Almost 10 years after Julie Otsuka made her spectacular literary debut with When the Emperor Was Divine, I remain even more convinced that Emperor is the best book I've ever read about the Japanese American imprisonment during World War II. Truth be told, Emperor ranks so high on...
With the debut volume receiving major approval by the American Library Association earlier this year by making YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association)'s list of 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens, the rest of the Saturn series certainly has quite a bright future on translated shores. Kind and gentle Mitsu...
In anticipation of tomorrow's frightfest, thought I should share some deathly dystopian manga – ikigami literally translating to 'death paper.' While each volume could potentially stand alone as a series of individual episodes that detail how the chosen spend their predetermined final 24 hours, you'll need to start from...
Check out the earnest determination on an oh-so-young Kenji's face as he announces, "Justice never dies." Four decades later, his surviving renegade friends are desperately trying to keep his prophetic, childhood words alive: "I'm saving this world from evil, no matter what happens!!" Two of the...
Oh, those complicated but charming men who wander in and out of the kitchen, creating and serving the most toothsome fare at the Casetta dell'Orso ...
Let the games continue! Volume 8 adds a new character to the roster – cousin Mizuki Asami returns to Japan from his mountaineering adventures with his world-famous father, and moves in with the Tsukishimas. As sweet, polite, and considerate as he is, he almost immediately announces...
Half a century ago today – on October 1, 1961 – Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run of the season, breaking Babe Ruth's record of 60 set in 1927. I knew you needed this information today (it came in at the...
Oooh, such campy, goofy, gory fun, complete with a buff, albeit geeky APA male hero! But don't judge those dweeby glasses just yet ...
Ready for the final three? Talk about total creep-fest ...
The pace picks up rapidly (in spite of a few too many explanatory inner babbling bubbles) in the second half of one of the most popular manga series ever, endless spin-offs and all! In vol. 7, Kira #3 and his Notebook are now in the hands...
Back when Kenji and the gang were young enough to be concerned about little more than just having fun, an equally young Fukube was trying very, very hard to be included. When sharing his extensive, pristine manga collection doesn't get him invited to "secret headquarters,"...
Need some freak-out adventures you can't put down? Time to continue the Death Note series with four more volumes that will get us to the half-way mark of this international phenomenon – in addition to the expected mega-million copy sales, anime and live-action spin-offs, novelizations, etc....
The story of the brave Tessier children, begun in last year's Resistance, continues here with the focus on the middle child, teenager Paul and his courageous tenacity. The year is 1943, and the German occupation of France is an everyday nightmare. "[T]o ensure their continued control,...
During a term I spent as a grad student in Yokohama, Japan, I wandered every free afternoon through nearby Tokyo with camera in hand. Knowing my time was limited, I even planned out a detailed schedule for which neighborhood (Tokyo is sprawling!) I would go...
We all probably have a little bit of devil in us, but what do you do when you find out that your birthfather is Satan himself? Twin brothers (and, not surprisingly, polar opposites), Rin and Yukio, have been raised all their lives by Father Fujimoto,...
Heidi is not your average soon-to-be-13-year-old: "One thing I knew for a fact, from the time I knew anything at all, was that I didn't have a father. What I had was Mama and Bernadette, and as far as I was concerned, that was plenty."...
When I handed this striking volume to my son (as I often do with most graphic titles, as they seem to be the best way to get him to read), he instantly replied with "oh, I read that already." I insisted that couldn't be possible as...
The Pope is on his way to Japan in time for the opening ceremony of the 2015 World Expo ...
CYJO + “KYOPO” = MARVEL Come one, come all! Get ready for the upcoming Asian Pacific American invasion at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. “Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter” opens this Thursday, August 12 and runs through October 14, 2012. Presented in conjunction with the...
