The Best New Manga of August 2015

Attack on Titan, Vol. 16, by Hajime Isayama
Hajime Isayama has said in interviews that he expects Attack on Titan to last for 20 volumes, and it looks like the story is starting to round the final curve in this volume, as more reveals are made and the characters get some insight into the mystery of Eren’s father. With this volume, you have a choice between the vanilla book and the Special Edition package, which includes a dust jacket with a variant cover by Tony Moore, the original artist for The Walking Dead, plus a deck of playing cards with full-color images from the series. There’s going to be a special edition of vol. 17 as well, with another variant cover and a DVD with the anime of “Ilse’s Notebook,” a side story that appeared in the manga.

Naruto, Vol. 71, by Masashi Kishimoto
The next-to-last volume kicks off with Naruto and Sasuke riding on the wings of a giant bird, sailing through an alternate dimension, and facing a foe who could destroy the world. Masashi Kishimoto is starting to wind up the plot as he heads toward the finale of the most popular manga in America; one more volume and it’s over (until the sequel).

Kill La Kill, Vol. 1, by Ryo Akizuki, Kazuki Nakashima, and TRIGGER
The student clubs at Honnouji Academy are pretty extreme, even by manga standards: as new student Ryuki Matoi walks up the steps, she passes the body of someone who didn’t quite meet expectations and was strung up by his superiors. The elite students at the academy wear special clothes, called Goku Uniforms, that protect them from harm, which is just as well, because they do a lot of fighting. Ryuki comes to the school in search of her father’s murderer, carrying the murder weapon—half a giant pair of scissors—that turns out to be the only thing that can penetrate the suits. Based on the anime of the same name, Kill la Kill is an action-packed manga that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. The violence is extreme but cartoony, and the characters are larger than life.

Rust Blaster, by Yana Toboso
Here’s a treat for Black Butler fans: A one-shot manga by creator Yana Toboso, about a school where vampires and humans coexist—and one reluctant vampire crosses paths with a mortal student. When a double moon appears in the sky foretelling the end of the world, only these two can save humanity. This was Toboso’s first published work, and it will be interesting to see how it compares with Black Butler, which immediately followed it.

Ultraman, Vol. 1, by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi
The original Ultraman was a sci-fi show from the 1960s in which a space alien melded with a human, Shin Hayata, to fight monsters. As we noted in our history of Ultraman earlier this year, this simple premise spawned myriad spinoffs, to the point that Ultraman has been officially declared the largest media franchise in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records. Creators Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi bring the story back to the basics in this series, taking Shin Hayata’s teenage son Shinjiro as their main character, and telling the story from his point of view as a boy with superpowers—who is still a teenager at heart.

Food Wars, Vol. 7, by Yuto Tsukudo and Shun Saeki
It’s way too easy to call Food Wars is Iron Chef with fanservice, although that’s a good starting point: this entire volume is a competition in which the students at an elite cooking school try to outdo each other with their curry recipes. It’s smart and interesting and exciting, and the fact that whenever one of the judges really likes a food his or her (usually her) clothes dissolve is just a side dish. This series started out as your typical shonen cooking battle manga, with a feckless but talented hero from the boondocks showing up at an elite cooking school determined to be the best chef ever, but the cast has ballooned into an interesting ensemble with a variety of personalities and cooking styles. Even though this is volume 7 of the series, it’s an easy jumping-on point; there are quick profiles of all the characters in the front, and some of their backstories come out as they do their turns in front of the judges. There’s a huge amount of story packed into this volume, and it’s definitely good entertainment for a torrid summer day.
What manga are you reading in August?