I’ve been trying to get into Ultra Jump (mainly for Jojo) but one issue I’ve found is that the digital scan quality (at least as far as I’ve seen on Bookwalker) is just really low which makes smaller text very difficult to read. From what I’ve seen manga in it often have a summary page at the start of a chapter to tell you who the characters are and give a brief recap, but this is really hard to read because of the scan quality. If anyone knows a better place to read (that has scans that aren’t super low resolution) I’d love to know - outside of Japan I don’t think I can subscribe to the app for instance
ooh, I love me a good table. I was going to ask about your scoring scale… scrolling… oh, must be 1-5…
10,000,000. Ha, love it, and your write up is great!
I think I’ll go digital… except for one where I definitely need to see it to believe it lol.
I’m glad someone opened it and caught that!! Yeah I’ve been eagerly awaiting 流石先生’s next work!
And thank you so much!! I haven’t done a manga write-up in years, so I’m still pretty rusty, and it took longer than I thought it would to make it come out the way I wanted, and to hopefully encourage others to read the manga as well! I’ll do my best to make the next one even better!
Glad to hear it!! I’ll add it to the post Grand Jump list!! And いやはや熱海くん, All The Marbles, Spunk and EVOL as well!! They all look so cool!!! Looking through all of these manga I’ve never even heard of reminds me that I’m still a 初心者!
I can’t wait to experience that!!
Yeah that or special landmark issues (like One Piece’s 1000th chapter) or other special editions (like the jump/sunday crossover).
I know I should, I just usually buy magazines when I’m out of the house and have a bus/train trip haha.
I made a Japanese Amazon Account and made it trivial to get any magazine digitally I wanted for a reasonable price, and the scan quality seemed good to me!!
Also, I hope everyone liked the first write up, Wear the Sky is coming next! My goal is to have four short series finished by the time of the next issue of Grand Jump, in case anyone just wants to jump in! Wish me luck!
Thanks for mentioning this! I checked this out, this looks very cool! I will buy an issue and see how I like it. 
I also looked through current magazines on my own and was drawn to comic beam thanks to the covers, which I later realized you also mentioned – I also couldn’t argue with the tagline 
so I think I will start with those two and see how I’ll like it.
I also remembered I subscribed to european comic magazines a few years ago. If anyone is interested, those are very good imho: LÖK, kuš and KUTI. They’re more experimental and only feature one-shots, from what I remember. And despite the crazy letters in the names, they’re all in English. 
Those all look really really cool!
Also, sorry for the delay team, I’m about to post my next write up! More will be coming later this week, along with my reactions to the new issue of Grand Jump!
それをまとって (Wear The Sky!) by 古味慎也 (Komi Shinya)
Natively Link 空をまとって 1 | L26
Genres: Coming of Art, Art, Dramedy
Triggers: Lots and lots of nude paintings. That is the entire premise of this manga. Themes dealing with nudity and sexuality
Read the First Chapter Here for Free!
Background on the artist:
The writer and artist, Komi Shinya, has been a staple mangaka for the Grand Jump magazine line for almost a decade now, his big major work in the past being Sci-Fi manga EX-ARM, which I read a few chapters of when it came out ages ago, and which ran in the magazine for two years before being switched over to Shonen Jump +. Later, he would serialize a spin off called EX-ARM EXA in Grand Jump Mucha, which is how I got to know his name. If you have heard of these series, you might be aware of the absolutely horrendous adaptation (or so I’ve read) done by Crunchyroll Studios.
The animation is apparently legendarily bad, which is a damn shame because Komi-sensei is an amazing artist (but I can’t post like any of the EX-ARM covers because they all NSFW, this will be a theme for this write up). This man can draw! And his passion is clearly in drawing beautiful girls doing cool things (once again, this theme will be coming up again). Look them up on your own time, but here is a cute picture in the interim!
Manga Summary:
(image cropped for reasons that will become immenently clear)
From MangaDex: “A high school student, Haro Ogawa, is a self-taught oil painter who is trying to paint the ultimate nude. After an encounter with a “witch,” he sets his sights on applying to art school…? The mystery that resides in the human body, the ultimate “beauty” is painted on canvas! A skin-colored coming-of-age drama!”
Yep. You read that right. This is a coming-of-age art manga about a boy who just really really likes painting nudes.
He isn’t sexual (though the manga certainly contains plenty of sexuality) about it, but he is absolutely obsessed with them. He wants to paint the perfect nude painting, but after a chance encounter, ends up deciding to apply to Tokyo University of the Arts by only painting nudes in order to paint the perfect nude of the woman who inspired him from when he was a child!
