Volume eight cover of the Yotsuba&! manga above. It can already be found on Amazon Japan. There’s five volume of this manga in English already, but it’s by ADV Manga. ADV has dropped a lot of manga in the past. If finishing Yotsuba&! is one of your life goals, you’d be better off learning Japanese to buy it while everyone else waits for the delays for volume six. Maybe if ADV were to advertise and promote their products better, they’d have better sales. When was the last time you’ve seen a commecial for manga (or even anime) on television?

A brief intro, though. It’s the girl in image board 404 missing file and banned images. There’s a soundtrack, yet no sign of an anime like Azumanga Daioh. Yotsuba&! is a story of a small girl and her everyday adventure. Humor takes setting up, the art style is known for being very clean, and everyone is very expressive. What you can expect is girl who’s still learning about the world with her usually not really getting what something is actually for (with doorbells as an example). You can see view revisions of this new volume here.

And Kazuko is the winner! The Soul Eater avatar contest has ended. Two more contests coming up soon.

This is a pretty spot on and in full remake of the opening music of Bokurano. The song is titled Uninstall by the artist Ishikawa Chiaki. Bokurano is a manga with an anime adaptation of twelve children who deal with life while deciding to give up their lives to save their world. This may seem like your average Evangelion like anime, but brings forth some intense moments. Don’t Wikipedia this anime for details or it’ll ruin everything.

The second volume starts off from the action that ended the first volume. Adventura has some of the most impressive level of detail. Medieval fantasy settings with forests, libraries of magic, skeletons, and swords. It’s a good thing that it’s manga or it would have had a lot of brown. Each volume begins with a dramatic dialogue from one of the characters and ends with extras. Volume two has character profiles, translation notes, and a short extra comic with the characters.

The background of the story is of Lewin wishing to be a wizard. His grandmother helped him get into a magic school, however he was placed in swordsmanship. Lewin is a bit of an outcast, as he’s a red head and the first student in the school to not have magical powers. He gets into trouble, finds his way into areas of the school in where he’s not allowed, and seen as very weak. One day finds several students of a different area of the school. Much drama occurs, but there’s several moments where Lewin doesn’t seem so weak afterall. A sign of things that may come, there is this amazing scene where Lewin somehow lights up a smoke for the teacher as he decides to rush off elsewhere.

Volume two continues outside the school where Lewin comes to help two other studnents that are attacked by monsters. From this you’ll see Lewin’s sword and ability. He could be a threat or a hero of the school. Adventura is a loving adveture that may go in any direction as it unfolds, with Lewin being getting his wish. This volume is out now.

Also known as Pantsu Witches to some and is set to run for 13 episodes. Oh boy where to start on this show. What genre should I even classify it under actually? It hits so many bases that I just don’t know where put it. I’ll let you decide. Heres some of what you can expect. Bloomers, semi mecha, magic girls, furry, no pants and most importantly loli/jailbait characters. Where would you put this now? Yeah exactly. So anyway what is all this about? What possible storyline could they come up with to try and hold all these elements of service together? Here it is.

Strike Witches takes place in a world that has been under savage attack from an enemy known as the Neuroi which first started to attack in 1939. They sporadicly appear and attack and just when people think they have worked out how they think, they change their strategy often catching people by surprise. Neuroi take the form of abstract or funky futuristic style aircraft. Not much is known about them really except that they spread a destructive miasma that annihilates human life, and transmutes the land into weapons for them to use.

The only way to combat this enemy seems to be use mages, typicly young girls, in what is called Striker Units. These mecha-like contraptions are fitted onto the legs like large stockings and allow the user to fly, enhances the ability to carry/use weapons that normal humans wouldn’t be able to and create a defensive shield when for when the user is under attack. When using these units the occupant sprouts animal ears and a tail, different to each girl be it cat, wolf like or fox.

Interesting no? I thought so at least. However the real attraction is the characters to me at least. Also as mentioned above, all the women under in this show seemed to be banned from wearing pants. I have no clue as to why exactly this is as none is given, but the best reason for this I have heard is “Pants would probably interfere with the machines they use, and it would take time to take them off when they have to get in the air really fast”. You’re welcome to try and conjour up a better reason but for the sake of continuing lets pass that speed bump. Lets introduce a few characters such as the main character and my personal favorites. Please excuse some of the photos, i’ve had to cap them from episodes due to the disturbingly low amount of single character photos.

Yoshika Miyafuji – She is the 14 year old main character of the show. She is your normal anime 14 year old in personality. Perhaps a bit more caring than what you would fine but there you go. She is part of a family who run a doctor’s clinic that heals people using magic. When she was little her father was called to assit in the war against the Neuroi and as a result, he created the Striker Unit. In the later episodes (4 onwards I suppose) she has an attraction to large boobs. What? Don’t look at me like that, its true. I’m not sure why exactly and your welcome to try and answer.

