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Vols Read in November

I actually managed to read quite a few physical volumes this month!

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Vols Read in October

Didn’t have much time to read this month, so I’m pretty happy with this amount

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Vols Read in September

Most of the vols I’ve read this month~

Nowhere near the amount I read last month, but I’m still happy nonetheless

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All the volumes I’ve read in August!

I went crazy this month and read like 93 vols 💀

I’ll probably go back to reading like 10 vols next month knowing me 🤣

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Subaru to Suu-san

Recently, I started a series called Subaru to Suu-san, where a guy, Subaru, suddenly turns into a kid while on a date with his girlfriend, Mio, and then has to pretend to be siblings with her in public while they try to figure out what is going on and how to return him to normal.

(Adult Suburu)

It’s strange cause it’s sort of a romance between a child and an adult (physical appearance wise), which sounds gross but I think the author does a good job in showing that Subaru is an adult by how he acts. (They also don’t do more then kiss).

It’s frankly kinda sad cause he wants to be with his girlfriend and do couple-y things but they can’t cause of his appearance and he has to just watch guys hit on her while he can’t say anything cause he’s pretending to be her brother. It really showcases the struggle of this couple who can’t really act on their feelings like a couple because of this strange situation.

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Tokyo Aliens

(English license by Square Enix)

Ano Ko no Kodomo

(English License by Seven Seas)

Shimanami Tasogare

(English License by Seven Seas)

WonDance

(English License by Kodansha)

Haruka Tooki Ie

(English license by Kuma)

A list of series with art that I love:

Kokou no Hito

(Fan Translation Available)

Tenkaichi: Nihon Saikyou Bugeisha Ketteisen

(Fan Translation Available)

MagMell Shinkai Suizokukan

(Fan Translation Available)

Ran to Haiiro no Sekai

(English License by Viz Media)

Hokuhokusei ni Kumo to Ike

(English License by Vertical)

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MagMell Shinkai Suizokukan

MagMell Shinkai Suizokukan is an ongoing series about a boy who works at a deep sea aquarium. Each chapter focuses on a deep sea creature, providing facts about them throughout the chapter, while also including a little page at the end that gives more information.

(On the left is an example of the info page at the end of the chapters)

I absolutely love this series!!!!! It has quickly become one of my favorites and is one I’ll definitely be suggesting to english publishers in hopes it gets licensed for print. I’ve even been going around and sharing this series with friends in hopes of convincing more people to read it.

The art is absolutely gorgeous and I can not say that enough. The way the sea creatures are drawn pulls me in and by the end of the chapter I’m looking up real photos of these creatures because I’m so curious. This manga does a great job in getting people interested in the deep sea and is a fun way to learn some real facts.

If you’re someone who is interested in aquatic life, the deep sea and/or just love pretty art and fascinating creatures this series is for you!

But honestly, I recommend that everyone checks this series out. You won’t regret it!

Ps. While I used the art from the Japanese version, there is an english fan translation available. (That’s what I used to read it)

Also merch for this series is available for pre-order on AmiAmi.

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Sensitive Boy

TW: Rape/SA, PTSD

Sensitive Boy is a newer series delving into a bit of a taboo subject. The MC was raped in middle school by a female teacher. There is a certain stigma around this subject as some people think it’s not possible for a male to be raped by a female. Tho of course it does happen, it’s just not something that people really talk about or gets portrayed much in media.

As mentioned the MC of this series, Kaede, was raped by a female teacher in middle school before the start of the series. As a result, he has PTSD from the incident, having panic attacks revolving around females in certain situations. Such as when a girl accidentally fell on top of him. On the other hand, we have Tsubasa, a love interest, who is a romantic at heart and dreams of having a relationship like those in the shojo manga she read. Of course, those idealized romances don’t usually play out in real life. 

Kaede's first attempt to tell her about the incident in his past didn’t go well as the Tsubasa mistook it as just groping. But in a recent chapter, she realizes she misunderstood the situation and asks him what really happened, to which he explained everything.

