Reading The Wrong Way

Summer is in full swing, and we're back to reading full manga series once again. This time around it was Bea's choice, and she went with Dementia 21, the English-language debut from eccentric artist/manga writer, Shintaro Kago. It was quite the episode, and we had a lot to say about both the content found within the two volumes of the series, and Mr. Kago himself. It's definitely different from anything we've read before, and we ho...

Manuel is back, and we have a special episode this time around! Rather than look at an entire series, we took a look at the first volume of a manga that is getting an anime adaptation this summer. Manuel chose The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses by Norishiro-chan & Yukiji Setsuda, Bea chose The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren, and J.D. chose Gachiakuta by Kei Urana. It's quite the varied collection of manga, and we had a...

Here is the second half to our first ever two-part episode! We recommend you check out the first half before listening to this one, but this is the conclusion of J.D., Rose, and Ruby's look at CLAMP's Toyko Babylon. This episode covers the final four volumes, and thus ends the longest series we've looked at so far. Manuel is still missing from this one, but he will be back for the June Summer Special! That's for later though, for n...

J.D. may have recently returned, but it's now Manuel's time to take a break. This month sees the return of Ruby as a guest host on this special two-part episode. This month's choice was made by J.D., and it's CLAMP's classic series Tokyo Babylon! This is the longest series we've looked at so far at seven volumes, so we decided to split the talk into two episodes. This is the first half that covers the first three volumes, and the s...

J.D. is back from Japan, and we are (hopefully) back to our normally scheduled episodes! This month's choice was made by Manuel, and it's something of a nostalgic one. Princess Ai is arguably one of the first attempts to produce an original collaborative manga for both the US and Japanese market. Written by Misaho Kujiradou (who also did the art) and DJ Milky (AKA TOKYOPOP's Stuart Levy), and featuring input from alternative rock s...

While J.D. is away, the mice will play! J.D. is in Japan, so that means Manuel and Bea are running the show this month! Not only is this the first J.D.-less episode, it's also the first that features a special guest! Last month Ruby suggested we take a look at Moto Hagio's 1975 four chapter series, They Were Eleven, and she's here to talk about it with us here. Not only is this series great in its own right, but it was also one of ...

We're back with our fourth episode, and this is the first one of the new year! This time around Bea, JD, and Manuel take a look at Tekkonkinkreet, a manga with a title that we had trouble with ever since Bea suggested it. It's written and illustrated by Taiyo Matsumoto, and is also known as Black & White. It's quite different from most of the other titles we've looked at so far, and this is probably the first time where our vie...

We're back with our third episode, and this one arrives just in time for the holidays! This time around Bea, JD, and Manuel take a look at Samurai Girl: Real Bout High School, a manga series brought to us by Reiji Saigaand Sora Inoue. This may be a title that isn't discussed much today, but there was a time when TokyoPop put all their marketing push behind it. Since Manuel was there at the time, it makes sense that this was his cho...

A-to-J is celebrating its 10th Anniversary, so we played around with the release of our second episode a bit. This time around Bea, JD, and Manuel take a look at Tenmaku Cinema, a manga series brought to us by Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki, the team behind Food Wars. It was something of a failure during its original run in Shonen Jump, but we had a lot to talk about regarding this one. Not only do we examine the series, but we also r...