(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
Seamlessly mixing secret agent-type action with slice-of-life vignettes and fish-out-of-water comedy, Shimazaki in the Land of Peace is the charming alternate history political thriller you never knew you were dying to read. After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
(W) Gouten Hamada (A) Takeshi Seshimo
After surviving a terrorist incident as a child, Shingo Shimazaki was forced to join the League for Economic Liberations' revolutionary army. Now, thirty years later, he's back in Japan and trying to assimilate to a normal life. His Japanese may be awkward, and his grasp of ordinary tasks a little weak, but he has all the combat and surveillance training of a green beret. There are many kindhearted souls who want to help him-and a few not so kind ones who will do anything to stop him.
Based on the book by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, Seguchi's Sickness Unto Death is a modern fictional retelling of his concepts of despair, sin, and self-image. At 18, Futaba Kazuma is going to college to get his certification in clinical psychology. While attending school, he boards at a creepy mansion. Also living there is a strange young woman called Emiru. She suffers from a terminal illness of the heart - despair. This deep psychological problem has eerie physical effects as well: her hair has turned white, her body temperature is well below normal, and her blood pressure is also bizarre. No psychologists or counselors have been able to help cure her of this problem. Will Kazuma be able to determine the cause of Emiru's despair and save her before it's too late?
At 18, Futaba Kazuma is going to college to get his certification in clinical psychology. While attending school, he boards at a creepy mansion, which even has a butler. Also living there is a strange young woman called Emiru. She is suffering from a terminal illness of the heart - despair. This deep psychological problem has eerie physical effects as well: her hair has turned white, her body temperature is well below normal, and her blood pressure is also bizarre. No psychologists or counselors have been able to help cure her of this problem. Will Kazuma be able to determine the cause of Emiru's despair and save her before it's too late?
(W/A) Hiroaki Samura
Winner of the Excellence Award in Manga at the 2014 Japan Media Arts Festival, this deeply researched political drama from the creator of Blade of the Immortal transports us to the frigid fringes of the nascent Soviet Union of the 1930s. Bielka ('Squirrel'), a beautiful young woman in a wheelchair, and her taciturn companion Shchenok ('Puppy') must keep their true identities secret as they navigate the fraught political climate and harsh landscape of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Intrigue abounds in this richly historical and erotic political drama that weaves historical figures including the Romanovs and Rasputin into Hiroaki Samura's brilliant fiction.
(W) Riichi Yokomitsu (A) Atsuki Ito
A more intimate and romantic entry in the Maiden's Bookshelf series, this tale of doomed romance brings together the so-called 'God of Literature' with the gorgeous artwork of Atsuki Ito, author of A Love-Letter in 26 Characters. Now I can die happy...' A loving husband nurses his ailing wife in a house by the sea. An exploration of love in the face of terminal illness.
(W) Kyouka Izumi (A) Honojirotowoji
The Maiden's Bookshelf series continues with this eerie classic from the great Izumi Kyoka. 'But you couldn't have known!' A mysterious encounter in the surgery room leads back down the paths of memory, after a young woman refuses anaesthetic to protect her secret... Izumi Kyoka's 1895 classic is a mysterious, wrenching tale of doomed love.
(W) Makoto Shinkai (A) Amashima Denki
High school junior Suzume runs into a handsome stranger, Souta, who tells her he is looking for a door and asks where he can find ruins in her town. She points him toward a resort that has long fallen past all hope of repair, then thinks better of it and races after him to warn him of the danger of trespassing there. While fruitlessly searching for Souta, Suzume opens a door seemingly to nowhere and finds a starry landscape stretch out on the other side of the frame. Later, at school, she realizes she's the only one who can see an ominous, worm-like colossus emerge from the mountains and rushes back to the ruins where she finds Souta struggling to shut the monster back in the door. Suzume helps Souta close the door on the mythical worm, which is revealed to be the cause of massive earthquakes, never knowing that her involvement would soon leave Souta trapped in the three-legged wooden chair Suzume's late mother crafted for her and send them both on a cross-country race to seal all the worms away and save Japan from devastation.
