Lucas Blogs About Books

Now an Eisner and Harvey Award Winner So, what's this book's dea—oh are we already on the latest volume of Witch Hat Atelier ? Yep, we're seven volumes into Kamome Shirahama's fantasy manga about a preteen girl's quest to save her mother who she accidentally petrified. Obviously, this blog post may contain TEH SPOILARZ  for all the previous volumes, so if you're bothered by that kinda thing consider this your warning. If I recall, in the previous volume Coco and her fellow apprentice witch cohorts were taking a make-up test administered by an elder witch in a ram chair. I assume they passed? Yes, they passed Beldaruit's make up test and advanced to the next step in their magical education. But that's not what this volume is about. It's not? No. This volume is about two things: 1) Master Qifrey's backstory and how it relates to B) Coco's ongoing quest to find a way to save her mother. Both of which bring them into conflict with the Brimmed C...

I like how the guy on the back cover is just casually flexing his ram chair. Like, "Why yes, the armrests are giant ram's horns, nbd!" So, what's this book's deal? Would you believe we're already up to volume six of Witch Hat Atelier ? You mean Kamome Shirahama 's ongoing manga series? The very same. Yes, I would believe it, given that you have blogged about all the previous volumes. Cool. Then let's just jump right in! Of course, anything from volumes 1-5 is fair game for TEH SPOILARZ!  So, when we left off at the end of volume five, Euini had been saved, but Master Quifrey's confrontation with the Brimmed Cap Witches (the witches who violate the ban on performing magic on humans) has left him in dire need of medical assistance. Also, some Knights Moralis (Witch Cops) summon everyone from the atelier to the Great Hall (the seat of the witches' governemnt). While Quifrey recovers, Beldaruit, one of the witch elders, presents Agott and Richeh wi...

Ya gotta have pink hair! So, what's this book's deal? Oh, it's the fifth volume of Kamome Shirahama's fantasy manga, Witch Hat Atelier . Oh, right, you think it's got cool art and a fairly standard story. I do. I take it you're still enjoying it? I keep reading it, don't I? You do. This volume continues directly from Volume 4 which ends with— Wait! Don't you want to warn people that this blog will have teh SPOILARZ  for Volume 4 ? I think you just did that for me. You're the worst, Lucas. I know, look how far we've gotten without any substantive discussion of the book. When do we ever feature substantive discussion? You've got me there.  Anyway, you'll recall that Witch Hat Atelier  is about Coco, a young girl who discovers two things: 1) that witches do magic by drawing seals with special sigils; and B) that you shouldn't draw signs you find in strange books. Because you...

Ya gotta have blue hair! So, what's this book's deal? Well, we're on volume 4 of Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier  manga. The one about the tween girl who needs to learn magic after she accidentally petrified her mother? The very same. Okay. You're taking a much more blithe attitude about this than I expected. I can grow and change. Fair enough. Anyway, in this volume, Coco takes a backseat as some of the other students at the atelier are preparing for their next test. Specifically Coco's roommate/frenemy (froomenate?), Agott, and Richeh. In case you can't recall, Agott is driven by a desire to live up to her family legacy and Richeh just wants to do magic her  way. In any case, they have to take the second test of their magical abilities, the Sincerity of the Shield. Basically, they have to lead a bunch of gryphons (in this case, four legged penguins with floppy ears) down a magical road without the gryphons catching wise that they...

Tween witch romance? Kinda. So, what's this book's deal? Well, here we are, three volumes into Kamome Shirahama's Witch Hat Atelier .  Oh, that's that fantasy manga you've been reading . That it is. Anyway, we're up to volume three. The last volume ended on something of a cliff-hanger when Coco was taken into custody by the Knights Moralis. They're like witch police? They're like witch police. You see, what had happened was Coco and her cohorts accompanied Master Quifrey and Watchful Eye Olruggio to help in rescue efforts in a flooded village. Unfortunately, one of their spells accidentally ended up pulverizing rocks into sand and made the flooding worse. Fortunately, the KM didn't find out that Coco had accidentally petrified her mom. In any case, Quifrey is able to smooth things over and discovers that Coco's inkwell has been tampered with (remember, witches draw sigils to cast spells). I wonder if it has anything to do wi...

You're a witch, Agott! So, what's this book's de—oh, you're onto the second volume of this manga already? Yep! That's right, this is Volume 2 of Kamome Shirahama's fantasy manga, Witch Hat Atelier . There will of course be some SPOILERS  for Volume 1, so consider yourself warned. Proceed. So, at the end of the last volume, Coco and her fellow witch apprentices, Agott, Richeh, and Tetia, found themselves transported into a labyrinth stalked by a fearsome dragon. Fortunately, they're able to use their wits and personality quirks to come up with a spell to tame the beast. Meanwhile, their master, Quifrey, is trying to figure out what caused them to disappear in the first place. Could it have anything to do with that the witch in the fringed cap who shows up from time to time ominously talking to himself? Your guess is as good as mine (J/K it totally has something to do with that guy). Anyway, once everyone's safely back to the atelier, they f...

