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Your lie in april vol 2 by naoshi arakawa

3/30/2022

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Cover of Your Lie in April volume 2. Kaori and Kōsei and tumbling across the cover frenetically.
Kōsei and Kaori head to the competition, despite Kōsei’s incredible nerves. The two begin their competition piece, and all is well for a little bit. There is lot of audience commentary questioning Kōsei being the accompanist instead of the soloist. But, the same problem Kōsei has been experiencing happens during the performance - he can’t hear the piano, the notes disappear from the page, and he becomes lost. They stop their playing, which disqualifies them, but when Kaori starts again, Kōsei plays from the heart and what he remembers the piece to be. The audience still erupts when they’re done, even though they won’t get to move on in the competition. Afterwards, Kaori faints and ends up in the hospital for a few days. As part of her “gift” for leaving the hospital, she tricks Kōsei into agreeing to enter a solo piano competition.


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Given vol 1 by Natsuki Kizu

3/26/2022

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Cover of Given volume 1. In front of the band is Mafuyu in a white shirt, and Uenoyama with a white shirt and black jacket. Behind them are Akihito and Haruki with their instruments, both in black shirts. They are all set against a colorful, geometric background.
Uenoyama has found the perfect napping spot at school, but he’s miffed one day to find another guy sitting there. This new person is clutching a guitar with broken and rusty strings, which morally offends Uenoyama, a serious guitarist. He fixes the strings and reluctantly gives it back, and the newcomer begs Uenoyama to teach him guitar. After wearing him down, Mafuyu finally gets Uenoyama to teach him. Uenoyama dreads the task until Mafuyu sings, and Mafuyu’s voice pierces Uenoyama. He introduces Mafuyu to his band mates, Akihito and Haruki, who are both also stunned by Mafuyu’s vocal talents. When a classmate tells Uenoyama that Mafuyu dated a boy in junior high, and that the boy committed suicide, he must figure out what he thinks and feels about Mafuyu, or decide to ignore this information completely.


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Your lie in april vol 1 by naoshi Arakawa

11/15/2021

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Cover of your lie in april volume 1
Kōsei Arima was a child prodigy on the piano until one competition where he froze entirely. Now, he can’t bring himself to play the piano. He’s still drawn to music and often transcribes sheet music of popular songs for karaoke or other things. His friend makes him tag along on a pseudo-double date and it turns out, the girl they’re introduced to plays the violin! Kōsei is tricked into going back to the very hall he froze in to watch her in a violin competition. She plays the assigned piece brilliantly, but not at all like she’s supposed to. When she puts together that he’s the Amazing Arima, she begs him to become her accompanist, but Kōhei is extremely scared and resistant.


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Blue in Green by Ram V

1/12/2021

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After the death of his mother, musician Erik travels back home for her funeral and stumbles upon a mystery of her past. Erik enters his mother’s study late at night and finds a ghoulish figure clutching a photograph of a strange musician. The man in the photo captivates him, and he chalks the ghost up to grief. Erik begins to dig into who the musician could be, and his search leads him to the former owner of a jazz club in New York. A room full of mementoes from the club give Erik some clues into the man’s identity, but furthers the mystery of the ghoul who now haunts him.


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Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

1/12/2021

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Cover of The Phantom of the Opera comic, adapted by Varga Tomi
Adapted by Varga Tomi
​
In a successful opera house in France, Christine Daaé enjoys her first experience as a Prima Donna. She has always been an understudy, or a silent dancer, but something about her singing has changed recently. The transformation sparks the curiosity of one of the opera’s benefactors, Monsieur Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. He visits the starlet backstages but finds not everything is on the up and up. Through following Christine and many clandestine meetings over many weeks, he discovers a mysterious entity has been visiting her dressing room, claiming to be the Angel of Music, and training Christine’s voice. Christine, at first, believed her departed father had sent the Angel to her, but she discovers, to her horror, that the Angel is in fact the Opera Ghost, a figure of legend who has been wreaking havoc and placing demands on the Opera staff for quite a while. Raoul is determined to save Christine from Erik, the Opera Ghost, but he’ll have to overcome some great obstacles in order to do so.


