Mushroom Manga! Sengoku Strays & Yamamoto Zenjirou to Moushimasu

We can’t possibly review everything we read, yet there are some manga that we just feel we should share with the rest of you. So! We came up with ‘Mushroom Manga’ – manga that we’ve come across and decided to recommend, but are much too lazy to give a proper review.

Moving on, for our first Mushroom post, I present…!

Sengoku Strays

Manga-ka: Nanami Shingo

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Historical, Shounen

Kasane is your average kendo-obsessed girl, when a brush with a mysterious sword sends her back in time to the Sengoku Era. Stuck in an unfamiliar time and place, Kasane also has the poor luck of winding up right in the middle of the turmoil that surrounded Oda Nobunaga’s rise to power!

This is really just a personal favourite of mine that I found a couple of days back; I’d understand if a bunch of people didn’t share my sentiments. What makes me really enjoy it is probably the characters; I really like the protagonist, Kasane (quite similar to Himoto Sora from Shitsurakuen, when I think about it); she’s cute, she’s cool and best of all, she’s not completely useless from the start – which really is just one out of the several appealing factors.

What I’m really looking forward to though is how the relationships are going to develop. After all, since it’s a historical manga you could find spoilers if you read up Oda Nobunaga’s history (something I’ve seriously been tempted to do) so the only thing left is pretty much character development.

By the way, if you find yourself completely overwhelmed by the coolness of Nobunaga’s character, don’t look up for his real face. It really kills the mood.

Well, it did for me, anyway.

I wouldn’t say Sengoku Strays would fit the bill of mainstream shounen manga like Bleach or Naruto – but I think it could potentially fit somewhere along the popularity rankings of Kekkaishi and Soul Eater.

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Yamamoto Zenjirou to Moushimasu

Manga-ka: Maki Youko

Genre: Drama, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Supernatural

Hotate is a 10 year old girl who was living at her grandmother’s house since her mother died. One day her grandmother tells Hotate that she can’t care for her anymore because of her age and that she’s going to have to live at her uncle’s house. After moving to her uncle’s house, she attends a new school, but things aren’t easy because of her special ability to see the dead. Can she make friends with students in her new class? And what’s the secret behind the bond between her and her uncle…?!

If the art looks familiar, if the story sounds similar, if it pulls your heartstrings the same way, that’s probably because Maki Youko is the same manga-ka for Aishiteruze Baby. It was completely unintentional that I stumbled across Yamamoto Zenjirou to Moushimasu, yet once again I found myself completely drawn to it.

I remember how I wouldn’t shut up when I first read Aishiteruze Baby, and this time was no different. The story is cute, innocent, has just the right touch of drama and mystery, and the dash of romance nicely fills up the background.

This shoujo isn’t just for a shoujo audience – I think even  shounen fans can appreciate this; that is, if they look for more than just swords and fists and buildings being blown up. It’s probably because Yamamoto Zenjirou to Moushimasu has more of a seinen feel in terms of plot – it’s just the execution that makes it shoujo.

– arawr >=3