 Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode. Today we got another reading vlog, a small one, but some cool books nonetheless. We got some Titan manga for the very first time. I'm gonna go over that along with a couple of surprises that you're looking at here. First book that we're going to talk about is Witch of Thistle Castle. This is my very first Titan manga and I'm very excited about that. I love getting new publishers for the shelf and this stuck out to me because of the amazing front cover. This is one of my favorite looking covers of all the new books I got this year, 2023. So this video is supposed to be a first impression on this book because we only have volume one here and I gotta say I'm intrigued. I really want to keep going with this. I didn't think I was gonna like it as much as I did but every page I wanted to learn more and more and I think that's part with the author John Tarasheen. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly and their ability to expand the mythos by weaving it through the explanations or the expositions spoken by the main character Marie Blackwood. How she is able to open up this world to us the readers by explaining it to the young Theo who is a 13 year old at the Church of Scotland is basically dumping on her for her to take care of. She is super reluctant but will do it. She has a bit of a reputation and people don't like her outside of her peers. She is a witch and that has evil connotations, bad connotations, whatever it may be and she has suffered throughout her life of different forms of discrimination and all that stuff. Whereas the character of Theo is a young, wholesome, timid and shy 13 year old that has basically been bound and gagged and not been able to live his full life because the church sees the potential, the strength and ability in him, his magical abilities if you will, they might be a danger to everybody so they prefer to keep him locked away at the sacrifice of his own humanity. So now that Theo is with Marie you can sort of see that this story will take on this master apprentice type drama where they learn from each other to be better individuals. Now the real highlight I guess for which of this will castle definitely has to go towards the art. It is beautiful. I love the character designs. I love the architecture that you see. I assume this all takes place in Scotland. There are magical creatures that appear and they are fantastically drawn. One of the best aspects of this that I highly recommend for someone looking to read a darker but also slice of life oriented magical series. I think you'll be right at home with The Witch of Thistle Castle. The majority of these first five chapters is developing the relationship between these two characters that are meeting for the first time and sort of laying the groundwork for everything, the world, the magical terms, all that fun explanation and there's very little action which may upset some people but I was perfectly fine with it. I knew what I was getting into when I picked up this book and I think the author does a fantastic job. I'm really excited. I love the character of Marie and Theo is just a sweetheart and I am rooting for that kid to grow into an awesome individual. I love to see that in character stories. Ultimately this first volume tackles a lot of interesting ideas but the major one is having these two flawed individuals meet and befriend each other where you have an older character that has faced this discrimination for being who she is and a young character who is hated on for what he could become and now the two of them together they might form something special as this masters student relationship blossoms. The next book that we're going to talk about is Blade of the Moon Princess volume one by Tatsuya Endo the same creator from the popular spy family series. Now I don't think I'm the only one when I say that our exposure to this mangaka came from the hit that is spy family and we did not know about his previous works like Tista or Blade of the Moon Princess. This story is based on the legend of the tale of the bamboo cutter and Princess Kaguya. It's not a direct adaptation of that but it takes inspiration from there and cues on the character and the settings and the abilities and all that stuff. It's very reminiscent of that famous classic Japanese story. So in Blade of the Moon Princess we follow a defiant young princess Kaguya Takenouchi who is the heir to the Moon Kingdom from her mother. The Moon Kingdom lives separately from Earth. They are an advanced species if you will of people. They have high futuristic technology that sort of reminded me of that mixture of old and new tech like you would see in Naruto for example and you have the character of Kaguya who is the heir to all of this. Her mother the Empress she is beloved by many and hated by a certain political faction that seeks to dethrone her or possibly assassinate her removing her effectively from power and placing themselves on top. They call themselves the Tengu revolution at the start of this series and in the midst of all this political chaos that's brewing Kaguya she is a teenager she is defiant and will not follow tradition and doesn't necessarily want to follow in her mother's footsteps right away. She'd rather see the sights and experience the the kingdom and have fun and all that stuff and not worry about the politics not worry about growing up and I feel that's a universal theme regardless of the fantasy element. The idea of rebelling as a teen and wanting to follow your own path instead of what was laid before you I think that's a very universal theme that will appeal to a lot of readers. Kaguya is very skilled and highly athletic and very caring but that rebelliousness leads her to clash with her mother and the retainers and all the other people in the kingdom. The enemies actually stage a kudaita and seek to eliminate the royal family so the empress has the idea to send Princess Kaguya to the tainted world which is earth where all the regular people live all the common folk if you will and not the magical moon people I don't know if I'm using the correct terms they haven't stated on this first volume but that's what I'm going with. So after that coup we have the character of Kaguya now escaping to the real world reluctantly she understands the gravity of the situation and wants to help fix what was broken and help her mother because she is in mortal danger obviously these people want to kill her so now that she is down on earth Kaguya is going to experience life in a totally radically different way it does have a very similar feel to something like Naruto the way the action is framed and the abilities and just the overall look and composition of these characters really reminded me of early Naruto like part one when they were kids and I really enjoyed that it took me back to simpler times of reading a shonen jump book I love the art here from Tatsuya Endo he definitely has a very unique style with his faces and the character models and all that stuff so yeah if you like spy family you're gonna be right at home with this obviously if you prefer a little bit more action towards the fantastical and folklore then yeah absolutely go ahead and pick up blade of the moon princess volume one the second titan manga is alpi the soul sender now this is very different from which of this old castle this is a magical series written by rona here we have volume one and in this I guess alternate Japan we have magical