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• Fairy Tail Volume Two

Volume two of Fairy Tail continues to mix light-heartedness with some rather dark themes, and does so fairly well. For a very healthy sum, Lucy, Natsu and Happy are on a job to retrieve and destroy a book for Mr. Melon. We get the immediate fan service of Lucy in a French Maid’s outfit but it does serve a purpose: Lucy is trying to get a job as a maid with the man who stole the book in the first place, Duke Everlue.

• Lunar Legend Tsukihime Volume Five

As Arcueid and Shiki continue their quest for the vampire Roa, things take a more light-hearted turn in this latest volume; at least, comparatively speaking for a series like Tsukihime! The volume starts off with Shiki continuing to wonder about the mysterious, unknown child from his past, and big sister Akiha continues to thwart him at every turn.

• Hell Girl Volume One

This review will be relatively short because this manga boils down to one thing: do you like horror short stories? If the answer is no, this manga will disappoint you, because that is what it is essentially. Five short stories connected only by the title character, Ai Enma, who really isn’t all that much of a character. She’s more of a device, really, with no growth from one chapter to the next since none is needed for this sort of manga with each chapter being a stand-alone short story. However, poking around online to find out more about the series to help form my thoughts, I found she might begin to grow a bit as the series develops

• A Strange and Mystifying Story Volume One

A Strange and Mystifying Story is suitably named. Akio’s family has been cursed for many generations and everyone eventually dies from different incurable diseases. With his Grandfather’s passing, Akio becomes the last living member in the family but soon falls ill himself. Lonely and upset, Akio heeds his Grandfather’s last words and finds an old tooth hidden inside an incense stand. Out from the tooth came a great wolf-demon who tells his new master he has been serving his family for generations and can cure his disease if Akio should wish it of him.

• Gun Blaze West Volume One

Gun Blaze West is the story of Viu Bannes, a nine-year-old boy with dreams of being a gunslinger in the West. It’s 1875 and Viu lives in Southwestern Illinois. As the story opens, Viu wants to win an arm wrestling contest in the teen division because he covets the gun belt grand prize. Naturally he wins and thus begins his big adventure. Viu and Cissy, his older school teacher and sister, live together after the death of their sheriff and deputy parents. Whether Viu wants to be a lawman isn’t clear but he’s like a typical young boy: he’s very loud and he wants his gun.

• Red

Red is the story of a runaway Prince named Yasuharu. Unable to handle the pressure of ascending to the throne, he hides away in town trying to live an anonymous life. Protecting his secret is a law officer who was once a guard in Yasuharu’s palace, and a young man that the Prince took into his home after first running away. Things are disrupted one day when Yasuharu saves a foreigner named Jiei, a man who is actually (and openly) an assassin, there to kill him.

• Fairy Tail Volume One

I got this to review just after a friend had reviewed it in her journal so I’m hoping not too many of her words end up here, though I have to agree with her about this manga. If you’re offended by the big-boobed scantily dressed shonen female archetype, you can jump ship right here and save yourself time and reading effort. The main character has gravity-defying breasts and a back of iron to hold them and, in spite of that, I still like her.

• Love Lesson

Love Lesson is a collection of short boys’ love stories by Hanae Sakazaki, ranging from friends in school who become something more, to cousins who once exchanged quiet words and now exchange quite a bit more.

• Wild Adapter Volume Five

Wild Adapter: volume five – Finally, we have it: the missing year that takes place between volumes one and two. We’ve been shut out of how, and why, Kubota and Tokito are so close. This story has a curious point-of-view. Rather than using either Kubota or Tokito to tell the tale, it's the journal of the neighbor, Shouta Iizuka, that is used. He’s a young boy (between fourth and fifth grade depending where you are in the volume) who has trouble both at school making friends, and at home with workaholic parents and an emotionally abusive mother.

• Love Circumstances

Yamaguchi and Takagiri are best friends and over the summer they’ve started to date. While Takagiri is very open about his affections and desires, Yamaguchi has trouble expressing his feelings, or accepting Takagiri’s. Thus the title story of Love Circumstances.