The Shipping News, 3/3/10

True story: when I was in college, I dated a classmate who was considerably shorter than I was. While walking through midtown Manhattan on a warm day, a crazy person jumped in our path, pointed at us, and yelled, “Hey, everybody — it’s SUSAN ANTON AND DUDLEY MOORE!” Without missing a beat, my boyfriend replied, “Dude, your cultural references are totally out of date. Anyone can see we’re Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.” (N.B. It was the 1990s.) I’ve often thought about this brief, weird exchange when reading Aya Nakahara’s Love*Com, as my ex’s superb verbal reflexes remind me a lot of Otani’s: couldn’t you see Otani silencing a passerby with a similarly offhand remark? Alas, we may never have a chance to see that happen, as the final volume of this delightful rom-com arrives in stores on Wednesday. If, by some chance, you’ve missed out on Love*Com, here’s the premise in a nutshell:

Risa… is the tallest girl in her class. Naturally, her teachers and classmates think it would be hilarious if Risa hooked up with Atsushi Otani, the shortest boy in the class. The two violently resist the idea, exchanging insults and right hooks at the slightest suggestion that they might be perfect for each other. To nip the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes jokes in the bud, Risa and Otani cook up a plan: they’ll play matchmaker for each other, date other people, and prove their classmates wrong. What they discover in the process, however, is that they might just make a great couple after all.

Not a fan of Love*Com? Never fear: shojoholics have plenty of other ways to get their fix this week, from the latest installments of Skip-Beat! (VIZ), Swan (CMX), and We Were There (VIZ), to the debut of Cactus’s Secret (VIZ). (Alas, the series does not feature a talking saguaro, as I had hoped, nor does it sound very good. Click here for Johanna Draper-Carlson’s critique.) Folks who are more disposed towards action will find a decent assortment of long-running VIZ series: seventeen of Gin Tama, volume twenty-seven of Shaman King, and volume thirty of The Comic Plagiarist’s Sourcebook, a.k.a. Bleach.

Two caveats about this week’s Shipping News. First, the Midtown Comics website lists several titles that were released in December, e.g. volume two of Children of the Sea. I’m not sure if these are re-orders, or a belated decision to add these titles to inventory, but I have not listed them below. Second, Midtown’s list is missing some books I’d expected to see — namely volumes 36-38 of One Piece, and the new paperback edition of MW. I’m not sure why these books aren’t going on sale this week at Midtown, but to avoid confusion, I have not included them, either. For an alternative list of this week’s new arrivals, please visit the ComiXology site.