AX Volume 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga

by Sean Michael Wilson (Editor), Katsuo Kawai, Nishioka Kyoudai

A groundbreaking introduction to the most creative and cutting-edge works of Japanese independent comics, presented in English for the first time, "AX" is the premier Japanese magazine for alternative comics. Published bi-monthly for over ten years, the pages of "AX "contain the most creative and cutting-edge works of independent comics in the world's largest comics industry. Now, Top Shelf presents this collection of stories from ten years of AX history, and features work by such visionaries as Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Akino Kondoh, Kazuichi Hanawa, and Shinichi Abe.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels, Short Stories, Fantasy, Japan, Art

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Sean Michael Wilson is a comic book writer from Scotland. He has had around 30 books published with a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers, including: a comic book version of A Christmas Carol ('Best of 2008’, Sunday Times), AX:alternative manga ( 'Best ten books of 2010’, Publishers Weekly), Parecomic (with an introduction by Noam Chomsky, his first contribution to a book in graphic form). He is currently writing books for big Japanese publisher Kodansha, being the only British writer to do so. In fact, he is the only pro manga writer from Britain who lives in Japan. He is also the editor of the critically acclaimed collection 'AX:alternative manga' (Publishers Weekly's 'Best ten books of 2010' and nominated for a Harvey award).

Working with various Japanese artists he has written a unique line of Japanese history/martial arts/Samurai books, including The Book of Five Rings, Secrets of the Ninja, The 47 Ronin, and Cold Mountain (winner of China Comic and Animation Competition 2015 ‘Best Overseas Comic’ award). In 2016 his book 'The Faceless Ghost' was nominated for an Eisner Award. In 2017 he became the first British person to receive an International Manga Award from the Japanese Government. In 2019 his book 'The Many Not the Few' was launched by the Labour Party leader in an event in the Houses of Parliament. In 2020 he received the Scottish Samurai Award from an association promoting connections between Japan and Scotland.

He does comic books outside the normal superhero/fantasy brands, going into areas such as history, biography, drama, and social issues, often in collaboration with universities, charities and book publishers. He often gives lectures and talks about comics in schools and colleges, and writes articles for such places as The Japan Times, The London Economic and The Herald Scotland.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is billed as "creative and cutting-edge" (twice, per the goodreads blurb!), "experimental" (again twice, this time on the book cover itself), "innovative," "personal," "independent," and "open."
I like all those things!

But you know what else I like? Artists who can draw. Strong story-telling. Transgression that has a point beyond itself. Solid prose. And most of the stories lack one of another of those qualities.

A lot of these seem to be done in a quick-cartooning style that did not have a lot of visual interest. And drawing hairy balls and boobs and rape scenes -- is it really transgressive if it's same see-me-being-transgressive thing people have been doing since before I was born? And oh, look, men are still scared of sexy ladies.

The writing style, well, maybe this the *translators' fault, because some of it didn't make sense grammatically. But there is some really purple prose in some of these. Ah, I've missed this small chamber of flesh... Inside the blood-tinged cradle, the glitter of gold powder cast by a dragon, and the fragrance of a dripping, corporeal sap.
If you read these in Japanese feel free to let me know if it was better in the original.
*I'm assuming they weren't all the same person, since some seemed fine.

Also, if your story is primarily about sports, cars, or how girls don't like you, I'm probably not going to be interested. Obviously other readers' mileage may vary.


I don't want to be overly negative, so I will now talk about some individual stories that I enjoyed.

Ayuko Akiyama's "Inside the Gourd" about a subdued man with an interest in insects who one day peeks into a gourd where he is incubating a caterpillar and sees a secret garden and a house. The art wasn't anything amazing, but it was fine and worked with what is actually a rather classic story for an "experimental" magazine.

Imiri Sakabashira's "Conch of the Sky" was interesting in a surreal fever-dream way, although it ultimately didn't seem to come together and left my disappointed.

