REVIEW: Nana v21
Reviewed by Penny Kenny

On her twenty-first birthday, Nana waits for Ren and Hachi to arrive. Meanwhile, the rest of the group learns Ren has been in a horrible accident. I’ve read two volumes of Nana in my life; volume two and this one. That’s all the exposure I’ve had to this fan-favorite series. Yet I was still able to immerse myself in this world and understand for the most part what the characters were going through. That’s a tribute to the believable and strong...
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The Upcoming Hetalia Manga Gets a Trailer
Reported by Charles Webb

WWII-themed comedy Hetalia is getting its manga release via Tokyopop later this month. So to announce the big date they've released a trailer. What do you think? Does it look good?
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MangaLife: On Culture
Written by Liz Reed

In part one of this series, I broke down the definition of “culture” into three parts: fine arts and humanities; a combination of knowledge, belief, and behavior; and a shared set of values that characterizes a particular group of people. Now, how does this apply to manga, especially when you add other world forms like American manga (Amerimanga), Korean manhwa, Chinese manhua, and French la nouvelle manga? Just looking at the characteristically overdrawn...
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FIRST TIMER'S EDITION (Double Shot!): One Piece v36 & v37
Reviewed by Charles Webb

I've only ever really nibbled around the edges of Eiichiro Oda's popular-with-everyone-but-me shonen saga, One Piece, mostly, it must be said, because for so long, the series looked like such syrupy, high-action/low-brain power concoction. Honestly, I didn't want to waste my energy on the sort of work that just plateaus at high energy, leaving your humble reader with no time to catch his breath. It was something about the art style and the wildly...
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Words of Truth and Wisdom: I Put A Spell On You
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley

Okay, so we were reading a review of the latest volume of Negima! that came out (twenty... seven days ago...? How pathetic is it that I don't know? I guess I could just look it up really fast. Or I could ask Athena. She says it's twenty-seven.) and a comment was made that inspired a column! ...Or we thought it inspired a column, but then we felt like we'd talked about it before, so we weren't sure if it was a good topic. So we checked the titles...
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BREAKING: Paprika, Perfect Blue Impresario Satoshi Kon Dead at 47
Reported by Charles Webb

This story seems to be popping up all over, and despite any Japanese news outlet sourcing it would appear that writer/director Satoshi Kon has died. Via FEARnet: "The news comes from Anime News Network. The site reports that Jim Vowles, a member of the Otakorp Board of Directors for the Otakon anime convention, announced today that Kon had died at the age of 47. 'The staff of Otakon confirmed his passing with MADHOUSE studio founder Masao Maruyama....
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REVIEW: Arata, The Legend v2
Reviewed by Penny Kenny

Things are not going well for Arata Hinohara. After magically trading places with another Arata from another world, he's framed for murdering the Princess Kikuri and sent to the island prison of Gatoya. To escape and fulfill a promise he made to the princess, he must learn to control his Hayagami, a powerful, mystical weapon, and defeat the prison's warden. I didn't expect to like Arata the Legend as much as I did. Generally Yuu Watase's stories...
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REVIEW: Sumomomo, Momomo v4
Reviewed by Liz Reed

Sumomomo, Momomo: The Strongest Bride on Earth—just saying that is fun, and trust me, the story is just as hilarious as its title. Volume 4 picks up with the budding relationship between Koushi Inuzuka, a normal high school student who comes from the Dog Martial Arts Family, and Momoko Kuzuryū, the strongest bride on Earth from the Dragon Family. While Koushi is still apprehensive about their arranged engagement, they find themselves sleeping...
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REVIEW: House of Five Leaves v1
Reviewed by Charles Webb

The last time I reviewed the work of Natsume Ono it started a train of thought about the nature (and value) of melodrama in modern fiction. Specifically, I took note of how deftly - and unashamedly, even - the author would employ melodramatic elements to hook her readers. Part of me suspects that this is what she's up to with her latest, House of Five Leaves, a piece of samurai fiction involving a hapless ronin, a wily gangster, and a gang of kidnappers...
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REVIEW: Happy Cafe v3
Reviewed by Zack Davisson

You know how you can love one cupcake, and maybe another, but by the third one the sweetness starts to get to you? It still tastes good, but that initial delight of the first bite is fading, and you find yourself wanting something with a little more substance. That’s the feeling I get reading Happy Café. Although I loved the first two volumes, which were little more than light and frothy fun featuring the kind of wacky cast that couldn’t exist...
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REVIEW: Time and Again v3
Reviewed by Charles Webb

There comes a point when the heavy stylization and conventions of a genre make it unapproachable. That's pretty much the case with Time and Again whose visual quirks of an entirely feminized cast make reading the book something of a challenge. Which is a shame, because the book has a couple of interesting ideas. The book acts more or less as a running anthology of stories with exorcist Baek-On taking a variety of cases in historical Korea alongside...
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Words of Truth and Wisdom: Filters
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley

We've been a little preoccuppied over the last week, so I'm not entirely convinced this column will have a point to it, but I'm going to try anyway. We happened to watch Howl's Moving Castle today, and even though we haven't read the book it's based on, the friend we watched the movie with has, so of course the differences between the book and the movie became a topic of conversation. Actually, the differences between books and movies in general...
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