Jenna from our Middlefield Branch is back with another round of Manga Spotlights!
In order to defeat the world crime group Demon Card, Haru Glory seeks out the five pieces of Rave stones that can grant great power. As Haru travels, he makes new connections that can help him on his quest. As the story continues, Haru finds himself learning more about a catastrophic event that wiped out a tenth of the world, and gaining new friends with their own mysterious connections to the Rave stones.
A good-vs-evil style adventure story, Rave Master is an engaging journey toward Haru’s ultimate goals.
Similar series: Fairy Tale by Hiro Mashima
Takeo Goda has no luck with girls. He’s tall, strong, and intimidating–all things that make him popular with male friends, and luckless getting a date. But his burly exterior belies a gentle and caring heart. When he saves a girl, Rinko, from being harassed she sees the kind person past his intimidating exterior. As Takeo starts to fall for her, he’s worried she’ll fall in love with his best friend like every other girl he’s liked. When admits to Takeo’s best friend that she’s falling for Takeo, Takeo and Rinko start down the path of romance. This romantic comedy dives into the mishaps of dating–because confessing is only the first of falling in love.
Similar series: Lovely Complex by Aya Nakahara
Silver Diamond by Shiho Sugiura
When Chigusa Senrou fails to assassinate the prince of the Amato empire, he somehow manages to fall through a rift in space and find Rakan Sawa–a seemingly normal high school student…who looks suspiciously like the Amato prince. When Chigusa attacks him, thinking he actually is the prince, Rakan unlocks a strange power over plants. Recognizing the power as important in his own world, Chigusa drags Rakan back to his world and recruits him in his fight against the prince.
Drawing on a fantasy setting and plant-based technology and magics, Silver Diamond creates a vivid world that’s on the brink of destruction. Rakan has the power to bring it back to life–literally–plant by plant, as he grows closer to the people in that world. And to understanding just how it relates to his own forgotten past.
Similar series: Loveless by Yun Kouga
When angel Hisui goes missing, no one is more worried than her friend and student Kohaku. Kohaku is a young angel, still learning her powers, but her songs bring life to Heaven around her. When she realizes Hosui is missing and the only possible place she could be is on Earth, Kohaku gets permission to search for her. But for an angel still learning, there’s a lot of dangers on Earth. After being saved by a human, Shuichiro, Kohaku’s search for Hosui is sidetracked as she tries to come up with a way to repay the human’s kindness. But little by little, Kohaku is falling in love with the human who saved her.
Wish is simultaneously cute and bittersweet as characters work through new experiences and trying to find what they hold dear. Angels and demons and spirits all end up muddling into Shuichiro’s life and as the story goes on, the characters reach their own definitions of love and what it means to them. Wish is a short four-volume series. It has a direct connection to CLAMP’s other works, especially Kobato, which also features angel characters.
Similar series: Kobato by CLAMP