Zombies in Okinawa! Board games come to life! And a teenage mogul who needs help with her household chores? Check out our reviews this week of the newest releases of Dandadan, Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent, Zom 100, and more on Reader’s Corner!
Dandadan (Vol. 19) • Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent (Vol. 6) • Hima-Ten (Vol. 1) • Scenes from Awajima (Vol. 2) • Shugo Chara! 20th Anniversary Edition (Vol. 1) • Victoria of Many Faces (Vol. 3) • Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (Vol. 2)
Hima-Ten, Manga Vol. 1
Sixteen-year-old Tenichi is a student, yes, but his passion is housework. He loves to turn homes into warm spaces and gets to practice this in his part-time job as a housekeeper. But his school life and work life intermingle in the most unexpected of ways when make-up mogul Himarin transfers into his class and becomes his newest client. What a fun take on the housekeeper/celebrity trope, with the boy functioning in the domestic role! But more than that, volume one of Hima-Ten was really sweet, very funny, and incredibly engaging. I flew right through it. Both of the characters, plus childhood friend/love interest Kanai, are very easy to love, and the opening volume does so well in developing their characters and creating chemistry among them. This is the exact type of series that I absolutely adore, though of course it’s up in the air whether the story can continue with the promise of its initial chapters. Guess I’ll have to find out on the VIZ app…I think I might have to continue reading the series right now. ~ Twwk
Hima-Ten is published by VIZ Media.
Dandadan, Manga Vol. 19
Bikini Armor Fight! Let’s do this, yo. We can do this through the power of the ombudsman! Ahem. Enough of actual lines from volume eighteen of Dandadan, including one really important one. No, two. We’ll get to those in a minute. But first, the newest volume of the series opens with our heroes in perhaps the worst situations they’ve yet been in as they face off against the Fairy-Tale Card. And once again, the fight lives up to expectations—a complete whirlwind of battles and characters, including the appearances of both someone unexpected and someone new—with an exciting and moving climax. However, after all that, this arc really opens the way not only to the next story involving Momo, but perhaps also to the main plot of Dandadan. Yes, the main plot! I’ll avoid spoilers, but those two lines I referred to earlier focus on two important strands—one to a relationship central to the series and the other to something that we don’t yet know about, but seems to be the overarching emphasis of the supernatural in the story. I’m quite excited to see where the manga moves from here, and that itself is a testament to the excellence of this manga. By this point, it’s clear—Dandadan is a modern classic of action shounen! ~ Twwk
Dandadan is published by VIZ Media.
READ Reviews of Dandadan: Vol. 1 // Vol. 2 // Vol. 3 // Vol. 4 // Vol. 5 // Vol. 6 // Vol. 7 // Vol. 8 // Vol. 9 // Vol. 10 // Vol. 11 // Vol. 12 // Vol. 13 // Vol. 14 // Vol. 15 // Vol. 16 // Vol. 17 // Vol. 18
Victoria of Many Faces, Manga Vol. 3
Victoria and Nona are having such wonderful fun in their everyday lives! Sure, Victoria isn’t keen on having more eyes on her, and she is sure that someone is trying to find more information on her, but for now, she is happy. However, she also knows it’s only a matter of time before someone discovers her real identity, and that time may be much sooner than she realizes. What do you mean I have to wait until September to find out what happens next?! This volume started with a gut punch and ended with a gut punch (and one of those is an unintentional pun!), but the middle was so wonderful and had some really heartfelt moments! I truly wish Victoria could see how loved she is by so many people around her who genuinely want to help and support her! It really hurts my heart to hear her say that she is fine and can do everything on her own—yes, I believe she can and has already shown she can, but no one wants to be alone, especially when they’re feeling scared. And my heart hurt not only for Victoria but for Jeffery too, because he knew what might happen, and he did everything he could to show that he wanted to stand by her side. He even mentioned the number of hoops he would jump through to support her and Nonna! My heart really feels like it’s being ripped out… On a happy note, I loved the play and how cute everyone looked dressed up! I also enjoyed the new character that made an appearance and how Victoria was able to engage with him. It was fun and exciting to see her in her element! So overall, a really, really good volume, but I need everyone happily together! ~ Laura A. Grace
Victoria of Many Faces is published by Yen Press.
