Japanese Literature

Alongside Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen is the biggest name in shounen manga and anime right now. Many, myself included, have praised it for revitalising the shounen space and ushering in a new age of shounen. When you watch or read Jujutsu Kaisen, you’re experiencing something wholly new; something that wears its inspiration …

Boys’ love manga (BL manga), like other romance manga, is an all-encompassing genre. You will find anything from fantasy to your standard slice of life stories. As the name suggests, the stories in Boys’ Love manga are always about a romantic relationship between two boys (or men). These manga often also often have a larger …

Much like how Netflix ushered in a new Golden Age of TV, a similar age has hit the world of shonen manga and anime. Every decade or so, we’ve had a wave of instant classic shonen manga, but the past few years has seen a real revelation. From future classics like Demon Slayer and Hell’s …

Written and drawn by Ichigo Takano, the Orange manga is a thought-provoking and heartwarming story told through the eyes of its main protagonist, Naho, a second year high school student. We also follow the story of Naho’s 27-year-old future self (seen mostly through letters from the future). But while Orange is told through her eyes, …

Romance is a curious genre, given that so many books, films, TV shows, even video games often feature romances but aren’t necessarily of the romance genre. When it comes to romance manga, however, the romance really is the point. Romance manga also stretches so many different genres, the terms of which can be a little …

When the Horimiya anime burst onto Funimation in Winter 2021, it turned a lot of heads, and many of us became instant fans. The Horimiya manga, however, has been a huge success for quite some time, racking up insane sales numbers. The question — for both new fans of the anime and manga readers who …

Taylor Bradley from publisher Honford Star shares insight into their process of choosing local cover designers for their East Asian books and why they wouldn’t consider doing it any other way. For the first book that we published at Honford Star, we made a small but hugely influential decision – we’d hire a Korean artist …

Year after year, we are treated to more incredible Japanese books in translation. After the fantastic turn-out of Japanese books in 2020 — especially Mieko Kawakami’s breakaway hit Breasts and Eggs — 2021 has a lot to live up to. Luckily, all signs point to 2021 being an even better year for new Japanese books …

Much like how Netflix and HBO sparked a new golden age of TV a few years ago, shonen manga is seeing its own new golden age. In the 90s, there was Dragon Ball. Ten years later, we had the ‘big three’ of Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. Now, we have series’ like My Hero Academia, …

Tatsuki Fujimoto has gone from rising star to king of the shonen manga genre in a very short space of time. Like Attack on Titan’s creator Hajime Isayama, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s rise has been like that of a rocket, with all the speed, excitement, and splendour. It began with the Fire Punch manga and was solidified …