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Completed

On Hold

Dropped

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Reading

#

Manga Title

Score

Chapters

Volumes

Tags

1

Add - More 3000-nen Fuuin Sareshi Jaryuu-chan to Tomodachi ni Narimashita Publishing

-

1/-

-/-

2

Add - More Alicia-san no Diet Quest

-

3/18

-/3

3

Add - More Amanchu! A page in one of the chapters was just left raw by the scanlator. Awesome. *** And again! It seems like maybe the raws the scanlators were working off of didn't include these pages so they were never translated. Then whoever bundled them together into volumes threw in the missing raw pages so at least they'd be there, even if they weren't translated. This is an unfortunate situation. Now I'm hoping the anime covers up through volume six so at least these bits of dialogue will be translated in some form. *** Though I am tickled that with each successive group change the scanlations become more and more thorough. Now the sfx are even being fully translated and typeset. It's nice. Still would love to have translated versions of those two untranslated pages, though.

-

55/102

8/17

4

Add - More Angou Gakuen no Iroha

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2/59

-/7

Not sure this one translates well, probably dropping Not sure this one translates well, probably dropping

5

Add - More Arigatou

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1/47

-/4

6

Add - More Ayashimon

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8/25

-/3

7

Add - More Éclair: Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology

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3/-

-/5

MAL lists this as publishing while MU says it's complete. I'd trust MU more on this. MAL lists this as publishing while MU says it's complete. I'd trust MU more on this.

8

Add - More Babylon made wa Nankounen?

-

3/32

-/1

Probably dropping, "How many light-years to Babylon?" Probably dropping, "How many light-years to Babylon?"

9

Add - More Bitter Virgin

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2/32

-/4

10

Add - More Boku to Kanojo no Koi Log I don't have a good feel about this one. I've got this whole folder full of manga I picked out of those "one page" threads on /a/, and like 99% of them are turning out to be fanservice/harem/echhi titles. I don't know what else I expected. This one seems like it's part of the 99%. It's not like I won't read something that also has fanservice, but /a/ seems to prefer ones that are virtually all about objectification and nothing else. Sheesh.

-

1/19

-/3

Possibly dropping. Possibly dropping.

11

Add - More Boku to Roboko Publishing

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1/-

-/-

12

Add - More Boku wa Hajikko ga Suki

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1/23

-/3

Ehhh..., of dubious quality, Potentially dropping Ehhh..., of dubious quality, Potentially dropping

13

Add - More Boku wa Mari no Naka

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1/80

-/9

14

Add - More Bokura no Henbyoushi

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2/7

-/1

15

Add - More Bonnouji

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1/36

-/3

16

Add - More Centaur no Nayami Publishing At eight volumes, I really don't think the newly announced anime will cover territory in the manga that the scanlations didn't already, so looks like I'm still looking at having to buy the volumes regardless if I want to read more of this. Also, just continues to be a great crop of anime adaptation announcements for Seven Seas lately. And yet the Seven Seas license I would've most expected to get an adaptation, The Ancient Magus' bride, continues to not get one outside of those prequel OVAs. Oh well. Should be neat to see this manga in anime form, though. There are very few anime where I've read the manga beforehand, so there's still a novelty factor to that for me. So long as the project is put in at least reasonably capable hands, anyway. Hard to say any more when the only real news so far is that the adaptation is planned to happen. *** Hey The Ancient Magus' Bride is now getting a TV anime as well. Neat! Also I had to wait nearly a year to be able to read more chapters of this and I'd forgotten the full extent of its peculiarity. I do wonder how much that'll get across in the anime adaptation. *** The studio working on this manga's anime adaptation could most generously be described as "not great." Which is a bit of a shame. Maybe this'll be the one where they turn things around and demonstrate they're capable of quality work, but probably not. That studio isn't likely to do well adapting anything at all, and this being a manga with a number of eccentric nuances that are essential to its particular functioning means hopes should be set even lower still. Worst case, we get a poorly-animated and generic "monster girl" show missing most of what makes A Centaur's Life "A Centaur's Life." The director hasn't worked on any of the studio's past works, it seems, but what little directorial work he's done hasn't been particularly great. The person in charge of series composition has a vaguely better history, but certainly not a great one. One can certainly hope they prove otherwise, but at a certain point you've gotta take the preponderance of information you have that suggests things are gonna go a certain direction and set you expectations accordingly. And here that direction seems to be "disappointment." Well, worst comes to worst, it's not like a bad anime adaptation causes the manga to go away or become worse, right? (Right?)

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71/-

10/-

17

Add - More Chichi to Ko Wait. Every time I move to another chapter, the thing exits full screen? gosh darn it, Crunchyroll Cute manga, though. *** (spolier?) "Hey, Father and Son, you've been a charming, wholly inoffensive manga so far!" "Thanks! Now to smash your dreams and crush your hopes, here's a bad representation of a trans* character." "Oh... you shouldn't have. You really shouldn't have." blegh *** Multiple volumes later and the manga's portrayal of her hasn't improved at all. This black mark on the manga could've been avoided but apparently the mangaka just thinks transphobia is endlessly amusing. Like 9/10 times it's a cute and funny manga but then it stops to chime in with "And transwomen are gross and also men, am I right?"

-

62/123

6/10

Can't just have a cute manga without taking the chance to let me know it thinks I'm a disgusting subhuman, I guess! Can't just have a cute manga without taking the chance to let me know it thinks I'm a disgusting subhuman, I guess!

18

Add - More Chikan Otoko /a/ seems to be going nuts for this. I'm putting some faith in you here, /a/non. Since /a/ is of course known for its flawless taste and high standards. Huh, what? Oh no, that wasn't a suppressed giggle. Just clearing my throat.

-

4/21

-/-

19

Add - More Chimoguri Ringo to Kingyobachi Otoko

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2/27

-/3

What. What.

20

Add - More Crayon Shin-chan

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1/1126

-/50

Welp, this should last me for a while. Welp, this should last me for a while.

21

Add - More Dainana Joshikai Houkou

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14/87

1/10

22

Add - More Darwin's Game I can't help but feel like I've seen this premise multiple times before. Is this sort of thing already its own subgenre?

-

4/121

-/30

23

Add - More Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction Hmm. Asano's manga seem to rack up critical acclaim and I remember Oyasumi Punpun volumes seemed to be selling decently in Japan. Yet none of his manga have ever had anime adaptations. I'm okay with that, but I just find it curious. Not sure who I'd want to handle his work, anyway. And the title of this one is delightful.

-

38/101

4/12

A new manga from Asano and it's getting scanlated in a timely fashion. Can't complain. A new manga from Asano and it's getting scanlated in a timely fashion. Can't complain.

24

Add - More Double House

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2/4

-/1

25

Add - More Dr. Stone I feel like I don't need both this and U19. But I also feel like, while I'd be uncertain of this series' potential longevity in Jump, U19 isn't likely to outlast it. Oh well, I'll figure it all out later. Or just keep reading both because whatever. Or neither. I don't know. Check out these strong feelings on these manga.

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2/237

-/27

Probably dropping Probably dropping

26

Add - More Duel! The art and writing are kind of subpar, but I'm mildly curious to see how a fencing manga goes, so I'll give it at least a bit longer.

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1/52

-/6

Eh..., Probably dropping Eh..., Probably dropping

27

Add - More Dungeon Meshi

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1/102

-/14

"Delicious in Dungeon" "Delicious in Dungeon"

28

Add - More Enjokousai Bokumetsu Undou

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1/11

-/1

29

Add - More Fukakai na Boku no Subete wo

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4/28

-/5

30

Add - More Gacha wo Mawashite Nakama wo Fuyasu: Saikyou no Bishoujo Gundan wo Tsukuriagero the Comic Publishing

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1/-

-/-

31

Add - More Gekkakoku Kiiden Publishing

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3/-

-/-

32

Add - More Gekkou Wait, MAL has LNs, too? It's more anime and manga adjacent, in my view. Oh well. This site is full of grey areas. I've picked this title completely arbitrarily. I didn't even read a synopsis for it or anything. I simply figured I might as well see what the translated LN scene is like and this was both available and not a long-stalled translation project. There're some concerns about reading a work translated by "some guy(s)," but professionally translated LNs are few and far between. I've never read an LN before. Hopefully this isn't terrible. *** Wait. All the fan translated anime and manga I consume are translated by "some guy(s)." But I feel like that's potentially a bigger issue for novels than it is for cartoons and comics. A lot can get lost in translation, you know?

-

3/11

-/1

LN toe dipping. LN toe dipping.

33

Add - More Girl Friends

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18/35

2/5

34

Add - More Girl May Kill Fifteen?! She... she's not supposed to look like an average fifteen-year-old girl, right? Because that's pretty off base if she is!

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9/23

-/4

35

Add - More Glitch

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6/24

1/4

36

Add - More Gojikanme no Sensou

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2/27

-/4

37

Add - More Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

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-/14

-/1

38

Add - More Hanjuku Joshi

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1/18

-/2

39

Add - More Harapeko no Marie I wonder if Shonen Jump publicly publishes the results of their questionnaires. Would be useful to know if this or any other Jump manga is reasonably likely to be cancelled soon or not. *** Speaking of publishing futures, how exactly is Viz handling these "Jump Start" series anyway? It'd be one thing if Hungry Marie just didn't do well enough with their audience for them to publish more of it, but seeing as they don't seem to have committed to any of the six new series they ran a bit of, things are a little confusing. When and where will they announce which of these series they're continuing to publish? They sell their online magazine on the basis of being able to read certain Jump series, so you'd really think they'd want to make it clear which Jump series those are. But then, they make even finding a table of contents for their latest issue a non-obvious endeavor, so who knows. Unless they really are just passing on all six series, which would be a bit surprising. (I'd really rather have Viz's level of quality for this series than the scanlation's level of quality, you know.) *** It's seeming like Viz isn't picking this one up. That's a bit surprising, but they have data I don't, I suppose. As does WSJ proper, and according to the Internet, signs are it's ranking rather poorly there right now. There are many reasons I'm not an editor at WSJ, and this is one of them. I'm not sure at what point the potential of cancellation becomes a realistic concern for a manga in WSJ, but it being shunted pretty close to the back of the magazine doesn't seem promising. It's possible it turns things around in the rankings, I suppose, but WSJ doesn't seem all that shy about axing things at right about this point in their run, so if that's going to happen, it probably needs to happen real fast. Or maybe it doesn't? I don't know, I'm not an expert on how WSJ operates, after all. But people more familiar with that than I am also seem to think these are bad signs for Hungry Marie, so my concerns for its longevity probably aren't entirely off the mark.

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9/33

-/4

"Hungry Marie" "Hungry Marie"

40

Add - More Hinamatsuri

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1/117

-/19

41

Add - More Hitomi-sensei no Hokenshitsu Publishing Seven Seas left one little speech bubble still in Japanese. Now, I don't think anything all that important was contained in that speech bubble, but that still doesn't make that okay. That's an awkward oversight. The other Seven Seas releases I've read have all been pretty alright in their quality, so this is surprising. And arguably something that suggests a potential benefit of digital manga (Seven Seas could definitely more easily push a new version of a digital release that translates that one speech bubble than go through a recall and replacement of volumes of their physical books). But the more important point is that that just shouldn't happen in the first place. Even if it's just one small, relatively inconsequential speech bubble, it's still a bit of a shame. (It's just a few kana without any kanji so it wouldn't be too hard for the average person to figure out what to type into Google Translate and get a reasonable enough translation if they really wanted, but that absolutely is not what a customer should have to do.)

-

27/-

4/-

(Vols. 5+6 ordered, waiting for them to arrive), "Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary" (Vols. 5+6 ordered, waiting for them to arrive), "Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary"

42

Add - More Honey & Honey: Onnanoko Doushi no Love Couple

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1/34

-/2

The Internet assures me that, although niche, there's a number of manga by lesbians for lesbians, but very little of it is translated. Meanwhile you can read basically anything that was ever in WAai. Boo. The Internet assures me that, although niche, there's a number of manga by lesbians for lesbians, but very little of it is translated. Meanwhile you can read basically anything that was ever in WAai. Boo.

43

Add - More Ichinose-ke no Taizai

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3/50

-/6

44

Add - More Idol Pretender (first chapter spoilers) Well that's certainly a rather contrived start. Of course he just happens to have a 300 million yen potion that he bought with his stock market success and also has a closet full of girl's clothes because he so happens to be a crossdresser and of course she now has to become an idol, something her crush also aspires to be. Of course. I know it's fiction, but you're stretching that whole believability thing a bit thin. This is what happens when I pick up a bunch of random manga off those "Convince someone to read a manga with one page" threads on /a/. Oh well. Maybe it's just a rocky start. "Ecchi" being listed among a work's genres is usually a bit of a red flag for me, but it's hardly a disqualifier.

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5/15

1/3

Why haven't I dropped this? Why haven't I dropped this?

45

Add - More Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san

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16/174

2/20

this feels like it's on the wrong side of the divide between playful teasing and abusive bullying this feels like it's on the wrong side of the divide between playful teasing and abusive bullying

46

Add - More Ikemen Girl to Hakoiri Musume

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3/14

-/2

47

Add - More Isekai Neko to Fukigen na Majo

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5/31

1/5

48

Add - More Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai! Publishing

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2/-

-/-

49

Add - More Joshikausei Publishing

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82/-

-/-

50

Add - More Kagurabachi Publishing

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4/-

-/-

I don't understand the memes around this and I feel ancient I don't understand the memes around this and I feel ancient

51

Add - More Kase-san Series If the apparent anime adaptation had been announced a few months back I probably would've just waited for that instead of buying this volume. Oh well~ Too late now! (Not that I regret owning this, but I could've spent that money on something without an anime adaptation.) But by all means, do keep those yuri manga anime adaptations coming. *** Oh, it's apparently going to be a five minute "clip." That's... huh. Well, makes me feel better again about my purchase, I guess.

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7/25

1/5

52

Add - More Kenkouki: Hi no Kuni Daiteikokugun Kurenai Ikkitousen-tai

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1/13

-/2

53

Add - More Kimi to Warui Koto ga Shitai

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1/71

-/7

54

Add - More Kimi wa Nazotoki no Ma Chérie Publishing

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2/-

-/-

55

Add - More Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Publishing

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3/-

-/-

56

Add - More Konjiki no Word Master: Yuusha Yonin ni Makikomareta Unique Cheat Publishing

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1/-

-/-

Hmm. Hmm.

