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Previews review August 2009

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For some reason, as I looked through the current Previews catalogue, I kept thinking, “You know, it’s nice that comics publishers who don’t print a single thing I’d ever want to read can still do well.” I can’t explain it, but it kept happening.

Anyway, this edition sees the launch of two new imprints. First up is Del Rey Comics, an offshoot of the much-loved Del Rey Manga from Random House. Things kick off with a $1, 16-page zero issue introducing readers to The Talisman: Road of Trials by Stephen King, Peter Straub, Robin Furth, and Tony Shasteen (page 252). Now, I haven’t read a King novel since Needful Things, but comics based on his work seem to sell well, so this seems like a smart launch property for Del Rey’s pamphlet line. Random House ups the smart with a full page ad on page 253 showing some of the comics-shop-friendly properties that they’ve shepherded in the past.

Now, let’s flip ahead to page 286. For a long time, Del Rey Manga had a cooperative agreement with Kodansha, one of the biggest manga publishers in Japan. Then about a year ago Kodansha decided to open up its own shop in the United States. At long last, their first Previews solicitations show up offering new printings of the first volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (softcover, 368 pages, $24.99) and Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell (softcover, 352 pages, $26.99). The price points are roughly comparable to Dark Horse’s for the same properties, but they still seem kind of steep to me. Still, they’re modern classics, and it’s not a bad idea to launch with them. That said, I think Del Rey wins on the crafty debut front.

Neither Del Rey Comics nor Kodansha Comics has a web site yet, so no links are available.

theboxmanOkay, let’s flip back to page 261 for comics that interest me more viscerally, that is to say, comics that I’d actually like to buy. Drawn & Quarterly offers Imiri Sakabashira’s The Box Man (softcover, 128 pages, $19.95), which “follows its zoomorphic protagonists along a scooter trip through the landscape that oscillates between a dense city, a countryside simplified to near abstraction, and hybrids of the two. Sakabashira weaves this absurdist tale in a seamless tapestry constructed of elements as seemingly disparate as Japanese folklore, pop culture, and surrealism.” I’m game.

Given my love for the Moomin comic strips, I will buy anything with Tove Jansson’s name on it, so I’m glad Drawn & Quarterly is offering The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My, an all-ages book featuring Jansson’s marvelous characters and quirky storytelling (hardcover, 24 pages, $16.95).

Viz adds another awesome-sounding title to its Signature line with Taiyo Matsumoto’s GoGo Monster (page 310, softcover, 464 pages, $27.99). Viz promises “a nuanced tale of a young boy and his overly active imagination.” Viz also notes that Matsumoto won the Eisner (2008’s Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan) for Tekkonkinkreet: Black and White, also from Viz Signature.

Stealth josei

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I was checking Viz’s Signature listings yesterday, and I noticed several new items on the schedule, but two in particular made me really, really happy. Like, “Snoopy Dance” happy.

amddristorante

Fumi Yoshinaga’s All My Darling Daughters was originally serialized in Hakusensha’s Melody magazine and is a one-volume collection of short stories.

Natsume Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso was originally serlized in Ohta Shuppan’s Erotics F mangazine and is a single-volume series.

Filed Under: Viz

From the stack: Kimi ni Todoke

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This week’s ComicList is kind of lean, so I’ll focus on one particular release. It’s Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Viz), and it’s hilarious and delightful.

kiminitodokeYou remember that girl who crawled out of the well in The Ring, right? Sawako Kuronuma bears an uncanny resemblance to that creepy character, and the coincidence hasn’t escaped her classmates’ notice. Sawako is a sweet, optimistic girl, but her spooky, slump-shouldered bearing is completely at odds with what’s inside. Remember that bit in Addams Family Values when Wednesday tried to smile? It’s like that, except that Sawako is really trying to be genial.

As high-school students are a cowardly and superstitious lot, rumors fly about Sawako. They think she communes with ghosts and can curse those around her. Even the teachers are wary of her. Hell, even puppies get skittish in her presence. It probably doesn’t help that the kanji that constitute her family name also translate into “black swamp.”

So Sawako takes it upon herself to try and clear up what she believes to be simple misunderstandings. She meets with limited success until Kazehaya, the most popular boy in class, starts treating her with the same cheerful courtesy he extends to everyone. The tide begins to turn for Sawako, and she starts making other friends. And while she still looks and acts like she crawled out of a well, she’s sparkling with happiness on the inside.

