My first thought after finishing all 7 volumes in one go: WTF, can’t you end on a good note?
“There is an Angel Buried Behind the School Building” is the story of… yeah, you saw the TW. Bullying. Nothing can compare to the WTF I screamed when I flipped to the last page of the first chapter. Judging from the title, I thought this was gonna be about a bunch of kids investigating a school ghost legend or some shit, not becoming the school legend.
Inorihime wa Sora ni Warau (The Prayer Princess Laughs at the Sky) is a 4-volume fantasy shoujo manga by Mizutani Yuzu and Kaede Tooru.
It’s pretty much a standard fantasy shoujo manga with all its common tropes, but I don’t know why I like it so much. Maybe it’s because Maritza and Azurite are soooooo cute together.
The plot is as follow. The Kingdom of Forestuana consists of the kingdom itself, and an island with a huge tower surrounded by the rivers, where the “Inorihime” (Prayer Princess) lives. The royal family of Forestuana is strictly forbidden to meet the Inorihime, or else it will bring ruin to the kingdom.
Maritza is the current Inorihime who inherited the “Inori no Uta” (Prayer Song), a melody capable of creating various miracles despite nobody aside from her being able to hear what it actually sounds like. (She sings it out loud but the sound waves are inaudible to regular people or something.) One day, Azurite came to the tower searching for his companion’s long-lost sister and ran in to Maritza, and the two immediately hit it off. Azurite became the first person to be able to hear what Maritza’s prayer song sounded like. However, it turns out that it’s because Azurite is the first prince of Forestuana, and now that he’s met the Inorihime, woe will befall their kingdom.
A lot of stuff happened. Turns out that Maritza’s best friend and handmaid is the long-lost sister kidnapped to the island. Maritza had to escape the head priestess who wanted to abuse the Inori no Uta and went to Azurite for protection. The two grew closer and met many different people and gained more perspectives on the current situation. Maritza and Azurite realized that they fell in love with each other and wanted to find out why their meeting was forbidden.
The kingdom of Forestuana was actually founded by… people from space? Anyway, this spaceship fell in the middle of the island and the residents got stuck there. (The “tower” is actually the spaceship that dove nose-first to the ground.) The people argued on what they should do. One side wanted to abandon hope that they could fix the spaceship and go out to explore this new place. The other side wanted to stay and protected the spaceship. The two leaders of the ship then had to separate these two groups before conflict gets any worse. The male leader went out and became the founder of the Forestuana Kingdom, while the female leader who stayed behind became the first Inorihime.
The two leaders were in love with each other, but had to separate because of duty. To prevent further conflicts between the sides, they set up a rule where the royal family must not meet the Inorihime at all costs.
Flash forward to the present, it turns out that Maritza is a clone of the first Inorihime. The head priestess gave up trying to manipulate all the clones for her own goods. Maritza and Azurite’s meeting did not result in the fall of the kingdom, but to a new era where the royal family and the tower’s residents lived together in peace.
If you like a light, fantasy story with a cute relationship between the leads and their friends, then I recommend this manga. I really like it and I like the concept of the story. I got this fluffy feeling when I finished the manga and I think this story deserves more love.
I started this thing on Jan 2013 and finished it Feb 2023. The reason it took me so long to finish was partially waiting for new release and partially just me forgetting about this manga.
Soooo I’ll keep this review short.
Watashi ni XX shinasai (Missions of Love/XX Me) follows the story of the “ice queen” Yukina, a stoic middle school girl who’s actually “Yupina”, the popular online novelist. She finds it difficult to write romance, so she blackmailed Shigure, the school’s most popular boy, into doing missions of love with her so that she can inject some romance into her writing. However, Yukina’s cousin Akira became jealous and confessed his love to her. And then we have (in JP Beaubien’s voice) a love triangle!
The title, Giyoku no Koukyoukyoku, is a mouthful, so I’ll refer to this is as Ilegenes: Symphony of the Illusory Wings. This manga is a direct sequel to Ilegenes: Kokuyou no Kiseki (the Path of Obsidian) and a prequel to the novel.
Ilegenes is a shoujo sci-fi/military manga. The events take place on an island called Ilegenes, famous for its advanced technology in genetic engineering. However, as with biology and its ethical nightmares, people try to use this technology for the wrong purposes, and that’s where our protagonist comes in.
