Move over, Chucky — there’s a new doll in town.
His name is Hyde, and he’s a stuffed bear who wears a fedora, chomps cigars, and wields a chainsaw. (More on that in a minute.) Hyde belongs to thirteen-year-old Shunpei Closer, a timid junior high school student whose biggest talent is avoiding conflict. Watching Shunpei dodge bullies at school, it’s difficult to believe that he is, in fact, the grandson of Alysd Closer, a powerful, globe-trotting sorcerer with enemies on every continent. Keenly aware that his rivals might seek revenge against his family, Alysd created Hyde, a plush fighting machine capable of fending off attacks with a magical chainsaw. Hyde remained dormant for almost six years before the delivery of a mysterious package containing a murderous, knife-throwing sock monkey activated his abilities…
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Korea as Viewed by 12 Creators now in stores!
From the creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro.
Shojo superheroes and roly-poly bacteria.
Help me reclaim vital office space!
The must-read manga of 2010.
Felipe Smith’s Peepo Choo lands on Wednesday.
Reflections on writing and reviewing; reactions to news stories and industry trends.
When I was fifteen and in the throes of my mope-rock obsession, I fantasized a lot about England, home to my favorite bands: Bauhaus, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees. I imagined London, in particular, to be a place where …
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It’s time for a fresh batch of Take Two Reviews, in which I look at the second (or third, or fourth) volume of a series that debuted strongly. On today’s agenda: the second and third volumes of Daisuke Igarashi’s Children …
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Given the sheer number of nineteenth-century Brit-lit tropes that appear in The Name of the Flower — neglected gardens, orphans struck dumb by tragedy, brooding male guardians — one might reasonably conclude that Ken Saito was paying homage to Charlotte …
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Earlier in the week, I sang the praises of Kaze Hikaru, my all-time favorite shojo manga (and one of my all-time favorite manga, period). Today I shine the spotlight on five great titles that haven’t garnered as much favorable notice …
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Short story collections serve a variety of purposes. They can provide an established artist an outlet for experimenting with new genres and subjects, as Osamu Tezuka would do with The Crater; they can introduce readers to seminal creators, as VIZ’s …
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In Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics, author Paul Gravett argues that female mangaka from Riyoko Ikeda to CLAMP have often used “the fluidity of gender boundaries and forbidden love” to “address issues of deep importance to their readers.” Taeko …
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Welcome to Shojo Manga Week! For the next seven days, I’ll be shining the spotlight on a variety of shojo titles, new and old, while counting down my all-time favorite series. I admit that I’ve had a long and ambivalent …
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