manga book

Book Review: Learn to Draw Manga

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Learn to Draw Manga by Kritzelpixel

Learn to Draw Manga: A Fun and Easy How-to Draw Guide for All Ages
by Kritzel pixel

5 out of 5 stars

This book includes chapters on drawing faces, bodies, and how to use references for your drawing, as well as a chapter about the principles of manga story-telling. The introduction gives practical advice about setting up, including what types of pencils or markers to use, what kind of paper to use or how to draw digitally. There are lots of warm-up exercises to train your motor skills, as well as basic form studies.

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Manga Review: Record of Lodoss War, Crown of the Covenant, Vol. 1-2

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Record of Lodoss War by Atsushi Suzumi

Record of Lodoss War: The Crown of the Covenant Volume 1
by Atsushi Suzumi

3 out of 5 stars

Prince Lyle is on a quest to find the legendary high elf, Deedlit, hoping that she can stop a war from starting among the island nations. The ruler of each nation is magically bound to a covenant of peace when they are crowned with a special magic crown. However, their lords and nobles are not bound by any promise of peace, nor are their royal descendants who refuse the crown. War is looming on the island, and armies are mobilizing. Prince Lyle will do anything to stop the bloodshed, and his siblings have some plans of their own.

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Book Review: Summer Wars

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Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda

Summer Wars: Complete Edition
by Mamoru Hosoda, Iqura Sugimoto (Illustrator), Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Designer)

4 out of 5 stars

Kenji is surprised when the most popular girl in school invites him to her family’s home for a weekend in the summer. He finds it awkward to fit in with her large and affluent family, especially since Natsuki is pretending that he is her fiancée! Kenji receives a work email from OZ, an online virtual world where he has some part-time work doing web maintenance. The email contains a code to be solved, and Kenji loves math puzzles. He solves the code and sends in the answer. The next morning, Kenji discovers that he has unwittingly unleashed a terrible danger into OZ.

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Manga Review: Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand

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Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand by Yoko Komori

Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand
by Yoko Komori

5 out of 5 stars

Tokiko moves with her dad to her grandmother’s town along the coast. Tokiko remembers that the last time she visited the ocean when she was only four years old, she was saved by a merman when swimming and she had started to sink. Now it is years later, and Tokiko is convinced that mermaids are real. Although the town has a yearly festival to honor the seagods and mermaids, no one else really believes in mermaids. But there is definitely something mysterious out in the ocean.

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Manga Review: Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish

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Josee, the Tiger and the Fish by Seiko Tanabe

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish (manga)
by Seiko Tanabe (Original Author), Nao Emoto (Artist)

5 out of 5 stars

Tsuneo dreams about studying the ocean in Mexico, and he works all the time so he can save enough money to go. He takes a part-time job helping Josee, a girl in a wheelchair. However, he finds the job more difficult than he had imagined. She is angry and grumpy and mean. Tsuneo tries to be patient with her, and when they discover their shared love for the beauties of the ocean, they begin to connect.

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Manga Review: Hamlet

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Manga Classics by Crystal S. Chan

Manga Classics: Hamlet (Modern English Edition)
by Crystal S. Chan (Adapter), William Shakespeare, Julien Choy (Artist), Michael Barltrop (Goodreads Author)

4 out of 5 stars

This manga adaptation of Williams Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the perfect way to introduce Shakespeare to readers who might feel intimidated by the original play. The text is modernized, but still captures the original style of Shakespeare. The entire play is intact, and all the beauty of Shakespeare’s words comes through wonderfully in this modern adaptation.

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Manga Review: Sense and Sensibility

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Sense and Sensibility by Stacy King

Sense and Sensibility
by Stacy King (Goodreads Author) (Adaptor), Po Tse (Illustrator), Jane Austen (Original Author)

5 out of 5 stars

I loved this manga adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic story! The manga follows the original story pretty closely, and the artwork is beautiful.

There’s a lot of crying in this book! I mean, I suppose there’s a lot of crying in the original story too, but seeing almost all the characters constantly collapsing into violent tears, hysterics, and/or fits of depression was over-the-top dramatic. Then again, Marianne Dashwood is the epitome of drama! haha!

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Manga Classic Review: Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Manga Classics by Crystal S. Chan

Manga Classics: Midsummer Night’s Dream (Modern English Edition)
by  Crystal S. Chan, William Shakespeare, Po Tse (Illustrator), Michael Barltrop (Editor)

5 out of 5 stars

This manga adaptation of Williams Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is the perfect way to introduce Shakespeare to readers who might feel intimidated by the original play. The text is modernized, but still captures the original style of Shakespeare. The entire play is intact, and all the beauty of Shakespeare’s words comes through wonderfully in this modern adaptation.

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Manga Classic Review: Macbeth

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Macbeth by Crystal S. Chan

Macbeth
by Crystal S. Chan (Adaptor), Julien Choy (Illustrator), William Shakespeare, Michael Barltrop (Modern English Adaptor)
4 out of 5 stars

Despite its popularity, MacBeth has never been one of my favorite Shakespearean plays. Too bloody and gory and gloomy for my taste. But if you like a dismal adventure with plenty of violence and mayhem, MacBeth has plenty of that! And this manga adaptation rings true with the moods and poetry of the original play. I like that the words of Shakespeare are modernized in a thoughtful way, and the artwork beautifully illustrates all the action and drama.

Each character has a memorable and striking appearance, and I found it especially interesting to see how MacBeth’s demeanor changed after he commits murder. His posture and facial expressions are different, and shadows gather around him in the darker shadows of the artwork. It’s a subtle but effective way of showing the development of his character, slowing falling into madness and despair.

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Book Review: Romeo and Juliet

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Manga Classics Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Manga Classics Romeo and Juliet (Modern English Edition)
by William Shakespeare, Crystal S. Chan, Julien Choy (Illustrator)
5 out of 5 stars

This manga adaptation of Williams Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is the perfect way to introduce Shakespeare to readers who might feel intimidated by the original play. The text is modernized, but is still written in iambic pentameter, and still has the original rhymes of the play. The entire play is intact, and all the beauty of Shakespeare’s words comes through wonderfully in this modern adaptation.

I am so impressed with the way the text was modernized, and with the integrity and thoughtfulness that went into editing it. It really does feel like something that Shakespeare would have written if he had been alive today. There is no jarring modern slang to ruin the beauty of the lines. It feels like someone just translated the words from another language, and made it easy to understand for modern readers, but without losing any of the flavor and emotion of the original text.

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