Now. I know what most people might be thinking. There are people reading the screen and muttering to themselves, ‘well this just sounds like the hentai version of Blue Period’… and to be honest, those people are kind of right.
Sean’s Thoughts:
Before I compare this manga to Blue Period, let me first say that I do absolutely recommend reading this manga. The art is absolutely gorgeous, Shinya-sensei has a lot of experience as an illustrator, and both the character art and the art made by the characters is a treat for the eyes.
Additionally, while the story and much are the art is centered around nudity, this is not a hentai. The main character is (almost entirely) asexual, and truly just loves nothing more than painting nudes. And while there is nudity, well, I can’t exactly call this manga ‘wholesome’, but the nudes he paints are treated much more seriously as a form of art both by the mangaka’s drawings and the story. The paintings he paints are obviously NSFW due to their content, but a big part of the story is how the art he paints isn’t a form of sexual objectification but of true artistic intent. You will have to trust me on this, but the art he paints is definitely much much more artistic rather than erotic.
I didn’t think I would like this manga, since I absolutely LOVE Blue Period and this seemed like a carbon copy of it. I can say write now while there are obviously many similarities, the experience of reading each is VASTLY different.
Blue Period is this intense character study that focuses on anxiety, growing up, dreams, goals, and finding your way in the world in a truly realistic way. It is a masterpiece of writing, and the art does a great job of capturing the anxiety that Yaguchi feels.
Wear the Sky is not that. It contains those above elements, but is much more… 少年らし, if that makes sense. Its a bit more childish and simplistic, and the art is definitely more eye-catching.
Weird Comparison to SHAFT anime
(A comparison I thought of making to these is so oddly specific but I thought I should share it. Putting this in SHAFT Studios anime terms, Wear the Sky is the Bakemonogatari compared and Blue Period is like March Comes in Like a Lion. I don’t know if that helps anyone, but if it does, well there ya go)
As for Wear the Sky, while it isn’t as developed or mature as Blue Period, the manga is not even a year old yet, so it deserves to take some time to find its footing! Overall, I’m a sucker for any manga about making art, so I’m definitely sticking with this one! Only about 13ish chapters have been released so far, so you can catch up very quickly! I’m looking foward to the newest chapter tomorrow!
TLDR:
Pros:
Gorgeous Art
Nice Simple Coming of Age
Learn about Painting and Art in Japanese
Very Very Very Pretty
Cons:
Lots of Nudity
Not as Deep as Blue Period (So Far)
Pretty Predictable (So far)
Hope that people are interested and want to give this manga a try! For me, I’m enjoying it quite a bit, and might go back and try reading EX-ARM again!
(Sorry I don’t think I captured the artistic abilities of Komi-sensei. My excuse is that like everything he makes has a half-naked girl on it, so that isn’t exactly ideal for posting haha)
(Also sorry I used some English images for the post, posting pictures of my paperback wasn’t worth it lol)
Weird I swear this is the second manga I’ve seen recently about dudes obsessed with painting nudes. Looks interesting!
11/15/2023 Issue
THE FIRST NEW ISSUE SINCE I STARTED THIS PROJECT COMES OUT TODAY!!! AND LOOK WHO GETS TO BE ON THE FRONT COVER!!
I personally think りり (center) looks a bit off, but つばさ (green hair) looks great! I literally switched magazines for this series so I have high hopes! I’ll break down the chapter below, but let me just say this is an excellent place to jump in if you are interested!
Is it Okay if I Live With You? Chapter 10
First off, we have a stellar color spread!
Then the chapter goes through the premise again and each characters background to get the new audience ready to continue the story.
Then we go out a big group date with all of the girls, and each one gets their own little bit of fanservice, some more wholesome than others… (if you read the chapter you know EXACTLY which character is out of place here. Hint, its the one with sugar daddies on the side.)
And we get the most wholesome moment for りり、who is definitely looking like the main girl for this story. If さすが先生 wasn’t extremely famous for subverting expectations, I would call this manga’s romance an open and shut case!
I was already escatic for getting a bunch of つばさ 、who is easily my favorite character so far, but then, I get the best possible teaser for next chapter!!!