I’m interested to see how Tsubasa handles this because she has such an innocent idealized view of romance. So far it’s not looking good, as she seems to find herself sick by this, focusing on the fact that he’s had sex (even tho it was non-consensual). Tho we also see that she’s having an internal debate about this. She’s disgusted that he’s not “innocent” but at the same time, she keeps reminding herself that it wasn’t his choice. I’m curious to see how this goes, will she be able to continue with this relationship? Or will she end things? 

Spoilers for the most recent chapter, ch. 16. 

This is a hard chapter to read. We see Tsubasa let out everything in front of Kaede. Telling him how she doesn’t know how to handle all this and asking could him if he really could have been raped by a female. Why didn’t he just fight back? Personally, this part made me pissed, he told her everything and then she has the nerve to question him if it really happened. I don’t think she and Kaede are a good match. She is far too innocent and filled with too many ideal fantasies to be with him. He deserves someone better. After she asks him if it was really against his will we see Kaede tell her to stop and says she doesn’t understand since she didn’t experience it. He breaks down apologizing for everything, crying and Tsubasa runs off leaving him alone. 

The sad thing about this situation is that people truly do think that. There is a misconception people have that men can’t be raped by women.  And in my opinion, it doesn’t help that we don’t talk about this topic much. We see plenty of media dealing with a female being raped by a male but almost never the other way around. I think this is why this series is important, it brings up this topic that people don’t want to talk about.

All Kaede wants to do is live a "normal" life. He wants a girlfriend, he wants to be like the guys his age and date, but it's not that easy for him sadly. As much as he wants a gf, his trauma isn't going to make it easy for him.

(Screenshots are from fan scans via Tanzanite Scans)

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All the volumes I’ve read in July!

Technically I probably read at least a volume of Trace: Kasouken Houi Kenkyuuin no Tsuisou, but idk which volume it was cause the Mangahot app doesn’t mark what volume chapters are in.

Also I think I binge read a good 20+ of these vols in the past 2 weeks.

(Record of Ragnarok vol. 7 was a physical read. Technically a re-read since I’m caught up digitally~)

(All of these were digital reads. Sensitive boy was a recommendation someone gave me.)

(This pic has most of the ones I read physically. Only the last three on the bottom row were digital reads)

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(From Tokyo Duel)

These tournament manga be wild (ᗒᗜᗕ)

Decided to check this series out since it was another recommendation for a series similar to Record of Ragnarok. It’s…..interesting to say the least. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, tbh I’m not really sold. But I’m only up to chapter 13 so I’ll give it a bit longer before deciding on whether to drop it or not.

I’ll give an actual review once I either finish or I drop it~

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Tenkaichi

Tenkaichi - Nihon Saikyou Bugeisha Ketteisen

A battle tournament manga series set in the Sengoku Era.

Warlords bring forth their strongest warriors to compete in a tournament being held by a dying Oda Nobunaga. The prize? Japan itself. The Warlord whose warrior wins the tournament will become the ruler of Japan.

This series is one I found while searching for ones similar to Record of Ragnarok and I’m really glad I found it. It’s only at 7 volumes right now but I am loving it. The art, the characters, the fights, all of it I love. 

(I'm a huge fan of the cover art!)

What is my favorite part of this series is that it’s not obvious who the winner of the fights will be. As it turns out, the winner of the fight isn’t decided till around 1 or 2 chapters before the fights end. So not even the creators know who’s going to win till the very end.

Of course, with that being said, there is no protagonist, or better yet you could say all the fighters are protagonists. There’s no character who is definitely without a doubt going to be the winner, at this point, it could be any of them.