"Into Darkness" Takato Yamamoto's art is always beautiful. This isn't as fine as, say, the illustrations for 草迷宮, but that had better paper quality, and probably paid better, too. The evil(? or whatever) was very blobby and hard to make out the details. This is the same one I quoted above as being purple, and the one that really made me wonder about the translator's grasp of English. "On soft earth in one corner, intoxicated by sorrow, I recall indecent murmurs and the pulse of tainted flesh. A dance of supreme bliss drenched in blood." Thank God Lovecraft didn't write erotica.

"A Mushroom Garden" by Shinya Komatsu was like a slightly freakier version of some stiltedly-translated import cartoon I would've watched a kid, probably on Nickelodeon.


Why does the girl feel guilty about cheating on her "First Umbrella" by having another one that goes with another outfit? I missed something. I like Akino Kondo's drawing style, though.

Tomohiro Koizumi, on the other hand, draws like a total amateur but has a fairly solid, understated parable about standing by your friends even after they've been jerks to you, because of guilt over wrong things you were both doing. Guilt and lies are slippery slopes.

Shin'ichi Abe, I didn't get what you were doing with "My Old Man" but felt like it would have been an interesting meta thing if I had understood it.

Keizo Miyanishi, was that... a morbidly sexy art nouveau take on Crime and Punishment?! My hat is off to you for even thinking of that, although I couldn't make much sense of the story.

[Joey Dhaumya · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Watcher - Osamu Kanno: 1
Love's Bride - Yoshihiro Tatsumi: 1
Conch of The Sky - Imiri Sakabashira: 3.5
Rooftop Elegy - Takao Kawasaki: 3
Inside the Gourd - Ayuko Akiyama: 3.3
Me - Shigehiro Okada: 3
Push Pin Woman - Katsuo Kawai: 4.7
A Broken Soul - Nishioka Brosis: 4.7
Into Darkness - Takato Yamamoto: 2.3
Enrique Kobayashi's Eldorado - Toranusuke Shimada: 5
The Neighbor - Yuka Goto: 3
300 Years - Mimiyo Tomozawa: 1
Black Sushi Party Piece - Takashi Nemoto: 2.3
Puppy Love - Yusaku Hanakuma: 2
The Brilliant Ones - Namie Fujieda: 2.5
The Tortoise & The Hare - Mitsuhiko Yoshida: 3
The Twin Adults - Kotobuki Shiriagari: 4.7
Haiku Manga - Shinbo Minami: 1.5
Mushroom Garden - Shinya Komatsu: 3.5
Home Drama: The Sugawaras - Einosuke: 5
A Well Dressed Corpse - Yuichi Kiriyama: 4
Arizona Sizzler - Saito Yunasuke: 1
The Rainy Day Blouse, The First Umbrella - Akino Kondo: 4
Stand By Me - Tomohiro Koizumi: 1.5
My Old Man - Shin'ichi Abe: 3.7
Up and Over - Seiko Erisawa: 2
The Song of Mr. H - Shigeyuki Fukumitsu: 2.7
Kataoka Toyo Pathos Theater - Kataoka Toyo: 2.3
Kosuke Okada and His 50 Sons - Hideyasu Moto: 1.3
Les Raskolnikov - Keizo Miyanishi: 2
Alraune Fatale - Alraune Fatale: 3.7
Sacred Light - Otoya Mitsuhashi: 2
Six Paths of Wealth - Kazuichi Hanawa: 3.7

Average - 2.75
Rounding it off to 3

Now that I'm done with the arbitrary act of assigning numbers to a qualitative experience, I want to say that reading this collection was a helluva experience. At the end of it I feel like I've come out as someone who can stop and smell the roses

more so than before.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The spiritual successor to Garo, AX was an alternative manga anthology. Think Raw, Mome, Now! Some of it is really amateurish looking but a few pieces are quite polished. It's interesting to me that American Comics (Marvel/DC) have a very specific look and is quite different than does manga (Shogun Jump) but alternative comics have more of a blur - there's a lot of similarities here to western alternative comics.

Certainly worth checking out for fans of alternative comics. One downside is even if I want to check out more work by these creators most don't have english publications!

Love's Bride - Yoshihiro Tatsumi
The reason I grabbed this collection but I'm pretty sure I've read this story elsewhere.

[Tab · Rating 2 out of 5]

What in the world did I just read?

[Rod Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rated “Bad" in our old book database.