READ Reviews of Victoria of Many Faces: Vol. 1 // Vol. 2 // Vol. 3 (Twwk)
Shugo Chara! 20th Anniversary Edition, Manga Vol. 1
Amu is a young girl who comes across as “cool” and indifferent to her peers, but deep down, Amu wants to be more feminine and considered cute. When she unexpectedly gets “character eggs” known as Guardian Characters, could they help grant her wish? “Any child who is lacking something can be the main character of their story.” If someone were to tell me, as an adult, that I would be deeply impacted by a manga geared towards younger girls, I confess I would feel a little bit skeptical about how “deep” the impact could go. However, that person could clap back at me, saying “told you so!” because Shugo Chara! was nothing like I expected, especially when it came to how the themes of this manga would touch my heart! I think out of all the magical girl series I’ve read (which admittedly are not many), Amu is by far the most relatable character. A young girl has had an “image” or persona pushed onto her by other people; and rather than push back on what and who people think she is, she chooses to let those ideas dictate how she outwardly acts. All the while, when she is alone, we can see how much she wants and longs to be someone else, the someone else who her heart yearns to be (which is much different than how she acts). As someone who could relate to that wayyyy too strongly, even as an adult a few years ago, I was caught off guard by how many times I felt a “pang” in my heart when reading: people pleasing was my game up until about six plus years ago, when I eventually hated myself so much and who I seemed to be that I fell into deep depression and self-loathing. I thankfully got help, but it’s been a long journey to be the person my heart has wanted to be right now, and I couldn’t help but think of how creative it was to have these little guardian characters help Amu with her transformation. Overall, this is a beautiful edition of a series that I now understand is so loved and treasured by fans of the manga and anime! I feel it’s a story that can be appreciated regardless of age, and I would definitely love to continue the series to see what happens next!~ Laura A. Grace
Shugo Chara! 20th Anniversary Edition is published by Kodansha.
Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent, Manga Vol. 6
The school festival is almost in full swing, with last-minute preparations! If that wasn’t stressful enough in itself, Momo is also deeply worried about Ichikura avoiding her. She’s not sure if she did something, but she knows for certain she needs to avoid Yachiyo, so why does she keep bumping into him?! Eeeeepppp! I love these characters so, so, so much!! I’m not a fan of love triangles, but even after rereading this volume, I still feel it’s so well done! Honestly, if I weren’t such a big fan of Ichikura, I would totally be a fan of Yachiyo! Unfortunately, he’s liking the wrong girl, where I simply can’t cheer for him, but! I am cheering for his happiness and loved seeing how respectful he was of Momo! I mean, yes, he obviously wants to stay close to her, but I think their walk around the festival shows he isn’t going to overstep and knows that nothing is going to sway Momo’s heart. Poor Ichikura, though! If only he could have heard that last bit of that one conversation, things might have been handled differently! And poor Momo too! These two are sort of going through the emotional wringer, but I know they’ll be okay! I can’t wait to reread the next volume physically! I know it’s going to be just as good as this volume is, especially knowing what’s to come! ~ Laura A. Grace
Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent is published by Seven Seas.
READ Reviews of Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent: Vol. 1 // Vol. 2 // Vol. 3 // Vol. 4 // Vol. 5
Scenes from Awajima, Manga Vol. 2
Pay attention, readers, because this is where the meat is. Volume two of Scenes from Awajima will continue to be confusing for readers (well, for readers like me who are frequently wondering where we are on the timeline and who these characters are), but that’s where I come in. As one who adored the recently concluded anime series, I’ll tell you now: all these characters matter, but the three-part story in volume two is of particular significance because in its tale of three generations of women connected to Awajima—of a cruel grandmother, kindly mother, and daughter who turns out too much like the older woman she hates—we start to unravel the depths of these characters’ lives and the layers behind being a student at the school. Beyond that, I won’t say more, but I encourage you to try to remember the main characters of these chapters as we revisit them in future volumes, including those in the cuter opening chapter and in the melancholy “ghost stories” chapters that conclude volume two. The disconnected quality of the series is both a beautiful hallmark of Takako Shimura’s works and one that can make it confusing, but I encourage you to stay with it—or to try the anime, which, like Hourou Musuko before it, weaves scenes together more obviously than Shimura-sensei does. Either way, you’ll continue to discover a meaningful, moving, and stunning series that is worth investing your time in—and just as importantly, your heart. ~ Twwk
Scenes from Awajima is published by Yen Press.
READ Scenes from Awajima Vol. 1 Review
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Manga Vol. 20
On to Okinawa! Akira and the rest must find a base from which to share the zombie vaccine, but the problem is that Okinawa is more dense with zombies than any other locale. That’s no issue for the always-positive Akira, though, right? Or is it? Volume twenty stretches us as readers a bit by presenting a conundrum that’s relational in addition to zombies, and it makes for an interesting new arc. I think I needed a little of this, because the relentless positivity begins to feel fake without a realistic approach to the characters’ psyches, and I think we do get some of that depth here in volume twenty, as well as a real sense of danger, which doesn’t always feel present in Zom 100 despite the enormous odds the group faces. This is a smart approach and a great way to keep an excellent series from getting dull. ~ Twwk
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is published by VIZ Media.
READ Reviews of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead: Vol. 1 // Vol. 2 // Vol. 3 // Vol. 4 // Vol. 5 // Vol. 6 // Vol. 7 // Vol. 8 // Vol. 9 // Vol. 10 // Vol. 11 // Vol. 12 // Vol. 13 // Vol. 14 // Vol. 15 // Vol. 16 // Vol. 17 // Vol. 18 // Vol. 19
“Reader’s Corner” is our way of embracing the wonderful world of manga, light novels, and visual novels, creative works intimately related to anime but with a magic all their own. Each week, our writers provide their thoughts on the works they’re reading—both those recently released as we keep you informed of newly published works, and those older titles that you might find as magical (or in some cases, reprehensible) as we do.
