The Best New Manga of September 2017

Death Note (All-in-One Edition), by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba
Death Note‘s addictive quality is legendary, so as a public service, Viz has collected the entire series (originally 12 volumes) into a single massive tome. Whether or not you care for the American live-action movie, which started streaming on Netflix last week, the original story is a compelling read: a Shinigami (death god) drops his notebook, hoping a human will find it and cause interesting mischief. The owner of the notebook can cause the death of anyone, anywhere, simply by writing their name in the notebook and picturing their face. Light, an overachieving high school student, finds the book and decides to use it to rid the world of evil by killing off convicted criminals. The first half of the story is the cat-and-mouse game between Light and the enigmatic detective known only as L; after that it goes into crazier territory, ramping up into a complex story with many players. It’s a clever book, and the complicated plot is easier to follow when reading it all at once.

Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage, Vol. 1, by Leiji Matsumoto and Kouichi Shimahoshi
This series is a new reworking of Matsumoto’s 1978 manga Space Pirate Captain Harlock, told from a different point of view and illustrated by Kouichi Shimahoshi in an updated verison of Matsumoto’s classic style. The story is told from the point of view of Tadashi Daiba, who seeks to avenge the death of his father, killed by the aliens known as Mazon. Matsumoto is the creator of many classic sci-fi manga, and this one promises to be a solid space opera and a good read for longtime fans and newcomers alike.

Naruto: Chibi Sasuke’s Sharingan Legend, Vol. 1, by Kenji Taira
This is a gag manga spinoff of the popular Naruto, focusing on Naruto’s rival Sasuke—actually, a super-cute, child-shaped Sasuke, searching for his brother Itachi along with his companions Jugo, Suigetsu, and Karin. Each story is a couple of pages long and features the crew doing ridiculous things like having a pillow fight, or Sasuke stepping in dog poop as he’s trying to make a serious speech. Obviously this is going to be most attractive to hard-core Naruto fans, but you truly don’t have to know the series very well to enjoy it—it’s really just a bunch of silly shinobi stories.

Queen’s Quality, Vol. 1, by Kyousuki Motomi
Queen’s Quality is a sequel to the three-volume series QQ Sweeper, but it stands well on its own—the whole backstory is explained in the first chapter and it takes off on its own trajectory from there. Fumi Nishioka is a girl with no past—she has amnesia—who has, as so often happens shoujo manga, ended up living with two handsome guys, one of whom, Kyutaro, is her classmate. The other is the principal of her high school. All three are “cleaners,” a term that is both literal and figurative: Fumi and Kyuataro, also known as Q, clear away negative energy and evil spirits that often take the form of bugs, and they spend a lot of time cleaning their home and school. A lot of time—cleanliness and virtue are clearly connected in this story. But there’s a lot more to Queen’s Quality than mops and buckets; it’s also a super-angsty tortured romance. A hypnotist determines that Fumi is a Queen, with the power to affect people’s minds. There are good queens and bad queens, and since Fumi’s power is still latent, she doesn’t know which type of queen she will be. Since a bad queen is really terrible, she decides to suppress her power rather than take the risk, and of course that means Q has to be with her all the time, so she doesn’t accidentally let it out. If you’re thinking “Wait a minute, what about the part where one of them was kind to the other when they were small children?” well, that’s in there too. In fact, pretty much every shoujo trope you can think of is in there—he loves her, she loves him, neither one can admit it, the adults are manipulating them—with the amnesia angle helping crank the emotion up to 11. This story is all kinds of wrong, but in all the right ways—in other words, the best sort of shoujo romance.

Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight, Vol. 1, by Rin Mikimoto
As shoujo romances go, this one doesn’t exactly break new ground, but it’s beautifully drawn and a fun read. High schooler Nana projects the image of a cool, serious student, but she’s really a secret romantic who loves to watch goopy romance movies and dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome prince. And through the magic of manga, that’s what happens: actor/model Kaeda, one of the subjects of Nana’s daydreams, comes to her school to film a TV show, and Nana is one of the extras. They meet by chance off the set, and it looks like Kaeda is taking a romantic interest in Nana, but she is filled with doubts—many of them justified. For one thing, Kaeda has a butt fetish, and while he’s doing a good imitation of a playboy who’s finally getting serious, somehow it doesn’t quite ring true.

Sweet Blue Flowers, Vol. 1, by Takako Shimura
In contrast with the shoujo titles debuting this month, Sweet Blue Flowers, a new yuri series, is a quiet, nuanced story about first loves among students at two all-girl high schools. There are a lot of interesting angles here: one high school is fancy, the other utilitarian; one family is rich, the others are middle class; some girls are tall, some are not; some cry all the time, others are constantly reaching out. There is talk of first love, bisexuality, a one-sided teacher-student relationship, family strife—but all at a low key. Emotion is more often expressed by a faint blush than flying sweatdrops. It’s a strong, engaging story with multiple triangles and plenty of school intrigue to keep it interesting. Definitely one for romance fans to pick up, even if yuri isn’t always your thing. Takako Shimura is the creator of Wandering Son, which won high praise for its sensitive portrayal of transgender adolescents, and Sweet Blue Flowers has a similar feel.

Master Keaton, Vol. 12, by Naoki Urasawa and Hokusei Katsushika
This episodic series about an archaeologist/detective comes to a close with an action-packed story that fills a full volume and stands well on its own—you don’t have to have read the previous 11 volumes to enjoy it. Keaton has the opportunity to not only get a job at a prestigious Japanese university, but also the funding he needs to do some archaeological digs along the Danube River, which he believes was home to one of the earliest civilizations. Nothing is ever easy for him, though, and the job interview just lights the fuse for what follows—a tangled tale of swindlers, fakers, prostitutes, murder, and at the heart of it, a mysterious treasure that everyone wants to get their hands on. This early work echoes some of the themes of Urasawa’s later 18-volume series Monster, and is a good short read for fans of that series.

Frau Faust, Vol. 1, by Kore Yamazaki
Goethe got it wrong: the scholar who made a deal with the devil was a woman, not a man, and Frau Faust is still alive and journeying through the countryside on a mysterious mission. In a small town, she hides a young thief from his pursuers, and he joins her on her travels. Frau Faust is an action-packed fantasy tale with an old-world setting; it has the air of a classic without being stuffy. Yamazaki is the also author of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

Goodnight Punpun, Vol. 7, by Inio Asano
Inio Asano’s magnum opus comes to a close in this volume. Asano’s Punpun is a sort of everyman, and to emphasize that, he is drawn as a vaguely triangular cartoon bird, so readers must imagine his face. The manga started out dark, but with flashes of black humor, and it has grown darker along the way. In this final volume, we see how far removed Punpun is from normal life, and where he finally ends up. Despite its challenging themes, this is an important manga that goes beyond the usual in terms of both its art and its literary quality.
What new manga are you reading this month?