[Bob Dobbs · Rating 1 out of 5]

This epitomizes everything I hate in comic books and art in general. It's ugly. Oh so very ugly. Deliberately so. Do I appreciate the beautiful? The skilled? Yes! Yes, I do. Oh, how plebeian of me, how pedestrian. GOD FORBID that a man have taste. I only WISH I could be like those super-cool guys and gals who can appreciate feces smeared on canvas. Poor me, I'm stuck down here with my copies of ACTUAL FOR-REAL ART COMICS like Berserk, Akira, and Nausicaa.

As you can tell, this is an issue that gets me HEATED UP.

Plot-wise the stories suck just as badly as the art. They aren't just weird, or quirky, they're deliberately stupid, deliberately uninteresting, deliberately so steeped in idiotic metaphor and contrived symbolism as to be rendered unrelatable, impossible to connect to emotionally.

So much of the appeal of AX (and the similar compilation Secret Comics Japan) seems to come from this idea that OK, the stuff in here sucks, but it's all deliberate, it's all for a point. But bear with me on a little thought safari, how do you KNOW that the art sucks because it's supposed to suck? Can you prove to me that the "artists" AREN'T just THAT BAD? A reasonable, logical human being would apply Occam's Razor (no idea what that means, but you get the gist) and it would show that there is more proof that the artists CAN'T draw worth shit, than that they CAN but CHOOSE NOT TO. Or hey, the idea is that all the stories don't work as stories because they're metaphors, right? Can you PROVE that they're metaphors? Who said? God only knows what an "artist" is liable to say about his own work! Do you have proof supporting any of these claims from someone more REPUTABLE?

And hey! Go ahead, tell me that the art ISN'T supposed to suck! Tell me it looks good! Tell me it sucks but that's OK! Tell me the stories AREN'T metaphors. Come up with some other excuses! Because that's all they ever will be. The real truth is, Ax is obscure, it's stupid, it's probably popular on Tumblr, so maybe if you pretend hard enough to like it you'll fit in, you'll get laid, and you'll prove to mom and dad and all the girls who never invited you to the Sadie-Hawkins dance that COMIC BOOKS IS ART, and don't forget it.

[Roman Stadtler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Great collection, all good, even the stories I didn't understand were, at the very least, intriguingly drawn, but The Push Pin Woman by Katsuo Kawai will stay with me for years. Not because it was scary or particularly haunting, but for it's realistic psychological insight revealed in such a simple art style.

[fonz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Por sólo seis pavos que cuesta el volumen de casi cuatrocientas páginas puedes convertirte en el más frikster de tu urbanización, así que, ¿por qué no? La cantidad de historietas cortas y autores es larguísima para desgranarla uno a uno, y la calidad de las historias variará según el lector. A mí, salvando los sospechosos habituales como Tatsumi o Abe, ninguno me ha llamado especialmente la atención, ni hay aquí historietas que lleguen al nivel de calidad de proyectos (salvando las enormes distancias) como aquel mítico "Nosotros somos los muertos" de Max y Pere Joan. Quizá haya un exceso de surrealismo y absurdo feroz (de un absurdo que dejan a un Kago a la altura del betún) y las historias más "convencionales" resultan casi refrescantes, como si ya el manga adulto más convencional fuese el límite de mi capacidad de extrañeza. En general me han resultado más interesantes los grafismos, alejadísimos de los cánones y las convenciones del manga a los que estamos acostumbrados, que exploran desde el refinado estilo de Maruo hasta el que parece dibujado por alguien que no ha cogido un lápiz en su vida, con todo lo que se puedan imaginar por medio.

[Vogisland]

I enjoyed this book, but it was not as "experimental" or crazy as I expected. If you're looking for a Japanese Kramers Ergot, you might be disappointed. Most of the stories differed only in minor ways from the kinds of manga you see kids reading on the train in Japan.

