YA Manga Review: Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon. The manga that popularized a genre. 

This is where many of the magic girl tropes was established. Even if you haven’t read it before you will probably recognize the characters. This book is funny, dramatic, and at times heartwarming. The artwork is beautiful.

Usagi is a 14 year old girl who, on her way to school finds a cat with a crescent moon on its forehead. Turns out this cat is called Luna and she can talk! Luna tells Usagi she is the legendary Sailor Moon, a powerful warrior with the mission of finding her fellow Sailors and to find the Moon Princess. But Usagi is a crybaby and not ready to lead a team, let along fight evil. But with the help of her new friends and a mysterious and handsome masked man, she might learn to be brave.

Naoko Takeuchi used her science background as well as her love of astronomy and geology in writing her epic story. The aesthetic is very 90s and some on the references are a bit dated, but as with the cultural references, those dated ones are explained at the back of these editions.

Review by: Holly

Manga Review: Blue Exorcist

Rin's not having a good day, when he returns home with signs that hes been in another fight his father decides that this is the last straw and suits him up and sends him out to find a           job, arrgh! not how Rin wanted to spend his day.  While walking to his new job he is surrounded again by the same jerks that started the fight that morning .. but this time things are different the groups leader seems to have a tail and horns? But before he can figure out why, things quickly escalate and Rin's life is now in danger and Rin explodes into blue flames - the legendary powerful blue flames of the son of Satan. In that moment Rin's life changes forever and hes pulled into the life of an Exorcist - a group of elite people trained to hunt and eliminate demons.

Rin now has his work cut out for him, he needs to learn how to control his powers before the leaders of the Exorcist's think hes to unpredictable and dangerous and lock him up, he must also learn to work as a team with his fellow new recruits which wont be easy because they all think he is going to burn them alive at any minute and on top of all that he wants to learn who is is and what this flame means for him...

P.S wait until you meet the coolest sidekick, Kuro !

Review from a book club kid: Again!! Vol 1

Okay, guys, I didn't think that this was good until I sat down and gave it a good read. I was wrong * Hands Up* it's really good, it gave me a huge Haikyuu!! vibe. I thought this was Shojo since it was a slice of life manga but..... surprise surprise it's a Shonen!

At first when I picked it up and I was like huh. The character here on the first volume sorta looks like a gender-bent Sasuke.

I have to say, this series has a really good storyline and it's been set up perfectly and there really isn't anything that I would fault about it. All the characters have different perks and personalities. This series is really relatable to highschoolers nowadays and teaches us a good lesson. 

This review was created by one of our Read and Recommend Book Clubs . 

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Review from a book club kid: InuYasha Umnibus 13

For once, this manga has started without picking up where another has had a 'to be continued...' 

(right in the middle of a fight).

The series is about a group of people (3 humans, 1 half-demon and 1 full demon who is a kid) trying to defeat an extremely-powerful-and-hard-to-kill-half-demon.

I personally really enjoy this series because of the creativity and thought put into each character. The artist is extremely good at drawing expressions. on top of that the story line is amazing if you enjoy long action and adventure series.

This review was created by one of our Read and Recommend Book Clubs .
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YA Manga Review: Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is here !!

After two brothers make a huge mistake they set off on an adventure to right their wrongs, but its not as easy as they think. Edward's only option is to join the State Alchemists which isn't really where he wants to be, but its the only place that might have the answers he needs.

             Edward Elric aka The Fullmetal Alchemist and his brother Alphonse Elric number one goal is to undo their big mistake but as they get closer to their goal they uncover more then they intended and encounter some unexpected enemies that have plans of there Elric brother that no one saw coming

Manga Review: Queens Quality

I'm loving this manga! Its a follow on from QQ Sweeper, a manga i didn't actually like but might give a second chance now.

It starts with Fumi getting magically attacked in her garden, when she fights back she releases an incredible dormant power inside of her which basically allows her to control people!

These powers come with a good side and a bad side. In order to not destroy the world with these new powers Fumi must learn to control the bad side before it controls her and if that wasn't hard enough other clans are plotting to use her bad powers for themselves no matter the cost!

With danger all around Kyutaro has taken on the challenge of "Queens guard" meaning he will sacrifice everything to keep Fumi safe.

But with Fumi starting to remember haunting memories from her past and Kyutaro hiding some serious secrets of his own do they have any chance of holding back the darkness...

Manga Review: Made in Abyss #1

Okay.. this was wonderfully strange. 

Made in Abyss was a different kind of fantasy story than I'm used too. The Abyss is basically a giant giant giant Cave System in the middle of the earth and is the only place left in the world that humans haven't fully explored. 

The mysterious thing about the Abyss is that the deeper you travel into the cave the worst it is for you to travel back to the top, so basically people don't return to the top they just keep exploring further down into the abyss and send up letters and artifacts when they can, which means the people on the surface still know very little about the lower levels of the abyss.  

The main characters are a group of children learning to be Cave Divers, People trained to explore the Abyss, while searching around Rico is attached by one of the many dangerous creators that roam the caves, she is mysteriously saved by a boy named Reg with mechanical arms and legs who has no memory of who he is or how he got there.

Rico and Reg quickly plan a secret adventure into the lower levels of the Abyss to find Rico's mother -an expert cave diver- after Rico receives what she believes is a coded message from her mother and to see if the lower levels will explain what Reg is and maybe trigger some of the memories he's lost - like why he needs a blaster canon built into his arm??

I'm definitely keen to see where this manga series goes and with the wacky mysterious story line anything could happen