When reading these fights I was constantly switching around who I thought would win. “This one will win” and then a chapter later “Never mind this one’s winning”, and it kept switching back and forth because there is no obvious winner. When the winner is not so clear cut it makes these tournament fighting series so much more thrilling to read. The current fight which is fight #5 literally had my heart pounding. Like I'm so anxious over finding out who's going to win this fight because it ended on a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger that seems to make the winner obvious. Or does it? That's the thing! Even tho it looks like we know who the winner of this fight will be, we can't be 100% sure. (Curse the fact that the next chapter doesn't come out for another month)

Honestly, there is so much I could praise about this series. The fights are a good length, in that they don’t feel too short or drawn on. It’s the same with the backstories, they’re just the right length. Character design wise so far I’m loving it. Of course, they aren’t the most realistic or look like anything the actual person but it’s not so bizarre as to take away from the story. Ngl I already have 3 characters who I think are super hot and took multiple screenshots of lol

(Such amazing art. Look at the detail~ There's actually way better art in the series but they contain spoilers so I won't share them here)

Now a little side story about me~

As I mentioned earlier that I found this while looking for a series Similar to Record of Ragnarok, and I had a huge laugh at myself. Because I was looking at the character designs and pointed at a character with a mask on and said “This dude’s probably hot looking under that mask”, only to look at the name and realize it was Sasaki Kojio who happens to be one of my fav fighters in Ragnarok 🤣 I didn’t realize he was in it too. So I had a good laugh over that and it actually made me even more excited to read it

(The fight list)

I highly recommend this series. It's probably one of my new favorites and dare I say, I almost love it as much as Record of Ragnarok. Please go check this series out!

(Screenshots are from the fan scans done by "Problematic Scans")

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Majo Taisen

Majo Taisen - The War Of Greedy Witches

Do you want to watch women from history fight each other in skimpy outfits? Are you a fan of Record of Ragnarok?  Well, do I have the series for you! Majo Taisen aka The War of Greedy Witches

It’s like Record of Ragnarok but worse. 

I’m sorry that’s a bit too harsh. It honestly isn’t a terrible series and I quite enjoyed reading it even tho it has quite a few flaws.

In this series, 32 women from history are brought forth to fight each other in what is known as “Walpurgis”. These women are now witches with magic related to their desire, their greed. The winner of the tournament gets their desire, a wish, fulfilled.

Unlike Record of Ragnarok, the humans are pitted against each other and only one can win. However, like RoR, each time an opponent loses their soul is destroyed aka a permanent death. 

Now what I think is the fatal flaw of the series is the main character Jeanne D’arc or better known as Joan of Arc. It’s not so much her character that I find a fault with, I actually quite like her. The problem lies in her being both the protagonist and one of the fighters. With her being the protagonist it can be assumed that she’s not going to lose, meaning the women going against her certainly will. She has a ton of plot armor and I don’t think this is a series where the protag would be killed off. In my opinion, because of this, the story loses some of its excitement.

I have two other smaller critiques:

1. The Outfits; while I get the skimpy outfits are “hot”, they’re not the most functional for a battle. Nothing is being protected. And honestly with some outfits I have no clue how they aren’t flashing everyone

2.  The length of the battles. The battles are very short and so are each character's back stories. I do like that the battles aren’t quite as long as Record of Ragnarok, which can feel drawn on sometimes. But in this case, they almost feel too short. Same with the backstories, they only last 4 pages at the most. And I think because of that I don’t grow an attachment to most of the characters or get super invested in the fights.

Now onto some positives! What I do like is that the fighters are all women. Personally as a woman myself, it’s nice to see a tournament with all these women fighting and being strong and confident on their own not relying on any men. I also like the characters, I think they’re all interesting and have very differing personalities. It’s fun to see how the characteristics in this series were inspired by the actions and personalities of the real-life people. As of right now, my favorite is Tomoe Gozen cause she’s so cute! Hehe

One last pro is that there are multiple rounds. Record of Ragnarok has everyone only fight once, but with Majo Taisen, there will be a total of 5 rounds I believe. I’m curious to see how these future rounds will go since everyone has seen each other's magic. Meaning that they can prepare themselves for the fight rather than being thrust into a fight not knowing what the opponent can do.  

This next part contains spoilers for both RoR and Majo Taisen as I’m going to talk about similarities. 

