Category: Manga

Manga, Review

Manga Review: White of a Wedding Ceremony by Takayama Shinobu

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Manga Review: White of a Wedding Ceremony by Takayama Shinobu

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a manga volume and this one is a little different. While I usually read and review English translations, this volume is one that I read in Japanese. Well, I used a translation app on a Japanese volume. But this stunning manga book is a series that I’ve been wanting to start for a while. I don’t think it’ll be getting an official translation any time soon, so here we go.

A mysterious disease has been killing people and bringing some back to life. The tell is the flowers on the body and newspaper reporter Kiso has been sent to investigate. During his research, he meets Shiraume, a tempting young woman who calls herself a “Demon’s Burning Light”. Fascinated by her, the two of them start looking more into these strange cases.

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books, Manga, tbr

Light Novels I Have To Read

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books1 Comment on Light Novels I Have To Read
Light Novels I Have To Read

I’ve spoken about light novels a fair bit on here and on my social media. They’re something I really enjoy reading and will continue to do so. So I’ve decided to put together a little post about a few of the books I’ve got to read!

Most of these are isekai series. For those who don’t know, isekai are series where a character is transported or reborn in another world or time. Usually, the characters are transported into some sort of series they like, but apparently, even a series where a character dies and goes back to repeat their time can be considered isekai. I don’t have anything against the idea of isekai series, but the market is a little oversaturated with them. I’d like to pick up more light novels that don’t fall under this genre but alas…it’s most of what we get.

That said, all the series on this list are ones targeted at girls or women. I don’t have much interest in checking out any of the shonen or seinen light novels I’ve seen. But if you have more shoujo or josei recs? Shoot them my way!

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Manga

BL Manga Recommendations – Part 2

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BL Manga Recommendations – Part 2

It’s been over half a year since my last one of these. Since then, I’ve seen Gavin from How to Train Your Gavin on Youtube discover that BL is a thing and start diving into it. Seeing that reminded me of my rec post and made me want to start reading more of it again. It’s been a while since I really bought a lot of manga, so this has been fun, and now I have new recommendations for you!

Once again, these all veer more towards shonen-ai than yaoi. None of these series is mature – though I’m reading some of those too, ahem – and the highest rating is OT which is 16+. These are all manga I’ve read myself and enjoyed, so I’d be happy to talk about them if any of you have read them!

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Manga, video games

Anime, Manga and the Female Gaze

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Anime, Manga and the Female Gaze

I love anime, manga and video games. I talk about them on my blog and all my social media. I’m majorly into a mobile game right now, one that has an anime series, including an upcoming film, and I’m even writing fanfiction for it. Some of the series I love are the popular ones you see a lot of people talking about, and you can easily get merch for in the west. But those series tend to be shonen or seinen series. That’s not to say I don’t love any series where the target audiences are girls and women. My current obsession is definitely aimed at girls, and it definitely has a fairly large fanbase but is it promoted as much in the West? No.

In fact, very few female-targeted series get promoted as hard in the West.

I did a poll on Twitter recently asking people whether they thought female-targeted series are promoted as much in the West, and 5 out of the 6 people who answered agreed that they aren’t. There is something incredibly sad about this, and I want to talk about it.

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Manga

Josei Manga Recommendations

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Josei Manga Recommendations

I’ve been wanting to do another manga recommendations list for a bit. And I decided that this time, I just have to go for josei manga. Josei manga is manga series aimed at women 16+, and is, therefore, a little more mature than shoujo. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re smutty, and there are actually quite a few series that are fantasies focused on male protagonists, but they still have pretty art styles.

As someone who loves fantasy with pretty boy characters, and doesn’t mind a bit of fujobait as unpopular as that can be (I understand queerbaiting is wrong, but it’s still fun to see these pretty boys have fun interactions), that kind of josei is definitely for me.

Most of the series on this list will be fantasy josei, as that’s the kind I tend to read. So if you’ve wandered over here from my BL list, there will be stuff you will enjoy too. I do have to say that one of these series is a little older and maybe a bit more difficult to get, but I had to include it.

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Manga

BL Manga Recommendations

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books4 Comments on BL Manga Recommendations
BL Manga Recommendations

It’s time for a manga recommendation post. And not just any genre of manga but BL. For those of you who didn’t read the I Read A Yaoi Audiobook post, BL stands for Boys Love. It’s a genre that, in the past, was split into shonen-ai and yaoi. Shonen-ai translates as Boys Love, but this is more commonly used now.

If you’re already immersed in the manga scene and like picking up BL manga, this post won’t be for you. I’ve only recently started reading the genre again, and my recommendations here are well-known series. Some of them are difficult to get your hands on at the moment, but volumes are still being published. There is one exception which I’ll list at the bottom, but I can’t talk about BL and not mention this one-volume manga and light novel series.

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Manga

The Wonders of Doujinshi

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Zines are something that is slowly getting more popular. Whether you’re looking for fandom zines advertising on Twitter or Tumblr or the more traditional zines with unusual poetry and pictures, you can always find something for you. Zines themselves aren’t new, they’ve been around for many years, but in Japan, there’s been a particular form of manga that are essentially zines.

Doujinshi.

So today, I want to talk a little about doujinshi. I’m going to explain what it is for those who don’t know and just say why you should all think about getting some. Or, y’know, try drawing some if you’re into that.

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Manga, Review

I Read A Yaoi Audiobook

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books1 Comment on I Read A Yaoi Audiobook
I Read A Yaoi Audiobook

If you haven’t noticed now, I’m a massive anime/manga/game nerd. I’ve posted about josei manga, light novels, and I’ve even reviewed a few volumes. Over the last few months, I’ve gotten back into manga and games in a way that I haven’t been for years. I’ve never stopped enjoying it, but I did sort of fall out of it for a while. Even if my last few obsessions have been anime and games, my focus was only on the individual series. Not manga and games as a whole.

Once again, I’m desperate to visit Japan. It’s not something that I will be able to afford any time soon, so I’ve been watching videos of people living in Japan on YouTube instead. It has been a lot of fun, and one that I stumbled upon last night was a British voice actor living in Japan…producing an audiobook of a yaoi manga in a month. The manga was called You Are My Princess, and the project was pulled together by CDawgVA, which you can check out here.

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Manga, video games

Where To Buy Japanese Anime/Game Merch

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Where To Buy Japanese Anime/Game Merch

A bit of a different post for me today, but my birthday has just been, and you know I spent some money on merch. Not birthday money, what I got cost too much for that, but it’s something that I do often spend as much money on as I do books. I’ve been thinking about these sites I’ve learned about over the years and thought I’d recommend a few.

If you’re heavily involved in anime or game fandoms, you may already know all these resources. They’re all pretty well known, even if I only figured out one recently. Sometimes I can be a little slow, but that’s okay. This post is for the people who maybe only got into anime or Japanese games recently or the people who just don’t know where to look.

I won’t be including the obvious places like Depop, eBay or Amazon. I’m also not going to list particular UK stores. The shops on this list will be based in Japan, so you can order from them wherever you are in the world. I’ve bought from all but one, but the other is one that I’ve known a friend use before.

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