The Vampire Dormitory manga, from popular shojo mangaka Ema Toyama, appears to be a BL story when it opens. The main character, Mito Yamamoto, is such a pretty boy that he has fangirls following him to work. Unfortunately, he works at a restaurant aimed for …Read more »
Crueler than Dead is a good early Halloween read. It’s a zombie apocalypse story that opens with a woman waking up in a chaotic, cluttered room. She’s bloody and her hair is a mess. She doesn’t know what’s going on, and the reader is immediately …Read more »
The Apothecary Diaries takes place in China and follows Maomao, a young apothecary who gets called a “mad scientist” for her dedication to learning and experimentation. She’ll even poison herself to learn from it. But her career seems put on hold when she’s kidnapped and …Read more »
Little Miss P began as a webcomic about an anthropomorphized period who both dispenses good advice to women and gives them her overwhelming Period Punch. The mixture of humor and serious topics, the offbeat way the stories are written, and the quirky look at a …Read more »
Osamu Tezuka’s Record of the Glass Castle is a dark and epic science fiction single-volume manga. It takes place in 1992 — which was in the future when Tezuka was writing this in the 70s — and cryosleep has been banned. A swindler named Reizou …Read more »
Sensor, Junji Ito’s creepy new manga, is a mix of horror and science fiction, kind of like his previous work Remina. Kyoko is walking near Mount Sengoku for reasons that are never explained when the air becomes filled with what she thinks is volcanic hair. …Read more »
There’s a whole subgenre of manga that does what most of human neuroscience says is impossible. That is, comics about music! That shouldn’t work! Comics don’t have sound! And as selling manga with a recorded soundtrack would be cost-prohibitive, the best manga can do is …Read more »
Rangetsu is out for revenge. She’s an ajin, a “beastlike” being. There are more humans than ajin in the world, and the humans restrict the lives of ajin and keep them second-class citizens. For instance, young ajin females are forced to become prostitutes, and ajin …Read more »
I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School is a delightfully warped romantic comedy. The main character, Unoki, acknowledges on the first page that he’s always been a wimp, and he’s bullied all the time. But, none of that prepared him for the ultra bully …Read more »
Saybil, a young man with no memory of his past, is the worst student at the Wenias magic school. If he fails, he’ll be expelled and his memories will be sealed away. Desperate to keep the memories he’s made at school, he joins a special …Read more »
The Secret Urban Legends manga is a horror short story collection that features young women in high school or middle school. Betrayal of friendship is a common theme, as is finding darkness in people and places you associate with innocence. Because of the ages of …Read more »
Rikachi’s latest shojo series, as the afterword explains, was not originally intended to be a fantasy. At its core, it’s a basic rags-to-riches love story: the prince rescues a pauper girl, takes her in, lavishes her with riches that would make anyone swoon, yet our …Read more »
Ririka is a gyaru high school girl living with her dad who insists to her friends that she’s never had a crush on anyone. That changes when a young man moves into the apartment next door. Ririka helps him get situated, and when she sees …Read more »
Kirby, Kirby, Kirby is the name you should you know; he’s been in a lot of different video games since his 1992 debut, and this latest surprise lands just in time for his 29th anniversary (technically his birthday was in April, but better late than …Read more »
The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting juxtaposes two characters: Kirishima, the right-hand man of a yakuza crime family whose specialty is beating people up, and Yaeka, a sensitive and sweet-natured little girl whose father is the yakuza boss of the family. One day after Kirishima’s beaten …Read more »
Danica Davidson
Robert McCarthy
![Dawn of the Witch [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/16-9-DawnoftheWitch-cvr_02-202x202.jpg)
![Dawn of the Witch [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/16-9-DawnoftheWitch-cvr_02.jpg)
Che Gilson
![Nina The Starry Bride [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/nina-the-starry-bride-v1-16-9-202x202.jpg)
![Nina The Starry Bride [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/nina-the-starry-bride-v1-16-9.jpg)
Brianna Fox-Priest
![Kirby Manga Mania [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/kirby-manga-mania-v1-16-9-202x202.jpg)
![Kirby Manga Mania [Manga Review]](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/kirby-manga-mania-v1-16-9-1024x576.jpg)
Michael Goldstein