Majo Taisen definitely seems to be inspired by Ragnarok. First, the cover designs are set up in a similar way. Both feature two of the fightsers on opposite sides of the covers. The name of the series between them in a rectangle shape

(Majo Taisen on the Right; Record of Ragnarok on the Left)

Parts of the stories share similarities as well. For example, the whole bringing dead people from history to fight in a tournament where if they lose their souls will be destroyed and they will no longer exist. The next similarity, that I saw was in Fight 3 of Majo Taisen. The winner of the fight wins by constantly lying and using fake outs, exactly like the winner of fight 4 in Ragnarok. Another noticeable similarity is in Fight 6, where one of the women’s magic focuses on probability and the one scene reminds me of one from RoR’s Fight 3 where Kojiro is able to predict Poseidon’s move.  It’s not the exact same but it definitely was noticeably similar to me.

(Right is Majo Taisen; Left is Record of Ragnarok)

Now I actually do like that Record of Ragnarok has clearly inspired other mangaka to create series similar. I very much enjoy this genre. I'm hoping that with future chapters Majo Taisen improves itself and really tries to break away from under RoR's shadow. Caused of right now it truly does feel like a worse version of Ragnarok.

I do recommend checking it out, as long as you don't take things too seriously. It's available in English on the manga hot app

(I took the images from fan scans so shout out to the people who worked on them)

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Shuumatsu no Valkyrie

"Shuumatsu no Valkyrie" or " Record of Ragnarok"

Gods vs Humans. Who will win?

Ragnarok has come and the gods are ready to end all of humanity but the Valkyrie Brunhilde is here to put a stop to that plan. She proposes the idea of a tournament; Gods vs Humans. Whoever reaches 7 wins will be named the final winner. The prize? The saving or destruction of humanity. If the humans win, humanity will be safe for at least another 1000 years, and if the Gods win? Humanity will cease to exist.

Have you ever wanted to watch Jack the Ripper fight a god? What about Rasputin or Adam (of Adam & Eve)? Well, this series is just for you! You can watch as humans from history take on a variety of gods from different religions/mythologies. Some of which include Poseidon, Beezlebub, Shiva, Anubis, and More.

What drew me into reading this series was seeing the list of who the human fighters were. The absurdity of Jack the Ripper fighting a god, honestly had me laughing, and then after seeing who the other fighters were, I knew I had to check it out.

If I’m being honest I didn’t really care for the first fight, it was nothing special in my opinion, but by the end of the 2nd fight I found myself looking forward to more and it’s with the 3rd fight that I found myself fully drawn in and consumed by the series. I’m now officially obsessed and I have spent probably more money than I should have on merch 🤣

(You thought I was joking? 🤣)

This is a series I highly recommend if you like mythology, history, fighting games, and tournaments. However for mythology and history lovers, please be aware that this series and its portrayal of the characters aren't realistic or how they are often described.

The personalities and the overall character designs are very interesting, to say the least. Zeus looks way older than his brothers even tho he is the youngest. Buddha looks like an e-boy, and Loki looks like a twink which isn’t surprising but I don’t understand the green hair since he was often said to be a ginger in mythologies 🤣. King Leonidas looks like he stepped out of G.I. Joe or something. The character designs are so far out there but honestly, it's one of my favorite parts. I’m always looking forward to seeing what a character is going to look like.

Currently, the series is being printed by Viz Media as part of their VIZ Sig line, with Vol. 7 being the most current release. Physically the English version is far behind Japan, with Japan being at vol 19 (I believe), and with Viz only releasing 4 volumes a year it’s going to be a long while before we’re caught up physically. However luckily for us impatient people, the app Manga Hot has an English translation for Record of Ragnarok and you can catch up pretty close with Japan. I think it's only a few chapters behind.

Another thing I want to mention briefly was the anime. There is an anime for this series and it’s available to watch on Netflix but I don’t recommend it. It really does a terrible job of depicting the scenes from the manga. It lacks the emotion, the thrill of the fights, and the art is a disgrace to the manga. (They made my boy Poseidon ugly 😭) However, If you do want to watch it I highly recommend you wait till after you read the manga.

(This is just one picture I found comparing the same scene from anime and the manga)

As long as you don't take it too seriously, I think many people would enjoy reading this series. It's fun, chaotic, and always has you on the edge of your seat.

(I used photos from fan scans I think it's valhallascans so credit to them and whoever else worked on it.)

