Thanks to gift certificates, review copies, and some choice preorders, October once again saw plenty of manga and other materials making their way onto my bookshelves at home. Thankfully, it wasn’t as absurd an amount as it has been in past months and I recently made a couple of rather large manga and anime donations to my libraries, but my room is quickly getting very crowded again. My favorite out-of-print manga find for the month was a complete set of Reiko Shimizu’s Moon Child. Coincidentally enough, I purchased it from of a regular reader of Manga Bookshelf without even realizing it! Tucked in as a bonus was a volume of Makoto Kobayashi’s What’s Michael? which I will be reviewing soon. (Yes, folks, I take review requests!) There were a few preorders that I was particularly excited for in October: Takehiko Inoue’s Real, Volume 12 (which I feel is one of the best series currently being released in English), the marvelous omnibus edition of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror (which includes color pages and previously unreleased materials), and Baku Yumemakura and Jiro Taniguchi’s The Summit of the Gods, Volume 4 (which is one of my personal favorites). I’m also very happy to see more of Est Em’s work being released in print (Tableau Numéro 20) and am curious to give Ichiya Sazanami’s Black Bard omnibus from One Peace Books a try.
Manga!
Animal Land, Volumes 5-8 by Makoto Raiku
Attack on Titan, Volumes 8 by Hajime Isayama
Baron Gong Battle, Volumes 1-6 by Masayuki Taguchi
Black Bard by Ichiya Sazanami
Fairy Tail, Volume 31 by Hiro Mashima
Flowers of Evil, Volume 7 by Shuzo Oshimi
Knights of Sidonia, Volume 5 by Tsutomu Nihei
The Manzai Comics, Volume 1 written by Atsuko Asano, illustrated by Hizuru Imai
Missions of Love, Volume 5 by Ema Toyama
Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls, Volume 1 by Okayado
Moon Child, Volumes 1-13 by Reiko Shimizu
No. 6, Volume 3 by Hinoki Kino
No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!, Volume 1 by Nico Tanigawa
Real, Volume 12 by Takehiko Inoue
Rica ‘tte Kanji!? by Rica Takashima
Sankarea: Undying Love, Volume 3 by Mitsuru Hattori
The Summit of the Gods, Volume 4 written by Baku Yumemakura, illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi
Tableau Numéro 20 by Est Em
The Tyrant Falls in Love, Volume 8 by Hinako Takanaga
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror by Junji Ito
What’s Michael, Book 2 Makoto Kobayashi
Comics!
Battling Boy by Paul Pope
Homecoming by Creative Alchemy
In These Words, Chapter 9 by Guilt | Pleasure
Prima by Yeehun
Solestar written by Siike Donnelly
The Spectral Engine by Ray Fawkes
Yuri Monogatari, Volumes 5-6 by Various
Nonfiction!
The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan by Ivan Morris
The Way of Taiko by Heidi Varian
Music!
Tsuritama: Original Soundtrack by Kuricorder Quartet
Flowers of Evil is great, absolutely one of my favs. I look forward to every volume but they’re over too quickly!
I have the single Uzumaki volumes already but this new omnibus looks great, might be worth double-dipping. Watamote hits a really, really personal note for me so I’m glad to see Yen releasing it, too. The cover is nice too!
Glad to hear you take review requests! I’ll have to see if there’s anything I’d like your take on. :)
I was quite surprised by Flowers of Evil! It really is a great read.
I was just about to buy the individual volumes of Uzumaki when I learned that there was a deluxe omnibus in the works and so decided to wait. The trim is a little smaller than I expected, but it’s a fantastic edition. Yen has been doing some very nice book designs lately; I really liked what they did with Watamote. I’m looking forward to reading it, too!
I do indeed take requests, so if there’s something you’d be interested in seeing reviewed do let me know! I’ll also be wrapping up my Blade of the Immortal project later this month and will be putting the manga I tackle next to vote. :)
Thanks for the double-fisted recommendations, Ash!
And thank you for publishing!
I had to buy the Uzumaki omnibus too, even though I already own the 2nd unflipped edtion from a while ago. It’s just sooooo good!
I don’t mind if you do a short weekly review for What’s Michael, instead of a lengthy one, it’s a short volume and the series doesn’t exactly have an overall plot to it.
Too late, an in-depth review is already in the works! ;) I really enjoyed What’s Michael?; thank you again for sending it my way!
Ah, well I’m glad you enjoyed it, it’s my perfect cat manga! Hopefully I have inspired you to seek out more volumes! I feel like it’s the sort of thing that should be popular and have more attention, seeing how much the internet adores cats. My cat is a fat orange tabby and looks like Michael, lol
I definitely would like to read more! I wonder if Dark Horse could somehow be convinced to release an omnibus or two…