Personally-followed manga, under-the-radar for everyone else

Oh, that sounds adorable.

It's definitely a fun different take on the usual romcom manga.

Continuing How to Keep a Mummy, I’m now at the arc of Mii-kun’s past and…

Good god this shit got dark. It was suggested that something bad had happened for Mokuren to send her to Japan for safety, but I didn’t expect the incident to be shown in such horrific detail. Yeah, I get why she didn’t wanna go back to Egypt now.

As cute as this series is, it can really punch you in the gut, sometimes.

Edited by Lyendith on Aug 8th 2022 at 11:14:08 AM

Was in the mood for a romcom, so My Dress-Up Darling it was.

What can I say except that it is wonderful and I want to read the manga if there’s no Season 2 announced! The way it conveys the passions and excitement of all the characters is great, not to mention all the yummy technical details. And of course the character designs and animation are gorgeous.

This series also doesn’t forget that teenagers are horny, but it frames it in a very… sensible way. Like, yeah, they think about "those things" but they’re still inexperienced and embarrassed about it (as much as Marine tries to hide it).

Episode 11 was the pinacle of the season in that regard, as it had all of that in one package.

Edited by Lyendith on Aug 22nd 2022 at 6:12:17 PM

The tension in that love hotel scene was thick enough to cut with a knife.

I swear. I’ve never gotten this mad at a phone ringing.

Here's my top 3 ranking of historical manga:

1. Vlad Drăculea tells the story of Vlad III, starting from his struggles with nobles controlling the politics and economy of Wallachia. Akiyo Ohkubo provides the most subdued style of visual storytelling I've ever seen in a manga.
2. Aoi Horus no Hitomi tells the story of Hatshepsut the female pharaoh, starting with her marriage to her half-brother Thutmose II. Chie Inudoh depicts ancient Egyptian court life in gorgeous detail in an art style that my mother described as similar to Magi: Labyrinth of Magic. Every volume begins with a Myth Prologue loosely styled after ancient Egyptian art and ends with an edutainment segment featuring chibi Anubis and a hippopotamus named Taweret.
3. Tenmaku no Ja Dougal/A Witch's Life in Mongol tells the story of a learned slave girl brought to the Mongol Empire as a prisoner of war from Islamic Iran. The chibi art style by Tomato Soup clashes with the story's brutality, starting with Prince Tolui's army killing Sitara's mistress Fatima during the sack of Tus.

Blue Eye of Horus was pretty good. Story is a bit generic historical drama, but the accuracy of the historical details of Egyptian history is commendable. Even the little things like the prevalent male hairstyle of a shaved head with a single lock of hair above the ear.

I’ll check out Vlad Draculea.

Fun fact: Aoi Horus no Hitomi and Vlad Drăculea have been serialized in Harta, the same magazine as A Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori and Wolfsmund by Mitsuhisa Kuji.

It's also the same magazine as Hakumei to Mikochi and Dungeon Meshi. Harta has a strangely artsy feel to it; it's a monthly magazine, so it mostly runs series that are a bit more detailed and more niche than weekly magazines like Jump.

Oooh I am a big fan of Otoyomegatari as well. Might have to check out Wolfsmund too.

Well whoever’s in charge of that magazine is doing good work.

Edited by fillerdude on Oct 24th 2022 at 1:59:52 AM

Yeah, I like it a lot. Even though it's a LOT of content and largely series I don't read, I sometimes buy it just to get Dungeon Meshi, and it feels fancy and artsy.

Harta tankobon also tend to have higher-quality covers and paper too, it feels like. They're a bit more expensive as a result, but they have nicer paper covers instead of the glossy covers you get for other magazines' tankobon.

Lol, Hinamatsuri was serialized there as well. Really liked that one.

Edited by jun_kagami on Oct 25th 2022 at 12:46:17 AM

*was

あ、ちっと間違えてた. 訂正どうも. Thanks for that.

Edited by jun_kagami on Oct 25th 2022 at 1:04:50 AM

Dumb/cursed thought: if My Balls had been first localized in the mid 2010s onward, there'd have been a non-zero chance the localized title being These Nuts.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Oct 25th 2022 at 11:15:17 AM

The rest of that non-zero chance would've been used on Deez Nuts

Yooo Tengoku Daimakyou's gettin anime'd

So...I recently discovered a new manga called May My Father Die Soon and...hoooo boy, it's certainly something. The story focuses on two sisters, Asuka and Hotaru who, to their neighbors and classmates, seem like your typical happy kids. But behind closed doors, their lives are anything but happy. Asuka, the oldest daughter, is regularly abused by her father, both physically and sexually, but Asuka endures it so Hotaru doesn't go through the same thing. Any attempts she made to either escape or find help fail, and when her father begins setting his sights on Hotaru, Asuka is forced to take matters into her own hands.

Yeah, this manga requires pretty much ALL the content warnings: Graphic depictions of child molestation, child abuse, a suicide attempt, patricide via removal of a life support ventilator, the whole enchilada. If you're somebody who is triggered by all of these, I don't recommend reading this manga. May My Father Die Soon is ongoing, with 19 chapters out, though only 12 have been scanlated into English. I've read the scanlated chapters so far, and it's...alright. It certainly does a good job at showing the sheer despair Asuka experiences, and chapter 12 seems to be setting up a new arc where Asuka and Hotaru grow up and learn to cope with their trauma once they finally manage to find some degree of happiness and normalcy. But there are parts of it that come across as pretty tasteless, namely in that the scenes showing Asuka being raped are drawn in lurid detail that borders dangerously close to being male gaze-y and fetishistic. But seeing as I haven't experienced abuse of that nature, I don't know how well or authentic the depiction of child sexual abuse is here.

Has anyone else read this manga in any capacity?

The Apothecary Diaries is getting an anime, to the surprise of no-one.

Yûki Aoi as Mao Mao… not entirely sold, but we’ve only heard snippets so far.

Guess we can’t call it “under the radar” for long.

Edited by fillerdude on Feb 17th 2023 at 5:31:00 AM

There was a voice drama released with her as Maomao and Sakurai Takahiro as Jinshi, if I recall. Given Sakurai's recent scandal(s) I wouldn't be surprised if he got recast.

Either way, I agree - I like Yuuki Aoi well enough, but I don't want to see her become the voice of every quirky light novel protagonist.

Which scandal?

He was caught cheating on his wife with one of his coworkers, if I recall, in a relationship that lasted around a decade.

…Woops. That’s… not illegal or anything, but it does paint a bad picture of the guy.