Illustrated by Steph C.
Jessica Cruz is a high school junior with lots of difficult decisions to make. She has to decide to renew her DACA status, something that will put a target on her back but might help keep her undocumented parents safe. She has to fill out college applications and hope her own undocumented status won’t jeopardize her goals. She helps her family around the house as much as she can, and she has landed a prestigious museum fellowship. All of this leaves little room for friends and hanging out. When her father is taken away by ICE agents, Jessica finds herself stuck between two warring Aztec gods - one says she should be a bridge for her family and friends and lean on them, the other tells her to take action against ICE and save her father by using her anger to fuel her.
0 Comments
Illustrated by Manuel Preitano
Willow loves her broken community of Down River in Gotham, and she often is found at protests trying to get City Hall’s attention. Her mom is a brilliant professor fighting brain cancer, so out of desperation, Willow gets mixed up coordinating an illegal gambling ring for her mom’s former friend, E. Nigma. Willow enjoys the work and the money that allows her to secure treatment for her mom, but her friends notice she’s slipping away and not as involved in saving the community anymore. One night, Killer Croc attacks Willow, telling her he’s protecting Down River from E. Nigma and warns her to stop helping him. The attack leaves Willow with special powers and the ability to talk to dogs. She discovers Poison Ivy has been working with E. Nigma to lower property values in Down River to make gentrification more attainable, but Willow draws the line when the next target is her favorite delicatessen.
Takafumi’s uncle has been in a coma for seventeen years. He finally awakens and he’s been stuck in a fantasy, RPG-style world for the last seventeen years. Most of the family has fallen apart, in large part over a disagreement with what to do with the comatose family member, so Takafumi takes in his uncle as he becomes accustomed to the world again. Uncle turns out to be a huge fan of the Sega game systems, and he’s devastated to find that it, amongst other of his favorite things, have been left in the past. While adjusting, Takafumi continually asks his uncle about his experiences in the other world, where everyone was beautiful but treated Uncle like a sub-species of Orc.
Hideo is dissatisfied with his life as a manga assistant. He used to have a running serial, called Uncut Penis, but it got cancelled after only a few issues. He has his share of eccentricities and probably several social anxieties. He thinks he can see evil spirits in his apartment and often talks to one of them. The only way to get rid of them is to form a prayer circle with wholesome manga and textbooks around him. Hideo's girlfriend will cook delicious food for him and be intimate with him. She gets bit by a little kid on the way home from work and no one thinks anything of it. When Hideo comes to her apartment the next day, he can’t believe she’s been turned into a creature. He’s pretty sure it’s because he had to pull an all nighter at the manga job, not that there are actually zombies trying to eat him. The whole building might be scary zombies, or they might be figments of his imagination.
Illustrated by Akinari Nao
Yusuka is a major video-game fan who doesn't really care about planning for his future or getting into a great high school. One day after school, he finds himself transported into another world with two very cute classmates. They have already been in this fantasy world before, and they help get Yasuka situated. The Game Master shows up with half a face and incomplete sentences, and spins the class wheel for Yasuka to land on farmer! Yasuka's classmates are a warrior and a Wind wizard, so he definitely needs to work hard to catch up to their strength. The three of them need to complete this round, then await being transported again for the next round, where another player will join them. This will continue until they beat all ten rounds of the game. If they fail, their lives, and the fate of everyone in Tokyo is on the line!
Stella wakes up from a beautiful dream, and finds herself in a strange bedroom in a luxurious manor. Watching over her is Levi, a dashingly handsome young man, who explains her carriage crashed and he saved her, but the driver met his unfortunate demise. Stella was on the way to be a live-in maid at another manor, so she pleads with Levi to employ her as a maid, and he accepts. He introduces Stella to the other residents, one whom attacks her. Stella starts to notice strange things about the manor’s residents, and she’s disturbed that they won’t let her leave to go to the village. Despite their strangeness, Stella finds herself falling for Levi, and the two grow extremely close. When her attacker breaks loose and starts being vicious again, the residents must let Stella in on their secret: they are vampires, and they must do something terrible to keep themselves sane and non-violent.
Ragna has now teamed up with Crimson, who for reasons unknown wants to rid the world of dragons. Their next target is Disas Trois, the Tempest Cell, a dragon who harnesses the power of the wind to destroy towns and people. A band of hunters comes across Ragna and Crimson, and Crimson cleverly manipulates information out of them about the Tempest Cell, whom the hunters are all running from. Ragna, after using all of his strength in the last battle at the end of volume one, can't move his muscles from exhaustion. Crimson decides to use non-magical guns and embue them with Ragna's Silverine powers so that the bullets will be deadly to Disas Trois. As the group of Crimson and failed hunters re-enter the destroyed down below the Tempest Cell, they find Disas Trois mutilating the women of the town with his wind power, slowly cutting their limbs until they perish from blood loss or pain. Elsewhere, we meet another dragon monarch who is working against the humans and deploying her dragon soldiers to various human cities.
This manga contains two different short stories: “Glass Syndrome” and “Similar Figures in Love”. In the first story, class president Nijou is asked to check up on a classmates, Toomi, who hasn’t been coming to school recently. Nijou finds Toomi alone in his house - his father abandoned him after he stole money from his company. Toomi has turned to posing as a girl online for money in order to have enough money to eat. Nijou finds peace in talking with Toomi, and his touch doesn’t repulse him like other people’s does. Toomi, for his part, sees through Nijou’s incessant people-pleasing traits, and encourages him to stand up for himself instead of do what everyone expects. Nijou starts visiting Toomi’s online chat (without Toomi knowing it’s him), and he starts to fall in love with Toomi. In the second, much shorter, story, a pair of life-long friends share a dorm in college, but Kasumi has had a crush on Chihiro for years. An upperclassman, Saiki, confesses he’s in love with Kasumi and agrees to tutor Kasumi on the piano if he tells him about his unrequited love. Chihiro starts dating a girl he has had a crush on for a while, and Kasumi turns to his tutor for comfort, and possibly for love.
Somewhere in the world, someone is trying to raise the terrible demon lord, Gyumaoh, which made all the Yokai (demons) on Earth even more violent than before. A Buddhist monk, Genjyo Sanzo, and three warriors, Son Goku, Sha Gojyo, Cho Hakkai (all of whom have some Yokai blood in them), are tasked with stopping the revival and putting things back to normal. They travel through the world in a tiny dragon that can transform into a Jeep, and fight many battles along the way. The son of Gyumaoh tries to thwart the warriors, and he sends several of his henchmen to stop them or slow them down long enough for the revival to go off as planned.
Eniale and Dewiel are an angel and demon, respectively, who are often at odds with each other on borrowing one another’s makeup without asking, or gathering souls for their employers. In one of their apocalyptic fights, they find a baby and search for its mother using means that send humanity into a panic. After destroying their clothes in another fight, the two travel to Paris to replenish their wardrobe, and an exorcist discerns and chases after Dewi relentlessly. A little girl summons both the angel and demon to help her sick mother recover, and it’s a competition to see who can win the little girl over to “their side.” After Eni pisses her friend off completely, Dewi “helps” Eni build the “perfect” hot springs and vows to drain Eni’s seemingly endless supply of money.
|
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
All
Archives
April 2024
|