Work Type: Manga

Comics that originate from Japan for a Japanese audience but have been licensed and translated for English-speaking audiences. They are often read from right to left.

Manga Review | Pink Heart Jam by Shikke

Title: Pink Heart Jam

Shikke

Shikke

Tags: Eve's Faves
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Haiga is experiencing many firsts. It is his first time in college, it is his first time living in the city away from his rural home, and it is his first time faced with his sexuality. While touring his campus for the first time, Haiga sees Kanae, a beautiful man and Haiga’s upperclassman. Haiga is immediately attracted to him, but he isn’t sure if he simply admires Kanae or if he really is attracted to him as a man. Without any real reason to find out, Haiga is left on his own to wonder.

That is until his peers give him money to visit a box spa after a night of drinking. However, this particular box spa is located in the gay district, which Haiga uses to his advantage to help answer the question: does he like men or not? Of course, Haiga doesn’t expect that the person servicing him is none other than Kanae. So, this is a chance for Haiga to discover his sexuality and determine if his feelings for Kanae are more than simple admiration for his upperclassman. While he is figuring that out, another question lingers in the back of Haiga’s mind: how does Kanae feel about him?

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Manga Review | Yagi the Bookshop Goat by Fumi Furukawa

Title: Yagi the Bookshop Goat

Fumi Furukawa

Fumi Furukawa

Tags: Eve's Faves
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In this world, herbivores and carnivores live amicably, though this is primarily because they live in separate zones – one catering to herbivores, the other to carnivores. However, even if you are an herbivore, it doesn’t mean you’ll be treated fairly in the section for herbivores. This is the unfortunate case for Yagi, a goat who wants nothing more than to work at a bookshop. However, like most goats, Yagi has the habit of eating paper, which doesn’t work out too well for his employers.

Unable to get a job at any herbivore bookshop, Yagi goes where he shouldn’t: a carnivore bookshop managed by a wolf named Ookami. Ookami gives Yagi a job, and while Yagi does eat a book on occasion, Ookami scolds him but lets him work there all the same. Yagi thinks it is simply because Ookami is kind, but there is something more behind the wolf’s good deeds. Not only does he have a complicated past, but he might see Yagi as more than just an employee.

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Manga Review | Kiss Him, Not Me by Junko

Title: Kiss Him, Not Me

Junko

Junko

Kae Serinuma is a BL fanatic (can relate). She spends all day and all night consuming all manner of BL content, and when she isn’t enjoying BL, she thinks about it, buys it, fantasizes about it, and even spends her time shipping the boys around her together. As a result, she isn’t the most popular girl around. She’s also a bit chubby, which doesn’t earn her any points with the pretty boys in school, but that doesn’t matter. She isn’t interested in boys unless they want to be with boys themselves!

However, one fateful day, Serinuma’s world is rocked when her favorite character, Shion, from her favorite anime, Mirage Saga, is unexpectedly killed. Unable to handle the loss, Serinuma holes herself up in her room for a week. She doesn’t go to school, she doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep, and even her mother and brother don’t see her for the entire week. Finally, her brother breaks her out of her stupor, but what emerges is not the lovable, chubby Serinuma. No, what comes out is a gorgeous lady that even Serinuma herself fails to recognize.

When she returns to school, everyone except history club president Asuma Mutsumi fails to recognize her, and once people realize who she is, they don’t believe it! But there is no denying that Kae Serinuma is this gorgeous creature. As a result, she draws the attention of some of the hottest boys in her school, including history club president and third-year Asuma Mutsumi, classmate and soccer club member Yusuke Igarashi, bad boy Shion-lookalike Nozomu Nanashima, and first-year student Hayato Shinomiya. They are immediately attracted to her new look and make it clear that they all plan on winning her heart. Things get even more complicated, though, when she also draws the attention of Shima Nishina, an androgynous girl who is also a BL fanatic and as equally drawn to Serinuma as all the boys.

While Serinuma enjoys her time with all her new friends, the pressure of their love causes plenty of trouble for all involved. What is worse is that she would rather the boys fall in love with each other rather than her! She promises to consider all of them as possible love interests and promises to give them all an answer in time, but how could she possibly choose? Why can’t they just love each other? Can a BL-fanatic actually fall in love with a boy (or girl)?

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Manga Review | No. 6 by Atsuko Asano

Title: No. 6

Atsuko Asano

Hinoki Kino

Shion is an elite student in the perfect city of No. 6. Because he excels, his family is afforded luxury and benefits provided by the city through a caste-based system. However, one evening, when Shion feels the urge to throw open his bedroom balcony doors and scream out into the typhoon outside, he inadvertently calls over a mysterious and disheveled young boy named Rat. It turns out Rat is a fugitive and has just escaped from prison.

Despite Rat admitting to being a criminal, Shion takes the time to take care of Rat’s wounds and encourages him to stay. Though Rat warns Shion that this could hurt Shion and his family, Rat acquiesces and stays the night with Shion. The following day, Rat is gone. The police of No. 6 drop in to question Shion and his family over the missing fugitive, and when Shion admits to aiding Rat, his family is punished by dropping in the caste system. As a result, Shion and his mother are forced to move out to the poor parts of No. 6, and Shion is unable to move up in academics and is forced to take a more labor-based position.

Even though years have passed since their first encounter and Shion has suffered greatly. As a result, Rat isn’t far from Shion’s mind. It isn’t long before they are reunited, though, as Shion is faced with what could only be described as the impending destruction of No. 6 as society knows it. While at work, Shion and his coworker discover the body of a seemingly elderly man. However, while in their office, Shion’s coworker suddenly begins to age rapidly and dies in front of him, leaving behind a corpse and what appears to be a bee or wasp. Police immediately swoop in to arrest Shion for murder, only for Rat to rush in and whisk Shion away outside of No. 6, where people suffer to survive, all hoping to one day be granted entrance to No. 6.

There, Shion must face the fact that No. 6 is nothing more than a beautiful facade hiding conspiracy and corruption. Shion also must face the fact that while Rat is his savior, Rat has his own painful past – a past that pushes him to seek revenge against No. 6, even if that means mowing down everyone living behind its safe walls. Shion wants to uncover the corruption of No. 6, protect Rat, and protect the innocent citizens of No. 6, but can he when Rat plans to crush it all, no matter the cost?

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