Well, she is wearing a witch hat. So, what's this book's deal? Well, Witch Hat Atelier  is a manga about a young girl who discovers that she can do magic. Wait, isn't that like the plot of any "child discovers that they were secretly magical" story? Yes, but this time around, the twist is that Coco doesn't discover any special innate ability, the secret she uncovers is that anyone can do magic. See, the witches have been keeping the whole thing under wraps because they're worried that it might be dangerous or something. And how does Coco make this discovery? Well, she spies on a witch who fixes a pegasus drawn carriage in her family's dressmaking shop. Then later that evening, she practices drawing magic seals from a mysterious book that was given to her by a masked witch and accidentally turns her mother to stone. So. . . then the witches have a point about it being dangerous for everyone to know about magic. Yes. Yes, they do. Alth...

Oh, like you've never had to write a sutra all over your body to ward off monsters. So, what's this book's deal? Remember when we talked about Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths ?  I do, yes. So, this is another semi-autobiographical manga by Shigeru Mizuki   this one based on his experiences as a child in a pre-WWII Sakaiminato. Does it also overlap with material from Showa: A History of Japan ? It does, but at the same time its focus is different enough that it doesn't feel as repetitive. But both of of these manga were published before Showa , so isn't Showa   the repetitive work? Uh . . . But like, I read Showa fir. . . The deal is that Shigeru "Shige" Muraki (an extremely thinly veiled stand in for the author—whose birth name is Shigeru Mura) learns about yōkai from his elderly neighbor (and sometimes domestic servant) Nonnonba. Nonnonba is the wife of a Shinto priest and just so happens to be an expert on the various spirits, m...

Yes, in certain lighting conditions the title and author's name are difficult to read. So what's this book's de–Oh, hey! It's one of those mangaka you mentioned in our discussion of manga . So it is. And it's one of the manga that he's best known for in America. Anway, Shigeru Mizuki's Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths  is about a company in the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II and is based on Mizuki's own experiences as a soldier in the Pacific theater. This isn't one some kind of right-wing apologia  about the conduct of the Imperial Army in the period leading up to and including World War II? No, it is explicitly not that. In fact, it's pretty much just about one company in the army over the course of a few months. The manga itself is episodic with each chapter following a couple of members of the Baien Battalion as they go through the drudgery of daily life in the army. We see new recruits being beaten by their commanding office...

Hey! Hypothetical Reader! LUCAS! HYPOTHETICAL READER! LUCAS! Wanna talk about manga? Most of the manga that survived the most recent  purge . Seriously? Manga? It's actually pronounced manga. I don't think that's going to work in type unless you spell out how we're pronouncing it. Anyway, here on your blog about books you expect us to have a serious conversation about those funny backwards comics from Japan? Wouldn't be the first time . Well, yeah, but that's because if, and I quote, you reads, it ledes. End quote. Quite. Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on it, I mean I did take that "Japanese Popular Culture" class in college, and I've read the work of several well-known mangaka like Shigeru Mizuki, Akira Toriyama, Osamu Tezuka, and Katsuhiro Otomo. When it comes to manga, I'm basic. Mizuki isn't that well-known outside Japan. Also, western audiences would be more familiar with Toriyama, Tezu...

I'm still trying to work out the exact mechanics of this collision. Fun cover though. Okay, time to put Hypothetical Reader back in its box for a moment. That's right, plain old essay format review time. Now, I know that pervious instances of this format were both books that I thought were quite good, but I'll be honest: while I enjoyed reading Stupid Love Comedy , it is, in fact, only okay. Let's talk about why. So, Stupid Love Comedy is a Shōjo manga by Syusyusyu Sakurai (disclaimer, I haven't read all that much in the Shōjo genre, so it's possible that people who are fans of that genre may enjoy this more than I did) concerning the relationship between Osamu Hasegawa, a manga editor, and Suzu Sakura, a mangaka. See, Hasegawa used to be an editor at San Cruz,  a Shōnen magazine, who has been reassigned to Shōjo magazine  Daisy  to work with one of their promising new talents. Well, her debut was promising. As it turns out, Sakura-sensei (in addito...

Spoiler alert : the main character sustains a minor facial injury. So, what's this book's deal? Well, Hypothetical Reader, you might want to brace yourself. This manga actually deals with the thing that scares us millennials more than anything else. You can't mean – Yep! Adulting! And not just the lame stuff like negotiating a trip to the dry-cleaners, it's actually about becoming an emotionally mature person. That sounds even worse! I know, but trust me, this manga is a good read. And since it's a comic book, you could probably read it in about two days. I know I did. Oh, and before we go any further, I've actually read this once before (about five years ago). It was my introduction to mangaka  Inio Asano, and it remains my favorite of his works (also the only one to survive my semi-regular bookshelf purges). So. . . are we gonna talk about it? Yes we are. Solanin  (which we later learn is named for a song written by the main c...

And each of these telephone book sized tomes is a volume one. Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" and whether they still work. Today's Oddaptation: Journey to the West (c 1592 CE) often attributed to Wu Cheng'en adapted into Dragon Ball (1984-1995) by Akira Toriyama So, how much of one of China's Four Classic Novels (six if you count the satirical one and erotic one) made its way into the manga/anime sensation that my freshman year roommate watched literally every day on Toonami? Let's take a look: The Original: Loosely based on the true history of the 7th century monk Xuanzong, Journey to the West  relates the story of the monk T...