A comic batch! I’m fairly certain I promised this a while ago. Oops. Anyway, I’ve been borrowing some stuff from the library, so here goes!
I tried a new layout for batch posts while at it. Click the images to buy the volumes. If you can’t see any, change the settings of your adblocker. Let me know how this layout is or if I should change it!
Black Butler
Ciel Phantomhive is a young aristocrat in a fantasy Britain, and he is the owner of a very successful toy manufacturing company. but not is exactly how it seems, with Ciel having an unusually capable butler, Sebastian, and he has responsibilities that might be a bit heavy on his child-sized shoulders.
I’ve tried to read this before, but to some degree, it’s not my thing. I love the aesthetic of it, but despite being targeted more towards girls/young women who read shounen it’s not really targeted to me. I want to like it though. It’s the right genre, it’s the right aesthetic, it’s the right kind of art. But it all kind of falls apart for me in the story-telling itself. At least 2 volumes in.
Kimi ni Todoke
Sawako Kuronuma isn’t really good at making friends, and she looks really gloomy too. After starting high school she didn’t exactly get more friends either and people say she curses others or bring bad luck to them. But when Chika and Yano try to trick Sawako to be mean, they realise there’s much more beneath the surface than others see and become her friends. And soon more people get drawn to the in reality positive girl.
I adore Kimi ni Todoke. I love Sawako and I love how Sawako is suffering from social anxiety and is bullied, but still is so strong and positive, and she grows so much through the series. And she’s also the most relatable shoujo romance heroine I’ve come across due to her cluelessness because I was like that too. I’ve read several volumes of this once before, but decided to revisit it now and have read 11 volumes so far. Definitely continuing this lovely little piece of literature worth its weight in gold.
Natsume’s Book of Friends
Takashi Natsume has been moving from one relative to another ever since his parents died because he saw things no one else did. His grandmother, Reiko, had the same power of seeing Yokai and when Takashi moves in with the Fujiwaras, the yokai who knew Reiko starts chasing him to either take back their names or to take the Book of Friends.
I absolutely love the anime, and I have praised it before on this blog. Because of that, I got the first volume of NatsuYuu in English ages ago. I just never got around to reading it. I took the opportunity for this batch though! I have to say that the anime I adore was not quite the same when reading it. Maybe it’s because each episode takes up like a fourth of the book, or because the author just hadn’t found the right pacing (as this is their first attempt on an episodic work), but a single volume in, I’m not sure I’d recommend this title. I will give it a few more though when I can get my hands on them, and if I change my mind about it, I’ll let you know!
One Punch Man
Something-Something wanted to be a hero! The greatest one! He wanted to save people! He wanted to fight the monsters that came to terrorise humans! And… he does. But something in his life is missing. He’s the strongest human in the world, and now what?
This. Is. Hilarious! I actually have watched the first season of the anime adaptation, but reading the comic was awesome as well. I read 5 volumes of the manga edition, and not the webcomic one, so I don’t know how good the original variant is, but this was an awesome read. Definitely reading more of this!
What would you like to see a review of next? Or do you have a batch you’d like to see? Let me know in a comment!
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