The Best New Manga of February 2015

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, Vol. 1, by Hirohiko Araki
Araki’s multi-generational series about a family that fights supernatural beings is one of the longest-running, most popular manga in Japan. This volume kicks it off in the U.S. with a tale of rags, riches, and extreme violence in Victorian England. Wealthy Jonathan Joestar gets the foster brother from hell when the evil Dio Brando comes to live with him—and immediately begins tormenting him in a scheme to drive Joestar away and inherit family fortune himself. Their struggle involves an Aztec mask with mysterious powers, a street thug named Robert E.O. Speedwagon, and fights. Lots and lots of fights. Araki shows endless creativity when it comes to choreographing scuffles: Fists and feet fly into improbable configurations, knife blades curve as they whizz through space, and faces billow from the impact of a blow. Phantom Blood is the first arc of the lengthy JoJo saga; Viz will publish the second arc, Battle Tendency, in digital format this March and in print in the fall. The third arc, Stardust Crusaders, was published several years ago under the title JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Can’t get enough JoJo? Check out Rohan at the Louvre, a full-color side story set in the famed French museum. The anime is available on Crunchyroll.

Neon Genesis Evangelion, Vol. 14, by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
When the very survival of the earth is threatened by alien monsters, who do you want to defend you? That’s right: Emotionally fragile teenagers. This is the long-awaited final volume of the landmark series featuring Shinji Ikari, 14 years old and already disillusioned by life, who gets a summons from his long-lost father that results in anything but a happy reunion: He is told to climb into a bio-mechanical weapon that syncs with his nervous system and do battle with an alien Angel. The alternative? Mankind perishes. The Neon Genesis Evangelion anime is a modern classic; the manga actually launched earlier, but a release schedule that could generously be described as “leisurely” means we’re finally reaching the end…after 20 years.

Seraphim: 266613336 Wings, by Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Oshii
I’ll spoil the ending for this series: There isn’t one. As editor Carl Gustav Horn explains in an afterword, Kon and Oshii suffered creative differences and never finished the manga. It’s worth reading anyway, because it’s a mysterious and beautiful from two masters of the form. Three “magi”—two men and a dog—and a silent girl investigate an epidemic that causes its victims to see visions and grow wings, then harden and die. It’s a dreamy mix of poetry and action, filled with religious allusions and subtle metaphors (and chase scenes and gun battles), and the art is absolutely gorgeous. Even without a proper ending, it’s an unforgettable book. Both creators are better known for their anime than their manga: Kon, who died in 2010, directed Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika, while Oshii is the creative force behind Ghost in the Shell and a host of other anime.

Assassination Classroom, Vol. 2, by Yusei Matsui
The first volume in this brand-new series came out in December, so you’ve got plenty of time to jump onboard. Assassination Classroom takes everything we love about shonen manga and cranks it up to 11: A space alien, who looks like a giant smiley face with a mortarboard, academic gown, and tentacles, has announced he will destroy the earth, but first he wants to teach high school for a year. Whoever is in charge of making something like that happen assigns him to the worst class in the school, the one where all the poorly performing students are sent to be warehoused and bullied. The students are equipped with an arsenal of anti-alien weapons (all of them harmless to humans) and told to kill their teacher. They keep trying, and their tactics get more sophisticated as the story goes on, but he’s always too fast for them. Also, it turns out, he’s a heckuva teacher. The over-the-top humor makes the book fun to read, but there are hints that the story will have a darker side as well.

Black Jack, Vol. 7 and Black Jack, Vol. 8, by Osamu Tezuka
Black Jack is a physician of last resort for the desperate, often called upon to perform outlandish feats of medicine—up to and including a head transplant. He’s tough on his wealthier patients, demanding extortionate fees, but he has a soft spot for the young and the poor. While his ethics may be questionable, his moral sense is impeccable—in other words, the bad guys always get theirs. Each of these volumes contains about a dozen short stories, all self-contained, so they are easy to pick up and a bit harder to put down. On his way to becoming the godfather of modern manga, Osamu Tezuka earned a medical degree, and while he never practiced, he often uses a real condition as a starting point for these stories, and includes detailed drawings of Black Jack’s surgeries. Originally published in print several years ago, these volumes are getting hard to find, but this month they’re coming to the Nook. On a tablet or in print, they are worth picking up just for Tezuka’s art and his amazing page designs.
What manga will you be reading this month?