Confessions of a Shy Baker, Vol. 1 | By Masaomi Ito | TOKYOPOP – Initially, Confessions of a Shy Baker felt to me like a discount knockoff of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. You have a gay couple who have been together for years and live together. One of the men (Gon) is more laidback and is out to his coworkers in a service industry job. The other (Toshi) is more reserved and closeted at work and is the one who lovingly prepares homemade baked goods for his boyfriend. The strange art style—Toshi has giant ears and looks cross-eyed—and instant dive into LGBTQIA+ issues rather than focusing on the characters didn’t help, either. Thankfully, the story seems to relax halfway through and we get chapters about Gon’s obnoxious college friend and Gon and Toshi inheriting a cute dog. In the end, I liked it enough to continue. – Michelle Smith
Doomsday with My Dog, Vol. 1 | By Yu Isihara | Yen Press – In this post-apocalyptic comedy, a young woman wanders a devastated landscape with her trusty shiba inu. The two encounter a variety of animals and aliens in their search for food and shelter, but not much happens; by the middle of volume one, the storylines have fallen into a predictable pattern in which the scatterbrained owner makes a rash decision, seeks counsel from her wise pet, then ignores Haru’s advice. Though a few scenes elicited a chuckle, the aimlessness of the storytelling and the plainness of the artwork left me cold; I never clicked with the characters or the script, not least because the main human character was a flighty bore. Your mileage may vary. – Katherine Dacey
HIRAETH ~The End of the Journey~, Vol. 3 | By Yuhki Kamatani | Kodansha Manga (digital only) – This series comes with a warning that it deals with suicide ideation, and reader discretion is advised. And sure enough, Mika does in fact make the effort when she finally gets to the end of her journey… but she can’t. Her journey has given her too much life and love and joy to go chasing after her lost love. That said, we also get Hibino on the cover, and this is really his book, as he’s forced to confront his immortality and the reasons for it, as well as his own realization that, unlike Mika, he really is ready to move on. This author’s series are usually fantastic, and this was no exception. it’s not for everyone, but it’s why the word “evocative” was invented. – Sean Gaffney
Kitaro | By Shigeru Mizuki | Drawn & Quarterly – Somehow, it’s been nearly a decade since Drawn & Quarterly introduced its first anthology of stories from Shigeru Mizuki’s manga GeGeGe no Kitaro. I loved the collection and so was sad to see it fall out of print and become increasingly hard to find. But now a second edition has been released; I couldn’t be happier that these incredibly influential stories are readily available again. Revisions to the second edition include a new introduction by Zack Davisson (replacing the essay by Matt Alt) and updates to Jocelyne Allen’s translation as well as notable improvements to the lettering and overall book design. Davisson’s glossary of yokai is retained in the re-release, too, further augmenting the general presentation of Mizuki’s manga—thirteen delightful stories originally published in the mid-1960s which have more than stood the test of time. In addition to being an important cultural touchstone, Kitaro is just so much fun. – Ash Brown
Komi Can’t Communicate, Vol. 23 | By Tomohito Oda | Viz Media – At last, the payoff. Manbagi confesses, waiting to get rejected, and actually ends up having Tadano say yes, because Tadano is the way he is. So she has to sort of nudge him to admit that he’d rather be going out with someone else, and by the end of this volume, we have finally achieved blushing confession. This was a fantastic sacrifice on Manbagi’s part, and I sure hope that she’s not going to just become a minor character after this, because that would be terrible. (Foreshadowing, your key to quality literature.) At the moment, though, this was a great payoff, and I’m happy for these two dorks, who still need massive injections of self-confidence but are good kids. – Sean Gaffney
Marmalade Boy: Collector’s Edition, Vol. 1 | By Wataru Yoshizumi | Seven Seas – It had been years since I read this series back in the dawning days of shoujo manga being a thing here in America, and mostly what I remembered was that the romance between Meiko and her teacher, which I quite liked back in the day, reads far less positively to me now. Which is true, but that’s not till the end of this volume. Till then, it served to remind me what a good series it is, with likeable, fun leads, a lot of humor, and the shoujo drama does not yet have the heavy hand that it would get later. Also, we have The Parents, and when you say The Parents to a shoujo manga fan, they always know who you mean. Na-chan dating his underage student drowns out the parents. They’re TERRIBLE. Overall, this was great to reread. – Sean Gaffney
Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand | By Yoko Komori | Viz Media – This is an unusual license for Viz—You is not usually a josei magazine they dip their toes into, and I’m not sure there’s a forthcoming anime or anything. I’m very glad they did, though, as this is a beautiful story well told. A young girl moves with her father to a remote seaside village after the breakup of her parents’ marriage, and she must try to make new friends while also searching for the man who saved her life when she was last there at the age of four… and who was a mermaid. The series toes just the right line between “are Mermaids real here, is this a fantasy?” and the mystery of why a town might want to make mermaids real. Complete in one volume, this is a must read. – Sean Gaffney
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