Story
Fon Fortinbras Littenber was a third-year student in Ilegenes’s military academy and the leader of ‘Elfenbein’, an anti-government organization aiming to expose and get rid of corrupted politicians. Fon planned to run for dorm master of the academy, so that he could make the rules more relaxed, and he and his friends in Elfenbein would have more wiggle room to get out of the dorms and do their anti-government things.
Things were not easy, however, when two females joined the all-male military academy. One of them is Gabrielle “Gabby” Grey, who possessed the same ‘peacock eyes’ that Fon had.
Peacock eyes are symbols of the ‘purge children’, genetically engineered superhumans. Gabby came here to become to queen of Ilegenes, starting with taking over the academy, and so she had to get rid of Fon first. However, Fon could not do anything to her, because it is programmed into the purge children that older children cannot harm the newer ones. F comes before G, so Fon is older than Gabby, and he can’t do anything to harm her while Gabby had the rights to get rid of Fon if she deemed him defective.
Force is the infamous fourth son of the Caluanthes family. He is the black sheep of the nobility: he dresses in over-the-top ‘bird of paradise’ clothes, stays only in shabby inns, turns every trip into his personal dining tour, and only has friends from lower-ranking noble families. Everyone mocks him behind his back, except Eiri Lawrence. Eiri is the total opposite: he is the perfect second son of the Lawrence family admired by everyone. A chance encounter brought him closer to Force and his entourages, and so the story of truth and deception within high society begins.
A.D. is a 2-volume manga by Aki that was discontinued after the second volume. (The author said in the cover jacket that it was gonna be after the first one, but there’s two.) It has beautiful and intricate art and an interesting set of characters.
Welcome to another entry to the manga archive where I write about manga I’ve read.
TBH if I hadn’t already bought the entire series, I would drop this manga after chapter 1. However, I’m glad I didn’t.
Ludwig Kakumei or Ludwig Revolution follows Crown Prince Ludwig as he journeys the land in search of a suitable bride. However, back at home, the king’s new wife plots to assassinate him and make her son the heir instead.
So a long while ago I wrote about volume 4. Now, I am able to get myself a copy of volume 3 and I’m very excited to fill in the gaps between chapter 10 and 14.
Just to recap what happened, Akira came to live at the Crimson headquarters and rumors were flying around that Chrome is head over heels for her. Meanwhile, Seishiro recalled that as a young boy, he swore to protect Akira, but currently his role is being replaced by Chrome.
Later that night, Akira and a kid were chased around by a dead priest controlled by eyepatch girl. Akira was at the last stage of her awakening as Maria’s Daughter, and the trigger for her final awakening would be intense fear. But luckily, Chrome was on his way.
Seishiro got so overwhelmed by watching Chrome’s battle, realizing that there is a gap between him and Chrome that no talent or hard work could ever close. Meanwhile, Akira was held captive by eyepatch girl and a mysterious man. She dreamt of her first meeting with young Chrome, who had one black wing and had blood all over him. That recall of a memory from eight years ago made her awaken as Maria.
Welcome to another entry in my manga archive, where I pretty much write about obscure manga bought from book rental stores that closed down. It’s going to be too many posts if I do these separately, so I’ll pool all the one-shots I’ve read over the past few days in this single post.
Mizu no Yakata
A boy who lost both his parents suddenly remembered that he had a brother who went missing six years ago. However, when he finally found his brother, he realized it wasn’t a simple missing persons case.
Mizu no Yakata is a supernatural horror one-shot spinoff of Kodomo no Omocha. My friend warned me that this author writes disturbing stories, and from this one shot, I have to agree. It’s disturbing and a little bit bloody. I read another story by the same author called ‘Partner’ and it’s disturbing and unsettling as hell, lot more than this one shot.
Mizu no Yakata is not that scary, but it’s surely not for those looking for something light to read.
“Your time has stopped, while mine keeps moving on. Don’t try to help me, he must be so lonely in that darkness, all alone.” – Mizuki
This review contains minimum spoilers unless otherwise indicated.
So I got this from the same bookstore that I got Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. It’s really old print and has seen a fair number of reads in its time at the comic rental shop. I thought the ink would be all smudged and stuff, but luckily, it’s mostly readable.
I have severely underestimated how serious and melancholic this manga is. At first glance, it’s a manga about a girl suffering from cancer who has 1 year to live, so she decides to spend the last 12 months of her life pursuing her dream career: being a singer. However, things get… complicated.
bonutzuu 