Sincere soul-searching set before a sparkling backdrop.
A seasoned performer attempts to find her footing as a team leader.
The first installments of this manga series saw bright-eyed Hikaru and stoic Ran competing to join a new pop-star group, and things are getting increasingly challenging as eliminations begin. In this third volume, Hikaru, an amateur singer who cut her chops singing in her grandparents’ Tokyo bathhouse, and Ran, her older friend who has already spent years performing with a popular Japanese girl group, have been assigned to teams of five and are set to be judged on song and dance performances they’ve prepared themselves. This book focuses primarily on Ran’s internal struggle; her teammates choose her as group leader based on her professional experience. Though she’s an industry veteran, she’s always been in the background, and she struggles to speak up, take charge, and articulate what’s needed to bring out the best in her fellow contestants. Searching her heart to determine why she still seeks stardom, Ran, a talented but somewhat stymied performer, remembers that it makes her truly happy to bring her audience joy. Like the previous entries, this tale emphasizes intense self-reflection and the complex alchemy that creates a skillful musical performance. Ran’s highly focused mood gives the story a somewhat more sober tone and look than the earlier volumes and will bring readers closer to the series superstar cast.
Sincere soul-searching set before a sparkling backdrop. (Graphic fiction. 9-15)Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781546141044
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming adaptation.
A miscommunication leaves Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert responsible for a plucky, effusive orphan girl instead of the boy they’d expected to help maintain their farm.
Retold in traditional manga format, with right-to-left panel orientation and detailed black-and-white linework, this adaptation is delightfully faithful to the source text. Larger panels establish the idyllic country landscape while subtle text boxes identify the setting—Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the 1870s. The book follows redheaded Anne Shirley from her arrival at Green Gables at 11 to her achievement of a college scholarship. In the intervening years, Anne finds stability, friendship, personal growth, and ambition in Avonlea and in the strict but well-intentioned Cuthbert siblings’ household. The familiar story is enhanced by the exciting new format and lush illustrations. A variety of panel layouts provides visual freshness, maintaining reader interest. Backmatter includes the floor plan of the Green Gables house, as well as interior and exterior views, and notes about research on the actual location. A description of the process of adapting the novel to this visual format indicates the care that was taken to highlight particular elements of the story as well as to remain faithful to the smallest details. Readers who find the original text challenging will welcome this as an aid to comprehension and Anne’s existing fans will savor a fresh perspective on their beloved story. All characters appear to be White.
A charming adaptation. (Graphic fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947808-18-8
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Manga Classics
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Insensitive language isn’t the only rough spot, but younger fans of action manga may be entertained.
A young lad who can turn his hands into huge hammers wishes himself into the storybook that swallowed his father.
In episodic chapters that each start off in color then switch to line drawings, spiky-haired Stud Hammer discovers that his newly discovered superpower doesn’t make him any friends in his village but proves useful both in pounding monsters in his world and, after he’s sucked into watery Ocean City, hooking up with stern young Detective Dan and his big sister, ocean police commissioner Diane, to battle a supertough hammerhead shark political activist. Catering to readers who delight in continual slugfests with massive sound effects, the art is stuffed into cramped panels of wild (if hard to follow) action, and the plot jerks along from one set piece to the next, cutting off abruptly in a brief lull between battles. The special abilities displayed by Stud and several others are judgmentally characterized as “abnormal” in the equally patchy dialogue—when it’s not devolving into variations on “What the crap!!!” or weak banter in which “chubby” or “Mr. Chubs” are repeatedly used to insult Dan. Dan, Diane, and some associates are dark-skinned merfolk kitted out with tails and legs. Stud and other human Swirls, as those humans with magical mutations are called, are occasionally given a light toning, but in the monochrome scenes are generally left as unfilled figures.
Insensitive language isn’t the only rough spot, but younger fans of action manga may be entertained. (Adventure comic. 10-13)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7603-7683-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Rockport Publishers
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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