Title: 美鳥の日々 (Midori no Hibi) Vol. 8 LE
Artist/Author: 井上和郎 (Kazurou Inoue)
Book Size/Pages: Small B-6, 206pp., w/furigana
Volume: 8/8
Original Serialization: Weekly Shonen Sunday Vol 22, '04 - Vol 34, '04
First Printing: 11/15/03
Rating: 4/4

This series has one of the more complete endings of comics I've read recently. All the important characters have their own conclusions and Seiji and Midori also have their special moment. I'm pretty surprised that I came to like this series, given that it's a story about a girl who grows out of a guy's hand.

Limited edition comes with a Midori cell phone strap. Bonus includes character descriptions, parting message from the author, 4 panel comics on the back flap, and a couple of notes from the author's peers and sensei he used to be an assistants for. One of the guys is Bow D(z)itama, author of Mahoromatic who talks about his drinking binges with Kazurou Inoue.

Title: 蒼い海のトリスティア (Tristia of The Deep-blue Sea)
Artist/Author: 結城さくや (Sakuya Yuki)
Original Creator: 工画堂スタジオ／くまさんちーむ (Kogado Studio/Kumasan Team)
Character Design: 駒都えーじ (Eiji Komatsu)
Book Size/Pages: B-6, 194pp., w/furigana
Volume: 1/1
Original Serialization: Monthly Dengeki Comics GAO 4/04-11/04
First Printing: 12/15/04
Rating: 3/4

Saw this at the bookstore and the obi had, in big letters, "character design by Eiji Komatsu." Well, I'm sold. The story is based off a video game that was later turned into an OVA earlier this year. The story is about Nanoka who is the granddaughter of a famous inventor in Tristia, a city that used to be a bustling commerce point, but is not a quiet town. With her inventions, she wants to revive the city. The story doesn't really seem to follow that as it's just a collection of short stories that don't seem to deal with main plot. But that's to be expected from a game tie-in manga. The episodes in themselves are interesting and of course, the character design is great.

Bonus includes character design and sketches from the OVA.

Title: コードネームはセーラーV (Codename is Sailor V) Vol. 2
Artist/Author: 武内直子 (Naoko Takeuchi)
Book Size/Pages: Small B-6, 292pp., w/furigana
Volume: 2/2
Original Serialization: Various issues of Runrun 3/04-11/97
First Printing: 11/22/04
Rating: 3/4

A lot of the battles end so quickly. Sailor V just appears, transforms, and the enemy disappears. What had the most meaning in this volume is the last one where Minako realizes that she's not just Sailor V but Sailor Venus and starts to remember her past as a Sailor Scout.

Bonus includes a few pages of illustration and like the previous volumes, the cover is apparently a first printing special.

Title: 愛人 (Ai Ren) Vol. 5
Artist/Author: 田中ユカタ
Book Size/Pages: B-6, 278pp., w/o furigana
Volume: 5/5
Original Serialization: Young Animal Vol 2, '02 - Vol 8, '02
First Printing: 10/5/04
Rating: 3/4

The final volume made the story lines a little more clear as everything gets wrapped up, although it mostly focused on Ikuru and Ai. The ending turned out to be a little different that I had expected. The characters who I knew were going to die did so, but not in the order that I thought they would. Haruka's epilogue, which wasn't in the original serialization, summed up the underlying meaning of the story pretty well.

The author has a pretty long essay at the end of the volume.