The Best New Manga of July 2015

Black Butler, Vol. 20, by Yana Toboso
Sebastian is the perfect butler, but there’s more to him than white gloves and silver trays: he’s shrewd, observant, and when the occasion calls for it (and it often does), a skilled and deadly fighter. Sebastian’s companion and employer is 13-year-old Ciel, scion of a wealthy toy-making family and a  sort of special agent for Queen Victoria. The latest story arc, which started in volume 18, takes the pair (and their goofy household retinue) into a forest in rural Germany where a wolf-man wields a curse—anyone who sees him is stricken with a plague-like disease. Sebastian and Ciel travel the castle of Sieglinde Sullivan, the witch who protects the forest, but things get complicated when Ciel sees the beast and becomes horribly ill. Black Butler is an odd series, with elements of horror, science fiction, and mystery juxtaposed with Sebastian’s frilly pastries and carefully laid tea trays, and this story arc, which brings in the history of witch persecution (and features Queen Victoria talking to a Prince Albert puppet) is particularly entertaining.

Durarara Yellow Scarves Arc, Vol. 3, by Ryohgo Narita and Akiyo Satorigi
This volume winds up the Durarara!! manga with three story arcs set in in the colorful Tokyo neighborhood of Ikebukuro. In the first, Mikado, the lead character, meets some local oddballs, including a headless motorcyclist; in the Durara Saika arc, a series of slashings terrorizes the neighborhood; and in the Yellow Scarves arc, three gangs battle each other for control of the city. The manga are based on a series of light novels and were adapted into an anime; with a three-pronged story spread across 10 volumes, it’s a nice, compact series with plenty of humor and action.

The Demon Prince of Momochi House, Vol. 1, by Aya Shouoto
This new series mixes the standard shoujo manga elements—a cute, strong-willed girl, hot guys, a dark secret, emotions—with ayakashi, traditional Japanese spirits that come in all shapes and sizes and can be good or evil (most often evil). Himari has inherited a house for her 16th birthday, and she’s determined to live there, even though it’s falling apart and located in the middle of nowhere. Her biggest problem isn’t the collapsing walls, though, it’s the squatters: three gorgeous guys who keep telling her she has to leave. The house, it turns out, is no ordinary house—it was built on the boundary between the human and spirit worlds, and Aoi, one of the squatters, is the chosen one who keeps evil from entering our world. This leads to some genuinely freaky scenes, with danger lurking behind cute creatures and rooms that open into entire landscapes; the art in these sequences is really spectacular. This one also delivers the goods for shoujo fans, with Aoi transforming from hot teenage boy to hot, kimono-clad, bare-chested demon-fighter, and rescuing Himari in vaguely suggestive ways, such as sucking a demon out of her body with a kiss. Aya Shouoto’s shoujo manga credentials are in good order; she is also the creator of Kiss of the Rose Princess and He’s My Only Vampire.

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 2, by Kazuma Kamachi
This manga is an adaptation of the light novel series of the same name, and it has an unusually detailed, well-developed world. The first volume introduced the main characters, Touma Kamijou and Index. At first glance, Kamijou looks like a typical slacker shonen hero, and Index is a…nun. It gets weirder from there. Academy City, where Kamijou lives, is a big school where students learn to develop supernatural abilities via scientific means. He is failing all the standard courses, but excels at one ability: he can block magic (although that turns out to cut both ways, as he blocks both bad and good magic). As for Index, she holds a whole library of forbidden knowledge inside her head, making her a target for all sorts of bad guys. The first volume sets up this complicated backstory very well, in between action scenes, and volume 2 promises more battles and more surprising reveals. If you like this, there’s a lot more of it: check out the light novels, the anime, and the spinoff manga series A Certain Scientific Railgun.

Nisekoi: False Love, Vol. 10, by Naoshi KomiNisekoi
This one is a sort of reverse Romeo and Juliet, set in a Japanese high school: Raku Ichijo and Chitoge Kurosaki are the son and daughter, respectively, of two feuding yakuza (gangster) families. To keep the peace, they must pretend to be in love. It’s hate at first site for the twosome, but as time goes on, their feelings start to bend a bit—not that they are going to admit it! This is a shonen romantic comedy, which means that Raku is surrounded by cute girls, including Kosaki, the one he’s had a crush on for a while; Marika, who is technically his fiancée; and Chitoge, beautiful and athletic and sassy, to whom he is weirdly attracted. There’s a side drama about Raku and a locket that was given to him by a girl when he was a child—he doesn’t remember who she was, but she kept the key. All three girls also have similar stories, and they all have keys. With that setup established, the series is really a collection of stand-alone tales, and you can start reading with pretty much any volume.

Twin Star Exorcists, Vol. 1, by Yoshiaki Sueno
This one doesn’t veer too far from the tropes of its genre (in this case, shonen fighting manga), but it serves them up in a highly interesting way. Rokuro is a reluctant exorcist; he doesn’t want to do the job, but it’s the only thing he’s good at. (In this book, “exorcist” means someone who casts out monsters called kegare, who come from an alternate world and possess people, particularly young children.) Rokuro is busy not being an exorcist when Benio, a teenage girl, literally drops into his life, and he quickly finds himself caught up in fighting the kegare—and locked into an unexpected partnership.

Pandora in the Crimson Shell, Vol. 1, by Masamune Shirow and Koshi Rikudo
Don’t be confused by the title: this has nothing to do with Jun Mochizuki’s Pandora Hearts or Crimson Shell. It’s actually a spoof from the creator of Ghost in the Shell, a cyber-comedy about robot girls who wield formidable weapons with computer-assisted skill. If you’re the scientifically minded sort who is bothered by questions like how an android acquires a Gothic-Lolita wardrobe, or why the designers thought it would be a good idea to locate a software transfer jack in a robot’s crotch, this manga is not for you. On the other hand, if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief (and you don’t mind a generous dollop of fanservice and innuendo), it’s a highly entertaining read.
What manga are you reading in July?