We’re joined by the awesome Morgana “Manga Maven” Santilli as we jump into a full Retrospective on Akiko Higashimura’s Tokyo Tarareba Girls!!! How will we feel about Higashimura’s meta-commentary about women in their 30s needing love and marriage to find happiness? Make sure to follow Morgana on Twitter and check out her website! Remember to send us emails! mangamachinations@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter! @mangamacpodcast Check out our tumblr! http://mangamachinations.tumblr.com Join our Discord server and come talk to us! http://discord.me/mangamac Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro Song: “TOKYO GIRL” by Perfume from Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Opening, Introductions 00:01:18 - Morgana catches us up on her new life as a freelance writer 00:05:46 - Whatchu Been Reading: Transition Song: Dragon Ball Z OST “Prologue”, Seamus reports on his visit to the Manga Exhibition at The British Museum 00:14:50 - Morgana enjoyed more Satoko and Nada and Asumiko Nakamura’s Classmates 00:17:35 - Morgana picked up POPOCOMI went she went to the Toronto Comic Art Festival 00:22:43 - News: Kodansha will be putting out a Katsuhiro Otomo Complete Works Collection 00:25:21 - Katsuhiro Otomo’s next movie is Orbital Era 00:26:33 - Akira will be getting a 4K remaster and Katsuhiro Otomo is working on a new Akira anime project 00:32:10 - Dark Horse Comics is finally releasing the 5th omnibus for Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 00:36:03 - VIZ Media will be releasing KAITO’s Blue Flag and Inio Asano’s Downfall 00:38:19 - Dragon Head is now available digitally from Kodansha 00:41:07 - The success of digital sales helped Saint Young Men get a physical release 00:41:52 - Serial Experiments Lain will be open source for the next 9 years 00:44:28 - Next Episode Preview and Rundown: Retrospective on Tokyo Tarareba Girls, we will continue our comprehensive review of Akiko Higashimura’s horror comedy manga(covers volumes 4-5) 00:44:56 - Main Segment Retrospective: Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Transition Song: Opening from Tokyo Tarareba Girls, comprehensive review of Akiko Higashimura’s manga 00:46:51 - We recap the events of volume 1 00:49:17 - We discuss Higashimura’s anti-romance themes 00:53:16 - Darfox and Morgana talk about how they each related to Tokyo Tarareba Girls differently as a man and a woman 00:56:51 - Morgana shares moments from the book that hit her hard 00:58:31 - Seamus points out the brilliance of using baseball as a metaphor for the girls missing their chance at love 01:00:24 - dakazu thinks the imaginary Codfish Milt and Liver are the comedic stars 01:01:39 - We praise Higashimura’s use of visual analogies to better represent the internal state of the girls 01:03:35 - We recap the events of volume 2 01:06:55 - Morgana talks about how the men are taking advantage of the girls 01:09:34 - Seamus notes that Key fits into a character type often found in Japanese novels 01:10:48 - Kaori perspective as the woman who was with an unsuccessful man was something Darfox hadn’t experienced before 01:14:05 - We explain Higashimura’s use of boxing as the girls act like sandbags for the men 01:15:32 - We love the analogy of conveyor belt sushi 01:18:02 - We comment on how the bonus Valentine’s Day story is more like an extra episode for a television drama 01:22:20 - Morgana really doesn’t like Key 01:24:00 - We recap the events of volume 3 01:26:53 - We don’t trust Mr. Okuda 01:28:53 - We think Yoshio is a manipulative scumbag 01:31:33 - We explore the meta-commentary made by Higashimura about media for women through a manga for women 01:34:22 - Seamus comments that Rinko’s concern about career or marriage make sense for a woman in modern Japanese society 01:38:21 - dakazu points out more visual analogies through roller coasters and talk shows 01:39:18 - Darfox compares Tokyo Tarareba Girls as a story about Shoko from Princess Jellyfish 01:44:13 - Seamus predicts Mr. Okuda will be like Trent from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 01:46:00 - The lack of different body type representati