandma who’s wrinkled, folded skin hides another dimension, apartment death bingo, Santa with dementia, infectious wrinkles, Killer Dentures, a cursed Diaper plague, elderly people battle royale, and many more!

Review: This series really surprised me how funny it was. This mangaka, Shintaro Kago, is most famous for his ero-guro works in Japan, and I tried to read Super-Dimensional Love Gun but got too grossed out and couldn’t finish it. But I might try again after reading this.

These are all short stories with the theme of elderly people and often with dementia. But it’s just the bizarre theme behind a crazy comedy. The short stories are subversively funny and they find humor in a dark concept. If I had to pick a favorite, I thought the story with the psychic grandma who explodes anything she has forgotten to be darkly hilarious. But there were many, many others that were also pretty entertaining too.

The majority of the short stories in this series are surreal/dark comedy, and then a few Horror and Scifi stories are in there as well. Overall the quality of the stories is very consistently original and creative, although it did kind of feel like he started running out of ideas towards the end in volume 7. But overall, very good.

Recommended: If you want to read an absurdist, bizarre dark comedy, this is really better than you'd expect. But if you find the premise distasteful, then you probably won't enjoy it.

Rating: Older Teen: this is more comedy than horror, and is not that graphic at all. But it is twisted. Also, between the 2 releases, the Book Cloud eBooks use Comic Sans and it’s kind of ugly. The Fantagraphics releases OTOH are gorgeous.

Other Works by this mangaka in English: Super-Dimensional Love Gun, (but this is nothing like Dementia 21), Secret Comics Japan (1 story in an Anthology), The Princess of the Never-Ending Castle

Light Lychee Club (rank 3)

Publisher: Vertical
Volumes: 1/1 Omnibus (Complete), In Print
Seinen
Genre: Ero-guro, Horror, Dark Comedy

Summary: Eight Middle School teens including their Leader, Zara, are the members of the Light Lychee Club, a sort of neo-Nazi cult. They kill to steal body parts for their Frankenstein-like creation, named Lychee, that has a mechanical brain like a robot, but survives on Lychee fruits for fuel. Zara, obsessed with ultimate beauty but repulsed by adulthood, wants Lychee to capture a young beautiful girl. After some failures, Lychee captures the beautiful school girl, Kanon. While things are going well for the Light Lychee Club, Zara has prophesied that one of them will betray him.

Review: So this work is a subgenre of Horror called Ero-guro. Ero-guro is defined as manga that are a mix of erotic and grosteque. Another way to describe it would be psychologically twisted horror that’s very depraved, very gross and deliberately pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable.  

Personally, while I’m a big fan of Usamaru Furuya, I don’t really care for Ero-guro at all. In some ways as a genre it’s more interested in being shocking or edgy or disturbing more than being about the story or characters. But I do find them interesting as underground comics and experimental works.

Anyway, Light Lychee Club, as an Ero-guro work, is a deliberately fucked up manga that centers around the more-or-less cultists, the newly functional and innocent Frankenstein/robot Lychee, and the only normal character, school girl Kanon. The story becomes about the Light Lychee Club’s path to self-destruction, as prophesied by Zara.

Compared to Usamaru Furuya’s other works, this one is decidedly underground. As mainstream works go, I would really recommend his Genkaku Picasso or No Longer Human over this for new readers. Also the Music of Marie is his most popular work overall, but still only available in scanlation.

Recommended: This is a deliberately shocking work of twisted horror that contains a lot of disturbing behavior. It is probably of most interest to Ero-guro fans, or Horror fans looking for something twisted.

Not Recommended: In a lot of ways this manga reminds me of the darkest corners of the internet. It’s one of the most messed up manga published in English. I do not recommend this to regular readers, and especially not casual manga readers. Read his other works instead.

Rating: R: I was going to list all the possibly objectionable stuff readers might find here, but it seems way faster just to list what isn’t objectionable, which is the pure relationship between Kanon and the Frankenstein/robot Lychee. Anyway this is really more for hardcore horror/ero-guro fans than casual readers.

Other Works in English by this Mangaka: Genkaku Picasso, No Longer Human (adapted from the novel by Osamu Dazai), Palepoli (short story in Secret Comics Japan) and Short Cuts

Phantom Dream (rank 3.5)

Publisher: Tokyopop
Volumes: 5/5 (Complete), OOP but not hard to find
Shoujo
Genre: Romance, Exorcists, Reincarnation

Note: the plot unfolds with many deliberate twists, but honestly, it’s also kind of a confusing, disjointed messy read. So there are two summaries, one summary for volume 1 to spoil nothing, and one for the overall series that contains mild spoilers to help new readers make sense of the story.

