Batman: Death Mask by Yoshinori Natsume YP FIC NATSUME

Is Batman really Bruce Wayne? Or is Bruce Wayne a mask the Batman wears for the public? There's a demon from Japan in Gotham stealing faces and taunting the Dark Knight; a demon straight from Bruce Wayne's time training in Japan before he was Batman.  He'll have to find the answer to who Batman is and face his own dark shadow to stop this deadly new threat.

How can you not love BatManga? It's got Batman and Manga! That's chocolate and peanut butter levels of greater than the sum of its parts! This definitely isn't the best or most original Batman story or the best manga, BUT it is a fun and stylish Batman adventure.  I love the face stealing baddie best of all.  He's a super cool masked assasin with the same silhouette as Batman, but in a traditional Japanese style.  It works really well for the  book, because he is super creepy and a great visual counterpoint to Batman.  The visuals are by far the strongest selling point of the book, as Batman really pops in a manga style.  i also like how the book kept me guessing about whether the villain is REALLY a demon or if there is some sort of scientific explanation behind the mystery.  They have several fun twists with this and I love it when Batman stories are also mysteries.  The only real down sides are that these ideas have been looked at before in loads of other Batman comics and that the dialogue is a little wooden.  I think the language barrier probalby explains the latter, and it's never so bad that it's unreadable.  As for the story covering old ground, many readers won't have read quite as many Batstories as I have and the book will feel fresher to them.  Also, the great visuals more than carry the book to being a can't miss Batbook.  It's Batastic! Batrific! Batstanding! Okay, that's probably enough bats for...ever.  So if you like Batman or manga, definitely give this one a read.  If you like Batman and Manga then you are pretty much legally obligated to love it!  

You can find Batman: Death Mask in our catalog here.

Blood Ninja III: The Betrayal of the Living by Nick Lake YP FIC LAKE

The evil Lord Oda is dead (after already being dead, then undead, and now totally dead), but Taro’s greatest challenge is still ahead.  He must vanquish a dragon in order to get permission to marry the girl he loves.  Wait fighting dragons to win the heart of a fair lady is supposed to be for knights, nit vampire ninjas!?  Taro is doomed!  As if that wasn’t enough to worry about the dead are rising.  No, not vampires, ZOMBIES!  The super, evil and very creepy Kenji has crawled back from the dead and is raising an army of corpses to destroy all he sees.  OH!  Also, Taro’s very own flesh and blood family plans to betray him!  Being a vampire ninja in feudal Japan is ROUGH!

Vampire ninjas VS Dragons and Zombies!  What’s not to love!? This is a great finale to a wonderful action series.  This book, like the two before it (read my reviews here and here), have loads of fast paced action and ultra-violence, perfectly evil villains to root for, and enough plot twists to keep things interesting.  Also, Nick Lake does a nice amount of research to make the Japanese setting feel real and authentic.  Basically the Blood Ninja series is like a super awesome manga series without the pictures.  It doesn’t have the most realistic characters, but they aren’t boring or entirely one note either.  The heroes are almost always outmatched and that makes for tense and exciting action sequences.  The romantic plot does get a little sparkly when Taro learns that he can’t be with Hana without turning her into a vampire, but that never drags the plot down to a soap opera.  This is a must read for fans of action, manga, or historical-fiction-fantasy-horror.

You can check our catalog for Blood Ninja III here.

Ichiro by Ryan Inzana YP FIC INZANA

Ichiro is lost between worlds.He has a Japanese mother and an American father who died in a war before he ever really knew him. He feels out of place in New York and when he has to stay with his grandpa in the Japanese countryside, it’s more like another planet than another country. But none of this prepares him for when he catches a raccoon that’s really an ancient Japanese spirit that pulls him into the realm of the gods and in a fight for his life.  Now he has to find his way home when he's not even sure where or what his home is.

This is a graphic novel with pretty big ambitions. It tackles war, national identity, religion, violence, and even the fallibility of gods. It does this all within the backdrop of myths and legends of Japanese folklore. Inzana takes the risky move of explaining only the major figures of the mythology and leaving the rest for readers to research on their own, so you’ll learn a good deal about Japanese folklore but have even more to find out for yourself. I actually think this works out for the best, it lets readers feel as lost and bewildered as Ichiro. This makes his adventure more effecting and exciting than if every page was littered with footnotes explaining what a kappa is. The art is a mix of manga style, Japanese ukiyo-e wood prints, and American art. This fits the story and themes of the book perfectly and is also just gorgeous to look at. Inzana uses color sparingly to highlight important objects and for startling contrasts. This is a unique, original, and touching story with superb art throughout. It is a must read for any and all comics fans looking for a great story and great art, but especially for anyone interested in Japanese culture.

You can check our catalog for Ichiro here.

The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice by Allen Say

Not a lot of kids can say they were living on their own by age 13.

As a boy, author Allen Say found himself navigating the urban jungle of Tokyo by himself. His parents had divorced and sent him to live with his grandmother. But that relationship, too, proved flammable, and it was decided what was best for everyone involved was to allow Say to live by himself. He took residence in a shabby 12 by 12-foot room with little more than a light bulb and a toilet in the way of amenities.

I lit a candle and turned on the overhead light, and thought about the day. Often I read the books I liked by candlelight. Grandmother would never have allowed it. Also she never let me stay up late. It was good to live alone.

Say decided to take his extraordinary circumstances one step further by seeking out the famous cartoonist Noro Shinpei as his mentor. In The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice, he shares the autobiographical story of that apprenticeship, which paved the way for his later career as an author and illustrator.

Shinpei proceeds to train Say in art and illustration. But more than that, the cartoonist serves as a father figure for the boy over the next three years, serving as a grounding influence as the boy navigates the vicissitudes of friends, female classmates, family tensions and the real world without the protective buffer that parents typically provide.