Mio Sakamoto – She is the Strike Witches 2nd in command and ranks as the oldest of the witches at 19 years old. She has a fondness toward Yoshika and is a normal type of military commander of strict and dominating. However she is always kind to people. She wears an eye patch that covers her right eye. Under this patch is a magic eye that allows her to see incredible distances and helps when fighting Neuroi.

Francesca Lucchini – She ranks as the youngest girl in the witches at 12 years old. She often is found sleeping around the base in downright odd places such as a tree, or in the rafters of the mechanics bay. She would much rather sleep or find a way to have fun with the girls over training. Then again that is normal isn’t it? When in her Striker Unit she gaints the ears and tail of a black leopard. She is tied with the next girl as my favorite. I can’t decide between the 2.

Sanya V. Livyak – Close behind Francesca at 13 years old. She is quite nocturnal and is often put on night duty because of her magical ability to detect signals such as radio. This gives her quite an incredible detection ability and is little wonder why she is on night duty so often. Her personality is a bit introverted and is often quiet, thinking to herself rather than speaking. When she flies at night she has a pretty song that she sings in order to help her detect things. She shares the same birthday as Yoshika.

Charolette E Yeager – 16 years old and is called Shirley by friends. Like Francesca she is rather carefree but is quite fond of cleanliness. A speed freak (not the drug) who loves going as fast as possible and was the first witch to break the sound barrier. She has perhaps the biggest… er… bust of all the girls.

Well there are 11 girls all up in the witches squad and since I can’t really go ahead and write about all of them for the sake of space and time, here is a group shot that wiki was kind enough to help with.

So with the series half over (buu!) there is little doubt that a 2nd Strike Witches season will be announced eventualy. We can only hope at least that is. If 1 of more of the above genre tags pique your interest then it wouldn’t hurt to watch 1 episode and see if you like the show. I suppose the closest type show would be Sky Girls but having never watched that I cannot comment exactly how close the shows are. That said if you liked Sky Girls then give this a try. Worst comes to worst you just wasted a bit of your time right?

Since it had been so long since I actualy bought set of manga books, at least 4 months, I figured that I  would purchase some random series that sounded interesting to me and ones I already follow but hadn’t  bought in a long time. This is just a rough summary of a few of the ones I bought.

Strawberry Marshmallow 5

I have been waiting on this book for quite a long time. Going on 8 months I believe. I’m so glad I don’t  have to wait anymore. As you may or may not know, this is 1 of my favorite show/manga series ever and  there isn’t an episode or a book that I don’t love that is related to it. Even the SM art book I have is  wonderful. As in the last 4 books, this has a great selection of short stories in it that are a joy to  read. Wether it is Nobue’s history on smoking, the girls finding out what their names mean or them talking  about best friends (I didn’t expect the “guess what Chika? we’re lesbians” comment Miu makes to find its  way into the offical book) each section is a wonderful read and there are quite a bit of laugh out loud  moments I found.

While Barasui’s style has changed slightly, the way he does eyes mainly, it still remains a fantastic  running series that looks as good as when it first started. Usualy this wouldn’t be a good thing as  character designs and the general look of things seems to change for the better as time goes on, this  series was always well done to me and didn’t need much improvement. Ok so the first 3/4 of the 1st book  the characters look very different and change a fair bit but as Barasui has stated, he never expected the  series to take off as it did so the characters looked different. Toward the end though he found the right  style for the girls and has run with it ever since. Bravo. If you love comedy and lolis this should be a  no brainer to buy.

Sunshine Sketch AKA Hidamari Sketch 1

Anyone who enjoys slice-of-life style anime I would wager has no doubt heard of this series. With a first  season already down, and a new one currently airing, it’s a very good thing that Yen Press decided to pick  this series up along with a few others. This manga seems to follow the newer series (x365) rather than the  original anime series. It may just be my opinion on this but perhaps the 1st series never followed the  original manga so they decided to redo it? Whatever the reason this was a great read and should be on  everyones list of manga to buy.

In true Hidamari Sketch fashion, all the character designs are the same and works so very well. After  seeing so much of the anime it is quite easy to imagine the japanese voices when reading which really  works so much better. Oh and lets not forget that it is a rather impressive looking book too. I’m very  glad there are more of these types coming out. Being perhaps 1 1/2 inches taller than most other books,  the panels are very easy to read and the book feels very sturdy in your hands. Much tougher than normal  flimsy flascid soft covers. Now while I wouldn’t go as far as to call this a hard cover book, it certianly  has more strength to it than a floppy Shonen Jump style cover. Also an awesome feature is that there is  perhaps 3 or 4 pages at the beginning that are in full colour which I always love to see. Ah if only the  entire series was done in full colour. I’d pay an extra $5 – $10 for that. I know many others would too.  Back on topic though I love both the manga and anime series of this and am eagerly waiting the next book  of the series. The worst part about all this? There is still a few more months to wait until more Sae +  Hiro yuri love. Issue 2 will be released apparently on 11/30/2008. yay.

