Mangasplaining

A Japanese take on superheroes? A henshin series? A kaiju/giant monsters manga? A workplace drama? The new-ish Shonen Jump series Kaiju No. 8 is all of these and more! But will the Mangasplainers dig this multifaceted action series? Or is it merely… Competent!!!? Come for Kaiju No. 8, but stick around for wide-ranging discussions of age, digital manga, Shonen Jump, and much more.

Read along with our show notes at Mangasplaining.com ...

Welcome back to Mangasplaining, the podcast for people who are curious about manga but don’t know where to start! This week we choose a work from one of our favorite authors with potentially broad appeal—Jiro Taniguchi’s Guardians of the Louvre. But will this title live up to the love we have for the rest of his catalogue? Keep Listen in and read on to find out!

Read along with the show notes and more at Mangasplaining.com and follo...

Hello Mangasplaining fans, have we got a treat for you! Thanks to our friends at Kodansha who sponsored this episode, we were given an advance peak at the forthcoming hardcover omnibus Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow Volume 1. This classic boxing manga (and so much more!) has been one of the podcast’s white whales for years, and on December 24th the first volume will be released to the world! Is it everything we dreamed of? Li...

Welcome to our very first episode of… Comicsplaining?! That’s right, this week we're covering a “mainstream, superhero” book, Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli. Chip calls it his “Nausicaa,” and everything THAT means. But wait, why are covering a non-manga title? What does this have to do with Mangasplaining? Does Chip nerd out on Daredevil: Born Again SUPER HARD for th...

Welcome to Season 5 of Mangasplaining! We’re jumping right in on our new bi-weekly schedule with both our longest episode AND our first prose book: Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, by Frederik Schodt. It’s literally THE book on Manga for North America, or at least it was when first published back in 1988… Does this incredible tome of manga history hold up, or is the industry in North America, not to mention Japan, just t...

Did you know that comics, graphic novels, and manga can (usually) be found at your local library? We talk to American Library Association's Graphic Novel and Comics Roundtable President Robin Brenner about her history promoting manga in libraries and how you can save a few bucks and enjoy your tax dollars at work at your local library!

Check out the show notes at mangasplaining.com and our digital publisher at mangasplainingextr...

What a season it’s been! Lasting basically the entirety of 2023, we covered a ton of great manga, from the popular anime-fueled hits of the day to the obscure and wonderful titles hiding on shelves across the world. So what were our favs? What are the manga for YOU, the person who doesn’t read much manga? Listen on and find out!

Stats on the season, show notes, and so much more at mangasplaining.com. And don’t miss our manga publish...

It's the end of the season (almost) and so it's time to read the next volume of AKIRA by Katsuhiro Otomo! Will the title that introduced Chip Zdarsky to manga continue to be his fav? Deb Aoki hosts, and David Brothers and Christopher Woodrow-Butcher join in on this merry tour through the biggest and most intense volume of the series. 

Read along with the extensive show-notes at mangasplaining.com and check out our newsletter...

Season 4 is nearing its conclusion, and it's time for David's last pick: Heavenly Delusion, by Masakazu Ishiguro! This sci-fi (comedy?) manga has a huge fan-following already thanks to its great art and story AND a hit anime series too! But will that be enough to meet the high standards of the VERY choosy Mangasplaining crew?

Read along with the show notes at Mangasplaining.com and check out our manga publishing arm at Mang...

See what happens when a stoic yakuza gets sucked into the world of K-Pop in The Yakuza’s Bias, a hilarious culture clash between the manly men of the mob and glamly men of Korean boy bands. BUT WILL CHIP LIKE IT TOO? Find out this episode!

Read along with the extensive show-notes at mangasplaining.com, and subscribe to our newsletter and manga publishing endeavour at mangasplainingextra.com.

Happy New Year! Hope you had time to catch up on the podcast while we were away. :) - For the first episode of 2024 we're starting off with a complex work, Kyoko Okazaki's River's Edge. In this mature-rated episode, we dig into the startling secret lives of teens in the 1990s, through the unique lens of the incredible josei manga creator Kyoko Okazaki. Don't miss this episode!

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In this episode, Deb bring back the BL and we end up with possibly the best title for a manga we've covered on this podcast: Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard!? Despite reservations, a very fun time is had on this week's episode. Plus: The Return of the reader Q&A!

Listen and read our show notes at Mangasplaining.com, and sign up for our newsletter at MangasplainingExtra.com.

Diving into the world of Gekiga this week with the recently released Nejishiki by Yoshiharu Tsuge! Featuring one of the most well-known and important works of Tsuge, ‘Screw Style’, this massive reprint series has been long-awaited by art comix & manga fans and collectors. But how will the Mangasplainers react to a work considerably off their beaten path? And is the book actually more about the pitfalls of traditional Japanese I...

The Mangasplainers return to one of their fav artists, Kamome Shirahama of Witch Hat Atelier to take a look at her earlier and steamier work, the angel and devil roommate comedy Eniale & Dewiela. Will the angels and devils in this manga provide a chaste reading experiences? Or are the sultry demons going to get them all hot and bothered? The answer awaits in this episode!

Read along with the show notes at mangasplaining.com and ...

This week, the Mangasplainers go back for a TRIPLE Chip-Dip into the oeuvre of one Mr. Tatsuki Fujimoto, creator of Chainsaw Man and Look Back. Have we pushed Chip too far this episode, making him read a third title by the same person? Does liking those first two titles automatically mean that he'll like the "rug-pull" of the third? Are Canadians 60% 'Rube'? Listen on, listeners, and find out!

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Is this manga meets X-Men: Inferno? That's how David pitched Blood Blockade Battlefront by Trigun creator Yasuhiro Nightow to good 'ole Chip, but will this over the top spectral superhero series live up to that moniker? Only one way to find out...!

Plus: Read and listen along with the show-notes at Mangasplaining.com, and check out our newsletter at mangasplainingextra.com.

Chip did it, he called our bluff, and so this episode we're discussing the funny orange comic book cat phenomenon, centering on Japan's entry into that particular sweepstakes, Makoto Kobayashi's What's Michael? It's a weird one folks, strap in.

Read the show notes and more at Mangasplaining.com, and check out our newsletter and publishing endeavour at MangasplainingExtra.com.

After our episode on The Blood Red Boy introduced us to Minami Q-ta, the Mangasplaining gang take a deeper dive into their oeuvre with Not All Girls Are Stupid, a brand-new and blistering look at the difficulties of being a woman in your late teens and early 20s. A great chat came out of this, but this episode also ventures into NSFW topics, so maybe keep that in mind before you start listening.

Read along with the show-notes at Man...

This week, we take a flying leap into the worlds of WRESTLING and REHAB... By way of a basketball manga? Yep! David skips ahead to get to the good stuff with volume 13 of Real by Takehiko Inoue. Plus! A special segment celebrating 100+ episodes of Mangasplaining.

Listen and read the show notes at mangasplaining.com. And check out an interview with Takehiko Inoue in our newsletter at MangasplainingExtra.com.