It’s that disconnect – Sawako’s frightening mien wrapped around the open heart of a true shôjo princess – that makes the book so funny and endearing. Also delightful is the fact that Sawako never once entertains the notion of changing her appearance; she just wants to introduce her classmates to the girl on the inside. Shiina has a real gift for constructing scenarios that allow you can to root for Sawako and still giggle at the ways her efforts can backfire. Shiina’s illustrations hit all the right notes, from funny-creepy to sparkly-sweet, sometimes in the same panel.

Kimi ni Todoke is off to a wonderful start. It’s a great look at an offbeat kid trying to find happiness on her terms. Sawako is undeniably naïve, but she’s naïve in the best possible way. She believes the best of people, that they’ll accept truth and overlook appearance. And Shiina lets her be right often enough to balance out the laughs that come from the moments when Sawako is wrong.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Portents

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Comic-Con International 2009 is over, and many people have provided engaging coverage of the event’s panels, products, and people. To find the best round-up of manga-related links, you need only visit Brigid Alverson’s MangaBlog (as always). You might want to start here and here. The number of license announcements seems lean to me, but there are some eye-catchers.

51waysOf greatest interest to me is Usumaru Furuya’s 51 Ways to Save Her, which was snatched up by CMX. Furuya’s Palepoli strips from Viz’s out-of-print Secret Comics Japan still amaze me, so I’m thrilled to see more of his work headed for English release. 51 Ways was originally published by Shinchosa. It’s a disaster drama, but I suspect that anything by Furuya will defy simple categorization.

The other highlight from CMX’s roll-out is Sato Fujisawa’s Nyankoi!, a Flex Comix property. I know next to nothing about it except for the fact that it’s got an awesome premise for a cat-lover: a guy who’s allergic to felines falls in love with a girl who dotes on them and must do 100 good deeds for cats or face the wrath of the local cat-god.

bakumanOn the Viz front, there are two new Shonen Jump titles, one by the creative team behind Death Note. Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata reunited for Bakuman, about two students who dream of becoming successful manga-ka. Here’s the Wikipedia entry, and here’s Shueisha’s entry for the book.

Providing nightmares for vegans and animal rights activists is one possible side effect of Toriko by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro, about a guy who hunts down rare beasts for finicky chefs. Okay, so I won’t be finding any useful recipes from this one, but cooking manga is cooking manga. Here’s the Wikipedia entry, and here’s Shueisha’s page.

artoftezukaI’m not sure if this was announced first at the convention or if I just missed it when mentioned elsewhere, but I’m also looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Helen McCarthy’s The Art of Osamu Tezuka from Abrams ComicArts. By the way, I take total credit for Tezuka’s Eisner win, as I spent weeks passive-aggressively suggesting people vote for Tezuka’s Dororo.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAAAAAAAAAAY!

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I’m taking a week off from the license requests. Sometimes you just have to try and catch up with what’s actually available, and Viz isn’t making it easy with all of the freebies on its SIGIKKI and Shonen Sunday sites. It’s the end of the week, and I’m kind of fried, so I’ll take a look at the presumably more lighthearted shônen fare of the latter.

First of all, I have to say that I like the way Viz is assembling these animated trailers. They look nice; Kate Dacey used the one for Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea in a recent post, and it’s very effective. Second, I don’t really have anything to add to what I’ve already said about Rumiko Takahashi’s Rin-Ne; it’s solid entertainment, but it has yet to change my life. Third, I still don’t like reading comics on a computer, but Viz’s platform is simple enough to use and readable in scale and resolution, at least on my screen.

Now, on to the new series:

ssarataArata: The Legend, by Yuu Watase: Here’s how smart I am. My eyes passeded over the creator credit not once but twice before I started reading this, and one of my reactions to the comic was, “That’s kind of weird to have a Yuu Watase knock-off in a shônen magazine.” Of course, it is Watase, and it does seem kind of weird for her work to be in a shônen magazine, but weird in a nice way. I always like it when women branch into shônen and the less frequent phenomenon of men creating shôjo (though the only one I can think of who’s been licensed and published is Meca Tanaka), and Watase is very popular and has always been able to spin solid fantasy-adventure tales.