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Koko wa Ima kara Rinri desu

"Koko wa Ima kara Rinri desu" or "From Now on We Begin Ethics", is a psychological, philosophical drama series following an ethics teacher and the students in his ethics class. Each chapter focuses on one of the students and a conflict they are struggling with. The cast of characters changes every few volumes as the old cast moves up a grade or graduates, allowing for brand-new characters with different beliefs and struggles.

This series deals with a lot of different topics and struggles. Ranging from rape to self-harm, to bullying, to female masturbation. It truly has a wide arrange of topics being discussed. Each of these affects a specific student and Mr. Takayanagi tries his best to help the student in whatever way he can, usually applying what they had learned in the ethics class to the situation.

However, it isn't just the students we see struggling. We watch Mr. Takayanagi, himself, struggle, knowing that he can only do so much for these students. He can only provide help if they are receptive to it and even then how much is he able to do? He’s only an ethics teacher. He’s not a therapist or their parents. He must still keep an appropriate barrier between them and himself as their teacher, as an adult with authority.

I think this conflict is best shown in chapter 7. 

(Spoilers for chapter 7)

We have a male student who is clearly struggling. His home life isn’t good, dealing with abuse and most likely neglect. He does not receive love and affection so he seeks it from those who are nice to him, the people he feels he can trust. One of those people is Mr. Takayanagi. We watch him cling to Mr. Takayanagi's arm, and grab his hand. He also displays these behaviors around the nurse who he's also close with. He isn’t doing this out of romantic or sexual intentions. Instead, he is seemingly using these touches as a source of comfort.

The nurse sees no issue with this but Mr. Takayanagi points out two main problems with allowing these interactions.

1. Is it fair? We allow one student to be physically affectionate with a teacher, but then not allow the others. How would that look? Would it be seen as showing favoritism? 

2. What if the student was a girl instead? How would it look if a female student was clinging and touchy with her older male teacher? How would outsiders view it? Would it be seen as inappropriate? Is this situation only seeming okay because it’s a male teacher and a male student?

But of course, what happens if you avoid the affection? Mr. Takayanagi tries just that with not-so-great results. First evading the student when he tries to grab his arm. The student noticing this gets upset and runs away crying. Later, there’s a moment between Mr. Takayanagi and the student, where the student is visibly upset. Crying, maybe having a panic/anxiety attack, and simply asking for a hug. Mr. Takayanagi hesitates and this makes everything even worse, upsetting the student further, as they likely see this as a form of rejection and assume it's their fault.

How should Mr. Takayanagi have handled the situation? In the end, he did hug the student but was that the appropriate response? The teacher is shown to be in inner turmoil and visibly upset in the last few pages, questioning what he should have done. 

It's situations like this, that we see take place in the series. Making you question what the best or most ethical solution would have been.

Another point that this manga showcases and which I think is very important, is that Mr. Takayanagi knows when something is out of his realm. He knows that in certain cases he isn’t the best person to help a student. 

In chapters 27-28 (Spoilers for those chapters), we have a student who is violent, has a lack of empathy, loves the sight of blood, and wants to kill. The student even asks Mr. Takayanag, “Why is murder wrong?”. After witnessing the aftermath of the student’s brutal assault on an upperclassman, Mr. Takayanagi realizes that this isn’t something that he should handle, so he takes the student to a counselor. Someone whose job it is to help people like him. Getting the kid some professional help. I think that it takes a lot for a person to acknowledge that they aren’t the best person for a situation and to seek help from someone else. 

Who knows what would have happened if he had tried to solve the situation himself. One wrong word and it could have ended in someone's death

Overall I think this series delves into some important topics and really shows how ethics is used in real-life situations. Something to also note is that while each chapter covers a character, we don’t always see the end result. However, in this case, I find that to be fine, it makes sense to not see the resolution to these conflicts. In some cases, this could take a very long time and as we're seeing this through Takayanagi and his ethics class, it makes sense for us the readers to not know how something ends, as Takayanagi himself doesn't know either.

If you're someone who can handle darker topics I really do recommend this series. I think it brings attention to some important topics and makes some great points. However please be aware that it could possibly be triggering for some people.