1. 49

Author: TOUDA Yoshimi
Artist:  TOUDA Yoshimi
Genre(s): Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Supernatural, Tragedy

“In this small town, within the 49 days after a person dies, you can see the dead’s spirit. She once admired this small town where you can still spent time with the ones precious to you within these 49 days, but…” -Kissmanga.com

Thoughts: A nonchalantly deep manga; the story truly opens up when the female protagonist gets confessed to by the ghost of her classmate. This manga is about the reverberations of the confession during and after the her classmate’s ghost’s stay with the living.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 4/21 - 4/28.

1. Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!

Author: Imigi Muru
Artist:  Imigi Muru
Genre(s): Comedy, Romance, School Life, Seinen

“Uchimaki Subaru, the main character, loves to draw 2- D characters and freakly love them and says that he isn’t interested in 3- Ds girls. Usami Mizuki is quite a normal girl heroine. Lastly, The president doesn’t act like one. 

“There’s a problem with this art club!” Artist Imigi Muru is a winner of the Award for Wxcellence in the 5th Dengeki Comic Grand Prix, went one and had a debut in Comic Gum. Currently has another series running beside this one….” -Mangafox.me

Thoughts: What I like is that this manga starts out generic but has a very subtle twist in the last two pages which prevents me from calling this series generic. In fact, I have no idea how the story will progress.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/31 - 4/14.

1. Dragons Rioting

Author: WATANABE Tsuyoshi
Artist:  WATANABE Tsuyoshi
Genre(s): Action  Comedy  Ecchi  Martial Arts  School Life Shounen  

“As a 6 Year Old, Rintaro is diagnosed with Henisei Tashu Ijou Syndrome (also known as Hentai Syndrome), a disease that could kill him if he gets sexually aroused. To save him and provide a way for him to live as normal a life as possible, his father teaches him the ways to control his body and mind for ten years in the mountains, with the martial art of the Koei Sougetsu. When he’s 16, he chooses to enroll Nangokuren High School, which he assumed to be the biggest all-boys school in the country but is actually the biggest all-girls school that has just gone coed.

On his first day, he stumbles upon a large scale battle and learns that the first rule of the school is that it “Abides the Law of Nature” which has turned the campus into a war zone-like environment. Rintaro now sees transferring out as his mission, but will it be that easy now that he’s caught the eye of the 3 “Dragons”, the bodacious female leaders of the three biggest factions around?” -Mangahelpers

Thoughts: I usually don’t like manga full of overly well-endowed girls but this one actually has a fairly interesting, if easily avoidable, premise.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/17 - 3/31.

1. Yuusen Shoujo - Plug-in Girl

Author: Kaya8
Artist:    Kaya8
Genre(s): Action, Sci-fi, Shounen

“Six years ago, Tsukihiko was caught in an assassination attempt on a little girl, Sami, when he attempted to be her shield. This incident nearly killed him and the girl together, but the little girl was the daughter of an extremely powerful family. With its vast amount of resources, the family was able to keep both Tsukihiko and Sami alive by recreating both of their bodies with cyborg technology. This has forced Sami to permanently rely on wired connection to her life sustaining computer. On the other hand, Tsukihiko has become a cyborg “Knight,” sworn to protect Sami from harms way. [DrCoke]” -Mangahelpers

Thoughts: Besides the great premise can we just marvel on the beauty of the cover art? God, it is beautiful.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/10 - 3/17.

1. Adventure of Sinbad ~Prototype~

Author:  Ohtaka Shinobu
Artist:     Yoshifumi Ohtera
Genre(s): Action  Adventure Fantasy Shounen

“A 70 page manga prologue of Magi. Tells the story of Sinbad’s early life, when he captured the first Dungeon, Baal.” -Batoto.net

Thoughts: Has enough questions left unanswered that I am sure that this will be continued one day.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/3 - 3/10.

Kazama Kenji and his two friends are a normal group of delinquents. For them, life is dandy if not a bit boring. Their lives change drastically when Kazama runs into the Game Production Club. In a school full of freaks and weirdos, he entered the den of the freakiest and the weirdest. The club consists of Karasuyama Chitose, the student council president, Shibasaki Roka, the secret boss of the school whom everyone knows about, Mizukami Sakura, a mysterious girl who likes water, and their adviser, Oosawa Minami.