In this one, a young man must pretend to be a young woman to fulfill his clan’s obligation to provide princess-protectors to his nation. The ruse goes badly wrong in some unexpected ways, and, judging by the series description, further drastic twists are pending. There’s not much else I can say about it at the moment, other than it’s wonderfully drawn, like all Watase series, and that I already like it loads better than her last licensed outing, Absolute Boyfriend (Viz). That’s good enough for a start.

sshydeandcloserHyde and Closer, by Haro Aso: This one reminded me a lot of Akira Amano’s Reborn! (Viz), though I’m much more favorably inclined to a magical legacy than someone being destined to a life of organized crime. Lead character Shunpei Closer devotes a lot more energy to avoiding conflict and embarrassment than he’d ever expend just sucking it up and facing what life throws at him. His aversion techniques won’t be of much use when sorcerers around the globe learn that they can gain enormous power by killing him. Fortunately, his missing grandfather left Shunpei some protection in the form of a cigar-smoking, bourbon-drinking teddy bear. You read that correctly. Stuffed-animal mayhem ensues, which is both adorable and disturbing. I’m not sure how well the premise will hold up, but it’s hard to resist the stuffing-soaked action.

sskekkaishiKekkaishi, by Yellow Tanabe: This series has been around for a while, and it’s much admired by various people with excellent taste (most notably John Jakala). So what we have here is an under-appreciated title that’s already got a lot of volumes in circulation; it’s a smart move of Viz to give potential readers a low-risk entry point to the series. The whole concept of free chapters on line is smart, but especially for books with an imbalance of critical regard and sales. I very much liked the first chapter about dueling families of demon hunters. Young Yoshimori Sumimura is destined to be his family’s leader, but he’s got no love for their traditional profession. He’ll have to come around and live up to his potential. Tanabe has assembled a clear, concise mythology and a solid emotional foundation for the characters. The art is terrific, particularly the action sequences, and there are lots of fun, funny touches. I particularly liked the cranky grandparents of the warring clans, and I immediately started ‘shipping them, which is always a good sign. This is definitely the hit of the site for me.

ssmaohjuvenileremixMaoh: Juvenile Remix, original story by Kotaro Isaka, story and art by Megumi Osuga. I got a bit of a Death Note (Viz) vibe from this one, in that it seems intent on providing thrills with an added layer of moral complexity. It stars Ando, a high-school student who’s gone to some pains to conceal his psychic ability. He can make people around him say things he’s thinking. That’s an odd and narrow enough super-power to make me suspect that the creators have something interesting in mind. Ando meets Inukai, the oddly charismatic leader of a local vigilante group that’s trying to restore order to the rather raucous streets of the city. Ando is intrigued by Inukai’s desire to change the world for the better, but vigilantism has a dark side. As Death Note proved, you’re unlikely to go broke telling morally ambiguous tales starring hot guys. Count me as intrigued.

Left behind, but not neglected

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Are you feeling envious of all the folks assembled at Nerd Ground Zero? One way you can pass the time not spent obsessively watching blogs and Twitter for updates is to check out the now-live Viz portals for Shonen Sunday and SIGIKKI, reading free manga and pitying the poor souls at the convention center with their limited wireless and hand-held devices. (And yes, SIGIKKI had already posted a hefty quantity of Children of the Sea, but they’ve added chapters of four more series.)

From the stack: Dogs Prelude Vol. 0

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dogsa

I suspect that Shirow Miwa is as much of a fan of Cowboy Bebop as I am. Miwa’s Dogs Prelude Vol. 0 shares a lot of that anime’s best qualities – vivid characters, an engaging look, and a lightness of touch that keeps the noir elements from going overboard. If anything, Miwa does a slightly better job on that last front.

dogs0That isn’t to suggest that Miwa’s milieu is a pleasant one. The book’s linked short stories are set in a futuristic dystopia full of sometimes terrible people doing what they need to do to get by. Like all good noir casts, the characters all have dark and painful secrets to tote around as they navigate these murky waters. Fortunately, Miwa doesn’t seem inclined to dwell. He doesn’t exactly minimize the suffering on display, but he doesn’t put it on a pedestal either.