57

Add - More Kono Yo no Owari e no Tabi

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-/12

1/1

58

Add - More Kotonoba Drive

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28/35

-/4

59

Add - More Kubo-san wa Mob wo Yurusanai

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56/152

4/12

Shonen jump please put out more vault chapters thanks Shonen jump please put out more vault chapters thanks

60

Add - More Kuishinbou!

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7/217

-/24

61

Add - More Kumika no Mikaku

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7/39

-/6

62

Add - More Kyoukaisenjou no Limbo The panel layout in this is terrible. Hopefully the rest makes up for it.

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1/27

-/2

Possibly dropping Possibly dropping

63

Add - More Magdala de Nemure

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3/22

-/4

64

Add - More Mahou Shoujo of the End (volume 1 spoilers) This really suffers for the weakness of its writing. Just saw nearly everyone else in your class wiped out by some sort of monstrous murder pixie? You might think that'd be a touch extremely traumatic but nah, minutes later you're having a totally calm chat about the matter. The magical death abomination you thought you killed just respawned its head and is now a threat again? You might think you'd respond with terror because holy crap what the heck, but nah. "This sucks!" is the actual response our protagonist gives. Yes, what a bit of bother that is. Merely an inconvenience. In the entirety of the volume there's never any sense of "why" or "purpose" established for any of this. It's just one cynical scene of hyperviolence after another with characters not made to feel like actual humans responding to, as the title of the book indicates, the Magical Girl Apocalypse, but just props to get us to the next shocking scene of gore as they spout extremely simplistic emotional responses that barely even have consistency to them. For example: One moment you're fleeing for your life in a car as a fire-breathing hellhound closes in on you, only to at the last moment find a bottle of alcohol to toss at it causing it to immolate itself. Nerves frazzled? Adrenaline pumping? Sure, right at that moment. But literally seconds later that same protagonist is carefreely lusting after the breasts of the well-endowed comrade that's hugging him. "Death by boobs," as he puts it, seems to instantly take his mind off the whole "death by an invading army of nightmare children" business actively going on all around him. The detail and attention the manga pays to depicting, say, a girl being torn in half most certainly produces gnarly images. But they only seem to exist for their own sake, making the whole thing just feel pornographic. A matter not helped by such choices as having one girl's brutal murder also be used as an opportunity to show her panties. (what the heck dude) If you just want a bunch of murder and suffering, this sure has that. If you want any more substance than that, though, this unfortunately comes off as some of the worst output from 80s hyperviolent OVAs. Characters are introduced, used to just barely move the story forward so you can get to the next bit of violence, and then are disposed of via said bit of violence. And yet the characters that have survived to the end of this volume are no more fleshed out than those that died almost instantly. There's no "who" or "why" to any of it. And personally, that just takes me right out of it. It's hard to get invested in all this nothing. And that robs the violence of any impact beyond its own visual gruesomeness. There are no other layers to it, and that's a shame.

-

4/64

1/16

Decent hyperviolence, uneven art, godawful writing. "Magical Girl Apocalypse" Decent hyperviolence, uneven art, godawful writing. "Magical Girl Apocalypse"

65

Add - More Mahoutsukai no Yome Publishing (spoilers?) The whole buying Chise to be a bride matter is, yeah, but this overall seems like something that would have its anime adaptation be handled really well by the Snow White with the Red Hair team despite that. *** Seeing how few members it takes to make this the 193rd most popular manga on MAL really drives home the disparity between anime watching and manga reading on MAL.

-

25/-

5/-

(Volume 6 ordered), "The Ancient Magus' Bride" (Volume 6 ordered), "The Ancient Magus' Bride"

66

Add - More Mama Yuuyuu

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4/34

-/4

67

Add - More Mikake no Nijuusei

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4/7

-/1

68

Add - More Mizuho Ambivalence ...does MAL actually have a policy on how to handle chapter zeroes? This one doesn't seem to include chapter zero in the chapter count, but another one included both the chapter zero and even some bonus chapters. That really ought to be consistent (I'd favor including them, personally). And thank goodness the rest of the chapters seem to be by a different group. I don't know if they're any better than the group that scanlated chapter zero, but the odds of that are better than the odds of them actually managing to be worse. Also, if you're going to leave Japanese in your translation, that Japanese should at least actually be correct. Nothing like reading translated manga and coming across the likes of "o-hi-yo" and "onichan." [sic] How do you screw up writing basic words in romaji? So, yeah, it'll make it a lot easier to read this manga if this different group uses actually coherent English instead of a mix of incorrect Japanese and indecipherable English. *** Checked a few pages of the next chapter and it could certainly be better, but it seems like it'll at least be coherent and readable. Huzzah! Now to hope that the manga itself is actually worth reading.

-

-/27

-/4

(Chapter zero), Possibly dropping (Chapter zero), Possibly dropping

69

Add - More Mobuko no Koi Publishing

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1/-

-/-

70

Add - More Murasakiiro no Qualia

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3/21

-/3

71

Add - More Nanashi no Asterism

-

1/23

-/5

72

Add - More Near Equal

-

1/-

-/2

4-koma exploratory operation. 4-koma exploratory operation.

73

Add - More Nejimakiboshi to Aoi Sora

-

1/4

-/1

74

Add - More Nijipuri

-

2/19

-/3

The trick is to just keep starting new manga without ever finishing anything you were already reading. The trick is to just keep starting new manga without ever finishing anything you were already reading.

75

Add - More Nomi Joshi Publishing Beer is just confusing. What's an "IPA?" How's it different from a "stout?" This one says it tastes "hoppy," but what the heck does a hop taste like? And according to its fans, the only real way to learn that is to just drink a bunch of different types. Out of curiosity, I tried some sort called a "gose" -not out of some knowledge or belief that this was a particularly appealing type, but because it ultimately had to be some type-, and it wasn't bad or good but more just odd. Kind of salty and bitter. I don't understand the appeal, personally. Well, okay, a decent part of it is probably to get drunk. I've also never been drunk and that thing didn't change that, so I can't relate to that experience. Still, there's something appealing to reading 2D ladies imbibing alcohol and enjoying it, even if I can only understand that somewhat abstractly. Well, maybe that's not totally fair to say. I do enjoy this odd fermented tea thing that's 2% ABV. I guess that's not a lot, but I suppose it is an alcoholic beverage, ultimately. Maybe I should just try different sorts? I've been curious to know what wine tastes like, after all. Or maybe I shouldn't punish my poor liver just to sate my curiosity. Actively working to develop a taste for alcohol probably isn't the smartest move for one's health.* Maybe I'll just stick to letting fictional characters suffer fictional medical ailments from imbibing the stuff. *(Wine's said to have positive benefits for your heart, but they say you can also get the same benefit from just eating grapes without also drinking alcohol. And grapes are pretty good...) *** Reading that a chapter was originally published in color but not being able to see that version is a bit of a bummer.

-

3/-

-/-

76

Add - More Obaachan Shoujo Hinata-chan

-

13/94

1/11

77

Add - More Ogre no Aniki to Dorei-chan

-

3/49

-/4

78

Add - More Oounabara to Wadanohara

-

4/18

-/2

"Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea" "Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea"

79

Add - More Osananananajimi Publishing

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4/-

-/-

80

Add - More Piace: Watashi no Italian Apparently I'm the only one on MAL who has read a chapter of this, or at least the only to put it on my list as such. This isn't a difficult manga to find. It's right there on Crunchyroll in whatever regions they licensed it for. I could understand if it wasn't popular, but for me to be the first person on MAL to read it? It's been there long enough that this feels rather odd.

-

1/139

-/-

It's sort of odd how few people on MAL are reading this when it's on CR and even has an anime coming up. It's sort of odd how few people on MAL are reading this when it's on CR and even has an anime coming up.

81

Add - More Pippira Note Oh hey, didn't know this was a Jmanga release. Remember Jmanga? They were halfway to the right idea. And of course, once they died, that validated everyone's fears that they'd lose their Jmanga purchases. There's a good reason Jmanga failed. But they did translate some neat things, and I worry that some of their translations of otherwise untranslated manga are just gone entirely. At least this one survived. It's charming.

-

29/84

1/2

What exactly is MAL considering a chapter to be for this manga? Unless that chapter count is just wrong, I suppose. What exactly is MAL considering a chapter to be for this manga? Unless that chapter count is just wrong, I suppose.

82

Add - More Poro no Ryuugakuki

-

1/17

-/2

83

Add - More Renai Daikou

-

1/39

-/4

84

Add - More Ressentiment Downloaded Chapters: 49

-

12/49

1/4

85

Add - More Ringoku kara Kita Yome ga Kawaisugite Doushiyou. Publishing

-

1/-

-/-

86

Add - More Robot x Laserbeam

-

1/62

-/7

Probably dropping Probably dropping

87

Add - More Ruri Dragon Publishing

-

6/-

-/-

88

Add - More Ryushika Ryushika The Yotsuba vibes coming off of this are immense. I wonder to what degree it'll diversify itself as its own thing? *** So apparently the person scanlating this dropped it. Welp. At least now I'll never get to finish this. I was looking through what else the mangaka for Poor Poor Lips had done, and a grand total of no other series by her had been scanlated. These are the joys of the western manga fan. In the time an entire anime series airs a manga series might put out only 3 or 4 chapters. Manga scans rely on teams of widely varying quality sticking with the same series for years. And if they decide to stop, that's it. Odds are nobody else will step in. You just don't get to keep reading unless you learn Japanese. Makes it tempting to decide to only read finished manga that are already completely scanned. At least this one doesn't seem to have any sort of ongoing plot that I'll never get to see resolved. Even professional manga publishers do this. Scanlations are kind of like a fansub scene where Hadena is most of the groups, that show you love gets dropped right at the cliffhanger and many of the shows that come out wind up left unsubbed. So scanlations are basically fansubs 8-20 years ago. Now if only manga could get a Crunchyroll of its own, maybe it'd have the sort of affect Crunchyroll did on fansubs. (No, JManga didn't count.) They're taking baby steps there, but they need someone who can toss the industry into the pool already. Because in terms of release ecosystems, it's clear which of these two environments is healthier. And it ain't the one in which the manga lasts longer than the team scanlating it.

-

50/71

8/10

89

Add - More Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa Oh hey, I was right, it's by the guy who made Kaiji. Yes, I probably should start having at least some idea what all these various things in my manga folder even are, but sometimes the surprise is fun.

-

3/90

-/11

90

Add - More Sakamoto Days Publishing

-

107/-

6/-

91

Add - More Sekai no Owari to Yoakemae

-

3/11

-/1

92

Add - More Sekitsui House

-

3/19

-/2

Eh, Potentially dropping Eh, Potentially dropping

93

Add - More Shimanami Tasogare Boy, sure can't wait for more chapters of th- "Most recently, chapter 11 was published in Hibana earlier this month, but since it's on a bimonthly serialization schedule, the next volume will likely not come out until August 2017. The wait sucks, but it's unavoidable." O-oh. That's... a while. Good thing there's totally lots of other manga that address queer experiences to this degree that'll easily fill that gap in the meantime! (ahhhhhhhhh) *** I mean, finding this manga doubled the number of anime/manga I know of that have relatable trans* characters, so it's already pretty far ahead of the curve. (Consider how a number of cisgender readers seem to have been confused by Misora's actions and feelings in the second volume when most any transwoman† would understand immediately.) And a manga that even fleetingly acknowledges asexuality and pansexuality (and the understanding of gender inherent to that)? Be still my queer, beating heart. Granted, that any of this is impressive or feels unprecedented is a bit of a sad commentary. Not just on manga, but I can't think of an anime, western television show or movie that's matched this. (Only Wandering Son comes close, unless its later chapters go even further in their depth.) "Relatable trans* character" shouldn't be such a high benchmark to reach, but considering what even recent media can be like, this awkwardly makes Shimanami Tasogare a very welcome exception to the norm. And why the several months of waiting are going to be pretty rough. (I'm trusting I don't have to explain why this is a good thing because that really should be obvious. Also it'd be great if pan/omnisexuality and asexuality were more than just concepts mentioned once on a webpage in one panel, but "this exists" is still more than I've ever seen anywhere else. Again, it's awkward that this is noteworthy in a positive way because it really shouldn't be, but here we are.) †And transmen, most likely, but a bit less directly for obvious reasons. *** on a more frivolous note one of MAL's automatic recommendations for this manga is attack on titan MAL's automatic recommendations might still need some work *** Let's see. This manga is published in "HiBaNa," which MangaUpdates says is a Shogakukan publication. Which means that Viz would be the ones to publish it in the US, if anyone would. While not unthinkable, this doesn't seem quite within Viz's typical wheelhouse. A pity. Being an obscure, scanlated series will limit its potential exposure here versus getting a physical/legal release. If other companies also had the option of licensing it there'd probably be an outside but reasonable shot that'd happen, but when it's up to just Viz those odds go down a fair bit. *** Seven Seas just announced they've licensed a manga that runs in Shueisha's Young Jump. Shueisha is, along with Shogakukan, one of the owners of Viz. Hence why typically their works get released in the US by Viz. While this license might seem like it would raise some semblance of optimism about Shimanami Tasogare being licensed, the sheer aberrant nature of this, along with Seven Seas themselves stating that suggesting they license Shogakukan published manga was basically pointless as that'd be something for Viz to handle, still leaves the odds fairly low.

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13/23

2/4

94

Add - More Shinmai Shimai no Futari Gohan Publishing Look. Depicting and describing tasty, fancy food is one thing. Including actual purchasing advice, recipes and proper storage techniques is taking the temptation levels pretty high. (Serrano ham isn't cheap, you know!)

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11/-

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95

Add - More Shoujo Nemu

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5/10

-/1

96

Add - More Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou

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6/47

-/6

97

Add - More Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru

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3/225

-/17

98

Add - More Spirit Circle

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3/45

-/6

Oh, of course, it's by the Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer dude. That explains why it looked familiar. But also because of that: dubious. Oh, of course, it's by the Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer dude. That explains why it looked familiar. But also because of that: dubious.

99

Add - More Splatoon Publishing

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1/-

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hi splatoon is good alright thanks hi splatoon is good alright thanks

100

Add - More Sukima Suki

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2/10

-/1

101

Add - More Sumire♡16-sai!!

