The August manga releases offer a bounty of titles for all different tastes. For binge-readers, Kodansha is releasing a boxed set of Sweat and Soap and the first volume of its three-in-one omnibus edition of Noragami. Looking for more from a favorite author? Fans of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? can pick up vol. 1 of Wisteria Wand & Sword, the first volume of a new series by the same writer, Fujino Omori. Seven Seas has Monotone Blue, a boys-love one-shot by the creator of Girl from the Other Side. Viz celebrates the 20th anniversary of Bleach with a special collector’s edition of the first volume, and they will also publish Vol. 100 of One Piece. In addition to these crowd-pleasers, there are a few new manga that appeal to particular audiences: Is Love the Answer? is a one-shot from Kodansha about an aromantic, asexual young woman, and it has already been getting some buzz on social media. Josee the Tiger and the Fish, featuring a young woman who uses a wheelchair, is based on the light novel of the same name; both are published by Yen Press. YorHa: Pearl Harbor Descent Record – A NieR: Automata Story, based on the popular RPG, will launch in December from Square Enix. And the first volume of Ramen Wolf & Curry Tiger, in which a chubby wolf and a buff tiger go restaurant-hopping, will be out in August from Seven Seas.
Spriggan, vol. 1
Publisher: Seven Seas
Release Date: August 17, 2022
Price: $29.99
Creators: Hiroshi Takashige (writer), Ryoji Minagawa (artist)
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781638585794
Age Rating: 16+
What It’s About: Governments and paramilitary groups race to find powerful artifacts left by ancient people, artifacts that could do great good or cause worldwide destruction, as happened to their original owners. Spriggan is a special operations team, clad in power armor, that fights a rogue’s gallery of villains and cyborgs to keep the artifacts safe.
Why It’s a Pick Hit: Spriggan has all the ingredients of a classic action-adventure manga: A dedicated teen protagonist, a hunt for powerful artifacts, battles with cyborgs, power suits, and other tech weapons. The series ran from 1989 to 1996 in Japan was licensed by Viz under the title Striker in the late 1990s; the original net animation started streaming on Netflix earlier this month, and there’s an older anime and a video game as well.
Rooster Fighter, vol. 1
Publisher: Viz Media
Release Date: August 17, 2022
Price: $12.99
Creator: Syu Sakuratani
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781974729845
Age Rating: Teen Plus
What It’s About: A rooster fights giant monsters in order to save the world.
Why It’s a Pick Hit: This is a parody of action manga along the lines of One-Punch Man, and like that series, it started as a webcomic and gathered enough of an audience to get picked up for print.
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Omnibus, vol. 1
Publisher: Seven Seas
Release Date: August 3
Price: $24.99
Creator: Hitoshi Ashinano
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1638585442
Age Rating: 12+
What It’s About: An android who looks like a cute girl runs a coffee shop, rides around on her motorbike, and does a little shopping in this slice-of-life manga set in a world that is dying after an environmental catastrophe.
Why It’s a Pick Hit: This series (also known as Record of a Yokohama Shopping Trip) has been on the wish list of English-language readers for years, and it’s a natural pickup for fans of Aria or Girls Last Tour. The series has been adapted into two anime that don’t appear to have been released in English (yet).
Source: ICv2
