Hello, Melancholic!, Vol. 3 | By Yayoi Ohsawa | Seven Seas I don’t think this series was cancelled, per se, but I am sad that this is the final volume, as it felt like it was just getting started. As you can likely guess, this final volume focuses on our main couple (the other pairings get side chapters that, alas, are not collected here) and their attempts to realize that they actually do like each other that way, as well as dealing with Minato’s terminal anxiety. I appreciated the way that this book showed that sometimes pushing a person to do something way outside their comfort zone can be a good thing, and I also enjoyed Hibiki being forced to realize that she may be more like her father than...
Jan 15, 2023 • Subscribe
More like this
Bookshelf Briefs 6/14/23
The Full-Time Wife Escapist, Vol. 11 | By Tsunami Umino | Kodansha Comics (digital only) - The copious adulting continues in this volume to the point where it's…
Bookshelf Briefs 5/14/23
Insomniacs After School, Vol. 1 | By Makoto Ojiro | Viz Media - The anime to this manga is currently airing this season, though I haven't watched it…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/5/23
Asumi-chan Is Interested in Lesbian Brothels!, Vol. 1 | By Kuro Itsuki | Seven Seas – I wasn’t originally planning to read this at all, but several people…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/1/23
Blue Box, Vol. 2 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media - The combination of sports manga and romcom is the series' main strength, as we saw from…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/25/23
A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 17 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Motoi Fuyukawa | Seven Seas – After briefly wrapping up the previous arc (and, sure enough, glossing…
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 4/20/23
The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 17 | By Kore Yamazaki | Seven Seas - It's been a long time since I reviewed this series, but I have been…
Bookshelf Briefs 3/16/23
Confessions of a Shy Baker, Vol. 1 | By Masaomi Ito | TOKYOPOP - Initially, Confessions of a Shy Baker felt to me like a discount knockoff of…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/2/23
Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 26 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media - This book starts to put in the effort of getting us to know and care…
Bookshelf Briefs 10/30/23
A Bride's Story, Vol. 14 | By Kaoru Mori | Yen Press - Actual main couple at last! And Karluk is thirteen, so is presumably getting closer to…
Bookshelf Briefs 9/11/23
I Don't Know Which Is Love, Vol. 1 | By Tamamushi Oku | Yen Press - If you have been reading all those ridiculous harem comedies, the sort…
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 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 12/11/23
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You, Vol. 8 | By Rikito Nakamura and Yukiko Nozawa | Ghost Ship The first half of this…
The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You
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 10/17/23
Blue Box, Vol. 6 | By Kouji Miura | Viz Media - A lot of things are finally done in this book. We get Hina's confession, and Taiki's…
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 11/20/23
#DRCL Midnight Children, Vol. 1 | By Shin'ichi Sakamoto | Viz Media - This is one of those books that I wouldn't normally pick up except for that…
Bookshelf Briefs 2/10/23
Blue Box, Vol. 2 | By Kouji Miura | VIZ Media - Blue Box continues to strike a great balance between being a sports manga and being a…
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 5/21/23
Catch These Hands!, Vol. 4 | By murata | Yen Press - When two people who already know each other well decide—or are trying to decide—to be a…
Bookshelf Briefs 4/5/23
Ayashimon, Vol. 1 | By Yuji Kaku | VIZ - Ayashimon starts with a bang: we meet Maruo, a boy who’s so obsessed with shonen manga that he…
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 1/25/20
Again!!, Vol. 12 | By Mitsurou Kubo | Kodansha Comics – For better or worse, Again!! has always been unpredictable. I appreciate that it didn’t always follow the…
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 3/1/21
BL Metamorphosis, Vol. 3 | By Kaori Tsurutani | Seven Seas – This third volume might even be stronger than the first two. Urara wants to invite Ichinoi…
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 12/1/20
Cutie and the Beast, Vol. 1 | By Yuhi Azumi| Seven Seas – This looked cute, and gave off a very My Love Story!! vibe, but I was…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/16/2024
A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch, Vol. 1 | By Hiro Kashiwaba | Seven Seas - Jeanne, an elderly witch, summons Torata, an ordinary house…
Bookshelf Briefs 2/1/20
Anonymous Noise, Vol. 18 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | VIZ Media – It took a while for me to get into Anonymous Noise, and I still wouldn’t call…
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 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 1/4/20
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 7 | By Inio Asano | Viz Media – Every time a new volume of this fantastic series comes out I avoid…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/16/20
Anonymous Noise, Vol. 18 | By Ryoko Fukuyama | Viz Media – Welp, I was wrong. Romantically, the final pairing is not what I expected. That said, romance,…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/4/21
Black Clover, Vol. 23 | By Yuki Tabata | Viz Media – Given we came to the end of a very long arc last time, it makes sense…
Bookshelf Briefs 1/20/21
Goodbye, My Rose Garden, Vol. 3 | By Dr. Pepperco | Seven Seas – Last time I said that this series never quite tipped over into melodrama, but…
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 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 3/16/24
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 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 8/26/21
Captivated, By You | By Yama Wayama | Yen Press – A collection of short stories that originally ran in the magazine Comic Beam, they all take place…
Bookshelf Briefs 4/16/21
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 9 | By Inio Asano | Viz Media – By the ninth volume of Dead Dead Demon, any hope that this series…
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 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 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 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 12/29/19
As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Vol. 8 | By Matoba | Yen Press -Aside from the cute slice-of-life aspects of the series, much of it revolves around the fact…
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 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 7/31/22
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…