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17/52

1/5

102

Add - More Super no Ura de Yani Suu Futari Publishing

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2/-

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103

Add - More Takahashi-san ga Kiiteiru.

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24/81

2/8

Eh. Eh.

104

Add - More Takemitsuzamurai

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1/84

-/8

105

Add - More Tokyo Higoro

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6/24

-/3

106

Add - More Tonari no Kashiwagi-san

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5/84

-/12

107

Add - More Tonari no Seki-kun Publishing

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116/-

8/-

The anime adaptation is also pretty nice. The anime adaptation is also pretty nice.

108

Add - More Tongari Boushi no Atelier Publishing

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2/-

-/-

"Atelier of Witch Hat" "Atelier of Witch Hat"

109

Add - More Touhou Ibara Kasen: Wild and Horned Hermit. Because it's not enough for me to play the games, listen to the music, look at the fanart, watch the fanmade manzai routines, memorize dozens of characters and know various Touhou related memes. I might as well start reading some of the Touhou manga while I'm at it, right? There is a terrifying amount of Touhou related things out there. I'm quite fond of the franchise but I pale in comparison to the truly dedicated hardcore. You could get all your otaku needs met without ever leaving Touhou. But I'm not dedicated enough to this one franchise to get into it that deeply. I think Perfect Cherry Blossom is fun, but I don't know the full backstory of every character and their relation to every other character, for example. Not even close. I don't think I even mentioned anything about this manga itself.

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1/51

-/10

110

Add - More Two on Ice

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2/31

-/4

111

Add - More U19 hey what if we did KND but much more so This initially seemed so over the top I assumed it was ironic, but then the first chapter seemed self-serious enough to the point that I couldn't be sure the narrative of "Big, dumb adults just don't get us kids! They're literal fascists keeping us down! Here's some Nazi imagery in case we weren't being obvious enough," wasn't actually meant sincerely. And that's the difference between potentially laughing with the manga vs laughing at it. And the latter tends to lose its luster a lot faster. But I mean their super powers are driven by "libido." There's a statue generically dedicated to "Respectable Grownup." The manga has to be in on the joke, right? I suppose I'll give it another couple chapters or so to see. (Of course, the manga could be both in on the joke and still bad.) *** This series is probably not being ironic. Which would mean its very direct pandering to Shounen Jump's target demographic both isn't a joke, and is so obvious the target demographic themselves would probably feel insulted by it. And given how many series don't seem to survive long in Shounen Jump due to those questionnaires in each issue, even if you've fully bought into U19's premise, it's perhaps best to not get too attached. Oh. I guess there's also the question of if Viz will continue to translate U19 or if it'll be left to scanlation groups. And given the lukewarm reception this series seems to have garnered from western fans, I'd wager it probably didn't fare great in Viz's WSJ surveys either. Scanlations it'll probably be. *** Well, that's of course assuming that there will even be scanlations should Viz not continue with this series. And that's no guarantee. I might just have no choice but to be done with this manga in the worst case scenario. And that's a bummer for any series. Even if it's a series I think I'd probably drop on my own, I'd still obviously rather stop reading a manga on my own terms because I don't want to read it anymore rather than have to stop because I actually cannot read it anymore.

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4/21

-/3

Probably dropping Probably dropping

112

Add - More Uchi no Musuko wa Tabun Gay

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33/104

1/5

113

Add - More Undead Unluck

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7/240

1/27

114

Add - More Usagi Drop Welp. Guess I'll just have to manage to dodge spoilers about this series for a little bit longer. I keep hearing that something universally regarded as awful happens later on in it, but I'll just have to see for myself what that is. (Could it really be so bad as to entirely ruin Usagi Drop?) *** Having now read the first volume, are most manga so scarce with their background art and I've just never noticed it before? Because the sheer amount of pure white, gray, black or some gradient in lieu of actual backgrounds is becoming kind of distracting.

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36/62

6/10

115

Add - More Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! Publishing

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5/-

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116

Add - More Wakako-zake Publishing

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24/-

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Please also check out the anime and live action adaptations Please also check out the anime and live action adaptations

117

Add - More Walking Cat

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2/40

-/3

118

Add - More Watari-kun no xx ga Houkai Sunzen

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1/94

-/16

119

Add - More Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui! Publishing I'm really skeptical about the claim that an anime series is being made out of this. I mean, is there really enough material? It seems like it would be a stretch to get even one cour out of this, even accounting for the chapters that'll come out between now and whenever this supposed anime would be airing. Unless it's one of those five minute episode deals. I'm not even sure how well this lends itself to an anime. (And so long as companies are adapting works I've read, I wouldn't mind a Prunus Girl anime someday, you know.) *** And it's actually confirmed now. I'm really suspecting five minute episodes. Oh well, more details will come in time. *** Never trust my intuition about anime adaptations. I'm almost always wrong! *** "Attack on Kabaneri" Interchangeable indeed, Watamote.

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126/-

9/-

This probably should have ended already, but I guess it's making money still so on it goes. This probably should have ended already, but I guess it's making money still so on it goes.

120

Add - More Yagate Kimi ni Naru

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2/50

-/8

"Bloom Into You" "Bloom Into You"

121

Add - More Yakumo-san wa Ezuke ga Shitai.

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9/89

1/11

122

Add - More Yakusoku no Neverland

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10/181

-/20

Pity about the quality of the writing in this series., Actually, this is underwhelming overall. Pity about the quality of the writing in this series., Actually, this is underwhelming overall.

123

Add - More Yotsuba to! Publishing Oh no, I broke my own schedule a bit. Well, I had to wait for something somewhere, so I figured I'd bring this and read it there. Read through a whole dang volume and easily could've moved on to the second if I'd had time. It's every bit as good as I remember it being. Simply a nonstop onslaught of charm. Not that I'd expect any less from the mind behind Azumanga Daioh. But back to my intended reading order. I think. *** I... I just couldn't stop. Fine. This first, then the other things. Curse you, Yotsubato, and your overwhelming charm!

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104/-

15/-

124

Add - More Youchien Wars Publishing

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33/-

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125

Add - More Yume no Omocha Koujou Eh. It's really more of a novelty value than anything. It's very tame for guro and not that interesting, but there's still some fun to seeing what odd thing is coming next. Maybe it'll grow on me with further chapters. (I find horror movies with violent mutilations and suffering to be funny to watch. Maybe I'm not the right audience for these things. Maybe I should be worried what it says about me that that sort of thing makes me laugh. Maybe. [I wouldn't laugh at an actual person suffering so, of course. I'm not a psychopath. Really!])

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3/13

-/1

Ha ha, how silly. Ha ha, how silly.

126

Add - More Yumemiru Koto Hmm. This has apparently been on hiatus for years, which is about as good as it being discontinued, honestly. Should I even be bothering to check this out?

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1/8

-/1

Chapters: 1521, Volumes: 115, Days: 9.46, Mean Score: 0.0, Score Dev.: 0.00

Completed

#

Manga Title

Score

Chapters

Volumes

Tags

1

Add - More "Boku wa Senpai ni Josou wo Shiirareteimasu." I get it. Really I do. A manga in WAai basically boils down to "Feminine boy reluctantly/enthusiastically comes to crossdress." No, I'm not proud to read something I know is this lazy just because it's relevant to my interests and it's hard to find better things in this area. You could probably read these things raw without knowing any Japanese. Hmm. Might actually be something worth testing. EDIT: I probed through the first volume of WAai and, yeah, you'll lose the specifics, but you wind up with enough of an idea in a lot of cases. Also, it reminded me that I read Sazanami Cherry. Which was adorable. You'd be better off with scans, but these are very repetitive. Of course they're all going to involve crossdressing. That's the nature of the magazine. But that's a starting point. It shouldn't also be the end point for so many things. (Not everything in WAai follows this exact formula and obviously I'm using a bit of hyperbole, but it sure is a lot of the stuff. At least the stuff that gets translated. And a fair bit of it does.)

3

6

1

What's truly bothersome is that people hold up manga like this as an example of anime/manga being "progressive" or "pro-LGBT." Being okay with gender nonconformity because it appeases your libido isn't quite the positive message this manga thinks it is. What's truly bothersome is that people hold up manga like this as an example of anime/manga being "progressive" or "pro-LGBT." Being okay with gender nonconformity because it appeases your libido isn't quite the positive message this manga thinks it is.

2

Add - More 30-sai de "Seibetsu ga, Nai!" to Hanmei shita Ore ga Around Fifty ni Natte Wakatta Koto.

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23

1

3

Add - More Ai ga Nakutemo Kutteyukemasu.

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15

1

"Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy" "Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy"

4

Add - More Alyosha!

5

36

5

5

Add - More Amaama to Inazuma Below is mostly stuff about CR and the novelty of seeing a manga I was reading get an anime adaptation. Read it if you want, I guess. But I'd recommend just watching this neat video from YouTube instead. It's better and more actually relevant to Sweetness and Lightning. *** "Remember zoom level," "always display at actual size," "magnifying glass," really any of the numerous solutions basically every totally free image viewer has for dealing with images that have a higher resolution than the screen they're being viewed on would be better than CR's approach. I can't read some of those tiny letters at the default zoom level. And can't you let me pan with my arrow keys or something? Especially when too many times your reader doesn't acknowledge that I let go of the mouse button and keeps panning anyway. I shouldn't be tempted to go find a rip of your manga chapters just so I can actually make them readable. It's such an obvious issue with so many simple solutions already out there, so why is this still a thing? *** I couldn't get one of the last pages of chapter 14 to load on CR, so I tried to download a pirated rip. That rip didn't contain chapter 14 beyond the chapter's title page. Ahhhhh you're killing me here, CR. Checking the comments for the manga it seems like other people can't get it to load either. Vexing! *** Ugh, my Japanese skills really weren't up to par for trying to read that page raw. At least most of it was in hiragana, which helped a bunch (a bunch of kanji without even any furigana would've just been an impossible nightmare for me). I got enough of a general gist, at least. Still disappointing I'd have to go track down a raw scan for that, though! Also that site had like 24 or 25 raw chapters and there's only 15 translated on CR and I need all the Sweetness and Lightning and I need it now oh gosh *** An anime adaptation? Will it be full length episodes? You could honestly probably make this work pretty well as a short, but I'll take all the Sweetness and Lightning I can get. I think this is only the second or third time something I've been reading has been adapted into anime, so the whole transition is still a weird experience. Also I tried the recipe for that fried pork dish and it's pretty good. You should try making some of these recipes yourself. *** "Tarou Iwasaki" That's... not the worst person, I guess? And apparently an actual child to voice Tsumugi. That's uncommon but welcome. *** Also I would be really, really surprised if CR doesn't simulcast the anime. CR had a little survey about their manga section and asked what manga I'd want to see made into an anime. I said this one. There's about a zero percent chance that's why this series is now getting an anime adaptation, but I'm gonna choose to believe I caused this to happen. *** I've developed my own imagined voices for the characters while reading this, as one does, and Tsumugi's anime voice doesn't sound like how I've been imagining her. Which is good, because the anime voice is better and the benefit of having an actual child play the role is immediately apparent. But I wonder, as the anime airs and I watch it, will I continue to read the characters' lines in the voices I've imagined for them, or will I start to read them in the voice of their anime version? Also I've watched this PV like three times in the last 10-20 minutes. Safe to say I'm looking forward to this a fair bit. *** "Chapter 34.5," you say. What I'm unsure of is if MAL counts something like that as an individual chapter or not. I don't know, I've seen chapter counts that seem not to include them, that seem to include them and ones that seem to include far more chapters than the actual manga seems to. It just gets confusing, honestly, and manga takes so much longer than anime to be finished so it's hard to find any examples I can look to vis a vis seeing how that's ultimately handled. Anyway, they've put out a longer PV and... it's looking like everything I would want an anime adaptation of this to be. Though that's only based off of a one minute PV, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. Still, I need it now. *** Also MU lists don't seem to tell you when something like "chapter 34.5" comes out and CR is still terrible at letting you know when new chapters come out, so that's awesome. *** Hey, Kodansha? In an English translation of a manga, if it's suddenly explicitly important that a character is speaking in English as opposed to Japanese, there should really be some indication of when they're speaking English rather than, as you've gone for here, making no distinction at all and leaving the reader to make their best guess. Also the anime was pretty good and so is cannelloni, though both seem like too much would cause you to have a heart attack.

8

63

12

It... it's like it was actually made just for me., And now even an anime adaptation? You're spoiling me. "Sweetness and Lightning" It... it's like it was actually made just for me., And now even an anime adaptation? You're spoiling me. "Sweetness and Lightning"

6

Add - More Amahara-kun+ Amahara-kun+ reminds me a bit of Bartender. Well, the Bartender anime, at least. In the same way that Bartender seems to posit that alcohol can serve as a medium to solve all of life's problems, Amahara-kun+ seems to feel that any displeasure can be solved by crossdressing. Which is really just an excuse to take cute boys and dress them like cute girls. Yeah, it' a little thin in the plot department. I get why there's an audience for manga like this. But there's so many places you can go with trans* matters in a narrative that it's pretty disappointing to see that the vast, vast majority are restricted solely to voyeurism. This manga is no exception, offering redundant sources of teenage angst all to be identically resolved because the story doesn't really matter here. So you're just left with pandering fetishbait. Meh. So by what metric should I rate it? Should I appraise it by its ability to inveigle its way into the more libidinous fetishist's heart? If one is merely looking to engage in prurient "admiration" of crossdressers, there is plenty more where this came from, and all of similar quality with roughly the same level of thought put into their plots. Lest there be any confusion as to the target demographic of these works, consider how many works of this nature you see that involve girls crossdressing as boys. And when you realize that the number is somewhere around none, it should all be clear enough. These offer so shallow a view of crossdressing that if actual crossdressers were to be the target demographic, these works would be pitiful failures. Thus it is unlikely that they intend to offer the crossdresser a fantasy of being able to pass as a cute girl, but rather offer the voyeur their fantasy of cute, effeminate boys. There is indeed a phenomenon of people interested in real life trans* people not because they are attracted to that individual, but because they are attracted to the fact that they are trans* (I've never met another person in the community who didn't find such people creepy and annoying, by the way). True, there is likely a decent number of readers who might well imagine themselves in the role of the effeminate boy, but that still does not change the nature of the work as one focused upon titillation as opposed to anything more substantial. And I do not mean to excoriate the existence of works intended to arouse. But they are what they are, and they're not much. Well, that's all probably far too many words to say it's just bogstandard "trap" material. A work like Sazanami Cherry gives you a cute, effeminate male but also gives you a simple but sweet little romance story. This doesn't even have that much. Appraising it by every metric I can consider relevant, that is, as a "trap" manga, by its art, as a manga in general and so forth, it's basically a 4. It gets its basic job done but that's about all that it does. If that's all you're looking for, well, consider your wants met. All below was written prior. *** It's a little lazy, really. Not sure if I'll stick with it. I know better than to expect more than a handful of manga that actually treat trans* issues seriously, but even most of the "gender bender" manga are just lewd one shots or low effort stuff like this. At least Prunus Girl is still fun! But even that's been in a bit of a rut for the past few chapters...