My favorite was easily Toranosuke Shimada's "Enrique Kobayashi's Eldorado". Hopefully Shimada will get a full-length book released in English. Stories by artists who've already been translated into English (Sakabashira, Nemoto, Tatsumi, and Fujieda) are pretty much what you'd expect if you've read them. "Inside the Gourd," "Mushroom Garden," and "Kosuke Okada & His 50 Sons" are standouts. "Six Paths of Wealth" is an above-average horror short. The rest is a mixed bag. There are some nice stylists, such as Saito Yunasuke, Shinichi Abe, and Akino Kondo, but there are other pieces that just seem too underdeveloped to include in this compilation. I recommend this with the hope that future releases from AX will be a bit more satisfying.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

AX is very cool. It's a collection of bizarre "alternative" manga. None of the comics are very long at all, so the few I disliked didn't ruin the entire collection for me. There was some great stuff here that will be beloved by fans of the weird.

[Kayla]

I’m really not sure how to rate this! This was such a weird anthology of manga, ranging from gorgeous and thoughtful stories to “what the heck am I even reading?!”

I did appreciate the wide range of stories, even if I didn’t like quite a few of them. I tend to gravitate towards pretty slice of life or action/adventure manga, so this really broadened my horizons and introduced me to artists I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

I’ve been trying to list content warnings in reviews, but there are Quite A Lot for this anthology, so if you’re interested in this, I’d suggest looking those up. There’s a fair bit of nudity and sexual imagery, and also some imagery is just... sort of gross, haha.

Unrelated to what’s actually inside the book, the cover is gorgeous and it’s what drew me to the book in the first place!

[Bernardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pesar de que al leer «alternativo» en el título uno espera historias extrañas y fenómenos incomprensibles, y que esa clase de cosas siempre me entusiasman, esta vez la mayoría de relatos ilustrados me decepcionaron: pasajes sin ton ni son y menos que experimentales, muy pocos cuentos son dignos de admirarse por el arte y la mayoría no cuentan nada ni siquiera más o menos interesante. Aún así, disfruté la zambullida por mangas que no se parecen a los comerciales.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When one mentions "manga," to the average passer-by, one is usually met with the question, "what is that?" Mention manga to the average American manga reader, you'll likely hear mention of such series as Soul Eater or Negima!, or of such high-profile mangaka as Go Nagai or CLAMP. But many of them will likely not know about the sort of underground works that seldom actually make it outside Japan.

This is where AX: Alternative Manga enters the picture. A 399-page behemoth from Top Shelf Productions, AX is an English-language compilation of alternative manga works taken straight from Japan's cutting-edge anthology periodical of the same name. Many, if not nearly all, American manga readers will likely not have heard of any of the artists or writers featured in this collection. They would be doing themselves a disservice, however, to not try this collection out; manga is more than just magical girls, large-scale fantasy romps or wacky romantic comedies. Manga can be just as experimental and surreal as American underground comics, and AX has such a selection in spades.

For such a large book, it's actually a remarkably fast read, due in part to the bite-size stories and in part to the very visual storytelling they use. Yes, manga is a visual storytelling medium already, but some of the stories have notably little dialogue or narration and rely quite a lot on the art to carry us through. The ones that do feature any significant amount of text use fairly simple sentences (mostly for the sake of impact) and read almost like illustrated storybooks, if highly unusual ones.

The part that may inspire one or more additonal read-throughs is the fact that so many of the stories in here have very bizarre themes or premises. One story might actually tug a bit at the heartstrings, then the one after it will really mess with your head. Some of them are so strange that, at first, it won't even be clear what in the world it's about or what it's trying to say. Lazier readers may or may not appreciate this sort of thing, but manga fans looking to expand their horizons a bit will find plenty to appreciate here.

One such story, Inside The Gourd, is an unconventional love story involving a working man who cares more about studying insects than finding a wife. Another, Push Pin Woman, is a metaphorical look at the end of a relationship. Then we have The Hare & The Tortoise, a clever and amusing sequel of sorts to the classic children's story. A more disturbing story, Puppy Love, puts humankind's prejudices and hypocrisy on full display while giving an account of a couple's sad journey through parenthood. And there are nearly thirty other stories to go with them, some making about as much sense, and others not seeming to make any.

