The Best New Manga of December 2017

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 1, by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu
Orphanages in manga are usually happy places—until something terrible happens, that is. The orphanage in The Promised Neverland seems to fit the bill—38 lively kids, ages zero to 11, romping around, laughing, eating, taking a really hard test every day… OK, that last bit doesn’t sound great, nor does the fact that each child has a number tattooed on his or her neck. A kindly woman in an apron, with her hair up in a bun, is “Mom” to the kids, and she seems like the perfect mother, kind and gentle and all-knowing. The three smartest kids in the orphanage are Emma, Norman, and Ray, who are 11 and will be leaving soon—everyone is taken away to a foster family before they are 12. Or at least, that’s what the kids are told, and since they don’t have any TV or radio, let alone internet, they don’t know otherwise—until Emma and Norman stumble on a terrible secret. Suddenly everything about the orphanage takes on a sinister cast, and Emma, Norman, and Ray find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game with Mom as they try to figure out how to save themselves, and everyone else.

Splatoon, Vol. 1, by Sankichi Hinodeya
This manga is probably best appreciated by those who are already familiar with the Splatoon video game on which it is based. The creators do a good job of explaining the basic principles as they go along (avoiding the pitfalls of awkward expository dialogue and information dumps), but this story mostly consists of Splatoon battles. On the other hand, if you like action manga, this one’s for you too, because Splatoon is basically all action. Two teams of (mostly) boys in goofy outfits compete to cover the battle venue in their signature color, which they apply with squirt guns. Teamwork and quick thinking are emphasized, but it’s not preachy—just good, clean (well, not clean) fun, with plenty of pantsing and other juvenile humor.

Attack on Titan, Vol. 23, by Hajime Isayama
This late in the run, it’s impossible to write about Attack on Titan without spoiling it, but suffice it to say we’ve traveled a long way from the initial premises of the story. Eren and his friends have gained new powers and uncovered the secret his father was trying to shield him from. With this volume, the plot jumps ahead four years to a time when Eren’s abilities have become more valuable than ever to his enemies. Can’t get enough of Attack on Titan? Then December is a good month, with vol. 5 of Attack on Titan: Junior High and vol. 12 of Attack on Titan: Before the Fall arriving later in the month.

Astra Lost In Space, Vol. 1, by Kenta Shinohara
If there’s one thing we have learned from manga, it’s that school trips always devolve into Lord-of-the-Flies type survival ordeals after the bus/plane crashes and all the teachers are killed. Apparently things aren’t any better in the future, because when a group of high school students go on a planetary field trip (the teachers wisely drop them off and flee), they are promptly sucked up by some sort of glowing sphere and ejected into deep space. Rather conveniently, there’s an abandoned spaceship nearby, so the students take shelter there and start figuring out how to get home. Also conveniently, everyone in the group has a different skill set, from the super-genius (he’s the guy in glasses—go figure!) who knows how to get the spaceship working to the ditzy girl with a photographic memory. So yes, this manga does pile on the tropes pretty hard, but the characters also wink at the reader from time to time. With a likable cast that works well together and some creative touches, such as the bizarre biology of the planet where the group forages for food, it’s a well told lost-in-space story with a nice blend of seriousness and humor. And that’s exactly what one would expect from a pro like Kenta Shinohara, who was an assistant on Gin Tama and is the creator of Sket Dance (released in English as an anime but not as manga).

To Love Ru, Vols. 1-2, by by Saki Hasemi and Kentaro Yabuki
Rito is a shy high school boy who desperately wants to confess his love to his longtime crush, but gets tongue-tied every time. He’s so awkward that any attention from the opposite sex, let alone any suggestion of sexytimes, causes him to overheat. Naturally, a naked alien girl materializes in his bath one day, because manga. Lala—that’s her name—is a princess fleeing her father, who is demanding she marry one of her suitors. Fortunately, her robot suit came with her, so she doesn’t stay naked for long, but a couple of her father’s henchmen are also close on her heels. All of this causes all sorts of humorous complications for Rito. The To Love Ru anime has been around for a while, and now Seven Seas is releasing the manga in two-in-one omnibus volumes; they are also releasing the sequel, To Love Ru Darkness, in single volumes under their Ghost Ship mature-readers imprint.

Unmagical Girl, Vol. 1, by Ryuichi Yokoyama and Manmaru Kamitsuki
Unmagical Girl is a slightly different spin on that beautiful-girl-appears-out-of-nowhere manga trope—it’s about a shy girl whose life gets turned upside down by the abrupt arrival of a magical girl. Mayuri is a college freshman who doesn’t have a lot of friends, and she’s also the daughter of the late director of the weird and obscure anime Pretty Angel Nirvana. A wish and a tear bring the main character, NirBrave, charging out of Mayuri’s father’s old computer and into her life. NirBrave eats Mayuri’s food, spends all her money, battles with her landlady, and goes ballistic when anyone suggests she’s not the star of her own show—but the fact that her character has languished in obscurity makes for some awkward moments. Unmagical Girl is chopped into short chapters, and it’s a great light read with plenty of humor, a few insider allusions, and a sprinkling of fanservice.

Magical Girl Raising Project, Vol. 1, by Asari Endou and Pochi Edoya
Magical Girl Raising Project, on the other hand, is deadly serious. It’s basically a Battle Royale between magical girls. A smartphone game allows ordinary people to become magical girls, with special names and powers and all that, but things go south when one of the admins decides to eliminate half the magical girls with a weekly reckoning: The girl who has the fewest magical candies each week will lose her powers—and, it quickly becomes clear, will die in the real world as well. As in all survival stories, the magical girls form alliances and double-cross each other, and some even try to get the admin to drop the game. This manga is based on a series of light novels, also published by Yen, and there’s an anime as well.

One Week Friends, Vol. 1, by Matcha Hazuki
One Week Friends is a shonen romance with an amnesia twist. An accident left high school student Kaori with a peculiar memory problem: every Monday she forgets everything about her friends. This has caused her to keep to herself, but when her classmate Yuki realizes she is always alone, he deliberately befriends her—even though he has to do it all over again every week. This is a fairly short, seven-volume series, and it has been made into an anime as well.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 1, by CLAMP
The manga collective CLAMP returns to one of their signature works with a sequel that picks up where the first series, Cardcaptor Sakura, left off. Cardcaptor Sakura followed the adventures of elementary student Sakura Kinimoto as she collected a series of magical cards to avert a disaster. In Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Sakura is in junior high school and is faced with a new quest: The magical cards have lost their power, and she and her friends must find out what went wrong and restore them to their original state.

So I’m a Spider, So What? Vol. 1, by Asahiro Kakashi, Okina Baba, and Tsukasa Kiryu
In the tradition of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, this new series (adapted from the light novels) follows the travails of an everyday high school girl who wakes up one day to find she has been transformed as a spider—and not in a Gregor Samsa way. She’s been pulled into a fantasy video game; now inhabiting a magical realm, she must figure out how to survive as one of the puniest monsters inhabiting a classic RPG-style dungeon. The adorable art (which manages to make its eight-legged protagonist endearing) milks the goofy premise for all it’s worth. It’s supremely silly fun.

Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 5, by Kafka Asagiri and Sango Harukawa
Bungo Stray Dogs is a reliably entertaining series about the Armed Detective Agency, a goofy bunch of supernatural detectives who solve mysteries, eliminate monsters, etc. Most of them are named after famous authors, and it’s fun to play spot-the-allusion, but that’s not strictly necessary, as the series works quite well on its own.
What new manga are you picking up in December?