4

8

1

7

Add - More Azumanga Daioh: Hoshuu-hen Didn't realize this had a separate MAL entry. Read these back when they came out.

-

3

-

8

Add - More Becchin to Mandara Velveteen and Mandala is a manga with flaws. Being crass is not inherently one of them, yet it seems some are rather quick to write it off as merely going for "shock value." A pity. Not just because it's such a reductive view that causes them to write off this particular manga, but because they're going to write off a large swath of culturally important art with that line of reasoning. This is really more of a general point that just also happens to encompass Velveteen and Mandala. Maybe if I can find the motivation I'll write something about why these sorts of works shouldn't be dismissed like that. But then, individual works have already been discussed at length by people smarter and more qualified than myself and there're certainly academic texts on exploitation cinema as a whole, so maybe I'd just be wasting my time. It's just a pity to consistently see people take such a reductive approach to works that are crude like this. Not everyone will find them interesting, sure, but to deny that there's more to them than "shock value" is just flat out wrong. (Not to say that there aren't works out there where the author's intent indeed was purely shock value. But even those offer unintentional insights and commentary!) You might find such works boring, a particular one may be poorly made, but simply writing them all off collectively is a great disservice to the works and to culture. No serious critic would do this. Hopefully anyone who does grows to understand why that is.

-

14

1

Velveteen & Mandala Velveteen & Mandala

9

Add - More Boku ni Koisuru Mechanical

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14

3

10

Add - More Boku to Boku I mean, in a certain sense, I know what I'm getting into when I start reading something published in WAai or Otonyan. Yeah, there's going to be crossdressing. Lots of crossdressing. But that's about it, typically. They're generally very vacuous outside of that. And, you know, that's a bit of fun by itself, but I'd much rather have "Crossdressing and..." than this. Because there's lots of interesting places you can go with exploring gender in a work. But these sorts of stories are just gimmicks. Crumbs I'm picking up because I can't find that much real meat anywhere. I should just pick up those Wandering Son volumes already.

3

11

2

11

Add - More Cinderalla-chan

5

-

1

12

Add - More Dosei Mansion

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64

7

13

Add - More Emperor to Issho Up for free on Viz's site, only 36 members on MAL. Well then. ...how is giving this manga away profitable for Viz?

-

43

4

14

Add - More Franken Fran Comedy horror and I aren't quite the best mix. I generally just find those sorts of works kind of cheesy, and I already find regular horror films funny as it is. But then, I have derived a fair bit of pleasure from exploitation/mondo films, and it's not like their intended appeal is really so far divorced. (I might have the worst taste in movies. I mean, I genuinely like Freddy Got Fingered.) Regardless, when I want something "grotesque" to amuse me, I'll typically just go for a guro manga. Those are usually good for some delightfully absurd concepts. Adding in a splash of stock horror imagery isn't really going to impress me in comparison. Still, that doesn't mean I can't like a comedy horror manga. It's just that it's not a genre which is, in a broad sense, typically interesting to me. And I've read a volume of this and it's just kind of okay. I don't know that it'll carry my interest through another seven volumes. I'd like it if it brought in something more to the formula, but it seems happily episodic so far. But it's just kind of dipping toes into pools I prefer to either be fully submerged in or otherwise not even bother entering. The art's just sort of okay as well. Eh. *** So I think halfway through the manga is an entirely fair time to start making larger conjectures about the series as a whole, don't you? Franken Fran is mildly interesting. Conversing with others about guro and horror reveals that no, despite all those ads showing people screaming in terror at horror movies and such, it seems that either laughing at these sorts of things is the norm, or my sample was just aberrant. Assuming the former, it would seem that I'm a perfectly normal audience for this manga, and I can thusly judge it as such. Other than that, I stand by what I thought of this a volume in. It's just mildly interesting enough to read. The milquetoast morbidity and the acceptable but not particularly impressive art don't really buoy passable vignettes. Basically, it's just average. I'll probably finish it. I don't foresee it getting better, though. It seems quite comfortable staying at this level of quality. And yet here I have all these unread physical volumes of manga that I paid money for just sitting around unread while I spend time reading manga like this instead. At least I know how to prioritize!

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71

8

15

Add - More Frankenstein no Otoko

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1

16

Add - More Genjitsu Touhi shitetara Boroboro ni Natta Hanashi

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13

1

17

Add - More Hanayome wa Motodanshi. A. Whose idea was it to put notes on the inside margins of pages? These aren't just hard to read, they're also easy to miss. There're the top, bottom and outside margins, all with ample space, that would be easier to read and notice. Why go for the worst possible choice? B. Hey Seven Seas, as the manga itself notes, "trans" is an adjective, not a noun. Thus "transwomen" should actually be two, separate words, "trans women." You wouldn't, after all, write "whitewomen." It's not just grammatically accurate to write it as two words, but a number of people find writing it as one word to be offensive in that it erroneously suggests that trans women are some separate entity from other women. It's not an uncommon error, but it's an unfortunate one, especially in this context. C. Chii is either eliding a lot of unpleasant and complicated details, or she had one of the smoothest, most pleasant transitions any trans woman has ever had. And if things truly went this well for her, then hey, congratulations, but that unfortunately doesn't represent the experience of most. D. All that being said, it's really neat to see something like this get licensed and released in English. Currently, the day after its release, it's ranked 16th in sales for manga on Amazon* which sounds positive, but I'm not really sure what that means in terms of actual sales numbers, and it's still early. I strongly suspect that the sales success of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness played a significant role in getting this licensed, so I'd hope this title also sells well to encourage licensing even more of these sorts of books in the future. *There are more retailers than Amazon, of course, but it's far easier to see a book's sales rank there than at Barnes and Noble, so who knows how it's selling at various other places. Selling well on Amazon doesn't necessarily mean it's selling well elsewhere. Or maybe it's selling great everywhere! It's hard to know when that info isn't made public. But those mystery number of sales shouldn't be discounted.

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9

1

"The Bride Was a Boy" "The Bride Was a Boy"

18

Add - More Helen ESP Blegh. The first three chapters seem to have been released by a group whose quality wasn't great. The rest are by a different, better group so it's not so terrible, but still an unfortunate way to start things off. *** Victor makes me think of that one episode of Dexter's Laboratory where Dexter created a device to let his dog speak. More realistically than Victor, that dog had nothing of particular interest to say, merely repeatedly begging for food and such. But I guess this narrative wouldn't quite work if Victor's communication was at that level (and thus why most narratives with talking animals don't go that route). And that whole "suspension of disbelief" thing, of course. *** Or I guess this: http://nedroid.com/2014/11/dogs-comics/

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18

2

19

Add - More Helter Skelter

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9

1

20

Add - More Helvetica Standard Helvetica Standard translates kind of poorly to manga form and a number of the strips are nigh impenetrable/incomprehensible in their pursuit of this wildly hit-or-miss random comedy style. The ones that aren't also featured in the Nichijou anime more often come across as experimental explorations of form borne of late night scribbles on cocktail napkins than they do coherently formed stabs at humor. While it's possible that those strips have simply gone wildly over my head, I much more strongly suspect that there isn't a hidden depth here eluding me. For a select few, their meaning has likely been lost in the scanlator's translation. That can't be helped, I suppose. However, those seemed to be strips that revolved around word play and, as best as I might guess, likely weren't terribly amusing. That sort of word play typically inspires a brief, mildly satisfied grin at best. To whatever minute degree a rating on MAL even matters, I'd prefer to not have to leave these sorts of details to extrapolation, but being a "filthy casual" who isn't fluent in Japanese, it is what it is. If art is communication, Helvetica Standard is all too often word salad. All below was written prior. *** Hmm. This really worked better in anime form. Doesn't help that World-Three is giving a sort of stiff translation that's causing very relevant details to get lost in the process.

3

-

2

MAL says that's all of it, so... MAL says that's all of it, so...

21

Add - More Hikaru in the Light! Azuki really pushed this as their first exclusive series but if MAL is any indication, this is pretty dang obscure. Which is probably a sign Azuki isn't popular at all. I'd wager the vast majority of manga fans don't even know what Azuki is. What a pity.

5

27

4

22

Add - More Hitori Koukan Nikki

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27

2

"My Solo Exchange Diary" "My Solo Exchange Diary"

23

Add - More I Am Currently Living with a Bear

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1

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24

Add - More Ikasama Umigame no Soup Boo. What's the biggest offense here? Is it the uninspired art that bores the eye? Is it that this is pithier than a Hallmark card with about the same level of creativity? Is it the antiquated, stereotypical views of women and romance? No, I think it's the combination of all the flaws with this work producing a steaming turd that has wasted the yen of those who bought it which is the biggest offense. It's like a 50 page novelty T-shirt. Dreck. (This could've been a 1, but I haven't fleshed out my conception of that score for manga enough yet. When that time comes, this may take that role. Or I'll find things that are much worse than this. The latter wouldn't surprise me.)

2

8

1

25

Add - More Kami no Kodomo If I had a nickel for every edgier-than-thou tale of brooding, egotistical youths making their oh so deep commentaries on the worthlessness of these utter swine that surround them rotting in the doldrums of their own inert circlejerk, I'd hopefully have enough to threaten the next mangaka who thinks a lazy, churned out permutation of the disaffected sociopath is a mindblowing artistic statement serving as a valuable reflection of humanity and society instead of the laziest form of Deviantart "so mature" affected misanthropy into reconsidering their plans (Okay, I wouldn't actually threaten anyone because I'm not violent, but it's the thought that counts). It's simply the "sensitive artist" with a knife. What did we gain? Was there an interesting exploration of a character? No. The exploration of the characters involved was as shallow as the characters themselves. Was there an intriguing plot? No, not particularly. Some aberrant events occurred, but none of it was particularly interesting or significant. Was the art decent? Not really. It was pretty samey across most pages and got old fast. What does this manga offer that is compelling? I'm drawing a blank. I still don't think I have enough total complete manga, especially bad manga, to establish what a 1/10 manga looks like to me. For now, this receives a 2. All scores currently remain provisional and are liable to change (a number already have). My manga scores are presently far more volatile than my largely stable anime scores, but should become more stable with time.

2

11

1

26

Add - More Karin

6

63

14

27

Add - More Koe no Katachi The first volume is only ~5 chapters? Man, I'd be pretty disappointed if I bought a volume of manga and it was that short. Granted the first couple chapters were a bit longer, but still. There's much more in the second volume, apparently. So why did buyers of the first volume get such a poor deal? (Yes, yes, you shouldn't necessarily measure the value of a creative work by the length of it, but that doesn't mean it's not a relevant thing to consider at all.) *** This manga isn't very good and borders on insulting, actually.

4

64

7

28

Add - More Komorebi no Kuni

5

39

4

29

Add - More Kore wa Yuganda Shokurepo desu

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13

1

30

Add - More Le Théâtre de B

4

13

1

31

Add - More Liar Game

4

203

19

I should really catch up with this! I should really catch up with this!

32

Add - More Little Witch Academia (Too tired to score it or anything. Should probably be sleeping but there's still things I want to do! Things I could totally just do when I wake up, but who has the patience for something that actually feels pretty much instantaneous on your end? Yeah, putting off sleep when I don't need to is probably a dumb idea, but oh well.)

7

5

1

(Metadata later.) (Metadata later.)

33

Add - More Meisou Senshi Nagata Kabi

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10

1

34

Add - More Nijigahara Holograph

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15

1

35

Add - More Ningyo Himeden What initially appealed to me about Junko Mizuno was seeing her art during Japanorama (neat series if you haven't seen it). It was all I needed to buy all the Mizuno manga I could reasonably obtain. So it's a shame that this one is sort of lackluster in that department. While it is neat that it is in full color, those colors are mostly muted and muddy. The art just feels stale. It's recognizably Junko Mizuno, but such a step down from her other works. What's even sadder is you can see ads in the volume with her art that is so much crisper and fresher. Now, I'm not Scott McCloud. I'm not going to get into panel theory here. But what's simple enough to approach is the story, and this is very, very rote and pat. It's merely just world theory embellished with Mizuno's "dark themes lite." Which is to say you get a cut and dry shoujo story at its most barebones only you layer on top exposed breasts, sex, flippant cruelty and sketchy morality. All of which just feels like sprinkles on a garbage sundae. Mizuno tends to just trot out these themes but never actually explores them. It's not anything substantive, but just a stylistic flourish. Wikipedia puts it well, describing it as "gothic kawaii." And it's very much Hot Topic-esque stylistic irony, with cutesy shoujoish art and stories dressed up in these trappings of dark themes, but only very shallowly so. I like Mizuno's art most of the time, but her manga continually strikes me as lazy. (Just a note: The Viz version of this is flopped. At least it's not censored like their Dr. Slump releases.)

3

-

1

36

Add - More O/A Looking at it right now, I can see the tag I gave this while I was reading it on the list of "popular tags." I'm pretty sure nobody else gave it that tag. I think that maybe that feature of MAL doesn't quite work correctly. I'm going to miss seeing new chapters of O/A come out. The mangaka's other work, Boku ni Koisuru Mechanical, certainly looks and feels like their work, but it just doesn't offer what O/A did. (Although it certainly seems to be getting scanlated at the same pace O/A did.) Should probably try to settle on a score for this sooner or later.

