Vol. 5 brings Jason Asano home, and Shirtaloon uses the homecoming to ask a harder question than “how strong.” The cosmology is colonial all the way down, the body count is real, and the thesis lands in five words from a teenager: the opposite of good is easy.
On consent, inaction, and the cabinet that won’t close. A review of Curry Barker’s Obsession (2026) and the indictment hiding in plain sight.
Press roundtable with Akane-banashi manga editor Seisuke Araki-san and anime producer Kazuki Endo-san, conducted at Anime NYC 2025. Published April 4, 2026 on Manga Mavericks alongside Anime Herald and Anime Corner.
Ize Press’s Solo Leveling × ORV pop-up hits NYC this August, and Yen Press dropped 16 licenses at SDCC 2026. Every title, sorted by what it sells.
Everything I carry, emptied onto the table and named one object at a time—a self-portrait that turns, across English, Spanish, and Japanese, toward my mother, my grandmother, and the lineage I’m learning to face.
GKIDS acquires North American rights to Kunihiko Ikuhara's Adolescence of Utena for a two-night U.S. theatrical release June 21–22. Tickets on sale now.
HWFWM Vol. 4 isn’t a homecoming. It’s a new game+. A deep-dive review of Jason’s return to Earth, the Nirvanic trade, and the wonders he came back to show.
A close read of HWFWM Vol. 3: how Jason turns stolen moments into permanent self, refuses the star seed, and emerges Resolute against a Great Astral Being.
Book 2 of He Who Fights with Monsters is a book about scholarships. Rufus, Gary, and Farrah lifted Jason in Book 1. Book 2 is Jason paying that forward—to Sophie, to Belinda, to the team that builds itself around him—while a Great Astral Being's conspiracy hollows out the city he's just started to call home.
A deep dive into HWFWM Vol. 1 by Shirtaloon — the Essence system, Jason Asano's divisive brilliance, Heath Miller's narration, and why this is the One Piece of LitRPG.
