In the distant future, humanity clusters in small villages, reduced to a medieval style of living, while monsters, demons, and vampires ro...

Naomi is a toxic love story, set in 1920s Japan, and one that is surprisingly relevant today. The novel is a classic of Japanese literature...

Since it’s Halloween season I decided to review a Japanese horror novel. Audition by the writer Ryu Murakami, is a story about a man findin...

 The Japanese immigrant experience in America is often ignored, which makes works like The Four Immigrants Manga an invaluable record, both...

 Shanghai between the world wars is a fascination of Westerns, the Chinese themselves, but also the Japanese. The zeitgeist of 1920s Shangha...

  Indie Spotlight   is a column by WWII historical fiction author  Alexa Kang . The column regularly features hot new releases and noteworth...

  Indie Spotlight   is a column by WWII historical fiction author Alexa Kang . The column regularly features hot new releases and noteworthy...

It's spooky season again, so that means horror, specifically, horror manga. Japanese comics have a long history of horror stories, but t...

As I’ve stated many times, there’s long been a blind spot about the Asian Theater of World War II. You can stack the books written about Naz...

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura is a crime thriller set in modern-day Japan about an experienced pickpocket named Nishimura as he prowls the...

Between 1983 – 1985, the celebrated artist Osamu Tezuka created one of his most underpraised manga. Adolf , also known as Message to Adolf ...

Backlist books is a column by Lucy Day Werts that focuses on enduring, important works from or about Asia. This post is about The Tale of ...

  Before what we know as manga , there was kamishibai . Literally translated as “paper play ” ( 紙芝居 ) kamishibai was a popular form of ente...

Happy Chinese New Year! I’m indie WWII historical fiction author Alexa Kang , and it is my honor to begin the Year of the Ox as the Asian Bo...

The Silent Dead is a Japanese crime novel by Tetsuya Honda and the first installment of the Reiko Himekawa series. It offers a glimpse into...

The Russo-Japanese War is a fascinating conflict that, arguably, was one of the most important events in the 20th century. It contributed to...

November is the perfect time for noir aka Noirvember, and that means it’s the perfect time for mystery novels. In Japan, the mystery genre i...

Since it's spooky season, I wanted to highlight one of Japan's most famous horror manga artists/writers - Junji Ito. For those not i...

Soji Shimada is one of Japan’s best selling mystery writers. His latest work One Love Chigusa has been published in English as part of the R...