News and reviews for the discerning manga fan
Critic proof: that’s my two-word assessment of Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll, a new all-ages manga starring one of Sanrio’s lesser-known characters. The story is a mixture of sincere sentiment and calculated product placement that’s been carefully designed to appeal to the under-ten crowd; an adult can practically hear the cha-ching of the cash register every time [...]
Do you remember Wonder Woman? From an adult perspective, the show was dreadful, marred by ham-fisted scripts, low-budget special effects, campy plotlines, and wooden performances. From a child’s perspective, however, Wonder Woman was magical: the heroine had a secret identity, wore a cool crime-fighting outfit complete with nifty, crime-fighting accessories, and fought bad buys. Better [...]
Shonen manga in drag — that’s my quick-and-dirty assessment of CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth, a fantasy-adventure that adheres so closely to the friendship-effort-victory template that it’s easy to forget it ran in the pages of Nakayoshi. A closer examination reveals that Rayearth is, in fact, a complex, unique fusion of shojo and shonen storytelling practices. [...]
If you spend any time surfing the mangasphere, you don’t need me to tell you that Twin Spica is about a group of teenagers who are training to become Japan’s first astronauts. You probably know — or have heard from other readers — that it’s poignant. And you may have heard pundits declare it one [...]
Visit the kids’ section at any Barnes & Noble and you’ll see: the fractured fairy tale is one of the most ubiquitous genres in children’s book publishing today. And while many of these Mother Goose mash-ups have undeniable entertainment value — especially for the parents who’ve read and re-read the originals on a nightly basis [...]
It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted a Short Takes column — chalk it up to travel, conventions, and other commitments — so I’m going to do penance by reviewing the latest volumes of three series that I previously recommended. First up is Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical, Inc.), a heartwarming comic about a [...]
Come for the cat, stay for the cartooning — that’s how I’d summarize the appeal of Chi’s Sweet Home, a deceptively simple story about a family that adopts a wayward kitten. Chi certainly works as an all-ages comic, as the clean, simple layouts do a good job of telling the story, even without the addition [...]
Continuing the theme of my previous Short Takes column, I’m taking a second look at three Yen Press series that got off to a strong start. First up is Black Butler, a supernatural thriller about a manservant who’s frighteningly good at his job; next is Kobato, a comedy about a clueless girl on a mission [...]
Asumi Kamogawa is a small girl with a big dream: to be an astronaut on Japan’s first manned space flight. Though she passes the entrance exam for Tokyo Space School, she faces several additional hurdles to realizing her goal, from her child-like stature — she’s thirteen going on eight — to her family’s precarious financial [...]
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to review a greater variety of titles than I did in 2009, when I focused primarily (though not exclusively) on seinen and shojo manga. To that end, I’m dedicating the first of this week’s Short Takes columns to two areas of the graphic novel publishing scene that don’t [...]
When I lived in New York City, I went on my share of awesome first … [Read More...]
GTO: 14 Days in Shonan is loud and silly, the kind of manga in which … [Read More...]
Among the many books I read and loved as a child, few left as … [Read More...]
Below is a list of helpful English-language web resources about manga and manhwa. I update this page … [Read More...]
Since joining the Good Comics for Kids team in 2008, I've reviewed a variety of comics, graphic … [Read More...]
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