Together with Kazama and his childhood friends, the two delinquents and the masochistic student council vice president, the group goes through various antics and adventures with the rest of the unusual student body and the surrounding area.

This is the story of Yamada, a generic delinquent, and the seven witches of his high school. One day while on the way to class, Yamada falls down the stairs with Shiraishi, the smartest girl in the grade, and they switch bodies. Turns out they kissed upon landing, and that a kiss is the key for witches to use their abilities.

Witches? Yeah, there are perpetually seven witches in Yamada’s high school, although the people change and trasnfer their powers transfer upon graduation. With little else to do Yamada, Shiraishi and their slowly growing group of friends start a club to research the witches’ abilities and their holders.

I don’t like sports manga. Most of them are unrealistic and they don’t accurately represent the sport. Often times they are simply an action manga with good looking guys/girls battling through the use of a sport with unrealistic powers and abilities or use the sport as an excuse for pantyshots.

But occasionally I run into sports manga that aren’t like that. They accurately represent the sport and not only provide the reader with meaningful dialogue, but also offer insight into the sport itself. Baby Steps is one of these manga.

The iconic shojo manga, Ouran High School Host Club — a popular series and a worthwhile read — was released as a box set earlier last month (November 2012). I will not review the series here; instead, I will talk about why you should or shouldn’t buy the box set rather than simply buying each volume separately.

In 800 B.C. King Solomon used the power of his blessed ring to gather an army of demons. Thousands of years later in near-contemporary time, his descendant — who bears his soul — is plunged into a power struggle with the same very demons of the ancient army.  Lucifer, like every powerful demon, must sleep for a hundred years to keep his longevity. In his absence, a ruler is elected to control hell.  This time, the one choosing Lucifer’s replacement is Solomon’s descendant, William Twining, a seemingly normal human and stubborn realist who refuses to believe in the existence of God, demons, angels, and the like.

There can only one reason why they are so dressed up: fanservice…

Change 123 follows two high-schoolers, Motoko Gettou and Kosukegawa Teruharu. Motoko was raised by three master martial artists.  The training that each provided was so intense that Motoko developed split personalities to deal with each set of training. Collectively, these personalities are known was HiFuMi; individually, they are Hibiki, Fujiko, and Mikiri.

Kosukegawa, on the other hand, is a fairly normal otaku.  His only defining trait is his passion for Kamen Raider (a parody of Kamen Rider). Perhaps the only thing he loves more than Kamen Raider is Motoko and each of her personalities.

1. Rurouni Kenshin - Kinema-ban

Author:       Watsuki Nobuhiro  
Artist:         Watsuki Nobuhiro   
Genre(s):     Action  Historical  Romance  Shounen  

A remake of the original Rurouni Kenshin manga, but it changes and rearranges various elements such as plot and characters.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 5/06 - 5/13.

1. Moon Edge

Author:      TAKANO Masayuki 
Artist:        TAKANO Masayuki     
Genre(s):    Sci-Fi Seinen

“In a ruined city, Takeru comes across a suicidal young girl named Konoha. She’s deathless, and she’s being used as a guinea pig by a cruel organization. Seeing no meaning to her life, she fled her captors to seek a way to end it. Takeru has a lot in common with Konoha— he’s also deathless. He’s made a life for himself, though, locating people by contract. After he rescues her from her pursuers, he convinces her to continue living. Maybe she’ll be able to find a purpose, as she and Takeru face the future together.” -MangaHelpers

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 4/1 - 4/8.

1. Bouken Erekitetou

Author:       TSURUTA Kenji 
Artist:         TSURUTA Kenji    
Genre(s):    Seinen

“After her grandfather’s death, Mikura chose to continue their island express courier service. With her seaplane and her adventurous cat, Endeavor, she lives life as she chooses. Soon, Mikura becomes very interested in a mysterious island that seems to move around, according to local legend. After some extensive effort to determine the island’s whereabouts, she manages to get a brief glimpse of it from the sky. Now that she knows it’s real, she’s determined to find the island again, no matter what it takes!” -Mangahelpers

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/25 - 4/1.