naoki urasawa
Urasawa explores the mystery of manga in Billy Bat Volume 1
Opening with a couple of chapters of Billy Bat comic, Naoki Urasawa exhibits a playfulness in that we have rarely seen from him before.
keigo shinzo
Growing Up Day by Day in Keigo Shinzo's Hirayasumi Volume 7
Keigo Shinzo’s slice-of-life story captures the ups and downs that most of us face every day, reflecting them through our own insecurities as we watch these mismatched cousins try to navigate their lives.
linus liu
Linus Liu Dreams Of A Long Lost Childhood in Cat Mask Boy
There were days during childhood that were full of endless possibility and that’s the nostalgia that Linus Liu is remembering here. Cat Mask Boy is the story of a simpler time, before every kid had a cellphone or a traveling sports team to keep them occupied.
inio asano
Living Outside of the Law in Inio Asano’s Mujina Into the Deep Volume 1
The opening is action-packed, a thrill ride that gets us into Inio Asano’s book but it’s not the story that Asano is telling.
TAIYO MATSUMOTO
A Life Formed by Manga: a look at Taiyo Matsumoto’s Tokyo These Day
Tokyo These Days isn’t a travelogue or a how to but it wants to let the reader know about the spirit of Tokyo and manga, how they’re intertwined, and how they weigh down on the artists and editors who create them.
Junji Ito
On Junji Ito
I discovered Juni Ito’s manga about 9 years ago, when Viz started rereleasing his work again, starting with Uzamaki. At Panel Patter, I jumped on his stuff, getting sucked into Uzamaki and GYO. Other books followed and there are some that I need to still catch up with (Remina
atsushi kaneko
Atsushi Kaneko Uses Action To Reveal Character in Search and Destroy Vol. 1
Search and Destroy is a revenge thriller you feel in your bones.
naoki urasawa
It's the End of the World-- a look at Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys
It’s weirdly prophetic to read 20th Century Boys in 2024, looking back on the last decade and wondering how we missed Urasawa’s possible warning of all of this.
TAIYO MATSUMOTO
Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto
Tekkonkinkreet, now 30 years old, is this story of aging, growing old, and trying to preserve the innocence of youth.
Kyoko Okazaki
The Kids Aren’t Alright in Kyoko Okazaki's River’s
How can you have compassion for other people when you have none for yourself?
tatsuki fujimoto
Good and Bad Days in Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back
Fujimoto comes back to the image of the girls working on their manga many times and it has a ring of truth to it like he’s speaking from his own experience, bordering somewhere along the sacred and the mundane.
gengoroh tagame
"Assuming it's about a 'boy and girl.'"- thoughts on Gengoroh Tagame's Our Colors
Tagame shows us the pressure of the secrets and the truths. This book is shaped around empathy, something that Sora doesn’t think he will find...