I’ve been doing quick reviews for anime for a while now, and it’s one of my favorite kinds of posts to write. Now, writing about the manga you read in the past month/week/quarter isn’t exactly a new idea, but many of my ideas aren’t new. Better to steal a good idea from someone else than to think of a bad idea on your own. Then again, the best case scenario is to think of a really good idea yourself, but that’s a lot harder to do. So for now, let’s do what others have done before me, and talk about some manga. These reviews will contain some spoilers for the volumes in question, so if you haven’t read them, beware of that. I won’t go too deep into them though, so you can skim them if you’re mildly curious about if these manga might be for you. Let’s start with a banger.

The Breaker Volume 5 (Final)

I’m going to be honest with you all. I’ve read the first part of The Breaker a total of four times by now. Out of all the manwha I’ve read, it’s my favorite. I haven’t read a lot of Manwha, admittedly, but it’s also better than many of the other manga and webtoons I’ve read. The Breaker Volume 5 concludes the first big story arc, where Goo Moon Ryong clashes with the Union. Shio gets fatally wounded by a sniper and we learn a little bit more about the machinations in the background of this Story. What’s most interesting here, funnily enough, is the ending. It sets up the story for the second season really well, which we’ll dive in once those volumes get translated. That’s right, they’re up for translation too. What an exciting time we live in. I won’t say much more about this volume so as to not go into big spoilers, but I do love how the clash between the main characters and the union of Murim happened. It was very impactful, left a deep scar, but also opened up for future possibilities. And next part we get Jinnie, so that’s exciting too.

Wave, listen to me Volume 9

Oh Minare, I want you to step on me. I mean, what? Ignore that part, that’s not why I read this manga, I swear.
I’ve talked about Wave before, a long time ago. You can find that post here if you’re interested. When this became an anime I was almost immediately interested in the story. Minare is such a fun character to follow. She’s so different from most main characters I’ve seen. She’s complex, she’s kind of an asshole for most of the story and she just does not have a filter at all. She’s vulgar and over the top and makes all the wrong choices, dragging everyone around her down to her level. But she’s also slowly starting to warm up to radio, and with this video we get some great character development from her and Chishiro, especially in the later chapters. Something strange is going on as well and I honestly can’t wait for the next volume. I’m liking this part of the story better than some of the previous chapters. Especially when the gang was captured by that cult I thought the chapters were very hit or miss depending on the chapter. This time around I think I’ve enjoyed every chapter. The only big piece of feedback I can give is the fact that some pages have so much text that this might as well be a book. I like to call this the Hunter x Hunter problem. I wasn’t the one who first used that term, but I do think it’s apt. Now I’m sad about Hunter x Hunter being ended for the time being. Look what you did!

Laid-Back Camp Volume 13

After being wounded by the end of Hunter x Hunter it’s time for some healing. And I know just the manga for that!
Laid-Back Camp – or Yuru Camp – is back with its 13th volume. We have a bunch of individual camping journeys this time around that do end up with meetings as they tend to do. There’s really not all that much I can say about this manga that I haven’t already said. It’s a very enjoyable, very relaxing read. The characters are fun, the setting is fun and the only thing that would improve this manga is animation and music. Luckily we have an anime to watch if that’s what we crave. We had our first nice day of the year here, where it was 20 degrees and sunny. It was a little bit windy which was unfortunate and the very next day it started to rain. But I did spend that afternoon outside reading this volume, and it was very pleasant. I recommend that if you do pick this one up, you do the same. Either that or cozy up by the fire in fall or winter while you watch these girls have fun in the outdoors. I’m already looking forward to the next volume, that’s for sure.

I was initially going to cover more manga, but I got distracted with other things and didn’t read as much as I initially planned. I’m also still working on figuring out where to buy manga from next, so for today I’m going to leave it at that. I have a job interview in a couple of hours and I’m not really in the headspace to write more. Wish me luck and thanks for reading!