Some of the highlights from this week’s ComicList:
Sometimes a quantity and quality of hype make me abandon my normal standards. The latest example of this phenomenon is Oku Hiroya’s Gantz (Dark Horse), which promises much higher levels of gratuitous violence than I can usually tolerate. But it sounds cool.
Del Rey offers lots of goodies this week, but I’ll single out the third volume of Ryotaro Iwanaga’s excellent Pumpkin Scissors for special attention. It’s about a squadron of soldiers working on post-war recovery, and it’s a really successful blend of adventure, suspense, and comedy. Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist would do particularly well to give it a look.
Fresh manga from Osamu Tezuka is such a gimme for makers of lists of this sort, because it’s always, always worth a look. This week, it’s the second volume of freaked-out shônen quest Dororo (Vertical) about a guy trying to get his body parts back.
And before I forget, I wanted to point to a couple of reviews with which I agree entirely. At Manga Recon, Kate Dacey looks at Fuyumi Soryo’s smart and satisfying ES: Eternal Sabbath. In a recent Right Turn Only column, Carlo Santos asks this important question: “Why is [Kitchen Princess] not as popular as Full Moon or Fruits Basket? The level of drama is just as good, and this heartbreaking A- [sixth] volume proves it.”