We learn that his mother was disowned by her family when she married Say's father, a Korean. But war has changed everything. Say comes from an old samurai family but World War II left his grandparents impoverished; his mother, who owns a small cosmetic shop in nearby Yokohama, must now support his grandmother.

Say paints his life in clear, undiluted strokes. He doesn't soften his experiences — such as an almost casual act of self-mutilation by Say's friend and fellow apprentice, the fiery Tokida, or the sad, remote relationship that Say has with his parents — nor does he thrust them upon us. He simply lays them out for us to absorb with his thoughtful, measured writing style.

In the process, we, as readers, get a glimpse of what life was like in post-World War II-Japan: the bombed out building scattered throughout the city, the encroaching influence of Western culture, the constant smoking, the bustling train stations.

This is a lovely, understated story of a Say's early experiences, many of which have gone on to greatly influence him as a person and artist. In one interview, Say said:

I was incredibly lucky, because Noro Shinpei recognized I was searching for a father and he adopted me. To this day, I am still his child. He is still living and is eighty-five years old. We continue to communicate. I send him all the books I do and he still critiques my work. He was only thirty-five years old when I met him.

Say speaks more on the topic in this video:

Yokaiden by Nina Matsumoto YP FIC MATSUMOT

Hamachi is a weirdo. Everybody says so. He is the only boy in his village that is obsessed with Yokai (magical Japanese creatures). Everybody else fears the Yokai and wishes they would all leave. However, his love of Yokai is tested when after befriending a Kappa (a turtle man-thing) the Kappa steals his grandma’s soul. Now Hamachi has decided to venture into the dangerous realm of the Yokai, from which no human has ever returned.

This is a really strong start to a new comedy manga. I am a huge fan of yokai and love reading about them. The manga does a great job of introducing them to a western audience. Yokai are truly odd and strange. The legends surrounding them are often hilarious. Lick the grim licker that licks your dirty bathtub clean! EWWWW! That’s a pretty good way to get kids to clean the bathtub. The art isvery simple and some of the ink work reminds me of classic Japanese ink painting which fits with the classic stories of yokai. The humor is uniformly good and Hamachi is a likeable goofball. This isn’t anything that will change the genre and the story so far isn’t as fast paced as I’d like, but the yokai and strong humor really make this a good read for fans of comedy manga.

Children of the Sea Volume 1 by Daisuke Igarashi YP FIC IGARASHI

Ruka was just a little girl when she saw the glowing ‘Ghost of the Sea’ at her dad’s aquarium, but nobody believed her. Now as a teen after an ‘incident’ where she ‘accidently’ broke another girl’s nose playing sports, Ruka has to spend the summer at the aquarium keeping two very odd boys company. Sora and Umi were both raised in the sea by dugongs (see picture below!). They can swim deeper and longer than normal people health and seem to be able to hear and see things about the sea no one else can…except maybe Ruka. Strange things are happening in the sea as water temperatures in Japan rise and fish from all over the world are swimming in Japanese waters, while fish mysteriously vanish from aquarium tanks all over the world.

This is an excellent beginning to a new manga. The art is super detailed and beautiful and ranks with any manga artist working today. The author really captures the feeling of adventure that summer always seems to offer but rarely seems to deliver. The characters and situations are handled in a realistic manner even though unexplainable things start happening very quickly. This made me more interested than if things were just super magical and a bunch of bizarre things happened right away. Now I am hooked and can’t wait to unravel the mystery of what is causing the Ghost in the Sea phenomenon.

GoGo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto YP FIC MATSUMOT

Yuki Tachibana is a nine year old dreamer ridiculed by his classmates. He talks often of a world that only he sees and hears of magical beings that constantly surround us. Lately, his school has new visitors. A new student named Makoto Suzuki that is intrigued by Yuki and new creatures from the other world. These creatures are darker and more dangerous than his friends and the ruler of the other world, Super Star doesn’t talk to Yuki any more. As the school year goes on Yuki’s visions get weirder and more frequent. Is he crazy or is this second world real? And will he cross to the other side when he gets the chance?

This is an unusual manga that is a true artistic statement. It is drawn with a very unique style. The lines are left slightly rough and uneven and some details will be slightly exaggerated or made larger, but the overall design is realistic. This makes everything seem slightly odd and disorienting, which works perfectly for the story. When Yuki’s visions start becoming more bizarre it was really unsettling. The plot moves forward with fits and jumps. The whole book reminds me of how I would remember a year of school after it was over: brief little moments that stayed with me and nothing in between. GoGo Monster perfectly captures what is like in that awkward time in childhood when you begin to stop believing in magic and a part of the imagination dies. This is a great read for older readers that will take the time and pay attention to this beautiful and wonderfully weird story. If you are looking for a work of art to fire your imagination, pick this one up.

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Volume 1 by Motoro Mase YP FIC MASE

“Congratulations! You have been randomly selected by the government…to die in 24 hours!” In the near future, Japan has come up with a solution to apathy: randomly killing one citizen every day by a time released poison administered in grade school. Everyone knows they could die at any moment so they work hard to live full and productive lives. When Fujimoto starts his new job delivering the ikigami or death notices he starts to question if all these deaths can really be for the greater good.

This is a chilling and dark look at how a government or society can control our fates. The idea of a nation so devoted to productivity that it murders its own citizens is a great allegory for the excesses of a consumer society. The even bigger hook is the idea that every victim is notified 24 hours before they die. “What would you do if you had just one day left to live?” is an old question, but Ikigami looks at in a very fresh way. I can’t wait for more books to see how the different people react and if Fujimoto will defy the system. The art is done in a cool realistic style and adds to the overall creepiness of the story. I think Death Note fans will especially like this one.