Our selection offers you a crazy superhero story, a historical manga in 18th century France about Rose Bertin, wacky, full of action and humor, a title about memory, a search for oneself, a touching manga with a melancholic and nostalgic atmosphere, and a very critical portrait of human kind in the background of survival.
“Yan”, Sheng Chang, in Glénat
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An amazing trilogy. A re-reading of the famous Peking Opera through a crazy superhero story where pop and traditional culture coexist beautifully.
The family of 15-year-old Yan is part of the prestigious Peking Opera troupe… But on the day when all its members are brutally murdered, the teenager finds herself unjustly accused of this heinous murder! The only survivor of the massacre, she will be imprisoned for many years in a secret research center. But the moment of truth came. Back among the living, Yan has not forgotten anything. Dressed in the traditional theater costume that her family used to wear, she will enter into a spiral of revenge…
The drawings are effective, sometimes very dark with very nice shadow work. Certain scenes and costumes remind us of Yana cat’s eyes Or cat Woman or Kill Bill. If the plot is clear, the story has many surprises in store for us. Be careful while reading if you don’t want to miss important elements.
“Rose Bertin, Fatal Seamstress”, Jingetsu Isomi, in Kazoku (Michel Lafon)
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A historical manga set in 18th century France that follows Rose Bertin, a real and important character as one of the first female entrepreneurs.
Marie-Jeanne Bertin has an exceptional talent: dresses, hats, embroidery, nothing can resist her! The young woman has no equal when it comes to inventing new toilets. Soon employed in a fashion house in Paris, she intends to become the best worker in the capital… But she is not yet aware of the unusual fate that is promised to her: between the fashion revolution and irrational spending, her meeting with Queen Marie-Antoinette will forever change the fate of France. .
Very true to history, the manga also takes some scripting liberties that enhance the story. The drawing is light, expressive, the plates are full of details about the costume of the time and the Parisian environment. The mangaka invites us to examine the panels, and we discover characters that we haven’t necessarily seen, such as an oriental merchant, a town messenger, a laundress…
If you love the world of fashion and fashion, history and strong women, this is the manga for you.
“Kindergarten wars”, You Chiba, in Ki-oon
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A somewhat crazy manga, full of action and humor.
Discover the safest kindergarten in the world and its explosive teachers! Rita is the latest recruit in “Kindergarten Black”, which has been called “the safest kindergarten in the world”, which accepts the children of the country’s elite. The institution’s reputation is well-deserved: its employees are experienced criminals responsible for repelling every attack! Rita herself is a legendary killer who accepted this extraordinary position in exchange for a reduced sentence…
Think there’s only action? Not at all, because what Rita dreams about is love. As soon as she sees a man, she considers him a potential future boyfriend, provided he is handsome and, above all, shares her special taste. Cuisine, cinema, personality… Every opponent is put to the test with an uncompromising quiz, where even the smallest mistake is punished with death, which causes very funny moments.
Explosive, totally absurd and striking mix.
“Silent Blue”, Icori Ando,
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A manga about memory, the search for oneself and the intimate, from which a sweetness full of mystery emerges.
20 years ago, a meteorite crashed into the heart of the city where young Aoko lived. Incessant rain has filled the crater created by the accident, and the mysterious lake now contains the dormant memory of homes. Aoko, now an adult, keeps diving into this lake to find the memories buried there…
This one off manga is a good one where the mystery is present but not the main element. The story basically revolves around Aoko, a determined, lucid and calm young girl. The way she looks at life gives the story a poetic, warm and mysterious atmosphere. She leads us in her search, without us actually knowing what she is looking for. The drawing is nice, clear, sometimes intoxicating, sometimes refined, it knows how to awaken emotions. A very good moment.
“Rule of Three”, Fumiya Hayashi, from Sakka
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“It makes me sad when the things we love disappear without us being able to do anything about it.“. Touching manga, melancholic and nostalgic atmosphere from which we find it difficult to part.
“The three of us, it should have taken forever.”
Kôtarô and Tôru, neighbors and childhood friends, once fell in love with the same young woman: Tôko. The three of them formed a strange bittersweet triangle, until Tôru’s sudden disappearance.
Today, despite all the years, despite his seemingly peaceful marriage to Tôko, Kôtarô is still haunted by regret and consumed by guilt. A meeting like a burst of thunder will suddenly bring the couple back to the past, to a bright age when life was written as three.
This manga is much more than a love triangle. This is about friendship, love and the complex relationships that can arise within a group of friends. A very realistic story, with sympathetic characters who, as in life, make mistakes, get hurt and are accomplices. This story is about regret, guilt and understanding.
“Even if we are sad that the good times are over, it doesn’t mean that our happiness is gone.“
“Breakdown”, Takao Saito, in Vega
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This manga is interested in survival techniques, but not only that. He paints a very critical portrait of the human species.
As asteroid Wilby risks colliding with Earth, Misato Otomo, an investigator working for the news department of a television channel, decides to visit one of her friends, an expert on comets. Despite himself, he is accompanied by the editor-in-chief, who hopes for an exclusive. But things won’t go as planned. Misato Otomo and her leader miraculously survive the cataclysm, but will discover a devastated Japan, returned to the Stone Age. They will have to overcome plague, animals that have gone wild again, extreme food shortages… and humanity that has returned to its barbaric origins.
The tension builds as the pages progress, the angst of death, the discovery of the landscape, the difficulties to be faced. An opportunity for the author to distill some survival tips/techniques. The behavior of the editor-in-chief is intolerable, especially because he seems completely detached from reality. This illustrates the sinister side of human nature in a desperate situation. The more the story progresses, the more we wonder what will be Misato Otomo’s reaction to her boss who treats him like a slave.
On the drawing side, we immediately recognize Takao Saito’s style, intense and very realistic, which grabs us very quickly.