by Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi A special time of year is upon us when a new volume of Summit of the Gods hits the shelf. Creating a perfect union between histories, drama, and showcasing natural beauty at its finest, it continues to be a fantastically dense read. This uniquely immersive experience forcefully elicits a response from all of your senses. It is and continues to be more than a novel adaptation, more than a comic; it is a...

by Naoki Urasawa Closure, finality, the end, however you choose to word it, 20th Century Boys is finally over. After 24 books of suspense, drama, disaster, the world has finally, definitively been saved. But where does that leave readers who have stuck through this overly long series? The entire cast of characters, with a couple exceptions, end almost exactly where they began or were introduced; they almost betray themselves and become...

by Mayu Shinjo Situational comedy, confused romance, the strongest demon in the spirit world, and a failure at the end of a lineage of gifted sorcerers. This formula seems like an unusual composition for a romance comic and confused is the best way to describe it. Self-admitted to be a side project by author Mayu Shinjo, Demon Love Spell is the beginning of a potentially long running series that does not achieve anything new within the shojo...

by Shuzo Oshimi Corruption of the soul is at the heart of Flowers of Evil. In a moment of temptation, middle schooler Kasuga finds himself alone in front of his crush’s gym uniform. Hands shaking with hesitation he steals the uniform after a noise tips him over the edge. Kasuga gets away clean, or so he thinks. Caught between the unpredictable Nakamura, and the needy, essence of purity Saeki, Kasuga is stranded in a perverted game of tug-o-war...

by Naoki Urasawa Claiming 20th Century Boys was a rewarding use of page space would be an utter falsehood. Spanning twenty-two volumes, close to 4500 pages of story, the initially promising saga tells a compelling series of vignettes, constructs an amazing cast of characters, then ends with little more than a poot. 21st Century Boys picks up immediately after this lackluster ending adding three volumes of closure to an already overextended...

by Mitsuru Adachi Cross Game is not a run-of-the-mill sports manga. It may play to many of the sports manga tropes but it stands atop the pedestal as something unique. Set around the underdog Seishu Gakuen baseball team, Mitsuru Adachi weaves a heartwarming tale which does not rely on consistent adversity to move characters through the story. In fact, the outcome of the series is not a suspense driven thrill ride, nor are the characters a...