After I had released episode 20 of Innocence Seekers: April Light, I decided to take a break to focus on other stuff. However, I will make another post on the manga which interests me. While my main focus will be on Manga Time Kirara manga, like the first two posts, I won’t exclusively be talking about such manga in this post. However, I have unmarked spoilers (I still haven’t implemented spoiler marking on this blog) for manga which have yet to be translated, so beware.
Like with the second post, I will give an updated list of Manga Time Kirara manga which have received or will receive broadcast anime adaptations (note that only manga which have been serialised in Manga Time Kirara and adapted are listed):
Manga Time Kirara:
- Dōjin Work by Hiroyuki (Summer 2007)
- K-On! by Kakifly (Spring 2009, Spring-Summer 2010, movie on 2011-12-03)
- Place to Place by Ishiki (Spring 2012)
- Yuyushiki by Komata Mikami (Spring 2013)
- Three Leaves, Three Colors by Cherry Arai (Spring 2016)
- Slow Start by Yuiko Tokumi (release TBA)
Manga Time Kirara Carat:
- Hidamari Sketch by Ume Aoki (Winter 2007, Summer 2008, Winter 2010, Autumn/Fall 2012)
- GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class by Satoko Kiyuduki (Summer 2009)
- A-Channel by Kuroda bb (Spring 2011)
- Kill Me Baby by Kaduho (Winter 2012)
- New Game! by Shōtarō Tokunō (Summer 2016, Summer 2017)
- Blend S by Miyuki Nakayama (Autumn/Fall 2017)
Manga Time Kirara MAX:
- Kanamemo by Shōko Iwami (Summer 2009)
- Kiniro Mosaic by Yui Hara (Summer 2013, Spring 2015)
- Is the Order a Rabbit? by Koi (Spring 2014, Autumn/Fall 2015)
- Magic of Stella by cloba.U (Autumn/Fall 2016)
- Comic Girls by Kaori Hanzawa (release TBA)
Manga Time Kirara Forward:
- Dream Eater Merry by Yoshitaka Ushiki (Winter 2011)
- Hanayamata by Sō Hamayumiba (Summer 2014)
- School-Live! by Norimitsu Kaihō and Sadoru Chiba (Summer 2015)
- Anne Happy by Cotoji (Spring 2016)
- Yurucamp by Afro (Winter 2018)
Manga Time Kirara Miracle!:
- Sakura Trick by Tachi (Winter 2014)
- Gourmet Girl Graffiti by Makoto Kawai (Winter 2015)
- Castle Town Dandelion by Ayumu Kasuga (Summer 2015)
- Urara Meirochō by Harikamo (Winter 2017)
The additions compared to the previous list are the additional manga which have had adaptations announced, as well as the seasons in which New Game!! and Blend S will air, which weren’t available when I last updated this list.
There are no additional translated manga which I have picked up and read enough to do a review (and my progress through both my anime and manga backlogs has pretty much stalled), so I won’t be doing detailed reviews. Whether this is because the kind of stories I prefer are “niche” I won’t discuss here, but it is clear that most of the manga that have been licensed or scanlated do not interest me. However, I will go over a bit of what I’ve read in Fūro Fuzuki’s Olive! Believe, “Olive”?, which, as I mentioned before, is based around a school magic club, but involving real magic. I won’t go over the details, but in it, the main character, Suzu Tsukinomiya, decides to join the magic club after seeing a performance by them. However, as it turns out, the magic club’s members are actual mages, and not merely stage magicians who use sleight-of-hand. The main issue which came up in the story is the fact that Suzu refuses (or rather, seems to be unable) to believe in magic, constantly claiming that the club members’ overt displays of magic are “sleight-of-hand”. While this was baffling the club members, Suzu ended up being spirited away to “Kaguya no Kuni”, the magic world, and it became clear that there is more to it than mere disbelief in magic (the establishing moment was when a magic wand broke in Suzu’s hand, although there was a “Chekhov’s gun”-type event earlier where Suzu inadvertently destroyed the magic barrier in opening the club room door).
After Suzu returned to her own world, and while the other club members were discussing what is going on, we learn that Suzu’s memory had been altered, and that a seal was placed on her to prevent her from believing in magic. This was because the club advisor, Mizuki Rukawa, had shown magic to a young Suzu many years ago, and because of that Suzu’s memory was altered and a seal placed on her to ensure that the real world is not adversely influenced as a result. The club members then figured out that this seal was placed on her, and tried to break it, to no avail.
I would say more, but that’s as far as I got. However, the plot has me quite interested, so I may post more if and when I get the second volume.
