Recent posts tagged Vertical Inc.
2013
Paradise Kiss Vols. 2-3 (Ai Yazawa)
A genre-transcending romance reaches its conclusion and ennobles itself in the process.
2012
Flowers of Evil, Vol. 3 (Shuzo Oshimi)
A further tightening of the screws, and maybe the first step in the next direction for this story.
Heroman Vol. 1 (Tamon Ohta)
Enjoyable if not-impressively-drawn manga take on Western-style kid's action comics. (Stan Lee had a hand in it, and it shows.)
Paradise Kiss, Part One (Ai Yazawa)
What makes a story that's nominally a romance into something a little deeper and more insightful? The idea that the characters want to be more than overgrown children, for one.
Limit Vol. 1 (Keiko Suenobu)
The cost of conformity, explored in a ''Lord of the Flies''-style manga scenario.
Pro Bono (Seicho Matsumoto)
It all starts when near-penniless Kiriko makes the trip to Tokyo to enlist the help of lawyer Kinzo Otsuka. Kiriko is a hapless woman trying to scrape together a legal defense for her brother; he stands accused of a murder...
Sakuran: Blossoms Wild (Moyoco Anno)
The anti-"Memoirs of a Geisha". Moyoco Anno's manga, source for the film of the same name, is a brassy and sassy tribute to a milieu that often only gets the sleeve-wringing weepie treatment.
A Guru Is Born (Takeshi Kitano)
"Beat" Takeshi Kitano's novel about religion and hypocrisy is a quiet little masterwork that invites multiple readings and interpretations.
The Flowers of Evil, Vol. 2 (Shuzo Oshimi)
Further adventures in antisocial dating, in this sharp little psych-thriller series.
Enma the Immortal (Fumi Nakamura)
What seems at first glance like a "Blade of the Immortal" clone is anything but.
The Flowers of Evil, Vol. #1 (Shuzo Oshimi)
First installment in this diabolical manga series about a high schooler's psychological torment at the hands of a female classmate.
GTO: The Early Years, Vol. #11 (Toru Fujisawa)
Picking up where Tokyopop left off, it's Onizuka before he was the Great Teacher.
No Longer Human Vol. #3 (Usamaru Furuya, Osamu Dazai)
The manga adaptation of Japan's "Requiem for a Dream" comes to an unforgiving close, just as it should.
Black Jack. Vol. #17 (Osamu Tezuka)
The end. And it’s a fitting end to a manga series that’s always stood poised on the knife-edge between sweet fairy-tale simplicity and the tougher sensibilities of stories for mature audiences. Black Jack might well have been Osamu Tezuka’s finest...
GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, Vol. #1 (Tohru Fujisawa)
The further (and ever the more over the top) adventures of Great Teacher Onizuka, as he tries to turn around a whole special school full of kids abandoned by their own parents.
Princess Knight: Vols. #1-2 (Osamu Tezuka)
Osamu Tezuka's gender-bending fairy tale, now in English, was worth the wait.
2011
No Longer Human, Vol. #2 (Usamaru Furuya / Osamu Dazai)
Further down the spiral with both Osamu Dazai and his 21st-century interpretation via manga master Usamaru Furuya.
The Book of Human Insects (Osamu Tezuka)
Tezuka explores darkness once more, in the story of a woman apparently unaware of her capacity for evil.
Velveteen & Mandala (Jiro Matsumoto)
"Bizarre" is the best adjective for this post-apoc zombie story, but "strangely touching" also comes in after a while.
A Caring Man (Akira Arai)
A loner takes revenge on all of Japan. Efficient thrills but a bit hollow.
Black Jack Vol. 15 (Osamu Tezuka)
Volume 15 of this series continues to assemble pieces that ran after Black Jack’s original run ended, and in some ways this is the best of the “pick-up” volumes yet....
2010
Peepo Choo Vol. 3 (Felipe Smith)
First, a statement: The last volume of Peepo Choo is a satisfying ribbon for the gift that this whole series has been, a way to tie everything together and give everyone more or less what they deserve. Second, a promise:...
7 Billion Needles, Vol. #1 (Nobuaki Tadano)
7 Billion Needles may be the most mainstream manga Vertical, Inc. has licensed for their lineup thus far. Mainstream and Vertical do not quite belong in the same sentence: these are the folks who gave us some of the best...
Peepo Choo Vol. 2 (Felipe Smith)
By the end of the first volume of Peepo Choo I had, I thought, a solid idea of what Felipe Smith was up to. He was satirizing, in the bluntest and most caustic way, the ways some Americans (and some...
Peepo Choo Vol. 1 (Felipe Smith)
Let me start on as unambiguous a note as possible. Felipe Smith’s Peepo Choo is the manga title of the summer, possibly the manga title for the whole of 2010. It doesn’t just break new ground for manga, it paves...