(W) Makoto Shinkai (A) Amashima Denki
High school junior Suzume runs into a handsome stranger, Souta, who tells her he is looking for a door and asks where he can find ruins in her town. She points him toward a resort that has long fallen past all hope of repair, then thinks better of it and races after him to warn him of the danger of trespassing there. While fruitlessly searching for Souta, Suzume opens a door seemingly to nowhere and finds a starry landscape stretch out on the other side of the frame. Later, at school, she realizes she's the only one who can see an ominous, worm-like colossus emerge from the mountains and rushes back to the ruins where she finds Souta struggling to shut the monster back in the door. Suzume helps Souta close the door on the mythical worm, which is revealed to be the cause of massive earthquakes, never knowing that her involvement would soon leave Souta trapped in the three-legged wooden chair Suzume's late mother crafted for her and send them both on a cross-country race to seal all the worms away and save Japan from devastation.
(W) Makoto Shinkai (A) Amashima Denki
High school junior Suzume runs into a handsome stranger, Souta, who tells her he is looking for a door and asks where he can find ruins in her town. She points him toward a resort that has long fallen past all hope of repair, then thinks better of it and races after him to warn him of the danger of trespassing there. While fruitlessly searching for Souta, Suzume opens a door seemingly to nowhere and finds a starry landscape stretch out on the other side of the frame. Later, at school, she realizes she's the only one who can see an ominous, worm-like colossus emerge from the mountains and rushes back to the ruins where she finds Souta struggling to shut the monster back in the door. Suzume helps Souta close the door on the mythical worm, which is revealed to be the cause of massive earthquakes, never knowing that her involvement would soon leave Souta trapped in the three-legged wooden chair Suzume's late mother crafted for her and send them both on a cross-country race to seal all the worms away and save Japan from devastation.
Long considered as one of Osamu Tezuka's most political narratives, Ayako is also considered to be one of his most challenging. Initially set in the aftermath of World War II, Ayako focuses its attention on the Tenge clan, a once powerful family of landowners living in a rural community in northern Japan. The war and American occupation have begun to erode the fabric that binds them all together. The increasing influence of political, economic and social change begins to tear into the many Tenge siblings, and they decide to turn their collective rage on what they believe to be the source of their troubles - the newest member of the Tenge family, the youngest sister Ayako.
Japanese comics godfather Osamu Tezuka tells the story of Buddha's life like it's never been told before. Entertaining, visually spectacular, and warm, Buddha is the ultimate example of Tezuka's storytelling genius and artistic mastery. The progenitor of manga as we know it, and the inspiration for countless artists, Osamu Tezuka continues to elicit the deepest awe with his sweeping grasp of the human condition. This life of Buddha is one that all ages and persuasions can enjoy.
Dororo's unique story, set in a swashbuckling environment, made it a shoe-in for live action film adaptation, and its potential for providing such story content in the U.S. is only natural. This action-filled tale of vengeance revolves as much around an Oedipal urge to punish the abandoning father as it does around the characters' confrontations with ghosts and monsters. An edge-of-your-seat manga of redemption.
One of Osamu Tezuka's most cherished works returns in a new two-volume hardcover reprint. The godfather of manga returns with another tour de force as he takes on the topic of Adolf Hitler as told through two young men in Kobe, Japan, both named Adolf. Message to Adolf was a literary masterpiece in its time. Published in Japan's top literary journal, it is a provocative political thriller that poses the question of Hitler's past while examining Nazi Germany from a Japanese perspective.
With World War II escalating, things have become quite heated for the Adolfs. The Nazis have invaded Poland and have begun to move towards Finland. Jews across the region were being persecuted and many have become refugees on the move to Lithuania. Adolf Kamil would have to say farewell to his father Isaac Kamil, when Isaac would leave for Shanghai en route to Lithuania to help the immigration of nearly 500 people into Japan. Meanwhile Adolf Kaufman is now enrolled in a Hitler Youth Academy. His work, some of which would be physically difficult, would lead to a visit with the Fuhrer.
In the Forest of Uruvela, the Buddha undergoes the ritual trials all ascetics must endure - immersion in thorns, fire, and deadly insects, total isolation and reaching the brink of death, to name a few. Yet the world needs his aid, therefore he must discover the middle path!
Japanese comics pioneer Tezuka's monumental account of the life of the Buddha continues. Little is known about the life of the sixth-century-B.C.E. spiritual leader, so Tezuka devotes much of the narrative to characters he created as well as figures from early Buddhist lore, through them portraying the violent society and cruel caste system that the Buddha challenged. Deer Park opens with a meeting between the fictional swordsman Tatta and the historical Devadatta, both of whose lives would be transformed by the Buddha.
