Mangaroos

Being a teen in love is hard - and it's even harder when your mom is a werewolf and your vampire dad forbids you from dating humans! But with a lone wolf hunk as hunky as Makabe, falling in love might be the only way out for our hero, Ranze Eto. Wacky hijinx abound in the Looney Tunes of shojo manga, Tokimeki Tonight! Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Everywhere else: @m...

Kagurabachi is the manga for anyone who's read Jujutsu Kaisen and wished it was good. It's a cinematic pastiche. A rush of styles and influences exploding onto the page by super-talented newcomer Takeru Hokazono that all just barely manages to hang together, like a dirt bike humming along at full throttle, as long as you never stop to think about it. Goldfish sword power! Get in touch wi...

This may not be news to you, but one of Alex's secret missions throughout the history of Mangaroos has been to get Mark and Jayson to read a BL manga. Well, it's finally happened! And all three of us have nothing but good things to say about the experience.  The Summer Hikaru Died isn't only a BL story, though. It's also an extremely effective tale of eldritch horror and creepi...

Jujutsu Kaisen: modern Shonen Jump classic, or merely the inspiration for an amazing anime adaptation? We'll get to the bottom of this mystery, while also discussing gnarly old finger-shaped convenience store snacks, and finding out exactly what "Jujutsu Kaisen" really means! Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Everywhere else: @mangaroos

The Roos review another winner of the Manga Taisho Award, Spacewalking with You ( Kimi to Uchū o Aruku Tame ni). Self reflect on your personal difficulties in life and overcome them together with us, just like best buds Uno and Kobayashi do in this story :) It’s boys supporting one another through friendship and understanding what makes each one of them not "normal". This episode is guar...

Mangaroos double dips for the first time ever for the much-beloved Arakawa-sensei! FMA expert Alistair takes time from his pilgrimage across Shikoku to take over as guest host on a grainy green payphone to ask the Roos tough questions like what type of alchemist they would be and what exactly makes up a human body. A must listen for any FMA fan! See Alistair’s adventures:  https://www.instagram.co...

Every day's a little more colorful when Mitsumi's around! Misaki Takamatsu's Skip and Loafer is a love story, in that it is a story that you will fall in love with, unless you have a heart of stone. Come and listen to us gush about our sparkly darling. Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Everywhere else: @mangaroos

Coming to you live from the Saizeriya in the heart of beautiful downtown Gunma! We're talking about one of the behemoths of Japanese pop culture, Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken), and yes we make all the requisite "you wa shock" jokes and "a-ta-ta-ta-ta" sound effects - don't worry. Also discussed: post-apocalypse bondage gear, Mad Max and its availability in 19...

Magi is an endearing shonen adventure story with a charming little protagonist. It's got magical creatures, dungeon exploration straight out of a classic JRPG, and best-in-class reaction shots. It is also, somewhat inexplicably, the second flute-centric manga we've covered for the show. How did that happen?  Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Everywhere else: @mangar...

With all the classic sports manga series that have come and gone over the years, it's a wonder that it's taken this long for a really great hockey series to hit the ice. And since Mangaroos is one-third Canadian, we're legally obligated to talk about it! We're giving Dogsred, by Satoru Noda, a five minute major penalty... for stealing our hearts!  There's no crazier sport...

FIRST: We had to pay tribute to the late Akira Toriyama. The world lost a true legend earlier this month. SECOND: Yasuhisa Hara's epic historical action series has been appearing in Weekly Young Jump since 2006, and it's a global sensation. Everyone you know either reads ONE PIECE, or Kingdom, or both .  Even Japan's Princess, Akiko of Mikasa, is a self-confessed die-hard Kingdom fa...

For fans of manga, Hiromu Arakawa needs no introduction. She's responsible for the mega-ultra-successful and popular Full Metal Alchemist, as well as the acclaimed Silver Spoon, among other works. Now, here comes Arakawa Sensei's latest series, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, to delight and bewilder us in equal measure. The first volume is a bit of a jumble. We've got gunfights, fish-o...

The Promised Neverland, by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu, begins with a simple question: What if an orphanage was also a factory farm that produced food for demonic otherworldly entities? As high concepts for shonen manga series go, that's about as compelling as they come. No wonder this series became a multimedia phenomenon in the waning days of the pre-Covid era. It also features some truly...