I felt for Mihai, the aged killer looking for a quieter dotage. I enjoyed laughing at the misfortunes of Badou, the one-eyed snoop who can’t seem to make it through a day without inspiring gun-toting thugs to chase him down. Resilient, rough-trade Heine’s attempts to rescue an innocent prostitute offered a nice mix of mayhem and sentiment.

dogsbI was largely unmoved by the tale of Naoto, the young girl raised to be a killer by the man she believes murdered her parents. It’s in that segment that Miwa comes closest to flat, straight-faced noir, and while it’s executed well, it lacks the dollops of quirky, what-the-hell humor that characterize the rest of the book.

The most consistent and engaging quality of the book comes from Miwa’s illustrations. He’s prodigiously gifted with action sequences and character design, and it’s in drawing that his light touch really shines. He favors thin, elegant line work instead of the thick marker of despair so many cartoonists bust out when crafting a noir tale. Miwa isn’t afraid to go over the top with both violence and comedy, but it’s all anchored with subdued, dilapidated settings that don’t feel ostentatiously dystopian and, of course, the well-written, likeable cast. The look of the book is sleek, stylish, and frequently silly; it’s a great mix.

As the rather complicated title indicates, this volume of Dogs serves as a precursor to the evidently more structured ongoing series that launches in August. I’ll definitely check in if only to bask in Miwa’s gorgeous drawings, and I’m guessing I’ll stay for the quirky characters and cleverly conceived scenarios.

Upcoming 7/22/2009

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The books on this week’s shipping list may not appear on any best-seller rosters, but they certainly top the Comics That Delight David List. And though Viz is clearly trying to leave me impoverished with periodic front-loading from its Signature line, I can’t help but be happy at so many wonderful arrivals.

childrenoishinbofish
pluto4real5

I mean, just look at that. Who couldn’t be happy?

Okay, technically, Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea is not on Diamond’s shipping list for the week, but it’s on the “what’s arriving” list at my local shop, so that’s all that really matters to me. You can read an extremely generous sample of this marvelous title at Viz’s SIGIKKI site. It’s an alluring combination of fantasy and environmentalism, which seems to be Igarashi’s stock in trade. Play to your prodigious strengths, I say.

The fish may be disappearing in Children of the Sea, but they’re popping up on tables all over the place in the latest volume of Oishinbo: Fish, Sushi and Sashimi, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki. If you haven’t treated yourself to a book from this series yet, here’s the short version: a know-it-all young journalist is working on an “Ultimate Menu” for his newspaper, and his blowhard father is working on a “Supreme Menu” for a competitor. Father and son detest each other, and I honestly can’t blame either of them, but their over-the-top dysfunction is often a lot of fun, and the food facts are absolutely fascinating.

The fourth volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto arrives, continuing Urasawa’s extrapolation on a classic Astro Boy story by manga grandmaster Osamu Tezuka. It’s a rich suspense story with great characters, terrific art, and heartbreaking, slightly creepy child robots. What more could you want?

It wasn’t nominated for this year’s Eisner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan, which is unfortunate, but if Takehiko Inoue’s wheelchair-basketball opus Real isn’t nominated next year, it may actually qualify as a scandal, because the two volumes that have come out so far this year have taken the series from excellent to transcendent, and I have no reason to expect that the fifth volume will buck that trend in any way. I tend to refrain from doing full reviews on new volumes of ongoing series unless something changes drastically, but I’ve decided to loosen up on that policy with Real, because it’s simply one of the best ongoing series on the shelves, and it’s rather neglected.

Peeking at IKKI

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IKKIViz sent out more information on its SIGIKKI imprint yesterday, and I thought I’d try and track down some additional information on the titles. I think that Viz’s approach – gauging and building demand before committing to print and physical distribution costs – is interesting, and I hope it works out for them. I also think a lot of the imprint’s possible titles sound really intriguing, so part of that hope is selfish. I just want to read the books.

Here’s the link to Shogakukan’s IKKI site, and here’s the Wikipedia entry on the magazine. Below are covers of the titles listed in Viz’s release. You can click on any of them to see their pages at Shogakukan’s web site; once there, you can click on the button with the magnifying glass and you can browse some sample pages, or click on the hyperlink in the lower table to the right of the cover image to see additional volumes of the series.