7

35

7

37

Add - More Ohimesama no Himitsu "A meet cute is a fictional scene, typically in film or television, in which a future romantic couple meets for the first time in a way that is considered adorable, entertaining, or amusing. The term has existed since at least the early 1940s." Huh. So that is a real term. Fine, Seven Seas, but I still must ask if perhaps a term enjoying more common contemporary usage might've also worked there. Not that I don't appreciate this opportunity to learn a new phrase, but sending readers scrambling to Google doesn't seem preferable over using verbiage that's more immediately intelligible. Unless there's some very specific reason why the more esoteric phrasing makes sense, that is, but no such reason seems to exist here. Don't let my nitpick create the false impression that whoever worked on this for Seven Seas has done a poor job, however. The chapter I've read was otherwise fine. The use of "meet-cute" just stuck out as rather odd and a little awkward. *** Acknowledged homophobia is a thing? Check! Other girls get bitterly jealous towards the heroine for dating the popular girl? Check! "But we're both girls?" Check! Secret of the Princess consistently trots out yuri manga tropes and does either nothing with them or simply plays them straight. Some side characters exhibit a homophobic reaction to the lesbian couple in Secret of the Princess, for instance, but for all of a panel or two with no further consequences or bearing on the story. These reactions come off more as obligatory than meaningful. If you fed a bunch of yuri manga into a computer and told it to make its own, it would give you Secret of the Princess. If you just want a bogstandard bit of yuri fluff, this works. But even if this was your very first time experiencing yuri and thus you weren't already experienced with typical yuri tropes, their execution that ranges from barely there to strictly by-the-rubric would still be immediately apparent even without knowing that these were "things" in yuri narratives. Secret of the Princess features a protagonist who initially believes she just has to be cute constantly so she can appeal to others. It's too bad that, unlike its protagonist, the manga seems to never shed that same view of itself.

5

7

1

"Secret of the Princess" "Secret of the Princess"

38

Add - More Okujou no Yurirei-san Side A: Mou Hitotsu no Yuritopia

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4

1

39

Add - More Otouto no Otto Okay, hold up. Yaichi is clearly built. Yet we never see him working out, his job doesn't seem particularly active or physically intensive, he's never going to the gym. How does he have all these muscles? The most exercise we've seen him get in the first five chapters is a leisurely walk around the neighborhood, and light cardio doesn't get you pecs like those. What's the deal here, My Brother's Husband? (Yes, I make sure to focus on the important details.)

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28

4

"My Brother's Husband", (Waiting for second English release) "My Brother's Husband", (Waiting for second English release)

40

Add - More Oyasumi Punpun (Later?) All below was written prior. *** Reading this makes me want to find Inio Asano and just let him know everything's gonna be alright. *** This. I like this. *** It gets really hard to read this at points. But that's because it's so good at what it does. How many times have I cringed on behalf of characters in this?

10

147

13

(Keep in mind, a good number of the other scores on this list have shifted by a point or two, so there's still a fair bit of volatility to scores on this list. But I do stand behind this score.), Very relieved to see this licensed. (Keep in mind, a good number of the other scores on this list have shifted by a point or two, so there's still a fair bit of volatility to scores on this list. But I do stand behind this score.), Very relieved to see this licensed.

41

Add - More Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt Imaishi indeed directed Kill la Kill, but that seems like an odd credit to go with on the Panty and Stocking manga, Dark Horse. Also this volume didn't particularly cost less than other volumes, yet it feels so cheap and flimsy, like it could easily fall apart in your hands. Which just isn't the case with Yen Press, Seven Seas, Vertical and many other publishers releases. What a pity. Also reads like TAGRO's Panty and Stocking fan fiction because, well, it is. And they're alright as fun little bits of side story fluff, but won't deliver if you go in expecting an earnest Panty and Stocking manga. Everything about this volume is alright but could be better.

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9

1

42

Add - More Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

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4

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43

Add - More Paradise Residence

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21

3

44

Add - More Paradise Residence 0

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9

1

45

Add - More Peepo Choo

7

19

3

46

Add - More Pink

8

20

1

When you go to Vertical's page for this, the reviews are for a different manga from the same author. Sheesh. When you go to Vertical's page for this, the reviews are for a different manga from the same author. Sheesh.

47

Add - More Plastic Girl

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21

1

Score (much) later. Score (much) later.

48

Add - More Poor Poor Lips *** Jmanga, "power stones" may be technically correct, but do you really think it was better than the original scanlator's choice of "gemstones?" Do you really? Because having something that's more technically correct isn't worth the trade off of using such an esoteric term. Especially when the manga makes it clear what the sales pitch behind the gemstones is. If I have to Google your term just to find one site that supports it even being a thing, maybe you've made a terrible choice. Jmanga isn't terrible, but their translations always tend to be like this. They just don't feel right. They have a number of little choices that combine to make something that just isn't pleasant to read. It's not like Viz or Vertical have this problem with their physical releases. Between that and Jmanga's terrible reader, I just haven't been able to get into this whole legal online manga thing. But Jmanga's putting it up for free (parts of it) and they're the only place I can get more chapters of this, so what can I do? *** So that you don't just think I'm refusing to pay for digital manga, I'll point out a site Jmanga could learn from. Graphicly. Their reader isn't entirely ideal, but it's fluid and works, and has a view mode that's nice for small screens. (Ideally I'd just be able to see it at full resolution and scroll through it at will like I do with downloaded manga, but alas). I checked out Box Office Poison, and it's $5, notably cheaper than the physical copy. The only catch is that Graphicly has western comics and not manga. I'd buy manga on Graphicly. (And I'll probably buy that copy of Box Office Poison because I was already considering and prepared to pay $20 for the physical copy anyway.)

6

75

4

49

Add - More Poor Poor Lips dj - Berry Berry Berry A

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1

50

Add - More Prunus Girl Right-o, Prunus Girl. The ending is sort of sudden, but given the lull the series was starting to get into, it's probably for the best. Most of Prunus Girl is a cute but awkwardly developed romcom. The series takes an unfortunate divergence into a number of chapters of very questionable quality before swiftly righting the ship to spend a last few chapters on the obvious but no less sweet resolution. A number of side characters just get left dangling at the end, but considering how suddenly interjected it feels, it's little wonder. I really do suspect the mangaka just didn't quite know what else to do with the story. I can be understanding of the earthquake necessitating putting out a chapter with unfinished art, but the few other instances of it which were not affected by the disaster have little excuse. But those are exceptions. In general, the art and layout are clean and pleasant if unimpressive. It works. Character designs are somewhat distinctive although it can get a little easy to forget who is who at certain points for the side characters. I suppose I'm a sucker for these sorts of things. There are unmissable areas where the manga doesn't fully perform to the best of its ability, but for what it does right, it's still a low 7. Not a top recommendation, but still something worth reading, even if it drops the ball for too long towards the end.

7

43

6

51

Add - More River's Edge

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14

1

52

Add - More Sabishisugite Lesbian Fuuzoku ni Ikimashita Report I feel somewhat weird giving an autobiographical manga a score with the same system I use for fictional manga. Though I suppose summing up your entire experience of a work as an integer from 1 to 10 was already obviously flawed and limited as a system. But to take what necessarily have to be different critical criteria and attempt to still apply that same flawed system makes for an even more awkward result. In that a 10 for an autobiographical manga is, just as an integer, the same as a 10 for a fictional manga, but those tens mean meaningfully different things. But that's not represented by that integer. It makes them look the same when they're not. Well, I guess I'm overthinking something as ultimately insignificant as a score on MAL.

10

6

1

Trying to make the same scoring system apply to an autobiographical manga as it does to fictional manga feels awkward, "My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness" Trying to make the same scoring system apply to an autobiographical manga as it does to fictional manga feels awkward, "My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness"

53

Add - More Sazanami Cherry I do remember it being a cute, if short and not very ambitious little thing, though.

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7

1

I read this a fair bit ago and wouldn't feel comfortable scoring it all this time later. I read this a fair bit ago and wouldn't feel comfortable scoring it all this time later.

54

Add - More Serial Experiments Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication (Later.)

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1

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55

Add - More Shi ni Itaru Yamai I mean, I guess I can't complain too much about getting a free prize, but 1.5 months of radio silence before sending it out? Dang. I began to seriously doubt this was actually going to come. Better late than never, though.

4

19

2

Kinda glad I didn't have to pay for these volumes. Kinda glad I didn't have to pay for these volumes.

56

Add - More Shibou to Iu Na no Fuku wo Kite

9

15

1

57

Add - More Shinigami-sama ni Saigo no Onegai wo (spoilers) I could tell there didn't seem to be enough time to properly wrap up the plot, but to end on dumping a bunch of clues, a cheeky little "sure would be nice if I got to finish this manga one day, huh?" and telling the reader to solve it herself is a bit frustrating, you know. I get that getting cancelled can be out of the manga author's hands, but even a crummy rushed ending would have at least offered some closure. Urgh.

4

18

4

Welp. Welp.

