Werewolves, demons, monsters, vampires. All these ferocious creatures are afraid of the same thing: the beautiful Princess Hime, an awesome warrior who fights off the forces off evil with a chainsaw and a smile. Not only does she look great in a tiara, she has magical powers that allow her to raise the dead. She’s a girl on a mission, and with the help of her undead servant and a supercute robot, there’s no creature of darkness she can’t take down! (Source: Del Rey)
Nothing interesting is happening in Makoto Ozaki’s first year of high school. His life is a series of quiet humiliations: low-grade bullies, unreliable friends, and the constant frustration of his adolescent lust. But one night, a pale, thin girl knocks him to the ground in an alley and offers him a choice. Now everything is different. Daylight is searingly bright. Food tastes awful. And worse than anything is the terrible, consuming thirst. The tiny shames of his old life have been replaced by two towering horrors: the truth of what will slake his awful craving and high school itself. (Source: Kodansha USA)
The summer they were eleven, they killed a man and buried his body in a cave. Since then, every year, one summer night has marked a ritual: a ritual never to forget, and never to betray. Five years have passed. Their sixteenth summer. The body, now a skeleton. Unraveled lies. A faceless blackmailer. The phone rings and a life is torn apart. The bones, like their crime: never rotting, never fading away. Now, a living hell begins. (Source: Kodansha USA)
Nagare Otokawa was an otaku loser obsessed with breasts. He tragically died never knowing the feel of the sweet, sweet bosoms he’d craved all his life. Little does he know, his wish is about to be granted in a way he never would have expected. Nagare gets reincarnated as a handsome guy and quickly realizes that he’s living in a (BL) world full of sexy (male) beauties. Even so, he sets out to find and squeeze the bust of his dreams. He does, in fact, end up with his face planted deeply in some luscious cleavage, but to his dismay, it’s the magnificent pecs of the super-muscular class delinquent, Ryuji Onizuka! Now Nagare must try to dodge his way past the barrage of BL scenarios that hurtle into his path. Will he persevere and get the busty girlfriend of his dreams, or will he end up falling for the all-man—yet temptingly bodacious—Ryuji? (Source: Kodansha USA) *Note: Includes five extra chapters.*
Set hundreds of years in the future after an environmental catastrophe, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (also known as Yokohama Shopping Log) centers on the simple life of Alpha, an android who runs a small coffee shop in coastal Japan. Alpha stands witness to chronicle the end of humanity’s days with coffee, a slice of watermelon, and the sound of her moon guitar backed by distant seagulls. Quiet and bittersweet, this tale is about the melancholy beauty that can be found even as the end approaches. (Source: Seven Seas Entertainment) *Note: Includes four extra chapters.*
Meet Rally and Mini-May, two of the most fun-loving, well-armed, bounty-hunting women in Chicago! Whether they're chasing bail jumpers or fending off the Mob, you can bet on a healthy supply of guns, bombs, car chases, and more guns! Rally is assigned to track down a bail-jumping informant whose testimony could severely damage the Mob. Unfortunately, the Mob is onto him, and the meanest, toughest bad-girl hitwoman in the Windy City is all too willing to "ventilate" our heroines to get to the stool pigeon! (Source: Dark Horse)
At the dawn of the 17th century, at the end of the era of civil wars, in a world of chaos, the epic Battle of Sekigahara was joined. One man emerged from the largest battle ever fought on Japanese soil; a terrible warrior of unspeakable power, he was nicknamed 'the unconquerable.' Kyoshiro is a peaceful medicine peddler who harbors the soul of an assassin. He accompanies a young bounty hunter across Japan in search of a murderer and on a quest to discover the terrible secret of his own identity. (Source: TOKYOPOP) **Volume 38** contains the side story "'*Michi' no Tochuu*" (「道」の途中).
Opening a few years after the end of World War II and covering almost a quarter-century, here is comics master Osamu Tezuka’s most direct and sustained critique of Japan’s fate in the aftermath of total defeat. Unusually devoid of cartoon premises yet shot through with dark voyeuristic humor, Ayako looms as a pinnacle of Naturalist literature in Japan with few peers even in prose, the striking heroine a potent emblem of things left unseen following the war. The year is 1949. Crushed by the Allied Powers, occupied by General MacArthur’s armies, Japan has been experiencing massive change. Agricultural reform is dissolving large estates and redistributing plots to tenant farmers—terrible news, if you’re landowners like the archconservative Tenge family. For patriarch Sakuemon, the chagrin of one of his sons coming home alive from a P.O.W. camp instead of having died for the Emperor is topped only by the revelation that another of his is consorting with “the reds.” What solace does he have but his youngest Ayako, apple of his eye, at once daughter and granddaughter? (Source: Kodansha USA)
Mikura Amelia is a free-spirited young woman who lives alone with her cat and operates an air delivery service, flying her vintage seaplane to Japan’s small island communities located hundreds of miles out in the Pacific. When her beloved grandfather passes away, she discovers he left her an undelivered parcel, addressed to an island that doesn’t exist . . . or does it? To answer the question, Mikura flies off in search of the truth behind the Wandering Island! (Source: Dark Horse)
Set in the future, the plot follows Zouichi Kanoe and his AI companion Fuyu Kanoe, whose luminous form is integrated into the system of his motorcycle. They are agents sent by Toha Heavy Industries to retrieve humans with the ability to resist and transmute the N5S infection, which is spreading across the world, turning humans into "Drones"; disfigured, zombie-like beings. (Source: Wikipedia)
Togawa is dating the resident class weirdo, and their relationship is even more non-standard than she expected! They've never even kissed, but he's tasted her tears, cleaned her ears, and shaved the nape of her neck! And also walked her through a Buddhist ritual that opened her third eye and brought her spiritual peace and a good night's sleep. It is indeed a wonder, in more ways than one, that she can't help but feel drawn to him. (Source: J-Novel Club)
Wandering the packed tunnels of Shinjuku Station, famous author Yosuke Mikura makes a strange discovery: a ragged hippie who can quote French poetry. Her name is Barbara. He takes her home for a bath and a drink, and before long Barbara has made herself into Mikura’s shadow, saving him from egotistical delusions and jealous enemies. But just as Mikura is no saint, Barbara is no guardian angel, and Mikura grows obsessed with discovering her secrets, tangling with thugs, sadists, magical curses and mythical beings – all the while wondering whether he himself is still sane. Written in 1973 and 1974 and inspired by the classic opera “Tales of Hoffmann” by Jacques Offenbach, Barbara may be Tezuka’s most psychological and unsettling work, shattering the fine line between art and madness with masterful precision. (Source: DMP)

