Manga are Japanese comics. Manga is a popular story-telling form that can transcend culture and language. Manga are cool. My active pages on various manga series tend to form their own small sections of the site, so that's why this area seems kind of sparse. With U.S. companies translating and releasing popular manga titles in a frenzy, it seems that manga appreciation in the States is on the rise. Hopefully this dusty little corner may prove useful to some few of the growing ranks of happy manga readers.

Sections:
• How to find a manga volume in a Japanese bookstore (outside of Japan) - A potentially useful guide to actually locating a volume of Japanese manga without browsing every book in the store.

• Bastard!! Summaries - Chapter summaries of an intense series by Hagiwara Kazushi that combines Judeo-Christian Good vs. Evil conflict, ultra-violence, humor, sex, and 80's heavy metal. I stopped part-way through Volume 2, as Viz announced their own release of the series. It's left up as a sort of teaser for the series. If you like it, check out Bastard!!: The Drinking Game.

• Tomoko Katoh Summaries - Two series from an author whose work I happened across by chance. The first, Himitsu no Kaidouke (The Mysterious Kaidou Family), is a supernatural romantic comedy centering on a young girl and her "foster brother", the mischievous Prince of Hell. The second story, Tenjou no Ai, Chijou no Koi (Heavenly Love, Earthly Love), is an angst-filled shounen-ai drama set among the class struggles in pre-WWI Austria under the Hapsburg Dynasty. This is my total back-burner project, so unfortunately updates are horribly slow, but I do intend to see it through to completion. Once I at least get the first volumes finished, I'll probably post a few sample scans, since her artwork is really evocative and alluring.

• Pride & Prejudice - A series shrine for Kamio Yohko's Hana yori Dango, a school drama about a plucky working-class girl struggling through an elite high school for wealthy, generally obnoxious youngsters. Like the Jane Austen novel, the schoolyard premise eventually takes a backseat to the rocky courtship of the principal characters. A popular "underground" title, and if you're looking for something besides the usual dingbat heroine, you'll be pleasantly surprised here.

• Casting the Runes - Another series shrine, this time for Alice 19th, a supernatural drama from Watase Yuu, creator of Fushigi Yuugi & Ayashi no Ceres. Since the series itself is a sort of experiment, combining elements of Buddhism and Norse mythology, I'm making the site a bit experimental as well. No character sketches or chapter descriptions, as such, but instead the site evolves as the characters tread the path to enlightenment by unearthing words of power. So far, it seems to be working, although I don't know what I'll do when the series ends :)