Category: Manga

“Paranormal is the new normal.”

Himeno Kimihara is a high school student with all the normal worries of growing up… plus a few more, considering she happens to be a centaur.

A Centaur’s Life is a unique, refreshing title. It’s 100% slice of life, following “Hime” and her friends through some extremely candid and direct concerns of school life, social anxiety, and growing up. The twist of course is all of the characters are human hybrids, showing characteristics of creatures from angels to goats to snakes and everything in between.

It’s all done quite deftly and the extra complications of being hybrids are flawlessly intertwined with more everyday issues. The narrative doesn’t shy away from the embarrassing or confusing parts of adolescence, though even the more surprising topics covered are done tastefully and with a deft touch. The art appropriately captures beauty and grace without resorting to fanservice. Hime and her friends come across incredibly realistic while being rooted in unrealistic trappings. Almost a little too much for me, as I’ll admit while I’ve enjoyed a lot of slice of life manga this one fell just short of compelling.

It’s very odd to say that the high school adventures of a centaur are too normal to hold my interest, but that’s essentially what this amounts to. In a way that’s a compliment to how perfectly Murayama has crafted this coming of age story, and anyone who wants to travel along with some (admittedly unusual) teenage girls through their daily lives and troubles will find a treat here.

This is the final volume of a layered, intricate story that has been carefully built since the beginning. There’s no point starting here – this really must be read from volume 1.

This review will contain thoughts on the series as a whole and will be as spoiler free as I can make it.

No detailed summary this time. It’s simply the final showdown with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Cliched as that sounds, the specifics of Ageha’s journey and the world of Psyren make this gripping and compelling to the last page. The various distinct, conflicting agendas intersect perfectly in the climax to provide a finale that is fitting and consistent with the series that preceded it.

On the critical side, a ridiculous amount is packed into the last couple of volumes and they do feel a little rushed. Another volume or two for this last arc would not have been out of place. There are also a few open questions and subplots I wish got a bit more development. That said, these are minor issues. Every major plot thread is addressed and the resolutions are character-driven and satisfying. A couple things wrap up a little too neatly, but I’d much rather that than too many loose ends.

The best part about this finale is that Iwashiro still had a couple of surprises to share without anything coming out of left field. Having logical progression and good foreshadowing without telegraphing everything is very difficult and the repeated success achieved in Psyren is one of the things I love most about the series.

A fitting end to a fantastic manga. Psyren tried hard at every stage to transcend the very cliches and genre trappings it embraced and became a phenomenal journey to tag along with.

Highly recommended.

After being bitten by a strange dog as a child, Chiaki was cursed with a loss of emotions and the inability to truly smile. Eight years later, and Cerberus is back in his life, but in a rather unexpected way…

I enjoyed this initial offering in this offbeat series. It’s amusing despite a mix of numerous well established tropes, and the key is how they’re used. The mythological angle is a nice twist to explain both the multiple personalities and the dog-girl aspects. Even though the leads all fill stereotypical roles there are subtle touches that add depth and amusement. I particularly like Roze and the various story threads connected to her.

While nothing revolutionary nor new, Today’s Cerberus is a fun read and has a lot of potential. Looking forward to continuing it.

After years of playing every New Year with her family, who’d take all her holiday money if she lost and get mad if she won, Saki doesn’t care for Mahjong at all. But when a friend drags her into the school’s Mahjong club for a game, they notice something extremely interesting about how she plays…

Saki is a full blown sports manga that happens to be about a board game. Several well known cliches of the genre are already apparent in both characters and premise. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the lack of framework for the game that is at the heart of the story pulls the impact out of these well established techniques.

I have no previous knowledge of Mahjong, which unfortunately made this impossible to fully follow. There are footnotes sometimes, but they don’t really help and often only emphasize that what’s happening is difficult. For example, “mixed triple chow” is explained as “three identical chows in three different suits.” Guess that would help if they ever told me what a chow was. Later the “all simple” part of an “all simple pinfu” is explained without defining “pinfu.”

And a lot of the time they don’t even footnote things. “Can you dodge my richi and change a 40-minipoint and 3-han hand to a 70-minipoint and 2-han hand?” is gibberish to me. The reader’s told that the chances of that are < 0.1%, but that’s the only way any of the “drama” of the games is conveyed – by explicitly telling the reader “hey, what’s about to happen is hard to do!” over and over. Hard to invest in the action that way.

The characters are somewhat  interesting so far, but again do fit into standard roles for this type of manga which holds them back since the formula isn’t working right.

The idea behind Saki is decent and it’s not bad overall, but it’s not compelling either. I’m in no rush to continue with volume 2.

This is a complete story in a single volume and no previous volumes are needed to understand what’s going on. However it is quite uniquely steeped in the established Phoenix Wright atmosphere with known characters, so familiarity with the video games at least is recommended.

Phoenix is dragged by Maya to an afternoon of fortune telling, but of course their palm readings and ice cream fortune telling is interrupted by an unforetold murder.

This is a decent little mystery wrapped up in the expected absurd and irreverent hijinks. A bit contrived, but it still holds together well and has some clever touches. I picked this specific volume because of Franziska’s involvement, and her interactions with Wright are amusing as always.

This was exactly what I expected and wanted from a PW manga: equal parts mystery and silliness and just plain fun overall.

This is the final volume of Chibi Vampire and the culmination of several long running story threads. No point in starting here: read from the beginning.

This review will include some general thoughts on the whole series and will be as spoiler free as I can make it.

Things get worse and worse for Karin as Chibi Vampire builds to its conclusion. A ton of previously established plot points weave together into an appropriate crescendo. Though a romance at its core, Chibi Vampire has used its premise, characters, and supernatural elements to provide good comedic and tense/dramatic moments as well. Events and complications were appropriately character driven, allowing the story to unfold naturally and engage the readers. Karin’s coming of age story as a person who doesn’t fit into either of the two worlds she shares has remained compelling throughout its 14 volume journey.

I understand why some readers don’t like a certain part of the end, but my view is that people (and thus characters) aren’t and don’t have to be perfect. The choices the characters made were logical, both rationally and emotionally, even if they might of might not have been the best ones that could have been made. The difficulty and possible fallibility of having to make emotionally weighted decisions actually makes everything feel more real for me, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the choice.

This final volume does feel a little rushed, and admittedly could’ve benefited from some more details in certain places. But it still manages to address the important themes of the series and close out all major outstanding plot points.

Overall Chibi Vampire is a wonderful series that takes a comical and absurd concept and turns it into a cute, emotionally charged journey for its characters. Not perfect, but great stuff regardless.