58

Add - More Shirogane no Nina Turns out another user already posted every single issue I have with how CR's reader currently functions on their forum back in October (I mean, they were all pretty obvious suggestions, after all). I can't say I'm optimistic that thing's going to improve anytime soon. CR seems to acknowledge feedback/bugs, but doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to make their service work better for their paying customers. If CR didn't have so many simulcasts they'd barely even be a relevant company. But they do, so they are in spite of their service. The concept of simulcasting/simulpubs is a good thing. CR's execution... not so much. And most of the problems are things that really wouldn't be very difficult to address. It's simply that they just don't bother. This particular manga itself is alright, though! *** ...these TN notes are way too tiny to read at the zoom level CR wants to insist upon for my screen. And they don't let you maintain your zoom level between pages, or pan through a zoomed-in image with your arrow keys (you have to click and drag). Why would you design something to sort of aggressively push me towards reading the manga at a size where some of the text isn't actually readable? This is really obviously dumb and likely very easy to address. Any free image viewer worth using already handles this correctly. A professional, paid service ought to be able as well. I'm at a chapter with a bunch of notes on it and it's such an inconvenient pain it's putting me off reading the dang thing at all. (I'm told the mobile experience is better, but I don't have any sort of compatible device to try it out with to compare.) *** ...and apparently it clips off the top of the image because it scales to the size it would be without the needlessly persistent UI there. Brilliant. *** Speaking of TNs, CR's use of them in this manga is pretty dang excessive. Like, if you're going to tell me that what a character is saying translates literally to "marrying into money," why didn't you just write that instead of leaving in this apparently sacred Japanese term? You don't need to tell me "keikaku" means plan. Sometimes TNs are justified, but way too many of them here aren't needed at all and are actually making things worse. At first I thought CR's quality was on par with some of the better scanlations I've read, but nonsense like that is dragging down my opinion of them. It's pretty weird to come across a page where almost all the dialogue is romaji with somewhere around half a dozen TNs actually translating what they're saying. Maybe I've just gotten lucky that none of the professional manga releases I own do things like that? Or maybe whoever CR has working on this needs to be a little less afraid to actually translate. I've never seen this sort of behavior in any of CR's anime releases, at least. *** And it's not just the excessive TNs. They also leave in terms like "nee-chan" that, having watched anime for over 11 years, I can parse, but it's the sort of thing that's basically understandable only to those who are already into this stuff. And again, there's no need to keep it that way. The only argument for it is to appease persnickety, pedantic weeaboo who think leaving in the few precious nihongo words they know is a vital part of making sure they get the pristine, genuine article. It's a dumb thing that just alienates casual fans and newcomers to appease people who could certainly stand to have their naive dreams shattered. You're translating something to English. "Nee-chan" is not part of the English language. Ergo, it shouldn't be in your English translation. And yet it is because ugh. *** Keep in mind that while CR's manga reader is imperfect and there's a reasonable quibble or two about editing decisions, it--unlike their anime offering--is pretty serviceable, overall. If enough of the selection interests you ($3.33 for a new chapter of one or two manga per month would be a little steep, after all), I wouldn't necessarily recommend against signing up for a manga membership. Ideally, if you can get a guest pass first, try it out that way. See how well it works with whatever platform you might want to use it on. Or just read all of the back catalogue of a manga you're interested in and then continue to follow along with the free simulpub chapters, I guess. That's working for me with this manga. This is presently the most viable legal online manga distribution platform (there's got to be a briefer way of phrasing that) I'm aware of, seeing as it offers more variety than that Shonen Jump one. Well, generally speaking, anyway. If you're really interested in Shonen Jump titles and not very interested in the manga CR has, it's kind of an obvious choice for you, then. I'd hope but I'm dubious that CR will improve their reader, but if they at least keep the visual and English quality at this level, then it'd be nice if this continued to grow. Especially since a number of the titles they're working on had no other translation before. So, yeah, you oughta at least check it out. *** ...although their Flash-based player does seem to eat up my MacBook's CPU cycles like sweets. I wonder how draining reading manga on CR would be on something like a tablet's battery? I'd think they'd have something less demanding for mobile platforms, but this is CR we're talking about. (I don't think iOS or Android even have Flash, right?) Also that Flash is so demanding even just for a manga reader makes me hope there's something in the Internet cards that would let CR utilize some sort of HTML5 thing... look, I'm not a web developer, okay? I just know that HTML5 versions of things seem to consistently be less CPU-intensive than their Flash alternatives, and that viewing images shouldn't be so strenuous. I'm presuming it's for DRM reasons, although that doesn't stop HorribleScans from being a thing, so... (If Flash just stopped being a thing I wouldn't shed a single tear.) *** Wait, wait, sukiyaki items are dipped in raw egg? I never realized that. Thought it was some sort of sauce. No matter how many people insist that there's something about Japanese eggs that makes the risk of salmonella pretty negligible, Japanese dishes that call for raw egg always give me a little bit of pause. I mean, Japan doesn't seem to be dealing with widespread salmonellosis, so it's probably indeed safe enough, but I'd still feel pretty hesitant to try it myself. Don't you worry, Nina, I'm right there with you. But it does look pretty good, all the same. My palette would probably win out over my safety concerns, ultimately. *** To go back to CR for just a moment, thinking about it, I'm actually not sure what a manga membership quite gets you. It seems to allow you to access the back catalog of titles, sure. But once you're up to the current chapters of things, those seem to be consistently available for free at what seems like full quality, or at least with the manga I've been reading on there, anyway. So it seems like once you've caught up with the manga you're interested in, there's no real motive to subscribe to their premium service. Maybe they gate the mobile stuff behind the paywall? They don't really seem to spell it out anywhere on their premium membership pages. It's kind of difficult to understand why exactly I'd want a manga membership for anything more than a month or so at any point. In fact, just a guest pass alone would give you plenty of time to catch up on this manga and then keep reading it for free. And you should. It's a charming manga. *** Oh. There's supposed to be ads loading for free members, but Adblock Plus was taking care of those without me even realizing. I suppose that's something, then. Ads feel really out of place in series like this. You're just reading something like Kotonoba Drive (also a good manga you might enjoy if you like this one, although it's not on CR) or watching Hidamari Sketch on Hulu or whatever, and suddenly there's this thing assaulting your eyes and ears with demands that you purchase alcohol or a luxury car to validate yourself as a human being? Ads and iyashi-kei just don't mix. Whether you want to use an adblocker or go the more ethical route of paying CR for a manga membership, either way, don't read this series with ads. *** And now all premium members get the benefits of a manga membership, so there's really no reason not to check it out if you're already a premium member. And you really should check out this manga. *** "we just updated our iOS and Android Manga apps a few weeks ago! I know the team is working hard to push an update on the web reader as well, stay tuned" That was 7 months ago and nothing's changed, so set your expectations accordingly. *** CR recently announced a number of new titles, and the responses, rather than the expected "sounds interesting" or "nah not into that" were... anger about how they would affect sales of physical copies? I mean... who cares? It's like being angry at Ford for sabotaging the horse-and-buggy industry. I love physical copies of manga myself, don't get me wrong. But come on. Digital manga is such an obvious and necessary step forward. I wonder, would Yen Press or someone else have taken a chance on Silver Nina if they had to publish a number of physical books that would get returned to them if the manga bombed? We certainly wouldn't be getting new chapters as they came out, but would have to wait for volumes to get published. And just one of those volumes would cost more than a month's membership at CR! We should be hoping companies like Yen Press and Viz continue and even step up their digital manga efforts rather than seeking to halt progress. Like, CR's manga reader could use some technical improvements, but the central idea of digital manga itself isn't the problem. It makes it less risky to bring over some more potentially niche titles while getting manga to consumers faster and cheaper. (It's also easier to take a digital manga library around with you than a physical one, might I add.) It's absolutely fair to push for improvements to the digital manga landscape, but trying to put the genie back in the bottle to protect an overall inferior distribution method is shortsighted and selfish. CR isn't going to willingly hamstring their manga efforts to protect a business they're supplanting, and nor should they. CR's decision to publish digital versions of manga may very well hurt their physical volume sales. But that's not a sign that digital manga is bad for the manga industry. It's a sign that the focus should continue to shift more towards what consumers are demonstrating they want: digital manga. Anyway, this manga is still charming. As is Father and Son. And I bet that new single dad raising a daughter manga CR announced will also be nice. I think I have a thing for manga about single parents. *** CR seriously needs a manga queue to let people know when new chapters are out. It's weird that I have to rely on Mangaupdates for that. *** Although, not being able to read digital manga titles when Crunchyroll's site is down is certainly one of the potential drawbacks to digital manga, but it's not an inherent one. It's a problem with the service, not the actual concept itself. Digital manga can be poorly executed by individual parties, but the actual idea itself is still solid. Also when is a new chapter of Silver Nina gonna be added because I need it. *** CR's manga section is unavailable for technical reasons far too often for a paid product. The idea of digital manga is solid. However, if the execution isn't up to snuff, it's harder to argue why people who want digital manga shouldn't just pirate it. At least their illegally downloaded copies will actually be available when they want to read them. CR's manga section is down for long stretches of time and it's not a rare occurrence. Look at CR's manga support forums and you'll see a history of a service riddled with technical problems. Chapters not going up when they're supposed to, pages in chapters not loading, whole chapters not loading, the service itself being down for one or more days at a time on a semi-regular basis. I think most would have to agree that the service being actually unusable so often is a pretty severe issue. If I can download chapters of Silver Nina and read them for free, why should I pay CR to wind up not being able to read them? I wonder what would happen if Funimation decided to get into the manga simulpublishing game to further their competition with CR. I mean, I'd welcome that just for it making more manga available in English, but if a competitor was putting some more pressure on CR, maybe their manga service would mysteriously start performing better. (It doesn't actually have to be Funimation, of course. Or maybe it does?) *** Seems they're beta testing an HTML5 based reader with Premium+ members. Since I didn't opt to pay an extra $40 a year to test their site for them, I couldn't say how many of the common and obvious complaints and requests they've addressed. If all they changed was that it's not Flash based anymore, I mean that'd be an improvement, but a bit of a letdown that that's all they've managed to change in all this time. *** Silver Nina status: Still good. It's been a while since they started beta testing that HTML5 based reader and there hasn't been a peep since about it. Or any improvements to their web-based reader. At all. Since it first launched. There still isn't even a queue. I checked out a preview chapter over on Viz to see how their online reader compared. And it mostly had the same problems, though it was slightly snappier. The controls that don't autohide in fullscreen mode are larger than the ones on CR and thus waste more screen real estate. Legal digital manga industry, there's no reason your readers have to be this bad. They can be improved with simple changes, but not if companies like CR are committed to making no changes. I can't imagine the companies in Japan require the reader's controls to stay on the screen in fullscreen mode, for example, so there's really no reason it should be like this. And yet it is. *** While I personally download scanlations, many, many manga fans use online aggregators like Mangafox. To the point that Mangafox alone allegedly makes over one million(!) dollars per year in ad revenue. These sites have just awful ads, typically couldn't care less if their ads are malicious, downscale images as well as watermark them, and for some of them you probably wouldn't be comfortable knowing where all that ad revenue is going. So why do people use them? Cause they're convenient. And free. Legal online manga largely can't compete with that latter point, just like legal online anime, movies, TV and so forth, but it can compete with convenience. A child could download a Horriblesubs rip, but Crunchyroll still has hundreds of thousands of paying members because it's convenient to watch anime on there. Netflix has millions of paying customers for the same reason. I don't criticize the poor design and stagnant development of legal manga provider's online readers because I wish to discourage the business model. I bring this up because I want CR to be just as if not more viable than places like Mangafox. And if it's enough of a hassle to use their reader that it seems like you should just download a rip of the manga so you can read it in a proper image viewer, then that's not going to happen because the convenience angle isn't being realized. Nobody has to come to CR to read any of the manga on CR. Piracy isn't legal, but let's not pretend that stops anyone. If you give people enough reason to not want to bother using your service, they'll seek out the alternatives. And reading on CR is never gonna be as flexible and affordable as piracy. Of course not. But like Netflix or CR's anime division, it should be convenient enough that people don't really feel the need to bother pirating, that they'd rather just pay $60 a year and make things simple. Having the controls auto-hide in fullscreen isn't difficult. Persistent zoom levels and being able to navigate with arrow key when zoomed in is a bit more work, but surely not out of the question. A manga queue certainly seems possible. These are things that have been asked for by many users for years to no avail. More worrying are instances in which pages or whole chapters just don't load for anyone. And then just stay like that for quite a while. That's likely more complicated, but also something in urgent need of attention. But attention is something CR just won't pay to their manga reader. Maybe that HTML5 reader they announced a beta test for ages ago fixes these problems. I don't know. Again, I'm not gonna pay extra to test their site for them. But most members aren't Premium+ members, and until/if that ever comes out, the current reader is what we've been stuck with for years. And it's inconvenient. In a way that those awful malware-ridden, ad-infested, image quality ruining online aggregator sites aren't. And that's a problem. I want legal, online manga to succeed. But the providers of that are gonna have to put in at least some effort to make that happen.

7

135

15

Crunchyroll's manga reader is disappointingly inconvenient (but could be vastly improved with a few simple changes). Crunchyroll's manga reader is disappointingly inconvenient (but could be vastly improved with a few simple changes).

59

Add - More Shiroi Heya no Futari

-

4

1

60

Add - More Solanin Dear Inio Asano, I love your work. Respectfully, IssacandAsimov Alright, fine, I'll elaborate a bit more than that. When did we even birth the term "quarter-life crisis?" Does everything need to be taxonomized like that? But I do suppose that to the degree which it is extant, I'm experiencing it. Not that I'm at all unique in doing so. I'm not a kid any longer, but calling myself an adult still feels strange. College feels like this weird halfway home between adolescence and adulthood. And being an adult is complicated, too. No wonder people get nostalgic. Inio Asano has taken this temporal existential quandary and put it to two volumes of stunningly relatable, attractively drawn, pleasantly detailed, nuanced manga that is just levels above so much of the (admittedly limited) other manga I've had a chance to read. To wit: This would probably, by my present standards, be a 10/10 if not for Inio Asano himself setting the bar even higher with Goodnight Punpun. He's good. I'll forewarn: This current score is provisional. I don't have what I feel is yet a fully formed idea of what a 10/10 manga should be like, and so I'm operating off of a best understanding of my presently limited perspective. This score could shift downwards ultimately, but I'll still love this. Solanin isn't as unrelentingly soul-crushing as Goodnight Punpun. For whatever causes of angst and depression come up in my life, the characters of Goodnight Punpun remain avatars of notably worse despair and desperation. In Solanin, however, your average twenty-something is far more likely to see themselves. So you don't have a band and a steady relationship and the liberty to just quit your job and embrace freedom. It doesn't matter. Because Meiko feels real. Well, fiction real. There is a certain need to keep them as interesting characters, after all. But they certainly could exist. People much like these characters do exist. They're you. They're your friends. They're the people you know. The implication is that their worries, their wants, their feelings, their actions, they all come across as genuine. Wanting to cast off responsibilities and go back to simpler, happier times isn't an alien concept. Who among us does not honestly feel like something within them must die, what we call "growing up?" The motivations come across as sincere, but what really helps are little touches and Asano's ability to convey so much through his art. In Solanin, much goes unspoken but fully communicated. Asano shows you the nature of Meiko and Taneda's relationship. Little bits of their lives he chooses to show, the pure energy and emotion he can get across in a drawing of them, his ability to get across so much just from the camera perspective, all these things and more give you a nexus of sources that seem so (thankfully) aware of their medium. Asano will spoil you. His art feels so much as though it's how manga obviously should be, that when I finished Solanin and went to start Usagi Drop, I was genuinely puzzled. Had manga always been so lacking in background art? Was the expression communicated through how characters are drawn always so simplistic and laconic? I actually had to look through other works I had read to verify that Usagi Drop was just normal. It's Inio Asano who seems to be the aberrant one. If you can find yourself not going back over panels in Solanin, marveling at what Asano has pulled off with just a close-up of a character's face or how he has used perspective or the little background details he works in or the sheer amount of thought and effort that has gone into this, do you even appreciate manga as manga? Asano is wonderfully adept at using humor at just the right moment to puncture awkward tension. Not in a deflating way, but as a generous reprieve for the reader. It never feels like Asano is trying too hard to force humor into his work. Rather, he puts something simple in that, if by virtue of contrast, can make you utterly lose it during even the bleakest of moments in his manga. Here, they're just fun and keep the story from getting too serious. After all, he’s not unwilling to put his characters through adversity and make them experience real consequences, but he’s not here to bum you out. It’s difficult to elaborate too much without giving it away, but the ending does feel a bit Hollywood. But for the bit of suspension of disbelief it calls for, it’s a successful vehicle for Asano’s concluding statement about beginning adulthood: That yes, there has to be a change, but it doesn't have to be the death of your youthful ideals or a prison for your soul, and it is up to you to meet these new challenges head on and strike such a successful balance. Yet it belies some weaknesses in Asano’s narrative efforts here. I realized a twist in the manga was coming if but because too many obvious flags had been triggered. It’s an event that also seems a bit out of place with the rest of the narrative. The reasoning behind it seems obvious for what it allows the plot to do, but this could have been achieved in another manner that would have been more congruous with all that preceded it. Granted, one might want such an impactful moment for what’s supposed to be a turning point, but it isn’t quite that, now is it? Rather, it’s a push for what’s been intelligently building up through the manga before this event to finally come to a head. And it didn’t need something this grandiose to get there. It is because the writing is so strong that it doesn’t need a moment this weak. (Please let me stop describing it so vaguely now.) This, and the manga after it represent what is undoubtedly a bit of fumbling, but the narrative never fully collapses. Even if it is not all it could be, it still manages to finish solidly. Solanin remains beguiling, with its cast of likeable, human characters and art that seems poised to deliver whatever it needs to, be that highly energetic scenes or just the right amount of lingudity. Would I like this as much if it wasn’t so precient to me? Possibly not, but this is my list, so shut it. I’ll leave you on this quote: “There’s nothing cool about these characters. They’re just your average 20-somethings who blend into the backdrop of the city. But the most important messages in our lives don’t come from musicians on stage or stars on television. They come from the average people all around you, the ones who are just feet from where you stand. That’s what I believe.”-Inio Asano

9

28

2

Score provisional. Score provisional.

61

Add - More Subarashii Sekai (Later.)

7

19

2

62

Add - More Suizou ga Kowaretara, Sukoshi Ikiyasuku Narimashita.

-

10

1

63

Add - More Try! Try! Try!

-

1

-

64

Add - More Try! Try! Try! Webcomics

-

2

-

65

Add - More Umibe no Onnanoko I not only wasn't the only person who suggested this in a Vertical survey, but they're also actually publishing it? Yay. My Inio Asano collection will feel more complete now. Surely soon Viz will release translated volumes of Oyasumi Punpun and... why do l let myself dream like that? (Vertical's release probably won't be as nice as Fantagraphics' Nijigahara Holograph release, but I've never been disappointed in the quality of a Vertical release, so no complaints here, even if it could be better.) (Dead Dead Demon's Dededededestruction is also apparently exclusively Viz territory, so here's hoping.) (Basically if a company licenses something by Inio Asano they will have my money. I wonder how many sales the average volume of manga needs in the US to be considered a "success.") *** http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1409502 I guess that's why I let myself dream! (Yay!)

-

20

2

66

Add - More Under One Roof (Chapter 11 spoilers) A. A four page chapter? That's... not a lot of content. B. I'm not sure I like where this seems to be going. Cause it seems to be trending very quickly towards something nonconsensual.

-

11

-

MU says this is still ongoing, but..., 4-koma exploratory operation MU says this is still ongoing, but..., 4-koma exploratory operation

67

Add - More Voynich Hotel

-

68

3

68

Add - More Wa! Sigh. A lackluster 4koma with lazy art that stalls out partway through before unsatisfyingly rushing into a halfbaked ending well after it was clear the mangaka had no idea where they were going. You don't have that many "to be continued" moments in the middle of a chapter and that many "intermission" pages without a reason, of course. A big ball of nothing going nowhere. Just avoid this.