Summary: (Volume 1) Tamaki is the reluctant heir to a line of Exorcists. In this world, those who are consumed with negative emotions, Jashin, turn into Jaki, a sort of demon that can kill others with a thought. An incomplete Jaki can be turned human again, but a full Jaki can only be killed. He tries to learn how to master his abilities while he faces his first two Jaki, Mitsuru-chan, an old childhood friend of his and Asahi’s (his girlfriend), and Souichi, a bullied and sick boy who loves butterflies. In the end, the Gekka reveal themselves- those who have been turning people into Jaki. But for what end?

Mild Spoiler filled summary (highlight to read)
One thousand years ago, there lived a special woman, Suigekka, who could use spiritual magic. She had two brothers by her side, Hira and Saga who both loved her. After her death they both sought to carry on what they perceived as her will and their children split into two family lines. One family became a corrupting influence, that uses Black Magic to get revenge for Suigekka, and the other family became a line of purifying Exorcists that defends humans from Black Magic. 

A number of those drawn by a sort of fate gather together: Tamaki, the curent Exorcist heir, the branch families that support the Exorcist with supportive spells, and the Gekka, their enemies. Asahi, Tamaki’s girlfriend, has a secret connection to the two families. And finally, Hira who has managed to use magic to stay alive for a thousand years. All to gather in a final conflict to finally put an end to the story that started so long ago.

Review: The story isn’t bad, but this is Natsuki Takaya’s debut work (of Fruits Basket fame), and it really shows. The beginning is kind of confusing and the story is a bit bogged down by leaving all the Exorcist related terms untranslated. It’s sort of rough and disjointed. That whole plot summary (the second one) is pieced together by a lot of flashbacks and dramatic reveals. 

But if you’re willing to slog through the messy story, with a large cast, it is moderately rewarding. Without spoilers, I would say it’s a story about Love, Tragedy, Revenge and then finally Redemption.

I would say the part that really stayed with me was the ending, it was new and refreshing from what I expected, from what is at heart, a story about revenge. I also really appreciated the added epilogue that details what happened to all the other characters after the end of the story, it was a nice touch.

Recommended: This one will probably be of most interest to Fruits Basket fans, if they want to see how her style evolved. As a story on it’s own merits, it’s got it’s moments but overall felt really rough. But it’s somewhat rewarding to read as well.

Age Rating: PG for some violence and deaths.

Other Works by this mangaka (from most to least popular): Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket Another, Twinkle Stars, Liselotte & Witch's Forest, Tsubasa: Those With Wings. Songs to Make you Smile

Aquarium (rank 3.5)

Publisher: CPM Manga
Volumes: 1/1 (Complete), OOP but not hard to find
Shoujo
Genre: Romance

Summary: This manga is a collection of 3 short stories, with Aquarium being about half the volume and then the other two being much shorter.

Aquarium: Naoka claims to be unhappy about her new high school’s school uniform, but in reality she is unhappy she wasn’t able to get accepted to the same school as her crush. She goes to the local Aquarium to soothe her disappointment and then a boy tries to talk to her. She has him pegged as a player, but is he really?

The Flying Stewardess: Aoki, a fresh high school graduate, has a job many little girls can only dream of- a flight attendant! While dealing with the new found glamour of her job, she bumps into an crush, Egawa. He invites her on a date, but is he really interested in her, or does he just want to brag about dating a flight attendant?

Your Heart is Your Kingdom: Koko, ten years ago, was sitting in church next to her crush Suzuki and heard a sermon that touched her heart- “Your heart is the kingdom God dwells in, and no one can hurt it.” Followed by an explanation of the concept of soulmates. Koko felt then that Suzuki must be her soulmate, but she always tenses up and hasn’t talked to him since. Can she tell Suzuki how she feels before he ends up going out with someone else?

Review: Overall, I think these stories are too old school style in both art and story to be of much interest to modern readers. And the poor editing and printing quality really doesn’t help much either. (It looks like it was Xeroxed…) But fans of the older Shoujo style might enjoy these short stories a bit more, though gotta say they are nothing particularly special.

