The Best New Manga of May 2018

RWBY: Official Manga Anthology, Vol. 1: Red Like Roses, by Monty Oum et al.
The RWBY manga are made in Japan, but based on an anime series produced in America by Rooster Teeth. Each of the four volumes stars one of the title characters, so naturally, the first one is about Ruby, the leader of Team RWBY, as she battles the Grimm and learns to deal with her insecurities, sharpen her skills, and most important, become a leader. Like Shirow Miwa’s earlier, bestselling RWBY manga, this anthology by various creators mixes plenty of fantasy action with a bit of school drama.

Star Wars: Lost Stars, Vol. 1, by Claudia Gray
Like RWBY, this is a Japanese manga based on an American property, in this case, Claudia Gray’s young adult Star Wars novel, which interweaves bits of the movie saga with a story of two young people, both skilled pilots, whose livves go in different directions. When they meet, Thane Kyrell is a well-off, fair-skinned young boy, and Ciena Ree is a dark-haired, dark-skinned member of an indigenous group that is scorned by Thane’s tribe. When the two children discover their mutual love of flying, the constraints of society fall away—but later on, when they are in the Imperial Academy, their friendship is deliberately sabotaged. Many years later—when this story opens—Ciena is a high-ranking officer serving the Empire and Thane, his eyes opened, is a skilled pilot for the Rebels. Thane is determined to someday save Ciena—and she is determined to someday kill him. Though this is set in the world of Star Wars, and there are plenty of shout-outs and cameo appearances for fans of the movies, the story is a universal one that anyone can enjoy—and it works particularly well as a manga.

The Bride Was a Boy, by Chii
This cheery one-volume manga is both a sweet love story and an introduction to transgender life and issues—although the latter is fairly specific to Japan. The author, Chii, was assigned male at birth, and transitioned to female as an adult. Shortly after she starts living as a woman, she meets a guy who is immediately crazy about her. After a few dates, she comes out to him, and in order to get legally married, she goes through gender reassignment surgery and changes her legal status to female. The book includes vignettes of Chii growing up as a boy, going through the transition, and coming out to friends and family, interspersed with short comics on specific topics and informational pages that explain things like the gender laws in Japan and the meaning of the rainbow flag. Chii has a really charming, loose drawing style, and she treats even difficult experiences with an upbeat attitude, making this a fun and very accessible read.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 1, by Hiromu Arakawa
Edward and Alphonse Elric are back in an deluxe edition of one of the most popular manga of all time. The brothers are alchemists whose attempt to bring their mother back from the dead fails horribly, resulting in Edward losing an arm and a leg—and Alphonse losing everything but his soul, which is now encased in a hulking, hollow suit of armor. The brothers are searching for the Philosopher’s Stone, which they hope will restore what they have lost, and along the way, they fight a series of villains and enemies. Fullmetal Alchemist delivers the usual pleasures of shonen manga plus a bit more, with philosophical underpinnings (the principle of equivalence states that alchemy isn’t free—to create something, one must give up something else), well rounded characters, and a touch of steampunk. At 27 volumes, it’s long, but not overwhelmingly so. Viz has already re-released the series in three-in-omnibus volumes; the Fullmetal Edition is a deluxe hardcover with extra color pages, character sketches by creator Hiromu Arakawa, and archival quality paper. Each volume of the Fullmetal Edition contains one-and-a-half volumes of the original, making this the first of a planned 18 hardcover volumes releasing every three months.

Sacrificial Princess and the King of the Beasts, Vol. 1, by Yu Tomofuji
This new shoujo series looks like a fresh spin on the story of The Bride of the Water God: a young woman is to be sacrificed to the Beast King, but for some reason he doesn’t eat her. In fact, he’s sort of a decent guy, and eventually he asks her to be his queen. Their love has more challenges than their differing appearances, though, as the other denizens of the land of beasts and demons are none too pleased to have a human queen.

Captain Harlock: The Classic Collection, Vol. 1, by Leiji Matsumoto
In the distant future, space travel has improved to the point that outer space is like the oceans once were—a place to explore and sometimes do battle. Captain Harlock is a space pirate, and he and the crew of the space battleship Arcadia travel the universe and fight the enemies of Earth—and of freedom. In this first volume, the teenager Tadashi Daiba joins the crew as Harlock and the pirates investigate the origins of the mysterious women who are taking over the planet Earth. Matsumoto, the creator of many classic sci-fi manga including Queen Emeraldas and Galaxy Express 999, started this manga in 1977, and it gave rise to a number of spinoff manga and anime; this is the first time that the original series has been published in English.

Golosseum, Vol. 1, by Yasushi Baba
In a world where weapons have been rendered useless, world leaders resolve their differences through martial arts. That’s the premise of Golosseum, which features thinly disguised global leaders (a shirtless President for Life Vladislav Putinov, the American Billary Quintone) as well as an unvarnished Rasputin and a number of original characters. Special bracelets devised by the Russians render bullets, knives, and even nuclear and gas attacks useless; the only way to effectively attack someone is to hit them with a body part or throw them to the ground. The Russians have developed surgically engineered super-fighters, and to get around the bracelets, some characters have weapons made of human hair and skin. The result is a bloody take on professional wrestling and martial arts, with plenty of action and lots of intrigue.