It's year 1966. Hamaguchi, a young man comes to Kyoto, where he finds work in a small textile company.In his free time, he goes to the local Zoo to draw animals. His peaceful life is one day disturbed by the company owner's daughter. Because of that, when his friend tells him of a certain job offer in Tokyo, Hamaguchi decides to go at once. In the capital he gets to learn the way of a manga artist.

Shiga, a mountaineer, leaves his isolated lodge and returns to Tokyo in order to track down Megumi - the missing daughter of Tatsuko (Shiga's deceased best friend) and Yoriko (whom Shiga has secretly been in love with since before Tatsuko died). Shiga's investigation takes him into the world of "compensated dating" and disaffected teens and what he discovers there suggests that Megumi may have been abducted by a paedophile with a great deal of power and influence. In order to save the girl and regain the self-respect he lost when his best friend died, Shiga must break through the wall of silence and do what the police dare not. (Source: Anime News Network) .

She read Yukiko’s Spinach for the hundredth time. Was that really her looking so young? In the four years since then she had been the mangaka’s only model and love. This trip to the beautiful island of Enoshima was typical. They would find the best shooting locations, of course, but also enjoy each other. It’s the rainy season and the hydrangeas are in full bloom. He knew she would leave soon... A poignant, often droll tale from two of the most exciting creators in the medium today. (Source: Ponent Mon)

With what may be Mallory’s camera found and lost, photographer Fukamachi delves deeper into the life of the mysterious character Bikha Sanp – the “Venomous Snake” – convinced that he is, in reality, the legendary mountaineer Jouji Habu. The more he digs the more he reveals of the lives of both Habu and his constant nemesis Tsuneo Hase as they each struggle against their own limitations and the perceived achievements of the other. It is a tale of obsession to succeed, to be the first – always. But as he penetrates the darkness of these men’s psyches he finds himself being laid bare and bound to the mountain in this raw human drama. (Source: Potent Mon)

An anthology of six short stories. The title story is set in the Klondike region in 1897 and recounts the American author Jack London’s fortuitous encounter with an enigmatic old man. White Wilderness is also related to Jack London - it's an adaptation of the early part of his White Fang novel in which two men and their dog team are relentlessly pursued by a pack of wolves. Our Mountains, set in Japan in the 1920s, follows an elderly hunter in his attempts to take vengeance on the enormous bear that killed his son. Kaiyose-Jima is a nostalgic tale in which a boy is sent to spend the summer with relatives on the coast after his mother is taken ill. In Shôkarô, a mangaka looks back on the strange apartment building he lived in when he first came to Tokyo as an aspiring artist and the unusual people he met there. Return To The Sea is the tale of a marine biologist working on the coast of Alaska who becomes obsessed by an elderly bowhead whale and by Inuit tales of a whale cemetery. (Source: Anime News Network)

Exiled from Japan during the Boshin War in 1868 as the new Meiji government took hold, two defeated samurai, Hikosaburô and Manzô, eventually settle in Crow territory in North America. One day out hunting, Hikosaburô encounters a young native female who has just given birth hidden in the scrub. Called Running Deer, she tells of how she escaped from white traders who had ‘bought’ her. They soon come looking for their possession! Saved from the murderous deceit of the traders by the chief of the Oglalas, Crazy Horse, they soon form a profound friendship and respect for each other’s cultures to the extent of Hikosaburô and Manzô being renamed ‘Sky Hawk’ and ‘Winds Wolf’ and fighting alongside their new brothers in their struggle against the invaders. Taniguchi gives an accurate portrayal of the Indian Wars of the period culminating in the infamous Little Bighorn encounter. (Source: Ponent Mon)

The Meiji Era (1868-1912) was probably the most defining period in Japanese history. It was a time of massive change from the more traditional; Tokugawa era to a positioning of Japan in the modern world. Contemporary writer, Soseki Natsume, suffered due to all the social and cultural changes and expressed his feelings through his character Botchan, a classic in the vein of Mark Twain or Charles Dickens. This massive work over 10 volumes could, in other hands, have been but an informed text book. However, the solid script by Sekigawa explores the period through an adult story whilst the art by Taniguchi portrays the material with exquisite and elegant detail. (Source: Ponent Mon)

Slowly but surely he takes a promenade through Edo. “Furari” could be translated as ‘aimlessly’, ‘at random’, ‘bend with the wind’ or ‘go with the flow’. But our stroller this time leaves nothing to chance. Jiro Taniguchi returns with this delightful and insightful tale of life in a Japan long forgotten. Inspired by an historical figure, Tadataka Ino (1745 – 1818), Taniguchi invites us to join this unnamed but appealing and picturesque figure as he strolls through the various districts of Edo, the ancient Tokyo, with its thousand little pleasures. Now retired from business he surveys, measures, draws and takes notes whilst giving free rein to his taste for simple poetry and his inexhaustible capacity for wonder. As he did in The times of Botchan with lead character the writer Soseki, Taniguchi slips easily into the heart and mind of this early cartographer and reveals his world to us in full graphic detail so we may fully perceive and understand. (Source: Ponent Mon)

Who takes the time these days to climb a tree in bare feet to rescue a child's toy? To stop and observe the birds? To play in the puddles after a storm? To go down to the sea to put a shell back? The Walking Man does as he strolls at random through urban Japan—often silent, often alone—with his vivid dreams that let time stand still. (Source: Ponent Mon)

Who hasn't thought about reliving their past, correcting perceived mistakes or changing crucial decisions? Would this better your life or the lives of those closest to you? Or would your altered actions prove even more harmful? One man gets the chance to find out... Middle-aged Hiroshi Nakahara is on his way home from a business trip when he finds himself on the wrong train heading for his childhood hometown. His footsteps take him to his mother's grave and it's there that he is catapulted back into his life as an 8th grader - but with all his adult memories and knowledge intact. As he struggles to make sense of his predicament his adult memories of his childhood return but are somehow subtly changed. The questions start to form ... would his father still disappear without explanation? would he still marry his wife? (Source: Ponent Mon)

KNOW THY FATHER After well over a decade’s absence, Yoichi Yamashita journeys back to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral. As the relatives gather and the stories flow alongside the drinks, Yoichi’s childhood starts to resurface. The spring afternoon playing on the floor of his father’s barber shop, the fire that ravaged the city and his family home, his parents’ divorce and a new ‘mother’. Through confidences and memories shared with those who knew him best, Yoichi rediscovers the man he had long considered an absent and rather cold father. (Source: Ponent Mon)

In 1989, comic artist Hideo Azuma succumbs to the pressures of deadlines and tries (unsuccessfully) to hang himself using the slope of a mountain. He leaves his family, wandering as a dumpster bum looking for scraps of food, cigarette butts or discarded alcohol. After several months he is arrested as a vagrant and returned to his home. He then repeats the cycle in 1992 this time becoming a gas pipe fitter in another town. Later, in 1998, his alcohol dependence is so bad he is forced into rehab. This book is his expression of those three periods of his life told, not in a deep or depressed way but, as befits his nature, in a buoyant and cheerful cartoon art. (Source: Ponent Mon)