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The Best Manga of 2009: The Manga Critic’s Picks
I pity the poor critic who panned Up — it’s not fun to buck the tide of critical approbation, especially when it seems like everyone else is wholeheartedly embracing the film or book in question. I say...
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The 2009 Manga Hall of Shame Inductees
I’m pleased to report that 2009 yielded fewer jaw-droppingly bad manga in the vein of Eiken, J-Pop Idol, or Shiki Tsukai — surely the most confusing manga ever written about weather — though it wasn’t...
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The Best Manga of 2010: The Manga Critic’s Picks
For all the upheaval within the manga industry — the demise of CMX, Del Rey, and Go! Comi, the layoffs at VIZ — 2010 proved an exceptionally good year for storytelling. True, titles like Black Butler,...
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The 2010 Manga Hall of Shame Inductees
While there’s no shortage of boring or cliche manga available in English — even with fewer titles being released this year — grade-A turkeys are going the way of the dodo. I had so much difficulty...
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The 2011 Manga Hall of Shame Inductees
With TOKYOPOP’s untimely demise this year, critics lost one of their most reliable sources of shame-worthy manga. Though I won’t miss reading J-Pop Idol, Dragon Sister, Innocent W, or Zone-00 — to name...
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The Best Manga of 2011: The Manga Critic’s Picks
The usual gambit for introducing a year-end list is to remark on the abundance of good titles, acknowledge the difficulty in choosing just ten (or five, or three), and comment on the overall state of...
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The Best and Worst Manga of 2015
After a two-year hiatus from blogging, I donned my critic’s cap again in 2015. I’ve enjoyed writing my quasi-weekly column, but composing a year-end list reminded me why I stepped off the reviewing...
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The Manga Critic’s Year in Review: 2017
When I put The Manga Critic on hold in 2012, the Internet was changing: Facebook and Twitter were replacing forums, Live Journals, and personal blogs as the primary way in which Internet users shared...
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