From aisatsu to kaiten-zushi, Nihon is number one when it comes to things that are cool. This fun little book features full-color manga illustrations and delightful prose to offer the rest of the world a glimpse at what the Japanese love most about the country they call home.

Who says all manga has to be black-and-white? Introducing "Colorful Costumes". This wonderful edition is a veritable "Encylopedia of Styles," offering a close-up look at the whimsical costumes and elaborately tailored uniforms worn by the young women who work in Japan's cafes, restaurants, hotels and other service-industry venues.

The thing that can make or break a manga is the expression of machines and "automata": It's those fantastic devices and the sounds they create that make manga so exciting. In this book, the techniques taught in volumes 1 and 2 are used in expressive techniques to create outrageous imaginary automata, cars, motorcycles, explosions, fires, mythical animals and other fantastic effects.

Drawing realistic faces and bodies is only half the job - you will want your manga characters' clothing to look good, too. Depicting wrinkles, skirt hems and other apects of clothing isn't as easy as it looks, but this book will simpify the process for you. Features sections on underwear and outer garments, and how clothing changes shape as the body moves, bends and stretches.

The first book in this two-volume set is a virtual encyclopedia of everything from classic handguns to high-tech firearms, including six-shooters, semiautomatics, World War II "masterpiece" arms and modern-battlefield assault rifles. Each weapon is described in painstaking detail by author and artist Ichiro Kamiya, whose lavish illustrations are so realistic, you might be fooled into trying to lift the guns right off the pages.

Drawing characters is one thing... drawing machines is completely different. For drawing various guns, accounterment, mechanics of combat planes and warships we introduce the essentials for developing a basic knowledge. Apart from the trove of knowledge and data that makes up the pictorial materials, there are the basics of character types and story concepts.

Renowned artists Tatsuhiro Ozaki (founder of the Society for the Study of Manga Techniques) and Unkaku Koyama (author of "How to Draw Manga: Super Tone Techniques") team up for "Maids and Miko," a fascinating, in-depth look at the traditional costumes worn by Western housemaids and Japanese temple servants (miko).

Kana de Manga makes learning hiragana and katakana easy and fun for students who already enjoy Japanese comics. Each page has a humorous manga illustration representing a word that begins with the hiragana or katakana character featured prominently at the top. A brief explanation accompanies each drawing, the English equivalent of the word is given, and there is a work area where students can practice writing the characters.

Japanese manga artists rely heavily upon onomatopoeia - sound-effect words - to tell their stories. This special edition in the Kana de Manga series features more than 100 Japanese onomatopoeia and their English equivalents in categories such as "humans," "animals," "machines," and "nature."

Yojijukugo are four-kanji expressions that make up some of the best-known and best-loved Japanese idioms. These include gems like "kill two birds with one stone," "time is money," and many more! Features 80 Japanese idioms, each accompanied by a full English explanation, kanji breakdown, example sentence, and an original manga drawing.

The Kanji de Manga series uses original comic artwork to teach readers how to identify and write the most common Japanese kanji ideographs. Volume 1 introduces 80 basic kanji that all Japanese schoolchildren are required to learn before entering the third grade. Each page features its own comic strip, kanji pronunciation guide, stroke order, and English explanations.