Comics godfather Osamu Tezuka tells the story of Buddha's life in a masterpiece of epic proportions that's executed with religious devotion. In an almost Machiavellian rise to power, Devadatta takes in bandit-warrior Tatta as a protégé, and incites the Magadha kingdom to war with the Kosalan empire. Bimbisara fears being killed by his own son, and the Buddha must lose the friends dearest to him before creating a religion.
Prince Ajantasattu, the headstrong young man, must come to terms with a prediction that he will murder his own father. The prince plans instead to assassinate the Buddha, blaming him for making his father believe the 'bogus' prophecy. Meanwhile, the Buddha's closest disciple, Devadatta, schemes to use politics to surpass the Buddha in importance.
In Volume 2, Siddhartha is born to a fanfare of miracles in the wild. His birthplace, Kapilavastu, forever threatened by the expanding Kosalan empire, recieves providence in his powerful birth, which proves the end of his mother's life.
For Devadatta - the title character in this third volume of the award-winning graphic novel series - life is an endless string of deserved and undeserved pain. Will he be able to love the world when all it gives him are reasons to hate it? Showing Davadetta the sanctity of life will be as heart-warming as it will be difficult.
The Buddha travels back to his home in Kapilavastu to summon more followers. He delivers his final sermons in Jetavana, the forest where the Buddha is said to have spent the last several years of his life teacihng. The final sermon is the parable of the self-immolating rabbith, the very first story told in Tezuka's Buddha series!
Yuki is a young bank employee, charismatic but devoid of morality. Garai is the guilt-ridden priest who atones for Yuki's sins. Years ago they survived the release of an experimental psychotic drug, called MW, an event the government covered up. Driven by nothing but his desire to inflict evil upon the world, Yuki's salvation can only come from Garai's negotiation of the guilt-ridden torment of their forbidden love, and his responsibility to stop the vicious killer the MW chemical created!
(W/A) Yuki Ikeda
Three ordinary schoolboys come into possession of a DVD that supposedly opens a gateway to a parallel universe, but when their backs are turned Pyontaro's little sister Futaba passes through and gets kidnapped by the aliens that have overrun that version of Earth! Discovering that their cartoonish bodies make them supermen in the hyper-realistic parallel universe, the boys set out to rescue Futaba.
(W/A) Yuki Ikeda
In the parallel world, Pyontaro and his pals continue to search for a way to rescue Futaba from her alien abductors. After narrowly saving some people in town, the trio is set upon by a group of armed aliens, but then Pyontaro unleashes a devastating attack of his own! Meanwhile, aboard the alien spaceship, an even more fearsome alien squadron mobilizes to recapture Futaba after she escapes! And, as the alien invasion and subsequent subjugation of the city's residents takes a turn for the worse, an encounter between the Small Three and a certain man promises to turn the tides of fate!
(W/A) Yuki Ikeda
An amazing blend of art styles combine with hard-SF elements and meta-comedy to create a comic truly unlike any other! Three ordinary schoolboys come into possession of a DVD that supposedly opens a gateway to a parallel universe, but when their backs are turned Pyontaro's little sister Futaba passes through and gets kidnapped by the aliens that have overrun that version of Earth! Discovering that their cartoonish bodies make them supermen in the hyper-realistic parallel universe, the boys set out to rescue Futaba.
(W/A) Yuki Ikeda
Three ordinary schoolboys come into possession of a DVD that supposedly opens a gateway to a parallel universe, but when their backs are turned Pyontaro's little sister Futaba passes through and gets kidnapped by the aliens that have overrun that version of Earth! Discovering that their cartoonish bodies make them supermen in the hyper-realistic parallel universe, the boys set out to rescue Futaba.
(W/A) Yuki Ikeda
With the people of Shibuya in imminent danger, The Small Three leap across the sky to rush to their aid! Meanwhile, Rebellion forces fighting on the front lines of Shibuya have nearly been eradicated by a pair of alien reinforcements. Just when Segami, the last man standing, is about to meet his demise, The Small Three touch down! With the remnants of Rebellion as well as Doc and co. looking on, the battle to save Shibuya, Japan, even humanity itself resumes!
