Manga Spotlight Oct'24

Manga recommendations - The Voynich Hotel, Kanata no Astra, Spirit Circle

📅 Last Updated: 28th October 2024

The Voynich Hotel

To welcome the spooky season and the spirit of halloween, for this week's Manga of the Week (MoTW), we’ve decided to feature The Voynich Hotel by Douman Seiman! While the general theme is dark comedy, it also has a mixed bag of story arcs dabbling in genres like crime, mystery, horror, supernatural and romance.

The story revolves around the mysterious Voynich Hotel, situated on a deserted island, stuffed with eccentric guests and maintained by two mysterious maids. Kazuki Taizou, a Japanese tourist comes to stay at the hotel and quickly becomes embroiled in the spiderweb of affairs going on the island. This story is remarkably quirky, funny, original in many ways which sometimes uses pop culture references from different media. The series boasts a huge variety of characters, including yakuza, serial killers, detectives, drug dealers, ghosts, robots, and assassins, each with their own unique personality and backstory.

In the start, the story is all over the place, but as one progresses through the chapters, getting bits of information from the different narratives, piecing it all together, you start to get the general idea of what's going on. This manga does an almost perfect job in terms of storytelling and keeping multiple plot lines going at once that intertwine without boring the reader. To describe the tone of the manga, it is a bit similar to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei with the elements of Durarara!!. If you enjoy wacky mysteries, unique characters, and dark comedy, this is definitely worth checking out.
Credits: Dkay (MAL, Anilist, Twitter)

MAL, Anilist, Wikipedia, Official English Edition

Kanata no Astra

This week's recommendation is Astra Lost in Space (Kanata no Astra) by Kenta Shinohara. It comes under sci-fi, mystery, survival, comedy and space-adventure genres.

In the year 2063, mankind's domain stretches across the vast expanse of the universe. Nine students from Caird High School are going to an exciting interstellar camp on the planet MCPA, which is located nine light-years from their home. But when they reach there, a mysterious orb of light engulfs them and sends them to a remote area of space located 5012 light years away. Hopelessly lost and quickly running out of resources, their only chance of returning home is a nearby abandoned spaceship, where their desperate fight for survival begins.

During their journey the students make new friends (which is the main driving force of the manga) and help each other while facing the dangers of the unknown planet. All the characters have specialities in some particular fields, and the actions they take in order to survive are well explained through logic.

But this manga is not what it seems like from the initial volumes, it's so much more! This is because of the storytelling approach the author has taken. The story is told from the perspectives of the characters that have very limited knowledge about the truth of the world, hiding some crazy secrets that no one would ever expect (Very similar to AoT). Especially from volume four, there are lots of twists and turns, and the dark secrets of their world start to unfold, giving the story a whole new direction. This manga has a complete anime adaptation aired in 2019.
Credits: Dkay (MAL, Anilist, Twitter)

MAL, Anilist, Wikipedia, Official English Edition

Spirit Circle

Spirit Circle is a manga by Satoshi Mizukami. While the main theme being reincarnation, it falls under the genres like mystery, adventure, supernatural, action, romance, drama. The story centers around Fuuta, an ordinary boy who begins to uncover memories of his past lives after meeting Kouko, a mysterious girl with a vendetta against him. As the layers of their reincarnations are revealed, we see how their fates are intertwined over centuries and how their past actions affect their present. Each of their past lives offer a unique story filled with heartache, humor and redemption. The manga shifts between different eras and settings, which keeps the story fresh and exciting. Yet, beneath the surface, there's a constant thread of human connection and the struggles of forgiving oneself and others. It’s a compact series at only six volumes, but it packs a lot of depth into its relatively short run. If you enjoy stories that make you think, explore character-driven drama, and touch on spiritual themes, Spirit Circle is a hidden gem you can't miss.
Credits: Dkay (MAL, Anilist, Twitter)

MAL, Anilist, Wikipedia, Official English Edition

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