23/12/21: manga we’re reading lately that are currently being updated regularly

Continuing from our last post, we thought we’d continue the theme of “currently being updated” because there are few things worse than reading a manga, only to find that the “completed” status refers to the scanlation team dropping the series and not the fact that the manga has actually been fully translated. Well, maybe getting grouped with that annoying know-it-all for a group presentation might be worse, but not by much! Anyway, here are some series that were lost but now found, so you can be sure that you’ll get a stream of regular updates for the foreseeable future!

1) The Fable

We’ve talked about this series before on the blog – under our awesome list of assassin manga! There was a time before Mangadex went down because of that hacker that the series was being updated weekly and almost daily for a time, before it was downgraded to a monthly release and eventually dropped. Luckily, it’s recently been picked back up as a weekly series. My guess is that the recently release of the second live-action movie caused its popularity to rise. (Both live-action movies are really good.)

It’s about an invincible hitman whose name is only whispered in the underworld, as a sort of cautionary tale about why you shouldn’t offend others because they might send the Fable after you. However, it’s not about one of his missions. Instead, he and his getaway driver have to lie low in Osaka and pretend to be a normal brother and sister for one whole year because they’ve done too many jobs recently – and their boss warns that he’ll kill them if they kill anyone during this one year! This is easier said than done because they’ve been sent to live under the protection of a yakuza group, which is obviously a disaster waiting to happen since the brother-sister duo get pulled into the underworld intrigues. It’s thrilling and action-packed, but it’s actually mainly a comedy. Most of the comedy comes from our lovable hitman’s utter lack of social skills and his completely bizarre interactions with everyone he comes into contact with.

Outstanding art, characters and story – please check it out!

2) Dasei 67%

Here’s another series that went on break for a few months. It’s about the author’s real experiences as an art student with her friends. Basically, they’re just having fun, which includes trying to skive their way out of schoolwork, make money and get laid. I think that she’s mainly an adult manga artist and that this is one of her very few general-distribution series, which explains the generally lewd atmosphere of this entire series. That said, there’s no real sexual content (just some light nudity) and it’s still a generally good-natured series since all the characters are fundamentally decent people. It’s like Seinfeld.

3) Fuuko no Iru Mise

This series got dropped a few years back and was suddenly picked back up. It’s written by the author of Parasyte – that freaky manga where aliens infest human bodies so their heads split open into a giant maw while the MC’s right hand got converted into a sentient alien so his hand that this creepy mouth with razor sharp blades – but it’s completely different since it’s a slice of life following Fuuko, a very shy and awkward girl who starts working at a café to improve her sociability. She meets a lot of interesting people who teach her about life. Some of it is a bit cheesy but it’s quite a pleasant series overall.

However, a word of caution: the manga was written in the late 80s and we all know what Japan was like during that time, so be prepared for some outrageously sexist attitudes and casual attitudes towards sex crimes. It’s not really that bad but it made me go “WTF” on a few occasions. The only one that made me want to stop reading was this one about a guy who got a girl pregnant (they were the MC's schoolmates) and then nothing happened to him and he ended up going after the MC and the conclusion to that storyline was that "He's not such a bad guy after all" and I was a bit disgusted by that??? Like the guy is an asshole! Anyway, just skip those few chapters when you get to it and the rest of the series is alright. That shouldn’t detract from what is essentially a really good slice of life.

4) Soumatoh Kabushikigaisha

We brought this series up during the Halloween special. The title refers to a strange company building that pops up at random across Japan at different times, allowing patrons to sit in a room (like an internet café) and watch their entire life on DVD. Most of these are quite scary, but not like a Final Destination sense where you’ll get horribly mauled to death (although that sometimes happens), but more like a Twilight Zone sense. Some of the characters end up facing horrible fates but some of them learn their lesson from the videos. It’s very interesting, especially later on where they introduce an overarching mystery element to the story (you’ll know when it happens). Just to clarify, it’s more eerie than scary, so it’s like watching Silence of the Lambs, rather than Scream, if that illustrates my point.

5) Fushigi no Kenkyubu

Here’s a slice of life comedy that’s full of fanservice! A boy is forced to join the Mystery Research Club at school, only to find that it’s full of danger: a beautiful and popular senior who specializes in hypnotism; a tomboy who loves magic but relies on her brute strength rather than actual knowledge of magic tricks; and a short and cute girl who loves the occult and carries around a cursed doll (that actually has supernatural powers). The manga is pretty much about how he tries to survive being used as a test subject for hypnotism, poorly-executed magic tricks and supernatural phenomenon. Later on, they add in new characters like the enthusiastic club advisor (who gets the club embroiled in her harebrained but well-meaning activities like cherry blossom viewing during a storm), a super paparazzi from the school newspaper, and a bona fide mad genius whose science experiments put the whole school in danger.

The other half of the series is pretty much just fanservice. It’s all PG though, so that could be a selling point or not depending on your tastes. (I think that the characters are built up well so the fanservice pays off properly and isn’t a crutch for bad writing, like in other series.)

6) Trap Heroine

A guy moves to a school in a different area and meets his new roommate, who is a boy but dresses as a girl. Yup, that was a self-explanatory title.

7) Montage

This is a mystery thriller based on a real-life robbery case from 1969. A pair of childhood friends discover a dying man who tells the boy that his father was the perpetrator of said robbery. The kids sensibly decide to keep silent about the incident. However, 6 years later, the girl's family is kidnapped and the pair are forced to go on the run and investigate the decades-old case because there are powerful forces at work and they've got to prove their innocence to regain their normal lives.

The pair dynamic is pretty good since the girl isn't just a Girl Friday but actually quite badass; whereas the boy has some cliched angsty nonsense but is generally quite clever and nice to follow. The extended cast is also quite likeable and helps to move the story along very nicely. The mystery is really tense for the first 100 chapters, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the later chapters seemed to spiral out of control, but I still want to find out what the ending is.

The series was dropped several years ago but was recently picked back up on a weekly basis so you can regularly follow the story! There aren't too many left so I think that it's a good time to pick the series up.