Aquarium: This story bothered me, there’s a dramatic twist where the main character cuts herself, in an attempt to make the guy leave her alone. It felt like forced drama and manipulative. I think the story was supposed to be about how the main character bottles up all her emotions and unhappiness inside until she explodes, but it just wasn’t done well.

The Flying Stewardess: I kinda liked this one, but the romance was kind of tacked on to the story and then the story ends very suddenly.

Your Heart is Your Kingdom: This was the sweetest of the three stories, but honestly I was put off by the religious feel of it and the soulmates thing. YMMV.

Recommended: Overall these Shoujo stories are not bad, but also kind of not great either. As romance goes, they’re light, fluffy and short.

Rating PG13: Most of this is rather inoffensive but that one scene bumps up the rating, IMO

Other Works by this Mangaka in English (from most to least popular): Call Me Princess, Princess Prince, Just a Girl, Popcorn Romance, Miss Me?,
Let's Stay Together Forever

Ikigami: The Final Limit (rank 2.5)

Publisher: Viz 
Volumes: 10/10, In Print
Seinen
Genre: Politics, Dreams 

Summary: The National Welfare Act: in a fictional, alternate history Japan, an act is passed that kills a random one out of every thousand young people with a nano-capsule injection of those aged 18 to 24. The death time is preset but not told to the one who will die until 24 hours before death. The propaganda says that knowing that they may die at any time is supposed to teach people to value life and live life to the fullest. In reality, new death messenger Fujimoto has his misgivings about the whole concept of the Welfare Act, even as he delivers Death Notification Papers (Ikigami) as his job.

Each volume contains 2 short stories of a Ikigami recipient, comprised of 3 chapters each story. The stories cover a large variety of people, from a son of a local politician, a bullied and scarred kid, a graffiti artist, a former musician, a guy who’s sister is blind, a young soldier, a young mother of a sick girl and so on.

Reviews: It seems like a lot of readers have misunderstood what this manga is about. Quite a lot of readers complained when it came out that it's too unbelievable that a Democracy like Japan would ever allow this, and they complain about how the UN would never allow such a violation of human rights. But here’s the thing: this alternate history Japan is a totalitarian state!

I don’t know how anyone missed that this is an alternate history Japan. In the very first chapter a dissenter gets sleep gassed and dragged off to be “reeducated” and if he cannot be brainwashed then “social miscreants” are all killed. Does that sound like the Japan we know? This is supposed to be a nightmare scenario.

Mild Spoilers: (highlight to read)
It’s also revealed later that this isn’t Japan at all, sometime after WW2, Japan was split into 2 countries just like North Korea and South Korea. One part is the Japan we know, and the other is literally just like North Korea and this is where the story takes place. Except it allied the East Asian Federation instead of China, but close enough.

There’s two parts to this manga. The vast bulk of it (like 80%) is the short stories of the Ikigami recipients. For the most part these stories are tragedies. Some are bittersweet as they are motivated to tie up loose ends in their lives during their last day. Others are literally criminal. But there are also a few that are inspirational and offer hope in a bleak world. These were my favorites.

The other part of the story (20%) runs concurrently to the stories of the Ikigami recipients. In this, the increasingly frustrated and unhappy Fujimoto starts to run afoul of the secret welfare act police as he tries to fake being a loyal citizen. This story-line is reminiscent of stories of East Germany or North Korea as the 1984-like Thought Police put him under suspicion. And behind it all is the true purpose of the Welfare Act as War breaks out.

I have a feeling the second storyline will probably frustrate some. Personally, I felt at first that the War plot seemed out of place with the other stories and it felt like a sharp turn in the plot. But after everything was explained, it honestly made almost too much sense, to the point where I think it had been planned that way from the beginning.

All in all, this story is a lot like the fictional world inside the manga- it is not at all about valuing life or living life to the fullest. It is about government control of life, death and the freedom to have your own opinions. 

Recommended: Overall I would highly recommend this manga. If you want to read stories about the Ikigami recipients alone, then these short stories are overall very good and make up the bulk of the manga. The other part of the story is a 1984-like story about a government mad with power that seeks to enforce its own political beliefs and tolerates no dissent. 

Age Rating: Older Teen: There is some violence and sexual assault, but it’s really not gratuitous and not that graphic either. Well, I guess there is also one story that has some sort of almost graphic sex, but the main character of that story tried to lose his virginity with a prostitute and then changes his mind. 