manifestations of the divine on earth and they look like a giant creatures that influence the world or influence nature and stuff like that and when these creatures are at an end and they pass away they die their bodies are filled with a lot of magic that can curse the land if not taken proper care of unfortunately people can't touch these creatures can't dispose of their bodies and can't do anything about that magical stuff but there are certain individuals that are somewhat tolerant towards it not completely immune these people are called the soul senders alpi is one of these characters now the fun thing here is that she's a young soul sender she is accompanied by her familiar and we just follow an episodic adventure of these two characters going from a town to town or city to city I guess taking care of these creatures and interacting with the people around them with nature and all that stuff so it's a really nice magical wholesome read I was a little bit skeptical at first I didn't know if I was going to grab more volumes based on the premise alone but I am happy to report that I really like it as you get into the different stories presented here you start learning a little bit more about alpi's personality and her likes and dislikes and her journey of becoming a soul sender and you see her in action taking care of these creatures now there are some more dramatic elements that happen towards the end which really picks up the intensity of the story and makes me really want to pick up volume two the art is absolutely beautiful I love it and unfortunately similar to which of this will castle the binding on this book is pretty tight so it the book does tend to close on me if pretty quickly if I'm not too careful but I am excited like I mentioned to keep going and explore this world I think Alpi is a sweet funny exuberant kid and I'm interested to see her journey as a soul sender so yeah pretty basic simple series but that isn't necessarily a bad thing definitely check this out if you're into I guess a different sort of magical girl story but also the dark fantasy elements and magical stuff wholesome slice of life elements with action sprinkled throughout if that's your jam then yeah you'll be right at home with Alpi the soul sender I know I didn't list it on the thumbnail but I finally got on board with the hype train I know I'm behind this book came out what in 2019 or something like that it is a ZOM 100 bucket list of the dead volume one story by Haro aso and art by Kotaro Takata so like many I knew about the manga but unfortunately things had to be sacrificed and I ended up getting other series instead and now fast forward to this year with the start of the ZOM 100 anime I really enjoyed it and thought hey let's go back and let's pick up the manga because I like the anime but I was displeased with the art direction and the delays and stuff like that so I wanted to read the original instead and I went ahead and picked up the first volume here this is a pretty thin slim volume it only has three chapters at 13 bucks I don't know I thought that was pretty wild so for this we follow the main character here 24-year-old Akira Tendo and he is experiencing a very real thing in Japan which is being overworked the countless and hundreds of overtime hours and crunch time and not being able to properly take care of your physical and mental self and as a result unfortunately a lot of people have lost their lives because of this it's a very real dangerous sad depressing thing that happens over there and this manga is a way for the creative team to express the dissatisfaction with work culture and I guess remind people that it's okay to take a breath and realize that life isn't just about the work there's a life out there that is worth living after many years of being overworked at this company our main character suddenly is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that just started happening and he realizes that for once in his life he doesn't have to go to work the other day he is essentially free and obviously the uh parallels here with the end of the world and the start of his new world is pretty interesting now he's going to make this bucket list of 100 things he wants to do before succumbing to the apocalypse and turning into a zombie I think that's a fantastic fun as hell idea I love the visuals here I think Kotaro Takata is an impressive artist I love the character designs and the zombies look fantastic equally ghoulish terrifying grotesque and very human in a scary way everybody has hilarious expressions obviously because this is a action comedy series so it all just looks really good and now I'm officially hooked on the series again and uh what am I doing I have no room for Zom 100 but I already went ahead and picked up more volume so let's go the final book that we're going to talk about in this video is bochi the rock one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I finally have volume one here from yenpress I'm so excited we follow the character of Hitori Goto she is an amazing individual unfortunately she has a crippling case of social anxiety and that is preventing her from fully expressing herself as an individual she is mortally terrified of all the new things that can happen in her life meeting new friends she wants to have friends but the idea of the conversations and the interactions and the emotions and feelings and the stress of new friendships can be a little bit overwhelming and I don't fault her I suffer from that it not to such extreme lengths but I do suffer from it and I could definitely relate to our lovable bochi here she is very famous online she's a youtuber and she plays solo guitar and she's really popular but people don't know who she is with her fear and social anxiety she's not going to be out there saying oh it's me look at me so it's a little bit difficult it also just happens that I'm making a youtube video so I can relate to that as well fortunately through her skills at the guitar she meets another character nidika hijinxonsu and she ends up really liking what she's hearing from bochi and is asking her to fill in for her band's live performance now this is terrifying but this is the cool part about bochi the rock is the fact that hitori musters every ounce of strength and realizes that you just gotta go for it as much as it kills you and there is the promise of a better tomorrow once you take that leap and the character subconsciously knows that she's mortified of what is happening and the anxiety results in her not taking these leaps right away but the fact that she slowly starts seeing the result of these actions inspires her to keep going and I think that's a wonderful lesson out there for people you just gotta go at it bit by bit and I promise you you will walk far the other bandmates they are friends of hitori goto and want to see her succeed but it's also pretty funny to see their reaction to the extreme meltdowns that happen for bochi so yeah it's a pretty wholesome heartwarming story filled with a ton of comedy a really great humor and great fun relatable characters so there you have it another reading vlog for the channel now stay tuned because I do have formal reviews of manga that I've been reading as well as some other cool stuff coming your way on this very channel so thank you everybody for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of manga geekdom I truly do appreciate it thank you so much god bless stay safe out there I will catch all of you on our next video