January 2011 Manga Recommendations

Here’s 10 manga of varying type and vintage that caught my fancy for the month of January. I’m technically aiming for the end of each month, so it’s a tad late!

January Manga Recommendations:

HaccaWorks* Goods

After taking its sweet time, my Celga package finally arrived, bringing me much joy.  The purpose of this order was to finally amass what HaccaWorks* materials I could and it was a raging success.  I own all the books!  HaccaWorks* is a self-publishing group best known for their visual novel Hanakisou and (hopefully soon) Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino.  Hanakisou was originally released on PC and later ported to PS2 with full voices.  It will be be re-released on PSP this September.  AkaAka missed the latest Comiket deadline, so here’s to hoping for a release next winter.

Kids Log by Hashiba Maki

Kids Log

Too cute for words? Probably…will try anyway!

Okay, so most probably don’t know who Hashiba Maki is.  The recent appearance of a couple of Bingo! chapters in English hopefully helped this, but for the most part, she’s still low profile.  I own 44 of her books (thanks LibraryThing), so I’m a bit biased.  Hashiba Maki has been with the publisher Tousuisha (think Silver Diamond) since the 80’s when they were publishing not shoujo, but very innocent BL.  Recently, she ceased publishing works in their magazine and struck out on her own.  At first I was heartbroken, but after reading Kids Log–I see it’s the same ‘ol Hashiba Maki, even better!  Hopefully now she’ll reach a wider audience.