Reviews - The Graphic Library

The fox and little tanuki vol 3 by mi tagawa

3/23/2024

Cover of The Fox and Little Tanuki volume 3. Senzou has Manpachi sitting on his head and his teeth are barred at Chiaki, a white wolf who is scared but has his teeth tentatively barred. Mii, the white cat, is sitting on his head.

There’s been a murder in the human world, and the animal who did it used an illegal substance that hid its scent. The wolves start their investigation, but making things more difficult is the wolf Chiaki and his partner Hagiri. Chiaki may have had some of the substance from a badger they apprehended in volume two, and Hagiri is a weird wolf who likes cats a bit too much. Mixed up into all of this is a little kitten Hagiri is trying to save from the wolves and the Bakeneko cat clan.

Grim vol 3 by stephanie phillips

12/31/2023

Cover of Grim volume 3. Jess is trying to come up to the top of a body of water but there are chains tied around her feet. Everything is a deep red

Illustrated by Flaviano, colored by Rico Renzi

Jess and Eddie are imprisoned by Adira while Marcel wallows in a layer of Hell, but humans on Earth are still unable to die and the Reapers are starting to get restless. Meanwhile, the deal Adira struck to capture Jess has dire consequences as the soul she traded for Jess releases onto Earth something even worse than the undying. Elsewhere, Life bargains with Lilah, Jess's mom, to try and get her to relinquish her powerful amulet, but first he has to understand what she truly wants after serving decades in prison away from her family.

beauty and the beast of paradise lost vol 4 by kaori yuki

9/18/2023

Cover of Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost volume 4. Belle is clinging to Beast with her arms around his neck. She is in a bright red dres. He is in his blue suit. They are both looking at us. She is sad while the Beast looks like he is about to fight someone.

The Beast and his Belle have been reunited, which is destroying our Belle's heart as she realizes more that she is in love with the Beast. What's worse is that the Princess Belle seems incredibly kind, and she also has lost the use of her legs. She requests our Belle's help in being her attending lady, helping her with her dresses and hair. Giselle finally can't take all of this any longer and leaves her room for the first time since the palace became cursed. She confides in Belle that the Princess Belle has actually entrapped the Beast in a relationship by guilt - Princess Belle betrayed her family in order to be with Prince Cyril before the curse happened, and now the Beast feels obligated to marry her. The Beast finds out that La Médium is in the court of The King and hatches a plan to confront her. He takes along a few people to help, including Belle, who hopes to finally rescue her maman.

Grim vol 2 by stephanie phillips

7/21/2023

Cover of Grim volume 2. Jess is kneeling on the ground with her hands touching the ground. Her head is exploding, with half of it already turned into a skull. It's mostly engulfed in a yellow and orange fire. The flames are also in her veins running down her arms into her elbows.

Illustrated by Flaviano, colored by Rico Renzi

Jessica, Eddie, and Marcel start off still trapped in Las Vegas, having learned some secrets to Jess’ lineage. Meanwhile, all over Earth, people aren’t dying like they’re supposed to, as the Reapers are not there to collect the newly departed and the Afterlife is thrown into chaos from Jess’ revelations. Despite not being able to return to the Afterlife, the three find some other figures straight out of Greek Mythology, including the Three Fates that tell Jess how she can fix everything by taking up the mantel she clearly doesn’t want. To make things a little more messy, an embodied form of Life gets entangled with Jess’ mom and tries to pay her a good deal of money for a special necklace in her possession.

Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand by Yoko Komori

4/1/2023

Cover of Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand

School Library Journal review

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 6-12

Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: February 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781974734658 (Paperback)

Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Elementary School, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga , Folklore, Friendship, Family, Realistic Fiction, VIZ Media

Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost vol 3 by kaori yuki

1/30/2023

Cover of Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost volume 3. Belle is in a high-collared white button-up shirt that also extends all the way to her wrists. Her lilac hair is billowing all around her, and there is a sadness in her amber eyes. There are a few blue butterflies flying around her.