Afterschool Charisma By Kumiko Suekane

Afterschool Charisma By Kumiko Suekane


Bokurano: OURS By Mohiro Kitoh

Bokurano: OURS By Mohiro Kitoh


Dorohedoro By Q Hayashida

Dorohedoro By Q Hayashida


House of Five Leaves By Natsume Ono

House of Five Leaves By Natsume Ono


I’ll Give it My All…Tomorrow By Shunju Aono

I’ll Give it My All…Tomorrow By Shunju Aono


Kingyo Used Books By Seimu Yoshizaki

Kingyo Used Books By Seimu Yoshizaki


Saturn Apartments By Hisae Iwaoka

Saturn Apartments By Hisae Iwaoka


Tokyo Flow Chart By Eiji Miruno

Tokyo Flow Chart By Eiji Miruno

Because I’m always curious to see just how envious I should be of the French, here’s the rundown on which titles are already available there, and from whom:

  • Bokurano from Asuka
  • Dorohedoro from Soleil
  • House of Five Leaves published as Goyô by Kana

    • Only three… we’re not as far behind as usual! Last but not least, I’ll post a quick poll:

    Feel free to pick as many as interest you. And this is one of those HTML hell posts for me, so if anything looks funky or goes the wrong place, please mention it in the comments so I can clean it up.

    I want them all

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    I just got back from the BBC-CW production of Harry Potter and the Awkward Silences, and I’m so glad Viz left something in my in-box to cheer me up, because dude…

    Anyway, here’s the joyous press release:

    VIZ MEDIA PARTNERS WITH JAPAN’S IKKI MAGAZINE TO LAUNCH SIGIKKI.COM, AN ONLINE MANGA WEBSITE TO PRESENT A DIVERSE COLLECTION OF TITLES ACCLAIMED FOR CREATIVE QUALITY

    Innovative Online Destination Pushes Boundaries Of Manga With New Content Available Each Month For Free

    childrenSan Francisco, CA, JULY 15, 2009 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the full launch of its new SIGIKKI website, which represents a bold new partnership between the company’s VIZ SIGNATURE imprint and IKKI, a monthly magazine published in Japan since 2003 that has established itself as the home of some of the most innovative, bold, and compelling titles in the world of contemporary manga.

    Located at www.sigikki.com, this groundbreaking online manga destination will present a broad range of seinen manga to audiences in North America. From action to comedy to drama, slice-of-life stories to surrealist fantasies, the uniting themes these works share are an uncommon emphasis on creative quality and on pushing the boundaries of the manga norm.

    Earlier in May, the SIGIKKI site posted the first chapter of CHILDREN OF THE SEA by Daisuke Igarashi, with Volume 2 currently being serialized on the site. Starting this month, new chapters from half a dozen manga series will be offered for viewing online in their entirety – FOR FREE. After a particular volume completes its online serialization, that edition will be published as a VIZ Signature graphic novel (subject to reader demand). Additional content such as creator interviews, feature articles, news, and free downloads will also be posted on the website each month.

    “We are very excited to formally launch our new SIGIKKI website in partnership with IKKI magazine,” says Shie Lundberg, Sr. Director, Strategy and Business Development, VIZ Media. “The convenience of web accessibility combined with some of the most compelling and diverse content manga will allow fans to sample a range of acclaimed new titles each month, for free. As these series begin to develop their own domestic following, audiences can then look forward to the eventual publication of these titles with the high quality VIZ SIGNATURE presentation befitting manga of this caliber.”

    On July 23rd the SIGIKKI site will debut Bokurano: OURS, by Mohiro Kitoh; Dorohedoro, by Q Hayashida; Saturn Apartments, by Hisae Iwaoka; and I’ll Give It My All…Tomorrow, by Shunju Aono. These titles will be quickly followed on July 30th with the opening chapters of Kingyo Used Books, by Seimu Yoshizaki; House of Five Leaves, by Natsume Ono; Afterschool Charisma, by Kumiko Suekane; and Tokyo Flow Chart, by Eiji Miruno.

    Manga Summaries Follow Below:

    Children of the Sea By Daisuke Igarashi
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    The sea has a story to tell, one you’ve never heard before…
    When Ruka was younger, she saw a ghost in the water at the aquarium where her dad works. Now she feels drawn toward the aquarium and the two mysterious boys she meets there, Umi and Sora. They were raised by dugongs and hear the same strange calls from the sea as she does. Ruka’s dad and the other adults who work at the aquarium are only distantly aware of what the children are experiencing as they get caught up in the mystery of the worldwide disappearance of the oceans’ fish. Volume 1 now also available in print!

    Bokurano: OURS By Mohiro Kitoh
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    Saving the world is hard. Saving yourself is even harder.