I’m so excited for next issue!!! Can’t wait for more つばさ！Here is more evidence for her being best girl so far if you aren’t convinced:
Here is a copy of the table of contents:
A big thing I notice is that there is an article of some kind? Looking into it more, it seems to be an every-issue set of mini-interviews/advice column. There is a reader submitted letter reprinted at the top, and three mangaka give their responses underneath. I don’t know if it is always the same three mangaka, but the ones for this issue are:
- 本宮 ひろ志, current author of 昔話 and famous for Salary Man Kintaro
- Buronson, the creator of First of the North Star
- and やまさき十三, author of a famous fishing manga.
The column title is Jinsei-Sodan of Big Three, which might mean that all three of these mangaka are the permanent answerers since they are all extremely old and legendary mangaka. Here is the article if anyone is interested in looking at it or diciphering/translating it! I’ll take a more detailed work at it later!
Additionally, there is a super long piece from Takeshi Kitano of all people?!? I believe its an advertisement for this new movie? If anyone wants to break this down and has more time than me please be my guest!
Another thing I found out from the table of contents and flipping through the magazine is that there is a bonus chapter of manga at the back!! It is from Shueisha’s shojo magazine Margaret Comics, and is titled これは経費で落ちません！or We Cannot Pay for This! Its the first chapter of the manga too!
This chapter is only included in the digital edition, which I believe is a little consolation prize for not getting the gravure dvd from the physical release? I don’t need the gravure, and the digital is 130 yen cheaper (and easier to write about haha), so this is a good deal for me! If people want to see/read more of this manga, let me know!
Also, new Wear The Sky chapter! I wish I had this picture for yesterday’s write up!
Wear the Sky Chapter 14 (Slightly NSFW)
Anna and Mina communicate properly, and Anna lets our boy paint her! Really really beautiful chapter, classic single-parent pull at your heartstrings stuff! Did anyone else read it, what do you think?
I didn’t get as many manga finished before this issue as I wanted, but I’ve made good progress on several series!! Should be able to have 4-5 series finished and written up before next issue!
(Also, I somehow made the last post the solution to my overall thread? Any forum先輩 who could tell me how to undo that? That would be much appreciated!)
You can make a different post the solution. Not entirely sure if you can un-solve the thread, though.
Oh yeah, it’s an interview about his new movie, 首. Come to think of it, I saw a trailer for it when I went to a movie theater in Japan in October!
I only very briefly skimmed the interview just now, but it looks like it’s based on a novel he wrote of the same name and it’s set in the Sengoku period involving the events surrounding the famous 本能寺の変 when Oda Nobunaga was assassinated. He says in a way although there’s the period setting, it ended up feeling like a warped yakuza movie, since human nature and intrigue and betrayal haven’t changed in those hundreds of years.
Oh gotcha gotcha, I’ll just have to switch the post to whatever the most recent issue is! Thanks for the help!
EDIT: Found out how to switch it off. Just needed to press the marker labeled solution on the new post. 
My bad!
Oh thats really cool!! I’ve never actually seen any movies he had directed (I’ve heard they are pretty good and Hanabi, Sontanine and Zatoichi are the ones to check out apparently?) and this will probably be my last chance to ever seen one in a theatre, so I’ll try to go to check it out!!
Here is the trailer for anyone interested!
I haven’t seen a historical movie like this in ages so I think I’m really in the mood for something like this!!
Just saw that one of the manga I will be covering later in Grand Jump, Red Mudan ( レッドムーダン) has its first volume for free on Amazon! I’m currently working on finishing two other series in the magazine ( 百木田家の古書暮らし and Shacho! Its Diet Time!), but I thought I would drop the link here for those who are interested! I believe its about the famous empress of China, told from her perspective as she becomes the empress? Not sure I haven’t taken a look yet! If anyone does, let me know what you think!
Free to read*. 200y to buy looks like
Ah yes sorry I should have specified! It’s also annoyingly browser only it seems, but hey a free book is a free book! (though I must admit with some guilt I paid the extra 200 yen to read it on my kindle… Even though I also have it in paperback…)
Paper is just so nice!! And digital so convenient 
I’m a sucker for both as well for my favorites
百木田家の古書暮らし (Living in the Karakida Family Bookstore) By 冬目 景 (Kei Toume)
Genres: Slice of life, SLOOOOWWWWW BURN, Family, LGBT Themes, Drama, Books
Triggers: mentions of past domestic violence
Read the first chapter for free here!
Background on the artist:
Kei Toume is a great example of a career manga artist who has constantly had work and moderate success, but has never exploded or become a sensation due to the slower-paced nature of their manga. While her earlier manga Kurogane was a violent samurai-tale of revenge, and Lament of the Lamb was a horror manga, recently her work has been more focused on slow, slice of life stories. (btw doing research for this, I want to check out Lament of the Lamb someday!)