Because this is an anthology, no two stories are written or drawn by the same person, giving us a wide variety of styles to observe and appreciate. Very little of what is presented will remind anyone of the sort of shonen series they may be accustomed to reading; the artwork is just as different from story to story as it would be from a Marvel comic book to MAD Magazine. Some present characters with the sort of proportions we would expect, and others use such wild, crazed caricatures that, were the stories not so short, it would be easy to understand if someone wound up forgetting they were still reading the same book.

One thing that should be mentioned is the fact that this is definitely not a child-friendly anthology. While one won't find much objectionable language, one will find more than enough nudity, sexuality, violence and just flat-out disturbing themes to justify keeping this well out of the kids' reach. These stories don't pull any punches in any department, and as they are quite experimental in nature, they don't exactly present their messages in a "now, what did we all learn today?" sort of way.

For the adult manga reader looking to find something more varied and thought-provoking than the works of Ken Akamatsu, however, AX is a fine choice. Author Paul Gravett, who writes the book's introduction, expresses his hope that this will be only the first of many such anthologies to appear in English, and after having read it cover to cover, that would be my hope as well.

[Sean Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi all,
Im the editor of this collection. Thanks for the mentions here.
The book got a lot of critical attention and praise, such as:

"This fantastic collection features eye-opening work by 33 representative artists. ... Ax provides... a home for the perverse and the profound. Libraries committed to sophisticated comics collections and to adventurous (mature) readers must buy this volume and those that follow." - Library Journal (starred review)

"This brilliantly curated, 400-page collection highlights the best experimental Japanese comics I've ever seen."
-Whitney Matheson, USA Today's Pop Candy…

"A world's worth of material, this is a book that every serious fan of manga should read."
- Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide.

​"Within Ax's four hundred pages are over thirty stories that explode everything you might have thought about what manga is."
- David Brothers, Comics Alliance

"One hell of a book... absolutely recommended."
-Joseph Luster, Otaku USA

You can see more pages from the book on my web site:
https://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/...

Thanks, Sean

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of alternative manga, and a great book for those who don't know much about manga beyond Dragonball and Sailor Moon. The level of quality is somewhat uneven, but the stronger pieces more than make up for the weaker ones. Another sort of negative thing is that though the editor refers to the collection as a great introduction to many different artists (which it is), most of the artists represented don't have their work translated into English, which leaves everyone who doesn't read Japanese stuck, especially if they find work they really enjoy. But I guess that could be more incentive to learn the language. If you already like manga, pick this one up. If you don't, borrow from a friend first.

[Geoff Sebesta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turns out they have boring confession comics in Japan. This collection of semiautobiographical and freaky-but-not-too-freaky comics had me yawning, a lot, but it is what it is and if you like that sort of thing this is the best place to find it. I seem to remember there being a pretty good comic towards the beginning, but I can't remember what it was about; that's how much of an impression this collection made on me.

These sort of anthologies are printed a lot more because editors want to make them than because readers want to read them.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some outside the box which was good, and some other things that were TOO outside the box that is my comfort zone or taste. A lot of great artwork, however this is a collection of 33 stories, and the bulk was either art I didn't care for or more often was of a subject matter that was too lewd or wasn't linear or didn't make sense as a story.

Enjoyable segments:
Ayuko Akiyama's Inside the Gourd
Katsuo Kawai's Push Pin Woman
Mitsuhiko Yoshida's The Hare and the Tortoise
Shinbo Minami's Robo and Pyuta
Shinya Komatsu's Mushroom Garden

I'll see if I can find some of their other works.

[Ciro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraordinary collection. Great depth of intellect and imagination, and I want to chew on the art. I wish say I could say I loved it, but enough of the pieces seemed to be a working-out of male sexual anxiety from a patriarchal perspective that I closed the book a little angry, unfortunately.

Regardless, I'm definitely ready for the next volume.

[Emilia P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for the diversity of stuff they included -- I just want to hold this up and say "this is what I mean by manga. it's just comics guys. weird weird comics." I want more of these! Translate the outlandish stuff, people! Faster Faster! Even if I don't like all of it, how will I know? Uhhh I guess I could go learn Japanese....... nope. :)

[Oz Barton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to rate simply due to the sheer boggling variety of stories and styles compiled here. I only liked about a third of them, and I didn't understand several more. Bonus points for the free-expression spirit of the thing.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of bizarre and perverse alternative manga shorts. There were a couple of good ones but no standouts.