 Atsushi Kaneko is an underground manga hero for a reason, revered around the world, and especially in Europe.  EVOL is his wild, punk rock take on anti-super heroes and the decaying of our social fabric. In it, we find teens in mental institutions who are fed up with the hopeless world around them, heroes who uphold corrupt political agendas instead of justice, and a weird, melting moon. It'...

It's no secret that Takehiko Inoue is one of the undisputed masters of the manga art form, so it's about time we gave one of his works the Mangaroos treatment.  Vagabond is an epic historical action manga, with some of the most gorgeous art to ever grace a page. It is violent and passionate and breathtaking.  We discuss whether sexy cougar Okou is, in fact, TOO sexy. We ponder how it mig...

The English title of this book is To Your Eternity, but in Japanese it's called 不滅のあなたへ (Fumetsu no Anata e). Whatever you like to call it, Yoshitoki Oima's second hit series isn't quite like anything else, in any medium.  The elevator pitch is impossible. Child meets immortal thing in the forest. Alien thing becomes all different stuff, including a wolf, and meets a boy. Is...

Jaguar is an eccentric man with a shock of red hair, a heart full of passion, and a recorder (flute). He took Japan by storm in the early 2000s, and we are all richer for it, even if we don't realize why or how. In this life, you are either a guitar person or a recorder (flute) person.  A hip hop ninja, the inherent hilarity to be found in earnestly reciting poetry, trying to find comfort whe...

Do you wear a hat with a brim or not? We explore this question and whether art is magic in this episode about Witch Hat Atelier! Discover which witch Mark and Jayson feel affinity for as we discuss plot elements maybe beyond volume one (but no spoilers). Give this a listen and find out what makes this manga so worthy of its many awards. Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Every...

The time has finally come for Jayson to rave about his favorite current ongoing manga series! We all know how he feels about it, but what about everyone else? Is Witch Watch a subtle and hilarious love letter to manga as an art form? Or is it just I Dream of Genie in manga form? Ha! That question is impossible to answer unless you are a senior citizen, because no one under the age of 30 knows what...

The fourth Mangaroo is back! We're always happy to have Minami Sakai drop by Mangaroos Mansion, because she provides us with hard-earned manga industry insider knowledge. And what better manga to apply that wisdom to than Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun? This is a comedy series known for its inside-baseball takes on Shojo manga tropes and the manga production process. In this episode, we learn...

If you've never read A Bride's Story before, then throw all your preconceptions about it out the window. Unless one of those preconceptions is about it being an absolute masterpiece—keep that one. We're talking perfectly paced action scenes. Impeccable, intricate line work that recreates the craftsmanship of a bygone age. Historical fiction on a recognizably human scale. The inheren...

We're back! This week we're discussing one of the so-called "Big Three" from the Shonen Jump boom of the early-2000s. Bleach is a rock and roll song in manga form. It's a battle manga with supernatural flair. It's a wildly incoherent blend of ideas and styles that somehow just works... For the most part! Get in touch with us! Email: mangaroospodcast@gmail.com Everywhe...

WE'RE BACK. Did you have a fun summer vacation? We did! And now we're back to discuss Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta (The Guy She Liked Wasn't a Guy At All!) by Sumiko Arai, a Twitter sensation published in book form! (Twitter still existed when we recorded this episode.) This manga brings you the awkwardness of high school crushes, the importance of music to the teen psyche,...

The war against AI is over, and humanity is attempting to rebuild, having suffered devastating defeat. And what's crazy is, that's also the plot of this manga! Erio is a naive young woman with unusual electric powers, in a world where electricity is outlawed! She's in love with a heartless murder robot who depends on Erio for said electricity! It's a 1950s screwball comedy that...

A kindergarten for the children of the world's super-elite, where the staff are all ex-prisoner lethal assassins? What could possibly go wrong! Kindergarten Wars combines the unconventional work/life dynamics of Spy x Family with the over-the-top violence of Chainsaw Man, and throws in some shojo manga tropes for comedic effect. It's quite a combination, but how well does it work? Listen...