Happy February, VIZ fans! We’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with reviews of two sparkly shojo romance manga— and an exciting new English-first e-sports action comic by Ru Xu! But first, the news.
WWAC’S Favorite Manga of 2023
WWAC editors and contributors read a lot of different manga last year, from indie publishers like Glacier Bay Books to heavy hitters like VIZ and Kodansha. We read romance, horror, slice-of-life, autobiography… And we’ve managed to narrow down our list to our very favorite manga of 2023, so here they are!
VIZ Pubwatch: January 2024
Happy new year, VIZ fans! New year, new manga, new pubwatch from me! This month we’re covering all first volumes from new and established creators, including the new Taiyo Matsumoto series, Tokyo These Days. But first, the news!
VIZ Pubwatch: December 2023
Happy holidays, dear readers! ‘Tis the season that no marketing team can ever let us forget, and with it come holiday sales and gift lists and special editions of everyone’s favorite anime and manga! This month, we’re talking about Ai Yazawa’s classic Neighborhood Story’s first English release, as well as the new volumes of some…
ROUNDTABLE: Cover Girl: Chainsaw Man Vol. 12
Welcome to Cover Girl! For this feature, we gather a team of WWAC contributors to analyze a new or recent and notable comic book cover featuring one or more women. This month, Kayleigh Hearn, Masha Zhdanova, and Carrie McClain discuss the Chainsaw Man Vol. 12 cover by Tatsuki Fujimoto, featuring new series protagonist Asa Mitaka…
PUBWATCH: VIZ November 2023
Another month, another pubwatch! This November, we’re bringing news of Anime NYC, a shiny new Io Sakisaka shojo manga, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure part 6. Let’s start with the news.
VIZ Pubwatch October 2023
Happy Halloween, VIZ fans! It’s time for another Pubwatch. This month we’re taking a look at some seasonally-appropriate spooky scary short story anthologies and a much less spooky shojo romance. But first, the news!
ESSAY: Adam Warren’s The Dirty Pair is a Forgotten Sci-Fi Classic
The American Dirty Pair comics by Toren Smith and Adam Warren are some of the best comics of the 90s and early aughts. During a time when American comics frequently were visually incoherent and overly self serious, The Dirty Pair was a breath of fresh air. The series was well illustrated beyond the lowered standards…
VIZ Pubwatch: September 2023
In much of the world, it’s time to go back to school, but the manga publishing machine churns ever onward, never stopping, never slowing down. This month we’re taking a look at the second volume of Until I Love Myself, another shoujo romance, and a Dracula reimagining in which Mina Harker is a champion wrestler!…
VIZ Pubwatch: Lost June 2023 Edition
Ed Note: This piece was supposed to run in June, but your erstwhile editor missed it. So here it is a little late, my apologies. Happy Pride Month, VIZ fans! To celebrate, I bring you… the heterosexual Goodbye, Eri, a memoir manga by a nonbinary artist, and a manga about Spider-Man. That’s just the way it…
VIZ Pubwatch: August 2023
Hello again, and welcome back to another VIZ Media Pubwatch! Last month I was traveling and then recovering from COVID picked up while traveling, but I’m glad to be back in time to tell you all about these VIZ news and reviews! This month we’re revisiting some series and creators mentioned in earlier pubwatches and…
REVIEW: River’s Edge Reflects Gritty Millennial Malaise
Kyoko Okazaki’s graphic novel River’s Edge is a gritty foray into the lives of teenagers with nothing to lose. Originally serialized between 1993 and 1994 in the women’s fashion magazine Monthly Cutie, this powerful work by an influential artist has been released in a handsome edition by Kodansha USA with an excellent translation by Alexa…