Travelling through shoujo manga wonderland, the non-mainstream fringes & josei manga/seinen manga territories. Eyes always open to everything in its periphery.
Andō Yuki (!!!) is back with a new one-shot in Betsuma - more than 1 year after the end of her critically acclaimed series Machida-kun no Sekai (movie opens June 7) ✨ Kimi wa Ai tells the love story of broken-hearted thus robot-like Hikari & her older brother’s friend Inui.
Publisher Genkosha has dedicated the latest volume in their Professional Manga Techniques series to Takemiya Keiko. It’s both aimed at fans and creators who want to get a closer look at Takemiya’s style. B5 format, 160 pages, double-sided color poster, ¥2,160.
The writing’s on the blackboard: Sakisaka Io’s hit series FuriFura ends in the June issue of Betsuma 🏫 As announced in April, an anime movie & a live-action movie are coming in 2020. Manga vol. 12 in stores 6/25. A booklet with color artwork to come with July Betsuma, out 6/13.
The June issue of Betsucomi also comes with a 100-page booklet with Kiachi Machi’s shoujo manga adaptation of Yuasa Masaaki’s upcoming movie Kimi to, Nami ni Noretara. (Might seem familiar to some, the manga was already serialized in DX Betsucomi earlier this year.)
Romance series Minatoku JK by Shibano Yuka, previously in DX Betsucomi, has now found a new home in Betsucomi itself. Manga volume 1 came out last October. Betsucomi regulars in the June issue: Spice & Custard by Usami Maki and Fujiwara-kun wa daitai tadashii by Hinachi Nao.
A new arc of Izumi Kaneyoshi's Cold Game starts in the June issue of Betsucomi, out today. The 3rd volume of the manga came out last week, just like the first volume of Izumi's other current (irregular) series, Suisou Yakyoku, from Flowers magazine 🌹🐠
Heroine Aruna challenges the men & tries to stop the schemes of the female candidates. So it could become an intriguing series if it reaches interesting conclusions one day! Plot development is slow, though... and it's not serialized regularly in Betsucomi which isn't helping 😐
Still on the fence about this series :/ I'm not a big fan of women literally killing each other to end up on the throne as the king’s chosen wife while the smug young men just watch all high-and-mightily as they have ~more important things~ to do (politics, i.e. war).
Bleak fantasy with a medieval European setting seems to be a micro trend in shoujo manga atm. (Not hard to guess why 😏) Izumi Kaneyoshi’s Cold Game, about women having to compete with each other to become queen, is one of the sub-genres more popular titles. Vol. 3 out now 🌕🌹
Last in my post-apocalyptic tweet triptych, a brilliant piece of literature: Yōko Tawada’s The Emissary (US)/Last Children of Tokyo (UK) is about living in a secluded post-catastrophic Japan where old people grow even older & their young great-grandchildren suffer from sickness.