(W/A/CA) MAYBE
An action fantasy set in a dystopian future where to combat monster attacks monster hunters infuse themselves with monster DNA but in the process lose their humanity resulting in the developement of a monster hunter extermination unit lead by a werewolf named Hank.
(W/A/CA) Hajime Segawa
High intensity action and comedy revolving around teens with psychic abilities set in modern day Tokyo, Tokyo ESP is part X-Men and part Fairy Tale with vibrant character designs that jump at readers. High school girl Rinka Urushiba wakes up to find out she has attained extra-sensory powers, and eventually comes to use them against other espers who have begun wage havoc on Tokyo.
(W) Tsutomu Nihei
Tsutomu Nihei, master of the mysterious architectural monolith, brings his genius to bear on the fantasy genre for the first time, bringing his unique sensibility to bear on a crumbling world of malformed creatures, wounded soldiers, and labyrinthine darkness. An evil necromancer slays the king and carries off his daughter, secreting her in the legendary Dragon Tower. To save the princess, her steadfast Royal Guard assays the stronghold, but the way is blocked by powerful eldritch creatures… So, to supplement their forces in the face of mounting casualties, they press ordinary folks from the surrounding villages into service-including Yuva, a sturdy young farmboy with a strong back but no experience in battle, and only a battered old helm and wooden shield to protect him.
(W) Shuzo Oshimi
Highly-acclaimed manga author Shuzo Oshimi brings his critical cinematic eye to this original one-shot, a dark, intriguing prologue to director Eisuke Naito's newly-released horror film Toxic Daughter. Yua Hayakawa used to love playing with Chi, a mysterious girl with a murky family life who likes collecting dead insects, but it's been years since they've spoken. Now, Chi hardly ever even comes to school. One day, Chi shows up to class in beat-up gym clothes with a handful of dead bugs and starts a commotion that gives Yua's classmate, golden boy Koudai, an idea: he's going to save Chi, and he needs Yua's help to do it. But clean-cut exteriors don't always promise good intentions, and the darkness in Chi may be more dangerous than Yua had ever imagined.
(W/A) Jyanome
Second-years Mao Tsuchiya and Hisashi Otomo make three promises: 1) That Mao will never tell anyone that Hisashi is gay and has a boyfriend, 2) That Hisashi will never think of Mao 'in that way,' and 3) That they'll always knock before entering, in case someone is having some 'private time.' The two's ground rules should ensure a peaceful life together in their dorm, but life is never as simple as it should be, and some things are not so easily promised… This collector's box set contains volumes 1-4 of the Twilight Out of Focus series and includes a special booklet with U.S.-edition-exclusive art, a never-before translated short story, and all-new full-color illustrations.
(W) Nisioisin (A) Oh Great
Second-years Mao Tsuchiya and Hisashi Otomo make three promises: 1) That Mao will never tell anyone that Hisashi is gay and has a boyfriend, 2) That Hisashi will never think of Mao 'in that way,' and 3) That they'll always knock before entering, in case someone is having some 'private time.' The two's ground rules should ensure a peaceful life together in their dorm, but life is never as simple as it should be, and some things are not so easily promised...
(W) Nisioisin (A) Oh Great
Jin Kikuchihara, third-year director, main actor, and president of the film club, and second-year director Giichi Ichikawa see eye-to-eye on very little. Jin is flashy, flirty, and focused on keeping everyone happy, while Giichi expects the best from himself and others, and will compromise nothing to see his vision through. Constantly at each other's necks, the two can hardly stand to be in the same club. But what will happen when family trouble forces them to live in the same room? Will their shared interests bring them closer as friends, push them further apart as rivals, or something else entirely?
(W) Nisioisin (A) Oh Great
First-year Shion Yoshino knows exactly what he wants: a boyfriend straight out of a shojo manga! After failing to find Mr. Right in several athletic teams, he settles on the Film Club and announces his intentions, only for retired Vice President Rei Inaba to make a stunning declaration: 'There is 100% no way you're going to find a boyfriend here.' That very same day, however, it's Rei himself who kisses Shion and asks him out! What does it all mean? Is this really the love of Shion's shojo dreams, or is Rei just a pretty face who won't make room for anyone else in his life? One thins is for certain: Shion Yoshino won't give up without a fight!