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Manhwa Review: Villians Are Destined to Die
Title: Villians Are Destined to Die Creators: SUOL (artist), Gwon Gyeoeul (writer), David Odell (translator) US Publisher: IZE Press / Tapas (Ongoing chapters) Status: Ongoing Age Relevance: High School and Up How Essential Is It?: Nice to Have Curricular Connections?: Independent Reading Reader’s Advisory Tags: Isekai, Romance, Reverse Harem, Otome Game, Villainess Content Warnings: Child abuse, bullying, slavery, violence against women…
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Light Novel Review: The Holy Grail of Eris
Title: The Holy Grail of Eris Author: Kujira Tokiwa US Publisher: Yen Press Status: Ongoing Age Relevance: Middle School and Up How Essential Is It?: Must Have Curricular Connections?: Independent Reading Reader’s Advisory Tags: Mystery, Ghosts, Romance, Pretend Engagement, Slow Burn, Revenge Manga: Yes! Review coming. Content Warnings: Discussions of murder, executions, illicit drug trade Publisher Synopsis: Never neglect to read…
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Manga Review: Horimiya
Title: Horimiya Mangaka: HERO, Daisuke Hagiwara US Publisher: Yen Press Status: Ongoing (Complete in Japan, should complete soon in US at 16 volumes) Age Relevance: Middle school and up How Essential Is It?: Must Have Curricular Connections?: Independent reading. Reader’s Advisory Tags: Romance, humor, relationships, friendships Anime: Crunchyroll Live-Action: Not available for streaming in US, but you can see the trailer…
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Manga Review: Drip, Drip
Title: Drip, Drip Mangaka: Paru Itagaki US Publisher: VIZ Media Status: Complete (Oneshot) Age Relevance: Adult How Essential Is It?: Nice to Have Reader’s Advisory Tags: Feminism, gender relations, sexuality Content Warnings: Gore, sexual content, generational trauma Publisher Synopsis: Whenever Mako Higari comes in contact with something she perceives as dirty, she gets a massive nosebleed. How can she find a…
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Manga Review: Dandadan

Title: Dandadan Mangaka: Yukinobu Tatsu US Publisher: VIZ Media (Shonen Jump) Status: Ongoing Age Relevance: Adult How Essential Is It?: Nice to Have Curricular Connections?: Not relevant to school collections; please select other titles! My suggestions: Assassination Classroom, Mob Psycho 100, One Punch Man Reader’s Advisory Tags: Aliens, humor, ecchi, absurdist Content Warnings: Sexual assault, crude humor, some violence. Publisher Synopsis:…
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Manga Review: Cat + Gamer
Title: Cat + Gamer (猫暮らしのゲーマーさん, Nekogurashi no Gēmā-san) Mangaka: Wataru Nadatani US Publisher: Dark Horse Status: Ongoing Age Relevance: Elementary & Up How Essential Is It?: Must Have (According to Me) Curricular Connections?: Independent reading. Reader’s Advisory Tags: Video games, cats, female protagonists, humor. Content Warnings: None! Publisher Synopsis: Riko, a twenty-nine-year-old office worker with an obsession for video games, finds…
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Genre Breakdown: Video Game Adaptations
These posts on video games and manga are co-written with Matthew Hawkins, a librarian and video game expert with a decades-long resume as a journalist, developer, and curator of video game-related art. As you might gather from the name, Matt is also my husband. Video game adaptations and manga about video games are such a…
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Light Novel Collection Development
Light novels or ライトノベル (raito noberu) are a type of young adult novel from Japan that primarily target middle and high school students. In contrast to manga, which are graphic novels, light novels are prose novels that have key scenes illustrated in a manga style. In the past few years, thanks to the efforts of…
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Back to School Title List Updates!
I’ve spent some time updating my most utilized lists to include more titles. Here are all of them: Children’s (Elementary) Titles Manga & Light Novels for Middle School (6-8) High School Manga Recommendations Light Novel Recommendations LGBTQ+ Manga For Secondary Manga Available in Hardcover Manga for Adult Readers Manhwa In Print Or Coming to Print…
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Manhwa Collection Development: Korean Webtoons On the Rise
Manhwa is quite simply the Korean word for comics, but it is a format that is steadily on the rise. It’s quite easy for outsiders to simply consider manhwa to be “colorized manga” but to do so really misses that there are marked differences in the two formats. It also disrespects the cultural differences between…