Belle has followed the Beast into the lair of la Médium, and she's come face to face with the villain who carted off her mother all those years ago. Belle learns more about the history between the Beast and la Médium, and the Beast denies none of it. He savagely asked la Médium to kill his parents so that he could ascend to the throne, but when la Médium found out he was just using her for her powers, she lashed out jealously and cured the Beast and his people. She then swore to find a face he could fall in love with so that he would finally reciprocate her feelings. Belle gets further entangled in the stand-off between the two, and the Beast discovers there is a spy amongst his subjects who has been feeding la Médium valuable information!

The Hunters guild: Red Hood Vol 1 by Yuki Kawaguchi

11/17/2022

Cover of The Hunters Guild: Red Hood volume 1. Grimm in her adult form is standing behind Velou in her red hood holding a shotgun. Her blonde hair is flowing out of the hood of her cape. Velou has red hair and it's braided to the right of his face. He's wearing a green jacket and is also holding a long-barreled gun.

Velou is a young boy whose entire family is killed by werewolves, and he’s taken in by the mayor of a small hamlet. When werewolves attack the hamlet, Velou vows to protect the villagers who have given him so much. The mayor hires a hunter from the Hunters Guild to come help protect the town, but the hunter who shows up is a tiny girl. When it’s go time, though, Grimm transforms in to a voluptuous woman with terrifying fighting skills. With her suitcase of never-ending guns, she works hard to save the village and convince Velou that his future outside the village as a hunter, protecting towns all across the land.

Grim vol 1 by Stephanie Phillips

10/12/2022

Cover of Grim volume 1. Jessica is holding her red-tipped scythe, which curves around her face and illuminates her features. Half her face is normal, but the other half of her face is a skull. She has short, bushy black hair that frames her face, and a red iris that looks at us. She's wearing a black turtleneck shirt.

Illustrated by Flaviano, colored by Rico Renzi

Jessica Harrow is a Reaper, responsible for helping the recently dead realize their death and then take them to the afterlife. On one of her many routine missions, Jessica suddenly crosses into the world of the living and interacts with people who are alive! This leads Jessica and her two friends, Marcel and Eddie, to start investigating what could be different and why she has this power that only one other reaper has ever had: the big guy himself, Death.

Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost vol 2 by Kaori Yuki

10/6/2022

Cover of Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost volume 2. Cyril stands over Belle with his black tunic and pants, purple face with tons of exposed teeth, and his glowing red eyes. Belle looks up at him as he stands behind her, and she's clutching her hands to her breast. Her purple hair is flowing around her, and she's wearing a green dress with white flowing apron.

Belle is once again tricked by Giselle, who she finally discovers is the sister of the Breast, Prince Cyril. This time, she walks in on a private moment between Cyril and his fiancée, (old) Belle. The former Belle is slowly turning into crystal. Her heart was fragmented and used to make servitors for the terrible Madam La Medium, who cursed Cyril and the people who live in the castle. Belle realizes La Medium may also have her mother, but Cyril doesn't want to take her along in any confrontations because she's useless in a fight. (New) Belle also learns more about the castle's magic - one of Cyril's butlers is using his magic to slow time in the castle, and they are traveling between worlds to keep it ticking even slower in order to hopefully save (Old) Belle. (New) Belle also realizes that despite her better judgment, she is falling in love with Cyril.

The fox and little tanuki vol 2 by mi tagawa

8/11/2022

Cover of The Fox and Little Tanuki volume 2. Senzou has smiling Manpachi on his head. Across from them are the duo of the dog and grey wolf. The dog is smiling and has his paw on his wolf partner, who is grimacing at Senzou and Manpachi.

Manpachi and Momoji the Badger travel to the mountain where Manpachi was born, but Momoji also knowingly takes Manpachi away from Senzou and endangers him. When the two get to the mountain, all the creatures are sleeping and covered in snow. The two are almost immediately attacked by a dormouse in human form, who accused the two of them of disturbing the mountain’s restorative sleep. Before the dormice can fully attack Manpachi and Momoji, the goddess of the mountain reveals herself and explains why she has put everyone in a sleeping state. Manpachi give the goddess a kind of pep talk, and she has restored faith in her abilities. Later, the wolf pack investigates a murder of a cat, and suspects an illegal substance was used to cover rhe murderer’s tracks. They question Momoji and find out a stash of the substance was stolen from him when the wolves first apprehended him.