    One summer, fifteen kids innocently wander into a nearby seaside cave. There they meet a strange man who invites them to play an exciting new video game. This game, he explains, pits one lone giant robot against a horde of alien invaders. To play the game, all they have to do is sign a simple contract. The game stops being fun when the kids find out the true purpose of their pact.

    Dorohedoro By Q Hayashida
    (Rated ‘M’ mature)
    A blood-spattered battle between diabolical sorcerers and the monsters they created.

    In a city so dismal it’s known only as “the Hole,” a clan of sorcerers have been plucking people off the streets to use as guinea pigs for atrocious “experiments” in the black arts. In a dark alley, Nikaido found Caiman, a man with a reptile head and a bad case of amnesia. To undo the spell, they’re hunting and killing the sorcerers of the Hole, hoping that eventually they’ll kill the right one. But when En, the head sorcerer, gets word of a lizard-man slaughtering his people, he sends a crew of “cleaners” into the Hole, igniting a war between two worlds.

    Saturn Apartments By Hisae Iwaoka
    (Rated ‘T’ for teens)
    A touching, character-rich vision of an intriguing new world.

    Far in the future, humankind has evacuated the Earth in order to preserve it. Humans now reside in a gigantic structure that forms a ring around the Earth, thirty-five kilometers up in the sky. The society of the ring is highly stratified: the higher the floor, the greater the status. Mitsu, the lowly son of a window washer, has just graduated junior high. When his father disappears and is assumed dead, Mitsu must take on his father’s occupation. As he struggles with the transition to working life, Mitsu’s job treats him to an outsider’s view into the various living-room dioramas of the Saturn Apartments.

    I’ll Give it My All…Tomorrow By Shunju Aono
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    Life begins at forty…even for pathetic losers.

    This is the story of a forty-year-old salary man who quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist—and the family that has to put up with him. While not terribly unhappy, Shizuo Oguro can’t fight the feeling that something in his life just isn’t right, so he walks away from his stable (yet boring) day job to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Unfortunately for his family, this journey also involves playing video games all day while his teenage daughter and elderly father support him. Will Shizuo succeed in creating a true manga masterpiece or will he be just another drop-out living a life of slack?

    Afterschool Charisma By Kumiko Suekane
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    History repeats itself… Or does it?

    St. Kleio Academy is a very exclusive school: all of the students are clones of famous historical figures such as Beethoven, Queen Elizabeth I, Napoleon, Mozart, and Freud. All of them, that is, except for Shiro Kamiya. As Shiro struggles to adapt to this unusual campus, St. Kleio’s first graduate, a clone of John F. Kennedy, is killed. Are the clones doomed to repeat the fate of their genetic progenitors, or can they create their own destinies? And how does a normal boy like Shiro fit in?

    Kingyo Used Books By Seimu Yoshizaki
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    This manga bookstore has a thousand stories to tell.

    A businessman discovers how his childhood memories can brighten his day. An art student finds inspiration. An archer hits a surprising bull’s eye. A housewife rediscovers romance. A teenager discovers his true self in the pages of a manga magazine. Welcome to Kingyo Used Books, a place where people find their dreams in manga…

    House of Five Leaves By Natsume Ono
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    A many-sided tale of faith and betrayal, drama and intrigue, set in the world of old Edo.

    Masterless samurai Akitsu Masanosuke is a skilled and loyal swordsman, but his naïve, diffident nature has time and again caused him to be let go by the lord whom he has worked for. Hungry and desperate, he becomes a bodyguard for Yaichi, the charismatic leader of a gang called “Five Leaves.” Although disturbed by the gang’s sinister activities, Masa begins to suspect that Yaichi’s motivations are not what they seem. And despite his misgivings, the deeper he’s drawn into the world of the Five Leaves, the more he finds himself fascinated by these devious, mysterious outlaws.

    Tokyo Flow Chart By Eiji Miruno
    (Rated ‘T+’ for older teens)
    This manga will f(low) with your brain!

    Have you ever wished that somebody else would just DO SOMETHING about the chaos in your life? Then this is the perfect manga for a slacker like you! Tokyo Flow Chart is (probably) the world’s first four-frame comic strip in flow chart format. It breaks down the complexities of life and aids in the mastery of brain skills such as flow-chart-manga comprehension or mental bullet-dodging. As Confusious say: “let your brain flow with the chart!”