3

25

3

Actually, just consider all scores provisional for now. Actually, just consider all scores provisional for now.

69

Add - More Wadachi no Yukue

4

1

-

70

Add - More Wallaby

-

8

1

71

Add - More Watashi no Tomodachi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui.

-

28

1

72

Add - More Yuri Mekuru Hibi

-

77

-

MU says this is complete, so I'm trusting them on this. MU says this is complete, so I'm trusting them on this.

73

Add - More Yuunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni (spoilers) This. That happened. Human beings knowingly and willingly did that to other human beings. Twice. Japan surrendered shortly afterwards, but nobody "won." And while the war may have been over, the effects of the bombs were anything but. Tens of thousands died in Hiroshima the day of the blast, but many others continued to die years afterwards from radiation sickness. Grueling, painful, ugly deaths. Decades of radiation-related deaths, discrimination and rebuilding of life would follow, all from that one act. Human beings did that to other human beings. We could argue about whether it was better to have dropped the bombs or not, but there is no argument that they were devastating weapons to utilize. Never before, never since. To this day there remains a wide, international averseness not just to the use of nuclear weaponry, but to having it around at all. In the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this, many decided, was simply too far. Sorry to bum you out, but a manga about the actual fallout of those bombings doesn't exactly give way to a cheery discussion. But the manga's stated raison d'etre is that people should be aware of that reality. Not just that the bombs were dropped, but what they meant and continue to mean for the people who live(d) there. It'd be easy to take such a subject and produce a somber work about the horrors of war. It wouldn't be the first. But the work shows commendable restraint. For while the events were surely horrific, this manga does not need to wallow to communicate that. It rather quietly uses very human characters simply to show the nature of their lives. It's about people, after all. Ordinary humans finding their way in a life still shaped by the bomb. It doesn't get heavy-handed about it,. Were it purely fictional, it would have a fair deal of intelligent subtlety the reader could appreciate. But of course, you know that these are just avatars for actual people who genuinely experienced these situations, which lends it all the air of sadness a less ethereal approach could've hoped to provide. I'm getting bummed out myself, here. Wanna move on to art? The art has this this kind of pencily, sketchy look to it that's not wholly unappealing, but feels a little sloppy. Deliberately so, that is. The shading feels a little inconsistent and overdone where it's applied. Background art is at an appreciable level compared to some manga that seems to take place entirely in a white or gray void, but is often simple or barely there. When the mangaka pulls out for wide shots, however, you get pleasant, but not breathtaking views. Maybe you'll personally be particularly fond of the style, but generally, it's not exactly offputting, but has a number of factors that drag it down a bit. I'd say more if more was to be said, but it's a work that makes its points and doesn't dawdle or stray. Yes, it's about the aftermath of the bomb, but it's also just such an honestly human story. Not perfect, not grand, but very successful at what it's aiming for. I feel like this should be a 7.5. Which way should that fall? I'm rounding up, but consider it a low 8.

8

3

1

Chapters: 1840, Volumes: 201, Days: 11.92, Mean Score: 5.5, Score Dev.: -1.81

On-Hold

#

Manga Title

Score

Chapters

Volumes

Tags

1

Add - More 3-gatsu no Lion Publishing Welp. Hopefully I don't need to have any knowledge of shogi to read this, because I know absolutely nothing about the game.

-

2/-

-/-

2

Add - More Ai-Ren

-

2/43

-/5

3

Add - More Chi's Sweet Home

-

56/219

-/12

Azuki please get the rest of this series okay thanks Azuki please get the rest of this series okay thanks

4

Add - More Gisèle Alain Aww man. I was looking through some random photos of recent figs, as one does, and was surprised to see a fig from this series. And it looked pretty nice, too! But it seems like it's only been released in limited quantities at Japanese figure festivals. Which means maybe I could find someone selling one online, but I'd imagine they'd jack the price up a pretty penny. Or not? Maybe this is just something that happens early on before a figure enjoys broader release? I'm not really well versed on how these situations go, but I sure know I want one. MFC says it's a "garage kit" and some cursory Googling suggests that implies small quantities and limited distribution. And that's the sound of my heart breaking a little. <br><br> It's such a pretty looking manga, and a circle has made such a pretty looking fig of the main character that I'd be prepared to pay $100 for but I don't think I can. <br> *** <br><br> Welp. Found a site that didn't have it in stock, but listed that it was sold unpainted. I'm not prepared to spend that kind of money to be reminded my fine motor skills are terrible and wind up with a $100 fig that looks like junk after I try to paint it myself. Also you have to assemble it as well, apparently. <br><br> Please excuse this neophyte's preference for figs that are already assembled and painted. I wish I had the skills and confidence to buy it and make it look this pretty. <br> *** <br><br> Why aren't line breaks working correctly anymore. Why do I need to use some basic HTML to get them to appear. What are you doing, MAL.

-

29/34

4/5

I'd love to read more, but while it finally started getting scanlated again, now the manga itself is on indefinite hiatus. I'd love to read more, but while it finally started getting scanlated again, now the manga itself is on indefinite hiatus.

5

Add - More Hourou Musuko Started reading this before the anime aired to get the parts that preceded the start of the series. I fell in love with this manga, but stopped reading it so as not to spoil the anime. Then I put that on hold because of reasons, and so this stayed on hold with it. All the better, though. Fantagraphics is putting out some great hardcover volumes these days, and I'd rather have quality physical copies than just reading scans. I almost picked up a few just recently, actually. Next time. (While reasonably priced all things considered, $15 a volume is a bit out of impulse buy range.) I'm nowhere near done with this. Besides, this way I'll have even more volumes I can buy together and just plow through rather than waiting months between volumes. *** According to random Internet comments, this series was rushed to a conclusion out of fears that it might be affected by that Tokyo ordinance, the name of which is too long for me to bother remembering. If that's true, and I'd sure like a more authoritative source on that claim than "random Internet comments," that's infuriating. I've read in a few places that another of this mangaka's works seemed to have a rushed ending at around the same time, and it's not unthinkable that they may have had to end their manga sooner than planned for some reason, but whether that reason was the ordinance is another matter. If it was due to personal reasons or the manga wasn't selling well enough anymore or something, that'd be disappointing, but an understandable reality of the manga business. But if it was due to a chilling effect from that ordinance, I'd want to scream. I sure do hope those people weren't right about that.

-

34/123

-/15

Give or take a chapter. (It's been a while.), I really should buy those volumes sometime soon. Give or take a chapter. (It's been a while.), I really should buy those volumes sometime soon.

6

Add - More Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai

-

113/271

11/26

Gap filled. Until next time. Gap filled. Until next time.

7

Add - More Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU

-

5/-

1/3

Oh wow, volume 2 is actually getting released? I'll pick it up, then. Only took four years! Oh wow, volume 2 is actually getting released? I'll pick it up, then. Only took four years!

8

Add - More Marie no Kanaderu Ongaku

-

4/17

-/2

Started this to hopefully find something for a MAL secret santa, but (thankfully) got the wrong person the first time. Still want to read it later, though. Started this to hopefully find something for a MAL secret santa, but (thankfully) got the wrong person the first time. Still want to read it later, though.

Chapters: 245, Volumes: 16, Days: 1.42, Mean Score: 0.0, Score Dev.: 0.00

Dropped

#

Manga Title

Score

Chapters

Volumes

Tags

1

Add - More Abnormal-kei Joshi ...I should really stop picking up manga from those "one page" threads in /a/, shouldn't I? Okay, yes, it's a slightly unusual cast of characters for a harem narrative, but it's a harem all the same. An extra splash of misogyny really doesn't make that more appealing. Of course MAL seems to like it, eh? I can tolerate harem narratives if there's something else in them that appeals to me (i.e. humor), but this doesn't meet that criteria.

-

1/15

-/3

2

Add - More Ameiro Kouchakan Kandan

-

2/20

-/2

3

Add - More Ansatsu Kyoushitsu

-

3/187

-/21

The anime version is similar enough that I know this manga won't be worth reading any further. The anime version is similar enough that I know this manga won't be worth reading any further.

4

Add - More Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai 1. Viz not yet (or maybe not ever, depending on how things go) committing to translate further chapters of this combined with my general impatience led me to seek out a scanlated release of the fourth chapter and whoa boy that's definitely a drop in quality from the official releases. There are scanlation groups out there that do fine work, but the two groups that generally cover WSJ releases aren't among them. That's unfortunate. 2. Speaking of the fourth chapter... this is becoming a harem manga, isn't it? I guess I should've seen that coming. Eh. Anyway, does every chapter need a "Whoa, your body is close to mine!" joke? That's not an infinite well you can just constantly and endlessly draw from. Some variety really wouldn't kill this manga. It's not like it's an otherwise amazing work, so making it repetitive to boot sure ain't helping. *** (chapter 4 spoilers) Also, even if it is building towards a harem, isn't this a bit quick to be introducing a new member? We've barely met the first two! I get there's a certain amount of being beholden to those questionnaires and so they might be afraid of early cancellation if their intended readership of harem fans doesn't latch on quickly, but it's an awkward impact on the quality of the manga itself. Whether you want to ascribe it to business considerations trumping artistic considerations or just to sloppily rushed writing, neither is particularly inspiring. In four chapters we've dealt with the male main character, three new harem members and a number of side characters. And we've basically gotten their names and their one quirk. Please. Slow down and flesh these characters out so that they start to become actual people. Establish your current characters a little before you rush to introduce new ones. Introducing a bevvy of attractive character designs might be something you can coast on at the start to gain attention from readers, but you're going to face problems long-term if that's all you have. *** ha ha she sexually assaulted her peer you see it's funny because the other girl didn't want to have her breasts grabbed and was upset by it wait, why aren't you laughing? oh! i forgot to mention that the other girl was a little short but her breasts were large???? hilarious, right? pfft, whatever, prude. guess you just can't appreciate the inherent comedy of violating another person's body! [youtube_clip_of_a_dog_falling_over.mp4] *** Also this manga seems to think that the main issue with a dude persistently making what he knows are unwanted advances on a girl in the hopes of getting her to finally just cave under the pressure is that it might distract her from her studies. Nailed it! Has Tsutsui Taishi ever interacted with an actual woman? Even once? *** I mean you can't be surprised that a manga with bad writing continues to have bad writing, but it'd probably be better if it stayed far away from these areas in that case. And maybe I should just stop reading this! Well, not yet, I guess, but I'd suspect that'll happen soon with the way this has been going. *** (and yes, I recognize there was a faint undercurrent of "also, that guy's a creep" buried in there, but, y'know, this goes back to the weakness of the writing in this manga) *** also this just isn't generally very good like at best it's "stomachable" you know what i'm just gonna drop it after all

-

5/187

-/21

"We Never Learn" "We Never Learn"

5

Add - More Coin Laundry no Onna I'm not sure why I originally downloaded this, but after reading some of it I have no interest in it at all. The only amusing thing to come out of this was seeing what one of the popular tags for it happened to be. Man the writing in this is boring.

-

2/21

-/1

6

Add - More Collectors ...this is getting pretty dire. This is the fourth 4-koma I've dropped in under 15 minutes. Decent 4-koma manga exist! I've read one! There has to be more out there!

-

1/44

-/2

4-koma exploratory operation. 4-koma exploratory operation.

7

Add - More Dekoboko Girlish At a glance, we could say Calvin and Hobbes is just about a boy and his imaginary tiger, just as this is simply about a girl who looks masculine and another who looks like a child. Why, then, is one great while the other is garbage? It's because one uses its premise as a foundation to explore all sorts of areas and produce interesting, pleasant material while the other just keeps beating its premise into your head because all it has is that premise. How long are you going to find it funny or interesting that these two character's appearances are deceiving? Because I got tired of it before I even finished that first chapter. Reading the plot summary of this on MAL is equivalent to actually reading this manga. It's certainly no limitation of the the 4koma format. Were that to be the case, all 4koma would have to be dull and lackluster. But they're not, so it's this manga specifically which is at fault. If I want something dull, bland and repetitive, I'm pretty sure Garfield is still running.

-

1/43

-/3

8

Add - More Denki-gai no Honya-san This and I'll never gel together. I don't mind it, per se, but after a volume of it I'm certain this isn't going to grab me. The art is acceptable but not particularly spectacular, I'm not connecting with these characters, I'm finding it neither quite that amusing nor all that interesting. I don't think I'd call it a poorly made manga, but it's not one I want to read. Well, Hio's kind of adorable, but still.

-

5/107

1/15

9

Add - More Denpa Kyoushi Sure, that's only one chapter. But it was around sixty pages and that's 3 or 4 chapters worth in many other manga. More than ample time to realize I don't want to read any further amount of this. I can't stand the MC or any of the other characters that were introduced and want no more of any of them or this plot. I don't find this interesting or amusing.

-

1/247

-/26

10

Add - More Ebisu-san to Hotei-san

-

1/5

-/1

11

Add - More FLCL

-

1/24

-/3

12

Add - More Fuan no Tane So it's basically the manga equivalent of a drabble. I just couldn't get engaged with any of the ones I read before giving up. It's like a horror movie that was nothing but a series of clips of cats jumping towards the camera and meowing.

-

2/72

-/3

13

Add - More Gal Gohan

-

1/69

-/10

14

Add - More Gou-Dere Bishoujo Nagihara Sora♥ That's well more than enough. I'm starting to think that trusting /a/'s taste in manga was a mistake. I'm not down for arbitrary fanservice and bad writing with nothing else going for it. I'll pass.

-

3/24

-/4

15

Add - More Gurenki Holy moly that's some terribly laid out manga! Look. Manga is a visual medium, so it's not "shallow" to care about the visuals. Otherwise you might as well just read an actual book (the horror). And rather than communicate the narrative, the visuals obscured it. It became difficult to follow who was where and doing what, which was more effort than an uninteresting and rushed premise was worth. The time I spend reading manga is too fleeting to flush it away on this. /a/, why is your taste so terrible?

-

1/12

-/3

16

Add - More Hen Koi! No.

