This weekend’s manga reading was all about catching up with titles that have been back-burnered by the shiny and new.
Some day, I’m going to have to try and figure out how Rumiko Takahashi has managed to successfully stretch such a slim premise out over more than a dozen digests. I’m up to the eleventh volume of Maison Ikkoku, and the characters should have me wailing “Just talk to each other!” and pulling my hair out in frustration. Instead, I’m still charmed by the cast, amused by their complicated lives, and eager to find out how it all ends. In this installment, hapless Godai and cautious Kyoko almost connect… but don’t. Again. Damn it.
I’d reviewed the first volume of Eyeshield 21 a while ago and was charmed by its weirdness. I finally got around to reading the second volume of the football manga, and I’m happy to report that it’s still weird and still funny. There’s a bit more conventional sports manga material in this outing, but weirdness ultimately prevails. Even the explanations of the rules of American football seem strangely skewed. (I have no way of knowing if they’re accurate or not.)
If you’ve been meaning to try Kindaichi Case Files, the latest volume would be a good opportunity. While it isn’t the best mystery in the series, it’s certainly the thickest, coming in at 336 pages of beautifully illustrated sleuthing for $9.99. And even so-so KCF is still pretty darned good. It’s not my fault that Kanari Yozaburo and Satoh Fumiya have set a really high standard.
Okay, there was some shiny and new. I rambled on about Death Note for this week’s Flipped, just in time to miss the fascinating compare-and-contrast of translations found by Cognitive Dissonance. I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t see that piece until after reading the published manga. I don’t generally read scanlations, mostly because I’m one of those dinosaurs who like to hold comics while reading them. (Also, the print versions won’t electrocute me if I drop them while reading in the tub.)