Catch These Hands!, Vol. 2 | By murata | Yen Press – The first volume in this series mostly focused on the grumpy-faced (and, let’s face it, grumpy in general) Takebe, but this second volume allows us a better look at her new girlfriend Soramori. She took the initiative in asking Takebe out… but has no idea what couples do on a date. Her attempts to figure this out, which involves a lot of overcompensating and thinking about the wrong things, are what drive the humor in this volume. The actual romance is still pretty much in neutral, but this makes sense given that we’re not even sure how Takebe really feels about all this. We’re also introduced to Takebe’s cousin, who also seems to be a bit obsessed with...
Jul 31, 2022 • Subscribe
More like this
Bookshelf Briefs 7/22/22
Box of Light, Vol. 1 | By Seiko Erisawa | Seven Seas – The blurb for Box of Light promises a “delightfully creepy supernatural tale” that takes place…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/7/22
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 4 | By Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe | Viz Media – I never briefed the second and third volume of this series,…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/31/23
Insomniacs After School, Vol. 2 | By Makoto Ojiro | Viz Media - It can be hard to start up a club that's already been shut down before.…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/22/21
A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Vol. 12 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Arata Yamaji | Seven Seas – I was surprised that this is the final volume. It wraps…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/15/22
Blue Lock, Vol. 1 | By Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura | Kodansha Comics – I had initially assumed Blue Lock would be another heartwarming story about a…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/31/21
Black Clover, Vol. 24 | By Yuki Tabata | Viz Media – New arc, new villains, new desperate fighting, new nameless characters being killed to give our named…
Bookshelf Briefs 6/30/22
Kageki Shojo!!, Vol. 5 | By Kumiko Saiki | Seven Seas – I really like the fact that Sarasa is choosing the more difficult option. They’re doing auditions…
Bookshelf Briefs 9/6/22
Blue Lock, Vol. 2 | By Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura | Kodansha Comics – Blue Lock really is a lot of fun, if you can get past…
Bookshelf Briefs 4/21/22
Catch These Hands!, Vol. 1 | By murata | Yen Press – I’ve been enjoying the recent upswing in yuri manga starring actual adults and aimed at adults.…
Bookshelf Briefs 4/4/22
Falling Drowning, Vol. 1 | By Yuko Inari | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – On the surface, Falling Drowning looks like cookie-cutter shoujo. Our protagonist, a high school…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/1/22
Hello, Melancholic!, Vol. 1 | By Yayoi Ohsawa | Seven Seas – Minato Asano is great at playing the trombone, but ostracization in junior high has rendered her…
Bookshelf Briefs 8/9/22
Blissful Land, Vol. 1 | By Ichimon Izumi | Kodansha (digital only) – You can almost imagine the pitch for Blissful Land: “It’s like A Bride’s Story, only…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/26/22
Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 16 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – This is definitely a volume that is heavier on the back half. We get the…
Bookshelf Briefs 6/10/22
Boys of the Dead | By Tomita Douji | Kuma – Enticed by the cleverness of the “Zom-BL” portmanteau, I bought this volume without really knowing anything about…
Bookshelf Briefs 2/11/22
Boy Meets Maria | By PEYO | Seven Seas – Taiga is a high school student who falls in love at first sight with a fellow drama club…
Bookshelf Briefs 11/30/22
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 6 | By Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe| Viz Media – The plotline of this volume is a dungeon crawl of sorts, where…
Bookshelf Briefs 9/20/22
Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Vol. 11 | By Nanashi | Kodansha Manga – I haven’t actually briefed this for a long time. Since I did, in…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/6/22
Falling Drowning, Vol. 3 | By Yuko Inari | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – It’s the final volume and, inevitably, Honatsu has begun to regain her memories. With…
Bookshelf Briefs 8/30/22
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Vol. 5 | By Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe| Viz Media – This is a series that is prepared to get pretty dark—some of…
Bookshelf Briefs 12/16/22
Blue Box, Vol. 1 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media – Sports manga always sell well in Japan, and high school romantic comedies are also popular. So…
Bookshelf Briefs 12/29/22
Catch These Hands!, Vol. 3 | By murata | Yen Press – This volume takes us back to Takebe’s initial thought process: all her former gang friends have…
Bookshelf Briefs 8/23/22
Box of Light, Vol. 1 | By Seiko Erisawa | Seven Seas – I’m not sure if this is meant to be a horror anthology with a minor…
Bookshelf Briefs 5/25/22
In which Sean solos yet again. HIRAETH -The End of the Journey-, Vol. 1 | By Yuhki Kamatani | Kodansha Manga (digital only) – This does not end…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/25/22
Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You, Vol. 2 | By Haruka Mitsui | Kodansah Comics (digital only) – For the most part Anyway, I’m Falling in Love…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/4/22
F | By Imai Arata | Glacier Bay Books – Japan’s triple disaster of 2011 has understandably influenced the creative output of the country’s artists, both directly and…
Bookshelf Briefs 9/27/22
D-Frag!, Vol. 16 | By Tomoya Haruno | Seven Seas – This new volume (by now the series is annual) involves a massive parody of “trapped in a…
Bookshelf Briefs 8/16/22
HIRAETH ~The End of the Journey~, Vol. 2 | By Yuhki Kamatani | Kodansha Manga (digital only) – In the first volume, we met a girl who’s desperate…
Bookshelf Briefs 11/4/22
Artist | By Yeong-shin Ma | Drawn & Quarterly – Two years after Yeong-shin Ma’s critically acclaimed manhwa Moms was released in English comes a second major work,…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/22/20
Arifureta: I Heart Isekai, Vol. 3 | By Misaki Mori, based on the novel by Ryo Shirakome | Seven Seas – This is keeping up a fast pace,…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/20/22
Anti-Romance, Vol. 1 | By Shoko Hidaka | Seven Seas – I was a big fan of Shoko Hidaka’s series Blue Morning. She excels at depicting complicated relationships…
Bookshelf Briefs 5/4/22
Minami Nanami Wants to Shine, Vol. 1 | By Bana Yoshida and Yuki Yaku | Yen Press – For most of the volume, this feels like a typical…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/5/21
Boys Run the Riot, Vol. 1 | By Keito Gaku | Kodansha Comics – This was well-acclaimed when it was first licensed, and it’s not hard to see…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/9/23
Bakemonogatari, Vol. 18 | By NISIOISIN and Oh!great | Kodansha Manga - I hadn't been reviewing the manga version of Bakemonogatari, as, while stylistically fantastic, it was pretty…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/30/20
Blue Flag, Vol. 2 | By KAITO | VIZ Media – How do I already love these kids this much?! Blue Flag is the story of four friends…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/19/23
Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 12 | By Ryoko Kui| Yen Press - And here we are at the apocalypse. Marcille is being sweet-talked by the lion/book into essentially…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/11/20
How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 1 | By Tamifull | Viz Media – This title has a lot of things going for it, once you get past the…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/21/20
Glaeolia, Vol. 1 | Edited by Emuh Ruh and zhuchka | Glacier Bay Books – One of the newest and smallest publishers of manga in English translation is…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/7/20
Ao Haru Ride, Vol. 9 | By Io Sakisaka | VIZ Media – Ao Haru Ride is probably the most straight-up dramatic shoujo that I am reading at…
Bookshelf Briefs 5/7/20
The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Vol. 12 | By Kore Yamazaki | Seven Seas – As much as I continue to love this series overall, this particular volume had…
Bookshelf Briefs 7/3/20
Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor, Vol. 9 | By Hitsuji Tarou, Tsunemi Aosa and Kurone Mishima | Seven Seas – Forgot to review the previous volume of…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/16/21
Blood on the Tracks, Vol. 4 | By Shuzo Oshima | Vertical Comics – The first volume of Blood on the Tracks was suspenseful and shocking and I…
Bookshelf Briefs 8/21/23
Blue Box, Vol. 5 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media - Sometimes trying to be kind can just look like mixed signals. That's what Taiki's having to…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/11/20
As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Vol. 10 | By Matoba | Yen Press – While there is a tiny bit of forward movement with some of the couples in…
Bookshelf Briefs 5/30/23
Blue Box, Vol. 4 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media - We finally tip the balance of this sports romance series back to romance in this volume,…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/16/24
Bocchi the Rock!, Vol. 2 | By Aki Hamazi | Yen Press - I did not realize that the Bocchi anime only adapted about 1.5 volumes, so the…
Bookshelf Briefs 2/2/21
All Sean, all the time. The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Vol. 13 | By Kore Yamazaki | Seven Seas – The series is still striking a good balance between,…
Bookshelf Briefs 11/14/21
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 10 | By Inio Asano | Viz Media – The end of this volume states in big, bold letters that there’s twelve…
Bookshelf Briefs 4/18/20
Bloom Into You, Vol. 7 | By Nakatani Nio | Seven Seas – The majority of this volume is devoted to Sayaka, who finally works up the resolve…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/2/2024
Innocent, Vols. 1-3 | By Shin'ichi Sakamoto | Dark Horse Comics - I was waiting for this release for a while, and in terms of the artwork and…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/18/20
Dr. STONE, Vol. 10 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi | Viz Media – Dr. STONE thrives on ridiculous ideas, of course, but that does not mean that…