Manga!

Today I wanted to talk to you guys about some manga that I’ve been reading lately. Some of these came out last year and some of them are advanced reader copies for books that haven’t been released yet. I think that most of them are out at this point though. I hope you take a second and check them out!

The first manga that I want to talk about is Gals Can’t Be Kind to Otaku?!, Vol. 1 by Norishirochan. In this series we follow Seo who sits next two very popular girls in his class. Seo is an otaku (if you don’t know what that is, it means that he is obsessed with something, usually a manga or anime.). In this series he is obsessed with a TV show for younger girls called Glittermon. While borrowing his eraser, one of these popular girls, Amane, slips up and reveals that she not only knows the show but is a fan (she claims it’s her sister that’s the fan, not her). Throughout the book, Seo hangs out with and gets to know the popular girls are realizes that they’re pretty normal people. I’m excited to see where the next volume goes because of how this one ended (no spoilers here). I think it’ll be an interesting second volume. I will definitely be picking it up.

Next up we have Magical Midlifer, Vol. 1 by MAKI. This came out late last year so you can read it now if you’d like! In this book we follow Tanaka who is essentially backup for magical girls. In this world magical girls kill witches, usually streamed on live TV, and then magical midlifers clean up by killing the witch’s familiars who are much, much stronger.

This was such an interesting concept for a manga. I’ve read plenty of magical girl manga but never one where there’s an older magical girl/boy that comes in and cleans up after the normal magical girls. I really enjoyed this so far and I’m curious to see where the story goes. I’m not sure how much they can really explore with this premise. It seems pretty straight forward. Maybe they will look at how the midlifers are so much stronger than the regular magical girls? Or why the familiars are so strong? It just doesn’t seem like there’s much to explore, but we’ll see. I enjoyed this first volume so I’ll be continuing the series for now to see where the story goes.

Next up we have Even a Replica Can Fall in Love, Vol. 1 by Momose Hanada. This came out at the very end of 2025 in the middle of December so it’s out now if you’d like to read it! In this book we follow Sunao, or rather, Sunao’s replica, Second. Second popped into existence when Sunao was 7 and didn’t want to go to some event. Second goes to school and does things that Sunao doesn’t want to. But throughout the story we see Second falling for one her classmates, a boy named Sunada. But can a replica ever really fall in love? How can she when Sunao can tell her to go away and she’ll poof out of existence for however long Sunao wants?

Overall, I liked this but I thought it could have gone more into a horror direction than a romance. Although, maybe later volumes will lean more into the horror of having a replica and that replica having to deal with not really being a person.

Sheeta’s Little Big World vol. 1 by Yuki Kamba is an adorable manga about littlefolk who live in a village in a hollowed out log. One of these littlefolk is Sheeta. He lives in the village with his friend Nala. But one day, Nala sees smoke in the distance and takes off to find out what is causing it. Sheeta goes after him and adventures ensue.

This was a very cute first volume of this manga. I loved the characters and it reminded me a lot of The Borrowers, which I watched as a kid and adored. If you are looking for a fun adventure manga, then I think this one would be great to check out!

Parasyte Paperback Collection 1 by Hitoshi Iwaaki is the next book that I want to talk about. I did miss this series when it first came out (it came out the year I was born) so I was excited to see that they were doing a re-release for a new paperback version.

I really enjoyed this first volume! I will definitely be picking up more of this series. I can’t wait to see how the relationship between Shinichi and Migi develops as the story goes on. Just a heads up that this is pretty gory and violent so if you’re not a fan of that maybe skip this one. If that doesn’t bother you though, I think you should definitely check this series out!

Lastly we’ve got GAEA-TIMA the Gigantis 1 by Kent. I really enjoy reading about kaiju, so I knew that this volume would be right up my alley. The plot and pacing of this are breakneck; they start off very fast at the beginning and don’t let up much throughout the book. I really enjoy something that is fast-paced. I also really enjoyed the artwork. I thought that the kaiju were well-designed and interesting to look at. I really loved this and will definitely be picking up the next volume in the series.

That’s it for this post! I hope you guys enjoyed and I would love to hear about what you’re reading right now. Are any of you snowed in with the crazy weather that’s going on? There’s not much bad weather where I live so I’m doing good in that aspect.