Ruka gets kicked off her handball team for the entirety of summer vacation, but she can’t stand to be at home with her mother, so she leaves her home every day in search of something to quell her spirit. On one of her unfulfilling adventures, she meets Umi, a strange boy who swims at length in the ocean and says Ruka has the same curiosity as him and his brother. Once released from the hospital, brother Sora joins the two and gets them into more trouble out on the open water with a “commandeered” boat belonging to the local aquarium. One of the workers there has been looking after Sora and umi, and tells Ruka he believes the boys were raised in the ocean by dugongs. Out in the deep water, Ruka witnesses a whale shark glowing and becoming lights that resemble stars, just like a ghost in the aquarium she saw as a young child.
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While watching the news, Takemichi finds out his middle school girlfriend and her brother are killed by a fierce gang, the Tokyo Manji. He goes about his day, has another horrible time at work, and his on his way back home, he falls onto the subway tracks and gets transported back to his middle-school self. He comes back in time to be jumped into the Tokyo Manji gang with a few of his friends. He runs into Hinata, his girlfriend, and is determined to use this time-jump power to save her. Later, he finds Naoto, Hinata’s little brother, and he becomes connected to Takemichi’s power to time leap between present day and his past. The two of them must work together to stop the gang and save everyone.
College student Al decides to stay in London for the winter holidays to work as many shifts and save money for the next term, but when London’s mayor is found dead in the same subway Al was on, he gets tangled up in a clandestine investigation with Ellis, a detective seeking redemption. Al's flatmate also gets intertwined with a disastrous outcome, so nothing is looking too good for Al. The search for leads forces Al to seek out his birth mother and confront a past he had been content to keep buried.
Based on Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
Geischt chats with one of the other seven deadliest robots, a young boy robot name Atom. Geischt is there to warn him about the deadly attacks and murders, but Atom thinks he can help the investigation. He asks Geischt for his memory chip and becomes entangled in the investigation of the murder of Dr. Junichiro Tasaki, a professor of law who was instrumental in writing and passing the Robot Laws. Atom discovers that, in his final moments, Dr. Tasaki was trying to contact Professor Ochanomizu, a man who was on the Survey team into Persia with Dr. Tasaki before the war broke out. The group was tasked with finding the deadly Persian robot army, but found nothing, and its remaining members also seem to be targets as well as the deadly robots.
Tenma continues his search for Johan, and he hopes he can get through to him or kill him before he can kill anyone else. He crosses paths with a conman, Hekkel, who wants to market Tenma’s medical skills to the underworld — to people who can’t go to a doctor or the hospital. The first patient Tenma is tricked into helping is a terrorist who attacked political leaders just that morning. While investigating Johan’s childhood, Tenma saves a little boy, Dieter, from his abusive guardian, and Dieter refuses to stay in any of the safe places Tenma tries to leave him. Anna, Johan’s twin, and Tenma both close in on Johan’s trail at the same mansion, but threats from Neo-Nazis against a neighborhood of Turks entangle Anna, Dieter, Tenma, and Hekkel in the rescue efforts.
Based on Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
A beloved robot and a man are murdered and have their bodies staged in similar manners, but what do they have to do with each other? Enter Geischt, one of Europol’s best detectives, who happens to also be a sentient robot. He discovers that someone or something is out to destroy the world’s seven best robots, and he’s one of them. The first target was a wilderness loving gentle giant. Another target is a fierce killing machine who has a second life as a Butler fit an eccentric movie score composer who wants nothing to do with a destructive menace. Geischt suspects another target is a robot skilled at hand-to-hand combat and adoptive father to many children. Geischt must fighter out who the remaining targets are and how to stop the killer before all of them, including himself, are destroyed.
Illustrations by Marcos Martín & Muntsa Vicente
Friday and her childhood friend, Lancelot Jones, solved many mysteries around their small town. When it came time for college, Friday chooses a school out of town. The day before she leaves, she and Lancelot had an embarrassing moment that Friday dwells on for months away at college. Now, it’s the winter holidays, and Friday is home visiting family. Lancelot is on the case, as always, and she is swept up again in the same old routine of finding clues and solving the mystery. She’s dismayed that Lancelot is treating her just the same, reverting back to before she messed everything up. Something about this case is very different than the others, though, as there seems to be a mysterious spirit involved that Lancelot may know more about than he’s leading on. The case and clues really pick up, and Lancelot leaves traces letting Friday know to come back to their headquarters in the woods, but that’s when everything goes from bad to the absolute worst.
Illustrated by Sean Phillips, colored by Elizabeth Breitweiser
Charlie is up on a ranch in Ojai where they are continuing to reshoot the movie with young starlet Maya standing in for Val. The official story from the studio is that Val killed herself, but Charlie knows she was murdered. He is still trying to find a producer with horn-rimmed glasses who might know something about what happened, but producers are dime a dozen and his description matches so many people in this town. Despite his better judgment, Charlie starts to fall for Maya, who is in a staged relationship with her co-star to drum up press for the film. But the young man runs his new car into an embankment and lands himself in the hospital. Gil also drums up plenty of trouble for a man who is supposed to be laying low.
Adapted by Naoshi Arakawa
After the strange disappearance of Mitsuru and an ominous trail of blood where he was, the seven remaining students try to solve the mystery of their situation with some heightened anxiety. Shimizu theorizes that this situation is like the Langoliers Incident, and they’ve been pulled into the subconscious of the person who committed suicide. The others reject her notion as foolish and too much like a Stephen King novel. Shimizu finds Takano alone in the hallway, trying to figure out who committed suicide. Shimizu recounts her friendship with Takano, their friendly rivalry, and ultimately her plans for her future, but soon realizes that this isn’t Takano. Later, then real Takano and Akihito discuss the premise of this predicament: maybe they’re being punished by the person who committed suicide because they didn't do enough to save their classmate.
Illustrated by Trish Forstner
Sophie is a nervous dog who classically can’t remember much after it happens to her. She’s introduced to a group of dogs in a new house, and they terrify her. The nicest of the bunch, Rusty, recognizes her fears and protects Sophie. He gives her a tour of the home, including the room they’re not allowed to go into. Snippets of traumatic memories start coming back to Sophie, prompting other dogs to also remember some of their pasts, with owners who were not their current master, who all happen to be female and usually alone. Through this, the dogs discover their happy home with plenty of food and treats is not a safe place to be, for animals or humans. |
About MeI've been reading manga and comicbooks for years. Now, I write reviews and other helpful things for School Librarians, teachers, parents, and students. Search this siteRatings, Audience, and Subject Tags
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