Wednesday, November 30, 2022

More Manga News…

I talked about the revival of my best-loved slice-of-life manga in the previous post. In this post I will talk about three more mangas, two of which are spin-offs of one of the most popular ninja-themed manga ever.

Yes, you guessed it right! That manga is Naruto. It has had a few spin-offs till date. The still-running out of those is, of course, “Boruto: Naruto’s Son”. However, now two more spin-offs have been added to that ever-increasing-list. What a prolific mangaka Masashi Kishimoto is! I would say “hats off” to him but since I don’t wear hats, a simple “congratulations” will have to suffice. Please accept it without any ill-feelings. So what are these two spin-offs I hear you ask. They are: “Naruto: Sasuke’s Story” and “Naruto: Konoha’s Story”. The first one is about Sasuke (& SPOILER ALERT: Sakura)’s quest to find a life-saving cure for Naruto because Naruto is helluva sick due to over-use of sage mode or something. The second one is about Kakashi and Guy’s vacation from Konoha with a new character, Mirai Sarutobi, granddaughter of the third hokage (daughter of Asuma & Kurenai) or some such setup. These seem like interesting stories so I’ll read a few more chapters and decide whether to continue or not. That is, these mangas haven’t yet made it to my list of manga/anime that I’ve compiled here (see the tab above?).

The third manga which VIZ nudged me towards is “Cipher Academy”. A completely new (I guess) manga based around puzzles, riddles, cryptography, and brainy-stuff like that, including mystery-stuff like who are all these characters and what are their motivations in attending this academy! What the hell, man? Who introduces boatloads of characters in just the first two chapters! Who does “NISIOISIN” think he is? Gabriel García Márquez? Elena Ferrante? Anyway, the storyline seems promising and intriguing so once again I’ll read a few more chapters and decide whether to continue or not. That is, this manga has not yet made it to, you know what…

New Mangas @ VIZ.com

What more to read?

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Sketchbook is Revived…

Woo hoo!!! Finally, after 5 years the scanlation of Sketchbook has resumed. I am not sure about the group doing it but here it is: Sketchbook @ MangaDex. It seems to have resumed around 5 months ago but I noticed it only a week or so ago while searching for something else on Reddit! Talk about good luck. I read all the remaining chapters (150 onwards) of volume 11, and v12, and v13 in one sitting on that auspicious day. Now only one volume is left unscanlated, and I hope this anonymous but generous group or person delivers it before this year ends as X-mas present for this whole wide world. Till then, revisit v14 in these posts.

Sketchbook v14

Enjoy this feeling of impending sketchbook while it lasts.

I hope this generous group or person scanlates Scorebook’s remaining chapters too. I hear you ask what is that! Well, ‘Scorebook’ is a one-volume manga by the author of Sketchbook and here it is:

Scorebook