-

1/9

-/1

17

Add - More Hizashi Step right up, step right up! Get your sexualization of children right here! We've got little girls having sex with animals, little girls having sex with strangers, just lots and lots of little girls having sex! So I have Disappearance Diary in my list of planned reads and I figure "Hey, before I go and spend that money, maybe I ought to read something else by the mangaka!" And since Mangaupdates tells me this is the only other work of his ever translated into English, it's the one I picked. And, well, it's made me pause and reconsider if I want to buy Disappearance Diary after all. So the opening gallery full of little girls giving blowjobs to dinosaurs and robots (Seriously!) tipped me off that things were not about to go well. But all the various resources assured me this was not technically a porn manga, so I ventured forth. And it's just chapter after chapter of "And here's this new character design of a little girl... and suddenly sex." That's it. The chapters are just brief vignettes of little girls in various sexual encounters. But it's totally not porn, you see. I never once saw a penis or a vagina or any other such parts, aside from robot and dinosaur penis in the opening gallery. You basically see a little girl giving what seems like an air blowjob. Who is this supposed to appeal to? If people are there to get off, I can't imagine this is quite cutting it. Anyone looking for a plot will be severely displeased. It's basically nothing for nobody. I thought that maybe it would start going somewhere, but nope. I skimmed through the fifth chapter and saw a little girl having sex with a bunch of bugs and that was well past more than enough to know it was time to drop it. I can't imagine anyone I'd quite recommend this to, not even fans of loli content. I guess maybe some could just appreciate it for the art. (Although even here errors can be spotted. For example, look in one panel for a girl's black swimsuit to accidentally be left white.) Underwhelming in debauchery and substance, it's just more of a curio than anything else. (I'll probably still get Disappearance Diary since it's about the mangaka's life rather than more of this.)

-

4/10

-/1

18

Add - More Hoozuki-san Chi no Aneki No.

-

1/32

-/4

4-koma exploratory operation. 4-koma exploratory operation.

19

Add - More Hoshi no Samidare 13 chapters in, a bit shy of two volumes, and I'm struggling to see the basis for all of the constant hype and praise this series receives. Art that hovers around pedestrian and occasionally dips into outright terrible? A battle seinen that offers neither exciting action nor much plot progression? And it could be argued that there's a certain charm to the whole "Sword of Damocles? Big whoop," nature the series has thusfar displayed, but ehhh. Is it characters who seem potentially interesting when first introduced only to get stuck in a rut of regurgitating their basic descriptors across each chapter? Because I see nothing but love for this from everywhere, and I'm struggling to see it myself. Maybe it's an admiration that gets validated later on in the series? I don't know, but if I don't find something, anything to compel me to keep going forward with this soon, I'll just drop it. Right now, I'm just bored with it. *** So something major happened to one of the characters and it made me realize I can't keep reading this. That's because I didn't care at all. I didn't care what had happened to them, because I didn't care about them. I don't care about these characters. I don't care about this plot. I just don't care. And if something this major isn't going to evoke something in me, not much else has any potential to. There's no further point in my continuing to read this.

-

14/65

-/10

20

Add - More Ichigooki! Soujuuchuu

-

1/19

-/2

21

Add - More Inkya na Tsubame wa Kawaritai

-

5/-

-/1

One page chapters for a one note manga One page chapters for a one note manga

22

Add - More Kill Me Baby Publishing KMB is just kind of middling. It surprised me to see this get adapted into an anime. And then that anime was made by JC Staff and received a budget of ¥bupkis and came out terrible. The manga isn't as awful as that. It's readable, but not particularly enjoyable. It's not particularly clever, pretty or funny. It's not the bottom of the barrel, but it's still not worth your time.

-

30/-

-/-

23

Add - More Kokoro Connect For the same reasons I dropped the anime, really. While part of that was Silver Link not being able to properly handle a series like this, the source material really isn't that different. True, I haven't read it as far as the anime has gotten (last I checked, the scans haven't got that far), but even if it handles it a bit better, a lot of the issues with Kokoro Connect are not ones I foresee being solved via a different medium. This isn't actually the first manga I've ever dropped, but this manga list is an incomplete shamble anyway. I take such better care of my anime list. And I can't remember the countless little one-offs I've read.

-

3/32

-/5

24

Add - More Komori Quintet!

-

1/12

-/3

25

Add - More Komori-san wa Kotowarenai!

-

3/-

-/13

26

Add - More Lady Justice

-

1/16

-/2

27

Add - More Love Rush!

-

1/14

-/2

28

Add - More Mahou Shoujo Neko X What a dreadful bunch of dross. It's bad enough it creepily glorifies the crass objectification of women (It's cool! These ones are technically animals! It's not creepy to have a woman as a pet that you freely assault and strangers wantonly molest!) but it also comes with the additional flaw of being boring. Action is poorly communicated through the art, characters are barely defined (granted I only gave it a chapter, but it only has nine chapters in total and skimming through the first volume seemed to suggest far more fanservice than character development), pandering fetishbait. Normally when you punch a girl in the face for the high crime of asking for a little affection, she isn't the one who's going to be doing the apologizing. But ~true love~ trumps basic logic, right? The misogynistic stench wafting off that first chapter is too foul a smell for me to put up with a lackluster everything else. The page posted in that /a/ thread that got me to try it out wasn't exactly a very honest representation of this manga.

-

1/9

-/2

29

Add - More Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to No.

-

1/160

-/10

4-koma exploratory operation. 4-koma exploratory operation.

30

Add - More Megane-chan

-

1/9

-/1

31

Add - More Miman Renai

-

3/30

-/5

32

Add - More Misumi-san wa Misukasenai

-

1/32

-/4

33

Add - More Naisho no Otome Revolver Woefully stupid and hackish. You're being bullied because you seem too girlish for a boy? The problem isn't the gender policing, it's you! Yes, let's tell the victim that to solve his issue, he should work around the bullies by willfully dressing up as a girl. I'm sure that'll make them stop. Oh wait, no, they just decide to beat him up further because of homophobia and then intend to sexually assault him because making him perform fellatio on you will of course demonstrate how he's the perverted, homosexual one. It's looking bad. So what does our self-described "manly man" do? Wish that he would stop being bullied? (Seems sound.) Wish that he was manlier? (Shouldn't have to be the solution, but it might get him the results he wants.) No, of course not. He wishes to be a real girl because maybe then he could go to school without being assaulted all the time. Cue the introduction of a new plot element by way of the MC being frisked and groped by what are basically tentacles. Throw in a stupid mech battle plot that just opens up a whole bunch of exposition and no I'm done with this. I've read a sixth of this series and I'm not interested in reading the two other chapters that have been translated. At all. My backlog's too big and my time too finite to bother reading unpleasant schlock.

-

1/6

-/1

34

Add - More Octave If the flow of action is such that I have to puzzle a manga out rather than just being able to simply read it, I'm not going to read that manga for very long. I had to go back and forth through the pages in the first chapter multiple times to piece this together. Not because it's particularly complex but because the presentation is pretty bad.

-

1/36

-/6

35

Add - More One Punch-Man Publishing The art's neat, but wow if this doesn't bore me. Sometimes it's really just as simple as me not finding something interesting. It's not like it's doing what it's doing incorrectly.

-

8/-

1/-

36

Add - More Ore ga Isekai no Goshujinsama!? Daredemo "Ore no Senzoku Maid" ni Suru Skill wo Te ni Ireta Ken Publishing

-

1/-

-/-

37

Add - More Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba sugiru Read a bit of this a little over a year ago and it wasn't that good. And now they're making an anime out of it. Well I'm sure that'll just go great.

-

6/37

-/7

38

Add - More Otome x Ranbu Yeesh, this is a mess. At first I thought maybe it was actually the sequel to something, but it wasn't. It was just moving way too swiftly through its ideas. In one chapter there are timeskips, characters are introduced at the same time as they engender plot twists, seemingly major developments occur over a page or two and it all just comes across as though it were a recap of something instead of being the actual plot. I came here for a story, not a synopsis.

-

1/5

-/1

39

Add - More Red Sprite

-

3/15

-/2

40

Add - More Saihate no Ao

-

1/9

-/2

41

Add - More Tonari no Seki ni Natta Bishoujo ga Horesaseyou to Karakattekuru ga Itsunomanika Kaeriuchi ni Shiteita

-

3/25

-/5

42

Add - More Tonnura-san I feel like part of why I hate myself a bit when I read this can be summed up with a sentence from one of the character bios: "She has very large breasts for an elementary schooler." Yeah. The art's not too great, it's not really that funny, the cat's pretty smug but that only goes so far... "I'm not even sure why I keep reading this." *** Somewhere around this latest chapter's heavy bestiality subtext, or heck, it's basically just outright text at this point, I just knew I couldn't keep reading this. Trying to follow that up with a cliffhanger and injection of drama was the final straw, because a few dozen pages of everyone wanting to get with a cat, nay, over a dozen chapters of that, doesn't quite lend the necessary foundation to make such a development anything other than laughable. I can't find any more motivation to continue reading this manga.

-

17/52

3/9

43

Add - More Waratte! Sotomura-san No. Being a 4-koma does not mean you need to repeat the same jokes over and over with just very slight variations between them. That's why Garfield is terrible. It gets old really fast.

-

8/-

-/7

4-koma exploratory operation. 4-koma exploratory operation.

44

Add - More Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata

-

1/37

-/6

45

Add - More Yome ga Kore na mon de.

-

3/13

-/2

46

Add - More Yome Gaki ssu

-

1/24

-/3

47

Add - More Yuzumori-san

-

2/35

-/5

Chapters: 159, Volumes: 5, Days: 0.98, Mean Score: 0.0, Score Dev.: 0.00

Plan to Read

#

Manga Title

Score

Chapters

Volumes

Tags

1

Add - More After Hours

-

-/17

-/3

2

Add - More Akai Yuki

-

-/10

-/1

3

Add - More Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

Sheesh. This has been on the list so long there's an anime coming out. Should I even still try the manga? (Yes.) Sheesh. This has been on the list so long there's an anime coming out. Should I even still try the manga? (Yes.)

4

Add - More Ashita no Ousama

-

-/53

-/10

5

Add - More Ayako There is, eternally, a struggle between the amount of manga I want to buy and the amount of manga I can reasonably afford to buy. I've wanted to get this for a year or two, but so it goes. But for however long I've wanted to pick this up, I've wanted to pick up works like Yotsuba even longer. And contributing to that Yuasa Kickstarter, while worth it, shrinks my budget for these sorts of things this year. You go to read the comments on something on my manga PTW list and you get my shopping plans. Such is life.

-

-/19

-/2

After Yotsuba. After Yotsuba.

6

Add - More Azami no Shiro no Majo

-

-/20

-/4

7

Add - More Boku ga Watashi ni Naru Tame ni

-

-/8

-/1

If it's ever translated into English. If it's ever translated into English.

8

Add - More Boku to Tsundere to Heidegger No matter what, it should at least be less dry of a read than Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, right? *** I could buy this untranslated on Amazon, but: "normally it takes about 7 days to 3348 days [to ship]." Also I'm willing to read this for novelty, not pay $26 to own a copy I can't read for novelty. Sure would make an interesting surprise when it shows up apparently nine years later, though.

-

-/9

-/1

This seems like a real dumb thing that, if ever translated, I almost have an obligation to check out. (And I can't find it on MU, so it goes on this list instead, I guess.) This seems like a real dumb thing that, if ever translated, I almost have an obligation to check out. (And I can't find it on MU, so it goes on this list instead, I guess.)

9

Add - More Futatsu no Spica

-

-/97

-/16

10

Add - More Gamble Fish

-

-/168

-/19

11

Add - More Gekiga Hyouryuu

-

-/48

-/2

Will probably pick up sometime. Will probably pick up sometime.

12

Add - More Gin no Saji

-

-/131

-/15

That's plenty of time for a third season to have been announced, so time to transition to the manga. Eventually. That's plenty of time for a third season to have been announced, so time to transition to the manga. Eventually.

13

Add - More Gogo Monster

-

-/5

-/1

14

Add - More Haikei, Sekensama.

-

-/27

-/3

15

Add - More Hikari to Tomo ni...: Jiheishouji wo Kakaete

-

-/92

-/15

16

Add - More Hitsugikatsugi no Kuro.: Kaichu Tabi no Wa

-

-/86

-/7

17

Add - More Hiyokoi

-

-/67

-/14

18

Add - More IS: Otoko demo Onna demo Nai Sei

-

-/82

-/17

19

Add - More Kakukaku Shikajika

-

-/34

-/5

20

Add - More Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä

-

-/59

-/7

Will pick up... sometime? Will pick up... sometime?

21

Add - More Kinou Nani Tabeta? Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

22

Add - More Kyou kara Yonshimai

-

-/15

-/3

23

Add - More Maou no Musume wa Yasashisugiru!! Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

24

Add - More Needless

-

-/114

-/16

I'm leaning towards picking this up where the anime adaptation left off. I'm leaning towards picking this up where the anime adaptation left off.

25

Add - More Noa-senpai wa Tomodachi. Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

26

Add - More Not Simple

-

-/14

-/1

27

Add - More Onanie Master Kurosawa

-

-/31

-/4

I have an unwieldy, whim-based PtR list on Mangaupdates that's 400-500 titles long. I have no idea what most of those even are at this point. This one is pretty much just highlights. I have an unwieldy, whim-based PtR list on Mangaupdates that's 400-500 titles long. I have no idea what most of those even are at this point. This one is pretty much just highlights.

28

Add - More Oresama Teacher

-

-/176

-/29

29

Add - More Otoyomegatari Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

30

Add - More Ribbon no Kishi

-

-/16

-/3

31

Add - More Ryuu no Kawaii Nanatsu no Ko

-

-/7

-/1

32

Add - More Sekishoku Elegy

-

-/13

-/1

33

Add - More Sexy Voice and Robo Might pick up around Rightstuf holiday sale.

-

-/13

-/2

34

Add - More Shirley Publishing

-

-/-

-/-

35

Add - More Shissou Nikki

-

-/3

-/1

36

Add - More Tobaku Haouden Zero

-

-/70

-/8

37

Add - More Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko! While I'm impressed that Googling this manga's name yielded a link to buy the official licensed release as high up as the second result, it was still under the top result of a scanlation site. That manga sales in the US seem to remain relatively healthy is a thankful surprise.

-

-/56

-/8

38

Add - More Totsukuni no Shoujo

-

-/53

-/11

39

Add - More Umareru Seibetsu wo Machigaeta!

-

-/17

-/1

40

Add - More Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

-

-/142

-/14

Chapters: 0, Volumes: 0, Days: 0, Mean Score: 0.0, Score Dev.: 0.00