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Bang Dream! vol 1 by Dr. Pepperco

9/30/2020

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Cover of BanG Dream! Girls Band Party: Rosalia Stage vol 1
Full series title: BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! Roselia Stage

Yukina is a serious girl with a serious dream: to form a band with other dedicated and talented musicians and play at Future World Fes, one of the largest festivals.  She practices every day and performs often at Live Houses with the hopes of finding other people to compliment her vocals.  Here, she finds guitarist Sayo, who is breaking up with her band for not being serious enough.  Sayo and Yukina's sound mesh well, but now they need to find three more band members: a bassist, drummer, and keyboardist.  Over the course of volume one, the two find their band mates and create a magical symbiosis of sound that leaves them all hopeful.  


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ANONYMOUS NOISE VOL 2 BY RYŌKO FUKUYAMA

8/24/2020

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Anonymous Noise vol 2 by Ryōko Fukuyama
After Miou says Nino’s voice is the bottom of the barrel, Nino decides to practice every day and read books on vocal training so she can one day reach Momo. Yuzu, meanwhile, starts writing blockbuster songs again and can’t work up the courage to ask Nino to be the Alice/lead singer of In No Hurry to Shout. One day, Nino sees the name of another songwriter on an audition sheet, and the first name is Momo. Can it be the same Momo she’s been searching for for the last seven years?  She decides to audition for the music company and hopes that she can meet this Momo, but Yuzu can't stomach the thought of Nino singing lead for someone else's band!


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We are the danger by Fabian Lelay

6/9/2020

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Cover of We are the Danger
Illustrated by Fabian Lelay, colored by Claudia Aguirre, lettered by Taylor Esposito.

This is a really cute story about an up-and-coming band as they work their way through a Battle-of-the-Bands competition. After overhearing Julie playing her Filipino songs in an empty classroom, drummer Tabitha invites Julie to a show for her band, Lipservice, which Tabitha quits that night.  Julie and Tabi decide to form their own band, and they bring on a bassist and another guitarist.  With Julie's skills as front woman, the band, We Are the Danger enters into Battle City, a competition to land a record deal with Fuze Studios.  Unfortunately, Tabi's former lead singer, Logan, wants to ensure We Are the Danger fails, and does everything to ensure it with her powers of a record-producer's-daughter.  Along the way, the band gathers a rag-tag team of supporters, and some of the members even find love.


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Redbone by Christian Staebler

5/21/2020

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Cover of Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band
Illustrated by Sonia Paoloni and Thibault Balahy

Delve into the formation of the first all American Indian Rock Band: Redbone, as told from Pat Vegas’ perspective. Before they were a full band, Lolly and Pat Vegas played clubs in LA and jammed with some of the greats - Jimmy Hendrix before he was Jimi, Sonny and Cher, and more.  They start to collect other talented musicians who were also passing as Hispanic Americans, and formed a band that then went on to proudly use elements of Native American instruments and musicality in their songs and display their Native American heritage.  While they weren't always a commercial success, and their ancestry brought them discrimination and missed gigs, the members of Redbone felt it was necessary to continue their musical careers as noble Native Americans who would not bend to the pressure of their record label or the music industry.


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Anonymous Noise Vol 1 by Ryōko Fukuyama

4/9/2020

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Cover of Anonymous Noise vol 1
This story is about a Nino, aka Alice, who sings to regain the two guys in her life she’s lost. As a young child, she sang out the window with her neighbor, Momo, to drown out the sound of her parent’s fighting. One day, Momo moves away without saying goodbye. Distraught, she goes to the beach where she meets Yuzu, who writes songs in the sand, and Yuzu tells her to keep singing to bring Momo back. Then, Yuzu moves away. And, in true manga fashion, they all wind up at the same high school. Nino wears a mask to prevent herself from screaming until she disappears, a symptom of her abandonment issues. Yuzu is part of a super popular band, but they all wear disguised (hence “anonymous” in the title). Momo doesn’t come back until late in this volume, so it’s hard to say yet how he will fit into this narrative, but I imagine Yuzu and Momo will both be going after Nino, and she will have to choose.


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    About Me

    I've been reading manga and comicbooks for years. Now, I write reviews and other helpful things for School Librarians, teachers, parents, and students.

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