Twitter Reactions to News of Seven Seas Acquisition by Media Do and the threat of AI Slop

 What do we think of the Seven Seas acquisition by Japanese company Media Do...

FUCK AI

This only took about 15 minutes to grab these. There were so many more. Nobody's going to buy books translated by AI. 

Mii-chan Wants to Be Kept: Vol. 1 Manga Review

Cat/Girls are cute too

I’m a sucker for cute anime cat-girls, but Mii-chan isn’t exactly what I was expecting...

In this series by Waka Takase, our protagonist Natsume-kun, works in a supermarket, where he gets pushed around by the ladies at his job; but, he’s generally a good guy who’ll pitch in and help out when things get tough – as a result, he’s always exhausted and burnt out.

One day, on his way home, he takes in a stray black cat for the night, even though his building doesn’t allow pets. When he wakes up in the morning, he finds the cat’s gone, but an extremely beautiful (buck-naked) black-haired girl is sleeping in his bed.

The series is only mildly NSFW

As it turns out, Mii-chan, is a seventeen year old runaway cat/girl, who is a human during the day, but turns into a cat at night. The details have yet to be really explained; is it a curse? Is it just in her nature? Not too sure. Will I read on to find out more? Probably.

I really enjoyed the book for the first 90% of the volume. The interactions between the two main characters are pretty funy. Mii-chan’s cute, and the MC dude’s not annoying (honestly the most important thing in any of the manga where the MC is meant to be a self-insert protag). It’s also really funny how he’s got such a soft spot for Mii-chan as a cat, but is really hard on her in her human form.

<<Moderate spoilers for the end of volume 1 to follow, but I think it might affect whether some people pick this book up.>>

Toward the end of the volume, Mii-chan has a conversation with another Cat/Girl, and in that conversation, it’s revealed that one aspect of their “affliction” is that unless they have sex with a guy before they turn 18 they’ll eventually be stuck in their Cat form forever…

I’m generally not too stuck up about stuff like this, but this seemed so contrived and deliberate I got a bit annoyed – especially since the MC is in his early twenties; maybe the age-gap tension will turn into a plot point. I guess it’s always possible Mii-chan chooses to stay with Natsume-kun, but in her cat form, since he’s pretty obviously got a thing for cats. Who knows? I think that’d be kind of a funny possibility. I’m interested enough to see how it plays out that I’ll probably pick up the rest as it comes out. So far, Japan has 3-ish volumes worth of chapters and the manga is still ongoing.

This is one of those weird series where I enjoyed it, but the hook might make it super annoying. Also makes it very hard to recommend, so if this is your kind of jam, go for it.

Volume 2 is due out in August.

Mii-Chan Wants to Be Kept is published by Seven Seas Entertainment.

Purchase at Barnes & Noble for $13.99

Manga Review: "The 100 Girlfriends Who Really x5 Love You" #5

I Really (x5) Love This Book

I really, really, really, really, really love this series. So, don’t go into this review hoping for something profound. It’s just a silly little harem comedy. It’s gone so far past parody at this point that it’s just pure joy. I don't quite understand why this series is released under the 'Ghost Ship' label that SevenSeas has going right now? That label, from what I understand is reserved for explicit series featuring lots of nudity and sex, but this series is much more wholesome. This volume in particular - SUPER wholesome. The cuteness level is over the top in parts. 

Girlfriend Count in this volume +2. They’re both great, and the arcs we get introducing them are both great. But, let’s face it, all the girlfriends in this series are great in their own way.

I think we may need to develop a stat power rankinkg system like in pokemon for his girlfriends by the end of this. Each of them has their own personal strengths and weaknesses. Shizuka has max power in cuteness, for example, but Hahari's sexiness stat would be over-the-top.

This book had, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest back-to-back 2-page spreads in the HISTORY of manga. When you get there, you’ll understand. I truly hope the translator got paid by the word, cus otherwise… ouch. The anime got announced officially today, so I anticipate this series will be growing in popularity quite a lot.