Ichigeki Sachhu Hoihoi San

I picked this up a few days before hand while I was in the city while staying with some friends for a few  days. What caught my attention was the cover. It was quite unlike nearly every other anime on the shelf  because this one, like Sunshine/Hidamari Sketch, is taller than most other books as well as coming with a  dust jacket. This seems to be a trend with Infinity Studio’s work, much like Blood Alone. This is 1 of  those series that I am actualy mad that I can’t find any merch for. This entire book reads like a  elaborated instruction manual. Perhaps the story may be needed to fully understand this.

In the year 20XX, all bugs (but mainly cockroaches apprentlly) have become immune to all types of  pesticides and sprays. In order to kill these bugs, rival companies have started making tiny, 10″ tall  robots that hunt down, and exterminate them. Think of them as tiny bug terminators. They are programmed  only to fight bugs, and in some cases, rival brands of robots.

Due to the storyline, as I said this book plays out like an instruction manual on what to do, and what not  to do. There are a few other characters but the main focus is on the robots (1st and main character robot  type is called Hoihoi-san). On top of instructions for your Hoihoi-san, there are also advertisements for  newly created items such as weapons, addons, vehicals and such. Again this is a wonderful read and is cute  as hell for such an odd topic such as tiny robot bug killers. At only 1 book long this is a great buy I  though. Actually after I finished reading this, I was really mad that there are no Hoihoi’s to buy. They  did make them as a limited edition (grrr) release but I missed out by a year or something. Buu

Konkon Kokon 1

The small petite book caught my attention on the shelf. It’s a bit smaller than regular manga and had an  interesting spine so I picked it out of the shelf. Awesome thing I did. By Broccoli Books (i’m starting to  really love their stuff) it is about a boy called Ren who is a huge monster nerd. He loves everything  about them, however he hides this from everyone due to him going “nerdy” when he talks about them. 1 day  when he is in class this little girl shows up claming that she has to repay her debt to him. He has no  clue what she is talking about but since she is a fox girl, he is naturaly intrigued by her and keeps her  around accepting to let her “repay him”. He picks up more monsters along the way. Be warned, there is a  trap amongst the monsters he befriends though -_-; damn traps.

Anyway this sort of reminds me of Hidamari Sketch as the reaction faces in this title are so over the top  it’s great. It has that really super cute quality thing about them. Oh and did I mention that all the  girls are lolis? I’m quite sure I did. So this is a win win book. While it cost me $25 (even though the  book clearly states $9.99 US) I don’t regret it at all and glad I picked it up. Only 1 in the series has  been released yet so if you enjoy it like I did, you’ll be forced to wait for issue #2.

Ghosttalker’s Daydream 1

I came across this book while browsing perhaps the only place I trust to buy manga from. It sounded  interesting enough and after finishing reading this about 30 min ago I can say that it was indeed well  worth the price. While the sticker on the book clearly says “warning explicit content” much as you would  find on any heavy metal album, there wasn’t much shocking imagery or content in said book. Anyway onto the  story. I can’t be bothered to try and remember the base storyline right now as i’m feeling exceptionaly  lazy, so i’ll just write what is on the back of the book.

“Say hello to Saiki Misaki, your garden variety girl working hard to make a living, holding down two jobs  at once to get buy. Yes, like so many others, Misaki has a normal day job… as a dominatrix and a writing  for a sex magazine. But really, that’s a pretty normal job, considering she moonlights as a necromancer.  If that isn’t odd enough, Saiki is an albino, and a virgin.”

Now while that sounds like it should be worthy of an adult sticker, I personally don’t but that is just  me. Yes there are a few outfits she wears in the book that are pretty revealing, a small number of times  when either her top is pulled off, or she falls over flashing everyone in the vacinity her obviously  shaved (or mabye shes just lucky)… er… nether region, but it is never explicit and you never really  see anything such as boobs or kitty. Actualy in the case where she falls over either the original artist  or the manga company who has aquired this, has put a big black rectangle over her naughty part so you  don’t actualy see anything.

As for the story itself it has me very interested. She acts as a spirit talker for hire. When someone has  a problem with ghosts, or something related to them, they call her employer (I guess thats what you’d call  him at least) and he gets her on the job if she accepts it. This could mean getting rid of a ghost, seeing  if a place is haunted or hunting down someone that a ghost wants to see… stuff like that. She also has  this odd demon weapon which reminds me of Spawn’s cape. It seems to have a life of its own and obeys her.  So it is great stuff to read. Oh and did I mention she is pretty cute too?

So that about sums up a few of the titles I’m glad I payed for. The only real issue I have is how damn long it takes for new books to come out. Does it really take like 4 – 6 months to translate a 150 – 200 page book and get it mass produced? If I can read an entire manga in 10 – 15 min then someone should be able to translate it in a week or less no problems. Take a certain person who manages to translate a full 24 or so pages in under 1 day, every month a new installment of Kodomo no Jikan is released. He isn’t even getting payed I don’t think to do that. Someone on a wage should be able to move their ass and still do a good job at things. Ok that’s my small rant over.