Canada Post recently announcing their rotating strike was already bad news on its own but I was doubly cranky about it as my box of RightStuf goodies was presumably trapped somewhere between here and there. Luck was on my side though and on the morning the strike was set to start, my box arrived!
Taking advantage of their Digital Manga sale a little while back, I picked up a bunch of my must-have titles at prices I couldn’t possibly refuse! Paying their sale price on the US price, and the Canadian dollar as it is, I got each book for 50% off what I would’ve paid here.
Continuing current series, I bought Target in the Finder (Vol. 03), Kizuna Omnibus (Vol. 02) and Tyrant Who Falls In Love (Vol. 02). Now that I’ve got a couple volmes of Kizuna and Finder, it’s time to retire my BeBeautiful version to the storage bins. I also purchased Replica (Vol. 01) and Countdown 7 Days (Vol. 01). Both are shonen (I think?) series that I was able to get an early preview of from Digital Manga. I really liked them both and hope they still get a chance to impress people despite being hidden within DM’s big boys’ love library.
Back to the boys’ love, I got one of BLU’s final publications: Crimson Snow. It’s a one-shot title that I’ve been dying to have in my hand since I saw the gorgeous cover on Amazon last year. Learning the plot only furthered my want so it was the first to have its plastic covering ripped off. I also picked up the last two volumes of breath – a five volume BL series by the so far one-series company Yaoi Generation who’s been disappointedly quiet since last year.
And because a RightStuf purchase isn’t complete without some anime, I happily took advantage of the Funimation sale to buy Dragonball Z Kai Parts 2-4 and the second half of the series Welcome to the NHK.
Buying back on more local soil, I visited our big bookstore Chapters as the customary before-and-after seeing a movie ritual (aka, it’s right next door to the biggest theatre). Last week I was thrilled to get a copy of A Bride’s Story from Yen Press. It’s a really gorgeous book and you’ll want to spend some time oogling the hard cover design before you even crack it open.
This upcoming week is Viz Media‘s huge shipping list, which generally always happens the first week of the month. This often means a big armful of books for me and this month was no exception, especially with some of my absolute favourites out. Books carried to the check-out included Pokemon Adventures (Vol. 13), Bleach (Vol. 35), Blue Excorcist (Vol. 02) and Toriko (Vol. 05). I also bought Full Metal Alchemist 3-in-1 (Vol. 01) because of a friends’ recommendation. To try and round out the shonen just a little, I also bought Grand Guignol Orchestra (Vol. 03) – battling doll-like zombies with music while wearing Victorian gothic attire!
Thankfully I just finished a big Spring cleaning revamp of my manga bookshelves (which of course included adding a new one), so there’s plenty of space to start adding in my new goodies. That said, I’ll be selling a couple boxes full at this upcoming Animaritime so East Coast Canadians have another reason to come enjoy the event ;)
So what was in your swag bag this week?
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From Seven Seas I bought Blood Alone (Vol. 01) which is omnibus of the first three volumes. I’ve wanted to read this series for a while because of the pretty covers (doesn’t take much for me to give a series at least a fair try!) and having it re-released as a 3-in-1 is the perfect opportunity. It’s also a nice omnibus physically-speaking, very light in hand despite the huge page count and still feels tightly bound.
Speaking of hard to resist visuals, UDON also picked up the publishing rights to Range Murata’s multi-artist compilation series Robot. Unfortunately they were only able to put out 
Starting out my stack of Viz Media titles were several continuing series. First came the shonen with the new volume of Bleach (Vol. 34) and my much anticipated purchase of Toriko (Vol. 04). Toriko has really surprised me in how much I’ve been enjoying it – feels very Dragonball-esque to me. Next was Rin-Ne (Vol. 05) which has proven itself more enjoyable with each volume, even if it is just Takahashi doing Takahashi stuff like it’s her own trope now.
Speaking of new series, and moving onto Seven Seas, I bought the first two volumes of Toradora! and Amnesia Labyrinth. Both really aren’t my usual kind of stories (they’re more ‘otaku-targeted’ if that makes sense?) but I’ve bee wanting to collect some more Seven Seas titles because of their great adaptation work. I must say the quality of Amnesia Labyrinth is really spot-on with a lot of Japanese editions I’ve seen including the little outside strip slip along the bottom.
Speaking of larger cut sizes, I bought the second volume of 
My other purchase of the week, and the one I had to read as soon as I was handed my reciept for buying it, was Black Jack (Vol. 13). It’s my favourite of Osamu Tezuka’s works that I’ve read and easily one of my favourite manga series ever. Black Jack’s such a fun character, the kind of person you wouldn’t really want to meet under most circumstances in real life but on the page he’s a well-rounded individual with crazy surgeon skills and the attitude to use them for his own means. There’s quite a bit of Pinoko in this volume and aliens, plus Black Jack’s jerkliness is at an all-time low – yup, low. Volume thirteen really feels like a collection reminding us he’s got a heart of gold when sometimes it’s easy to forget.
