Black Lagoon Volume 5
Why do people like Black Lagoon? Aside from the fast-paced and action-packed story, good-looking women wielding guns, sick fights, and amazing characters there’s nothing for anyone to enjoy, besides beautiful art. So if you’re allergic to epic awesomeness in any form, stay away from this series. Sarcasm aside, Black Lagoon truly is a great series, and the fifth volume doesn’t deviate from this.

The story of volume five returns to Japan, where Russian mafia group, Hotel Moscow, is aiming to expand in the organized crime market. The leader of Hotel Moscow, Balalaika holds negotiations with a Japanese gang by the name of the Washimine-gumi. It’s here where our protagonists, Revy and Rock, are brought along to assist in these efforts to save Yukio, the kidnapped Washimine-gumi boss (and high school student). However, when negotiations go haywire the Washimine-gumi find themselves under fire from Hotel Moscow. Caught in the middle, Rock and Revy must decide what to do in the fierce gang war.

Samurai 7: Volume 1
For any manga to recycle a storyline, throw it into a new time period and keep it believable is a challenging feat. A manga adaptation of the 2004 Gonzo anime series, which itself was a adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 The Seven Samurai, Samurai 7 shows that even when a story is adjusted for the 21^st century, the fundamental essence of the original story can still be maintained.

Review by: Sean "Pants" Mitchell
Story & Art by: Atsushi Suzumi
Distributed by: Del-Rey

Rain's reign's gone away.  Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Del-Rey brings us the latest work from the creator of Venus Versus Virus; however, those expecting girls, ghosts, and guns should know this is a very different story. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering Amefurashi appears to be directed at somewhat younger target audience.

King of RPGs Vol. 1
Review by: Sean Russell
Written by: Jason Thompson
Ilustrated by: Victor Hao
Publisher: Del Rey

Jason Thompson is no stranger when it comes to manga. His magnum opus on the subject, Manga: The Complete Guide, put him through a hellacious schedule of reading and writing about close to 5,000 individual manga. It only makes sense that the next step in this borderline-insane obsession is to pen his own original series titled King of RPGs.

This series takes a comical look at the lives of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) fanatic and his friends. The main character’s obsession in combination with a Dissociative Identity Disorder creates a series of amusing misunderstanding in the multi-faceted world of role-playing.

Review by: Jd Banks
Created by: Yuki Sato
Released by: Del Rey

It’s a typical formula: people meet, they become great friends within the spanof a day, and they triumph over any folly because through the power of friendship.It doesn’t give readers any satisfaction, and Yokai Doctor does little to notirritate my mild allergy to that type of manga.

Author Yuki Sato preps an unusual story but it flat-lines due to lacklustercharacter development and unexciting occurrences. The popular Kotoko Kasugagets swept up with Kuro Gokokuji, a perverted teenager with a side professionas a doctor. Unfortunately, his patients aren’t even human. Rather, they’reyokai: demons and spirits invisible to the human eye. Though Kuro tries to hidehis true nature, Kotoko decides to become his assistant. As they try to helptheir demonic patients, Kotoko finds her perspective on the world challenged,having thought yokai were evil and humans were good.

Review by: Jd Banks
Story: Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier
Art: Anzu
Released by: Del Rey 

It's great that the X-Men franchise has made its way into the manga world again after a brief brush in Wolverine: Logan. However, seeing it re-packaged in such a cheap fashion leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Granted, re-making any story from popular source material is a difficult task, especially when it’s re-tooling an action-drama like X-Men into a shojo drama. No one can expect to get there without bumps along the way, but this X misses the spot.

Review by: Fernando Ramos

Author: Kiyo QJO

Publisher (US): Tokyopop

Publisher (Japan): Kadokawa Shoten

Manga gained much of its reputation in the West for having a considerably dynamic style when compared to Western comic-dom. Stylish, round-eyed character designs, minimalist backgrounds and engaging free-flowing panel layouts told fantastical stories in a cinematic manner.

Zone-00, written by Kiyo QJO, manages to at least get the dynamic style of manga right. Aside from that, it is the single most incoherent piece of dreck masquerading as a comic that I have ever reviewed.

Shoujo Art Studio

By: Yishan Li

Review by: Jd Banks

Publisher (US): Watson-Guptill Publications

Publisher (UK):  ILEX Press

It’s easy for any aspiring artist to get sucked into the vortex of studio software, many of which are promising the fastest and latest technology to create excellent comic strips, manga, and digital artwork.  Though most of the advertised promises are held as hearsay, Yishan Li’s Shoujo Art Studio might be embellishing on their own pledge: Shoujo Art Studio does not have “everything you need to create your own shoujo manga comics”.

The visible CD-ROM gives the perception that it will hold a manga creation software similar to Manga Studio or TAB Manga. Unfortunately, upon popping the disc into the computer, disappointment floats between the artist’s eyes and the screen. “Folders?” The only properties lining the window of the disc are folders holding Photoshop (PSD) formatted files with different background scenes, tones, and accessories for creating manga. There are no executable programs awaiting the artist. Instead, Shoujo Art Studio is dependent on the artist already owning Photoshop 7.0 or higher on their computer.