Now to other stuff. Last month, the June issue of Manga Time Kirara announced that Yuiko Tokumi’s Slow Start will be getting an anime adaptation. While I had kind of expected this to be adapted at some point, the timing kind of threw me off (usually an announcement occurs on the same month the third volume is released, or just before/after; in this case, the announcement came well over a month before the release of the fourth volume). It follows Hana Ichinose, whose first attempt at high school entrance examinations collapsed before it even started due to illness, meaning she was forced to wait a year before getting into high school. As such, her first day of high school happens to be her 17th birthday (most entrants are 15 when they begin high school), although none of her classmates and future friends know this (they just know it was her birthday). I’ve actually read the first volume (in Japanese, though), and this looks to me like a typical schoolgirl series, so I don’t really expect this to become popular.
Tokumi’s other works include Bottle Fairy, which had an anime quite a while ago. Other than that and other published manga, she does yuri dōjin.
The August issue of Manga Time Kirara MAX, to be released on Monday, is announcing that Kaori Hanzawa’s Comic Girls will be getting an anime adaptation. Having enjoyed the manga, I wanted this to get an anime adaptation, and I’m sure many others did as well. I’ve actually reviewed this manga earlier, but I’ll repeat the important bits here. The manga follows Kaoruko Moeta, a new yonkoma manga artist, who ends up moving to an all-female dormitory for manga artists at the recommendation of her editor, after her manga ended up at the bottom of a reader survey. There, she meets her fellow manga artists, and her new friends and classmates. Together, they strive to become better at their art, all the while supporting each other.
I mentioned before that there has been comparisons with Is the Order a Rabbit?, which is the most popular non-Madoka Magica Kirara manga currently being serialised, as of writing. These comparisons are largely with the art style (although I can spot differences, mainly with how tsurime is depicted, as Is the Order a Rabbit?‘s tsurime is fairly distinctive when compared to other art styles).
Hanzawa started out as a shōjo manga artist, with her debut work, Ichigo Omelette, beginning serialisation in Shueisha’s Ribon magazine in 2000 (when she was just 15 years old), with four volumes released by the time it ended. Her only other notable work before Comic Girls was the manga adaptation of Animal Detective Kiruminzoo, simply titled Kiruminzoo, published in the same magazine in 2010. Of course, she hasn’t forgotten her earlier works, and only a few months ago, drew a crossover between Kiruminzoo and Kemono Friends.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Anyway:
- The drama CD adaptation of Murasaki’s Yumeno Royale is now on sale. The main cast includes Ai Kakuma (Yumeno), Misaki Watada (Kazuki), and Ayaka Imamura (Mana).
- The main cast for the adaptation of Blend S will be announced on June 25.
- Not entirely related to manga, but I will review the anime adaptation of Hinako Note at a later date.
- I intend to review a Japanese webcomic at some point in the future. As of now, I’m considering doing Ragho no Erika’s Chikanoko.
Edit (2017-06-23): I’ve added the season when Yurucamp will air (see here). Additionally, here is a chronological list (ordered by date and time of first broadcast) of broadcast anime adaptations of Manga Time Kirara manga, with additional seasons listed separately:
- Hidamari Sketch (Winter 2007)
- Dōjin Work (Summer 2007)
- Hidamari Sketch ×365 (Summer 2008)
- K-On! (Spring 2009)
- Kanamemo (Summer 2009)
- GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class (Summer 2009)
- Hidamari Sketch ×☆☆☆ (Winter 2010)
- K-On!! (Spring-Summer 2010)
- Dream Eater Merry (Winter 2011)
- A Channel (Spring 2011)
- Kill Me Baby (Winter 2012)
- Place to Place (Spring 2012)
- Hidamari Sketch ×Honeycomb (Autumn/Fall 2012)
- Yuyushiki (Spring 2013)
- Kiniro Mosaic (Summer 2013)
- Sakura Trick (Winter 2014)
- Is the Order a Rabbit? (Spring 2014)
- Hanayamata (Summer 2014)
- Gourmet Girl Graffiti (Winter 2015)
- Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic (Spring 2015)
- Castle Town Dandelion (Summer 2015)
- Wakaba*Girl (Summer 2015)
- School-Live! (Summer 2015)
- Is the Order a Rabbit?? (Autumn/Fall 2015)
- Anne Happy (Spring 2016)
- Three Leaves, Three Colors (Spring 2016)
- New Game! (Summer 2016)
- Magic of Stella (Autumn/Fall 2016)
- Urara Meirochō (Winter 2017)
- New Game!! (Summer 2017)
- Blend S (Autumn/Fall 2017)
- Yurucamp (Winter 2018)
- Slow Start (TBA)
- Comic Girls (TBA)
Not listed are the three anime originals that are part of the Manga Time Kirara label, namely, Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Winter 2011), ALDNOAH.ZERO (Summer 2014, Winter 2015) and Sakura Quest (Spring-Summer 2017).