You can see the difference in vibe between these manga, can’t you? Kurogane is a much older manga, and Lament of the Lamb is 20 years old now! Toume-sensei is a veteran mangaka, one who used to bounce around to different Kodansha publications, but is now a staple of Grand Jump. The most recent manga from Grand Jump she made that you might have heard of is Sing “Yesterday” for Me, which was made into an anime in 2020.
Now, just because her work hasn’t popped off like some other mangaka does not mean she is unsuccessful by any stretch of the imagination! She has been a staple of Grand Jump, being serialized in it through various manga series. She has won several awards and had an anime adaptation! Being able to keep running in a major magazine like Grand Jump with different manga series with different genres is a really impressive feat, and something that we often take for granted. Think about all of the One-Hit-Wonder mangaka we have heard of constantly get shunted off to less-read magazines as the glory of their heyday falls further into the past. (If anyone is interested for more info on this, lemme know!)
She is no Rumiko Takahashi, but she also isn’t trying to be. She is an artist making her art, and getting paid to make it, and people are reading it! Also, her recent work seems perfect for a drama adaptation, which might raise her profile even more. I think seinen manga by female mangaka are usually worth checking out since they typically have such a different style and focus, and I find myself gravitating more and more to them. If you are interesting in reading more works by female-mangaka (tagging you because this might be up your alley! @MaraVos ), you should check her out!
Manga Summary:
From MangaDex: “The world’s largest collection of used bookstores, Kanda-Jinbōchō. There begins the story of the unforgettable days the three Karakida sisters spend surrounded by the scent of used books when they inherit the used bookstore their grandfather left behind.”
For the first time in highlighting the manga from this magazine, I can confidently say that this manga is COMPLETELY SFW! Its honestly a relief, I was worried that Grand Jump was not the magazine I thought it was! (for those looking for an even more aggressive version of GJ, might I suggest Grand Jump Mecha, which is literally exactly that. It’s not for me though personally)
No, this is a very slow burn slice of life about three sisters (one married and divorced, one recently out of college, and one still in high school) moving into their grandfather’s old used bookstore. It is very very very chill, though still with drama, but the drama is not an explosive-type of drama but rather the drama of things that happened in the past and the feeling of grasping for a place in the world. It is definitely not a stressful read. While it isn’t a full-healing manga, (and thus maybe not exactly what you are looking for @mitrac ), there isn’t really anything overtly bad that happens (except for one fight earlier in the manga, but it resolves positively). This is a slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow burn manga, but it has plenty of wholesome and cute moments as well as a great atmosphere!
Sean’s Thoughts/Should You Read This?:
So, this is the longest series I’ve read in Japanese for this particular project, and boy howdy did I pick a dense one. Some manga I feel are secretly books with lots of pictures, and I think that Karakida (the much faster way to write the book’s name) is one of those. That isn’t the say the art is bad (its nice and atmospheric and is great at showing character moments, in fact its art is what drew me to this manga in the first place!), but rather that the text is DENSE. The daily conversation is pretty easy and snappy, but there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know.
Fortunately they do offer some explanation pages, but these are meant for her Japanese audience, which means there are a lot of words that her readers are assumed to know that I just don’t!
That said, I feel like I improved a lot reading it, and it was definitely worth it as a project! I’ll keep up with the magazine releases now, and I’m looking forward to the next chapter! I got more into it than I thought, kind of like getting sucked into a whirlpool. Also, if you want to catch up, its 4 volumes until you are basically caught up to the magazine!
TLDR:
You should read this if:
- You are interested in Japanese literature/the used book scene
- Slow burn is your kind of burn
- You want a more difficult manga as your next project
- You want to read something by a notable female mangaka, a master of older-style of manga art
- You want something atmospheric
- You want to improve your Japanese with a challenge!
You shouldn’t read this if:
- You need action/people yelling at each other
- You prefer the new wave of digital art as opposed to classic ink drawings
- You are not a semi-confident reader
- I’m serious, this is a really slow burn. Like I would say strap in for a slow burn but this burn is so slow that straps are not necessary for this ride.
- If this burn was a real burn it would take so long to hurt you could literally walk to the hospital
Why’s 百 being read as から, though? It… vexes me. 
It makes it such a nightmare to type out!!! I literally copy and paste the full title everytime I need it!!