Time for a Manga Night with a Beer in Hand: Part 1
~Monosus' "Reading Club" #07~

This time I have finally brought with me volume 5 of "Glass Mask."

The main character, Kitajima Maya, is extremely socially awkward and gloomy. She's not smart and can't study. She's also extremely slow at running, but she's extremely good at acting, and has an amazing memory for plays. She discovers her love for acting and joins the "Tsukikage Theater Company."

The best thing about her is that she's really honest and positive.
No matter what happens, they never give up on what they love. In this volume, the troupe practices hard to enter a play in a competition, and just when they're ready to go, a rival troupe tears everything, from the props to the costumes, and destroys them all.

All the troupe members who went to get replacement props are also trapped, and everyone except Maya is unable to attend. As the time for the performance draws near and it seems they have no choice but to withdraw, Maya says, "I'll do it on my own," and performs alone, but in the end she receives overwhelming support from the audience - a touching story!
Maya Kitajima's "strength to never give up even in hopeless situations" is a great learning experience.

There's a great line in this work, which is, "Human imagination transcends experience."

"Human imagination transcends experience."
Even if you have never actually experienced it, if you expand your imagination, you can surpass your experience. This is what Maya's teacher Tsukikage-sensei said, and I thought it was so amazing!

Yes, no matter what happens, even if I think, "Oh, I can't do this anymore," I picture Maya with blank eyes like this, let myself be possessed, and think, "I'm going to get through this difficulty as Maya!"

Glass Mask Volume 23, Hakusensha, 1982, page 162

I learned about the author, " Kato-chan's Bride ," on Twitter (@hanomanga) . It's a four-panel comic about two teeth, who play, go to sushi restaurants, dance the samba, and more... It's a surreal but very funny manga. I always read it on Twitter, but one day I heard that a book had been published, so I went to the cafe where it was sold to buy it.

I think the best thing is for people to just read them for themselves, but there are a variety of stories, including surreal stories, funny stories, and even a few scary stories.

This is not included in the book, but when the protagonist, Hai, asks a mother pushing a baby carriage that is making a crying sound to "please show me the cute baby," he looks inside and finds a boombox that is making the "baby" sound. So, there is a story that gives Hai the chills.

I don't really understand it and it doesn't make any sense, but it's a really interesting manga.
I'll keep reading. I like this work.
You can also read the work on Twitter, so if you're interested, please check it out.

My wife told me it was so interesting that I decided to read it and it was really interesting.
The reason why I, who have no interest in shoujo manga, liked this manga is because it mixes elements of shonen manga in a nice way.

The story is set in modern-day Japan, but it does have a fantasy element in that the "tengu" mentioned in the title are a common presence.

The main character, Akihime, is a half-Japanese girl whose father is a very powerful Tengu, like the town chief, and whose mother is a very beautiful human.
He has incredible powers as a Tengu, but he's not yet aware of it. There's an element of a boy who is sloppy but has incredible powers, which is common in shonen manga.

Akihime and her childhood friend Shun-chan are human but have aspirations to become a tengu, and the story revolves around these two.

Elements of boys' manga and romance elements of girls' manga are featured not only in these two characters, but in all of the supporting characters.
It's an interesting piece with such a wide range.

Chika Umino (author of "March Comes in Like a Lion") recommends it on the cover of the book, and it's selling quite well, but surprisingly not many people know about it. I didn't know about it either (laughs).

There are 12 volumes in total, and it's such a sinful manga that if you casually start reading it on your day off, it will take up the whole day.
I would like everyone to read it.

So, because I like shogi, I was looking for a shogi manga to read, and that's when I came across "The Shogi Player Under the Moonlight."
This manga is so famous that it has been made into a TV drama, starring a certain Morita. It is the success story of the main character, Himuro Shosuke, whose name is just one letter different from that of a certain famous person, as he enters the Shogi Federation's Shogi Encouragement League (the gateway to becoming a professional), and strives to become a "Meijin," the highest rank in professional shogi.

The story is simple, with the main character overcoming each challenge one by one as he plays against various opponents, but in shogi, after your opponent makes a move, you spend dozens of hours thinking about your next move, asking yourself questions.

So everyone is a little bit crazy, and there are a lot of really crazy people in the story. Of course, within the bounds of reality.

There is a guy I like playing against who doesn't go against fate and just plays his own move. In one game, he intuitively wanted to play this move, but in his own mind he wanted to play this move... so in the end he didn't trust his intuition, played according to his own thoughts and lost. As a result of this failure, he became someone who just trusted his intuition, like "intuition and fate are the best!"

For example, if you check your horoscope every morning and it says that your lucky color for the day is pink, you'll wear a pink suit from head to toe and keep winning. There are characters like that, and each of them has a really strong passion for shogi, so I highly recommend it.

Everybody is like the main character.
That kind of manga is interesting.

Satoshi Murayama. It takes a lot of energy to talk about this person.
He suffers from an illness and will die at around age 29, but even though he knows he is ill, he continues to play shogi. He's an incredibly cool guy.
There is a character based on Murayama Satoshi in the story, so be sure to read it.
I would also like you to read Murayama Satoshi's novels.