GoGo Monster (rank 2)

Publisher: Viz
Volumes: 1/1 Omnibus (Complete), OOP but still available in eBook
Shounen/Seinen (reads like)
Genre: Experimental Work, Surreal, Supernatural

Summary: 3rd grader Yuki Tachibana is known as a weirdo, and the other kids leave him alone. One day a new transfer student, Makoto Suzuki, is placed at the desk next to his, and curious, talks to him. Yuki tells him about the strange creatures, the others, who he claims have no bodies but he can sense them. They live on the unused fourth floor of the school. He says their leader, the powerful Super Star, has been missing and new others are the ones causing the mysterious problems the school has been having. But do these spirits really exist, or are they all the product of an overactive imagination?

Review: This is a hard manga to review, because there’s actually not a lot of dialogue or narration. Most of the story is conveyed in an unusual art style that shows the school and the events happening there in an almost dreamlike sequence, like how Yuki Tachibana sees the world. It’s hazy, distanced from reality and almost kind of floating through the school days as a sort of disconnected observer. 

Strange things happen, and seem ordinary at first, but then the strange happenings accumulate until the story reaches a surreal, bizarre, Alice in Wonderland like peak that’s easily one of the most unique manga I’ve read.

Ending Mild Spoilers:
In the end even though nothing is definitively explained, there are many tantalizing clues to support both sides, hallucination, or real.

Recommended: This is not at all a conventional manga, it’s an experimental work that has a sort of mix of the haze from a dream but also a vague sense of danger that lurks around the corner. It’s super unique but admittedly not for everyone. 

Age Rating: PG: more on the slightly disturbing side than anything graphic

Other Works by this mangaka in English (from most to least popular): Ping Pong, Tekkon Kinkreet, Blue Spring, Sunny, Number 5, Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (1 Story in an Anthology), Cats of the Louvre, The Tipping Point (1 Story in an Anthology)

My Brother the Shut-In (rank 2.5)

Publisher: Kodansha, digital eBooks only
Volumes: 6/6 (Complete) 
Shoujo/Seinen (reads like)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Romance, Dreams

Summary: Shino is a normal high school girl who's pretty content with life with the exception of one thing- her shut-in older brother, Tamotsu. Tamotsu is the family embarrassment, a middle school drop out who has been hiding out in his room from the world for four long years. It’s to the point where she lies to her friends and tells them she’s an only child and makes excuses for why they can never visit her house. But one night while Shino is fighting with their father, Tamotsu comes out of his room and says he’s going to try and get out more.

As Tamotsu struggles to rejoin society, his sister Shino ends up reluctantly supporting him as he tries to get a job, make friends, and even date. Can their family become whole again? Can Tamotsu make up those lost years of crucial life experiences? Can Shino find her own happiness? 

Review: This is such an unusual series in a lot of ways. For starters, there’s two main characters who both take turns being the narrator of the story. When it’s Shino, it reads more like Shoujo, being about a high school girl’s life. When it’s Tamotsu, it reads closer to Seinen being about a college aged guy. But it works because the stories are all connected.

Also surprisingly, the series is really packed dense with content, and yet it doesn’t feel rushed at all. Somehow these 6 volumes cover a lot of ground, more than a year in the story. Every chapter past the first volume or so has something major happen. Compared to a normal manga this manga plot would normally be at least 8-10 volumes, but it’s like there’s zero filler, which creates a very intense story.

Shino’s story is about learning to let down her guard and trust others and be more genuine to herself and what she wants out of life. She also comes to realize that she isn’t the only one struggling in life, that also her brother, her parents, and her best friend have been too. She really grows as a person and starts to pursue her dreams.

Tamotsu’s story is about a former shut-in with almost nothing- no job skills, no social skills, no friends- then suddenly trying to be outside in the real world trying to turn his life around with only his sister’s support. That and his favorite manga that inspires him, Ashita no Joe. And he has a dream of his own, too.

Recommended: It’s a really underrated series that really ought to be way more popular. It starts off a little sluggish, but quickly picks up and becomes a really heartfelt story. Anyway it’s a weird genre mix between Shoujo and Seinen, but it does lean a bit more towards Shoujo, I’d say. Also the cover art is super colorful, but the inside artwork looks much more normal.

Age Rating: Older Teen for one very sexy encounter, but the rest is teen appropriate