[Tamas O'Doughda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for 16 years and usually displayed it on my bookshelves cover out due to its arresting image. My friend bought it for me when I was leaving New York and perhaps his purchase was also inspired by the pretty cover. But alas, you shouldn't judge...

In those 16 years of ownership, for some reason I never opened the book to flip through. It's taken cleaning up my bookshelf to finally make the plunge and I can't say I am too thrilled I did. The Mushroom Explorer by Shinya Komatsu was my favorite. The one about Mr. H becoming a fighter and the ones about the book makers who can't stop farting and get workman's comp were other highlights. But I would say I liked only about 1 of every 5 parts of this. There were bizarre stories that I was definitely scandalized by. But even beyond that, the art and storytelling in some of these were really poor. Like, I've done graphic novel units in some of my classes and had students produce far superior work than some of these. So, my rating of this is definitely informed by a little bit of frustration. Why do some people get the validation of being published, even when their work is low quality, while other high quality things are lost to obscurity?

So, I finally read the pretty book that has followed me for almost two decades. And now I'm gonna get rid of it. Sorry, J, no reflection on your generosity. Just not my cup of tea.

[Mauricio Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even if I'm a sucker for manga I have to admit that for the most part this compilation feels rather "amateurish" than "alternative", with the selection consisting for the most part of scatological banalities and less than accomplish ero-guro stories like those mastered by Suehiro Maruo, Shintaro Kago and even Junji Ito.
It also seems like most of the anthology is formed by excerpts rather than ex profeso works which diminishes the possibility of engagement when the story abruptly ends.
I did however like the work of several mangakas that compose the latter part of the selection, like those by Mitsuhiko Yoshida, Takato Yamamoto (whom I've only known as an illustrator), Shinya Komatsu and specially Hideyasu Moto, so I have to appreciate the fact that I got to know a handful of interesting artists.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ax was a manga magazine similar to Juxtapoz or Heavy Metal, but a bit cruder and more subversive--at least for Japan. It was born from the ashes of the more adult and social/political manga magazine Garo when one of its founders died. In the same spirit of pushing the boundaries of what manga is and what types of art, stories, characters and ideas manga is capable of. The results aredefinitely a mixed bag. Some of these I quite liked, a fair number of other ones I didn't much like or I was indifferent to. But certainly a good collection if you want to get an idea of what, as the title suggests, "alternative" manga is like. NSFW at all! Keep that in mind if you are reading this in public, a majority of the comics have nudity and/or sex and not really censored either.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of stories, definitely alternative! It's so good to see varying art styles, but many were so not for me - ie toilet humor, dudes jerking it, disturbing/gross. The cover was so beautiful, I was definitely hoping to see more of that style, but hey, there was definitely variety.

I was so happily surprised to see Takato Yamamoto's work in here (pretty boy and body horror), and to meet Shinya Komatsu (a whimsical, fun style).

[Sae-chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was like a dream catalogue. Some are heart-warming, some are heart-wrenching, some are erotic, some are grotesque, some are artsily pretty and some are painstakingly ugly.

But the most important message I got was what was printed in the cover: Independent - Open -
Experimental. That's how I wish I will always be.

[Joss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo que más me cautivó de esta colección fueron las formas tan diversas de poder ilustrar manga. Esta lectura me permitió expandir mi visión sobre el gran arte de la historieta japonesa. Tratar de encerrar al manga con un solo estilo característico sería ignorar un sin fin de posibilidades visuales.

¡Muy recomendado!

3.7

[P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

reading this just made me curious about what the selection process was. as with any anthology, there were some I liked, some I didn't. lots of weird humor, scatological humor, sexual stuff, some of it worked for me and some didn't.

[Yanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like some stories but less than half of the book. Majority of them were not at all my manga style However I tried to read some of them i gave up because I was not understanding what I was reading and also I did not like the drawing

[Danny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Authors: MISOGYNY!! Haha I'm so subversive and deep 😎

Kinda crazy how male authors are OBSESSED with other males. They pretend to be subversive and innovative and yet can't imagine anything more interesting than themselves. Yawn.