It’s going to take me a while to sort through all my manga swag from New York Anime Fest this past weekend, and who knows how long for a proper installment of Swag Bag – but before I traveled down to the US for some con adventures, I hit my usual Wednesday haunt at Strange Adventures to pick up some new and old titles.
My most anticipated, and thus quickly picked up, titles were the newest volumes of two of my favourites – Pet Shop of Horrors (Vol. 07) and Shinobi Life (Vol. 06). It was another long wait for Pet Shop of Horrors, and to my dismay, I found this particular volume a bit of letdown comparatively. I mean, it was still great because it’s Matsuri Akino but definitely not the series’ best. Shinobi Life proved as satisfying as ever though. I love how carefully it’s crafting a plot that could easily become confusing in another’s hands. Will the schoolgirl and ninja ever find their happy ending?
To my luck that day, a box of used manga had just been deposited in the store with a whole bunch of well-kept books looking for a new home. While the individual who owned the books prior seemed to have very similar tastes to myself (ie: very little there I didn’t already own unfortunately), there were still a few goodies to pick up:
Looking for some new series to start, I picked up the first volumes of The Chronicles of the Grim Peddler (which was fantastic fairy-tale manhwa) and Monochrome Factor (which I haven’t read yet). I also bought the first two volumes of Mushishi after having read them at the library and enjoyed them, plus the anime was really good. Lastly I got volume three of 07-Ghost, firmly establishing to me that this series still doesn’t make any sense. Ah well, I gave it three volumes – character designs are still pretty though!
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First off I picked up the book copy of Hinako Takanaga’s Tyrant Who Falls In Love. I originally reviewed a digital copy of the book so was excited to have my order of the full edition come. Like other June books lately (including Love Sickness which I also picked up and is also amazing and has also been reviewed for your convenience), it has a smaller trim size than the imprint’s usual so I’m guessing it’s becoming the norm. It’s not a bad size, about the same as Viz Media or Tokyopop books, but it is a little sad not having them extra-large as they were before – made them extra special, you know?
From Viz I purchased the first print edition volume of House of Five Leaves. Admittedly I wasn’t very fond of Natsume Ono’s previous works (Ristorante Paradiso and not simple) but I was really impressed with House of Five Leaves. It had great pacing and was a nice change of pace from the often over-violent, super-stylized Edo-era samurai stories. Also Natsume Ono’s art has really improved as well.
From local comic shop 
The sad purchase of the week was Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass because I believe it’s the last Zelda book Viz will be putting out. It’s a shame because I really, really like them – though I also can’t imagine they’ve been hugely popular and I don’t know if there even is anymore past this. I’m eager to read this one so I can finally learn who this Linebeck character is so many friends have raved about (so far he looks like a skuzzy pirate?). Lastly from that trip I picked up Library Wars (Vol. 02) – hopefully more action, less talk about action! I want to see some sleeves rolled-up and some books being defended.
Topping it all off is the beginning of a new series but one of my favourite manga artists, Kaori Yuki – Grand Guignol Orchestra (Vol. 01)
Despite being a bit underwhelmed by the first, I couldn’t help but pick up the second volume of Chi’s Sweet Home. I’m not a cat person and it’s a story about a cat… just being a cat. But the adorable full colour art and great production values caught my eye again all the same. We’ll see if Chi can win me over in this one.
A new series I’ve been waiting for a while is finally out – NGE: Campus Apocalypse (Vol. 01). I was never huge into Evangelion but I’d consider myself a fan. Previous alternate-universe-esque takes on the original left me wanting anything but another, yet the artwork and plot of this one piqued my interest easy enough. Just flipping through after purchase, I know it was a good buy for the eye-candy alone. Really nice art, and past some similar character designs and names, it looks like a story that those not familiar with the franchise may be able to pick up and enjoy as well. We’ll see how this supernatural take pans out.
Moving onto other genres, I picked up a copy of 
