On 21 June 2026, the 8th session of KAORI Nusantara Bibliobattle was held on the KAORI Nusantara Discord server. The session gathered 3 duelists and a total of 5 participants.
If you read the previous bibliobattle report, we are still using the same steps in each session. Start with the recommendation battle, do a voting session, and continue with either a watchalong or a silent reading (readalong) for the activity.
That month’s bibliobattle recommended three one-shot manga, namely Rent-A-Muscle, written and illustrated by Ikkoku Satoyama and recommended by duelist Pl4tinumDisco; Wasuremono to Garakuta no Machi (A Town of Things Discarded and Forgotten), written and illustrated by Abe Marina, recommended by duelist Hal; and Oyasumi, Nini-chan, written and illustrated by Amairo Chu, recommended by Shay.
For duelist Pl4tinumDisco, this is how he recommends Rent-A-Muscle manga:
Need a job or event that requires muscle? Rent a muscle service is the solution. The story began with a new comic artist who was researching different kinds of jobs and decided to interview a “muscle rental” shop. The shop literally rents out muscles, like when you’re going to the beach and want to impress people, you’d rent abdominal muscles and shoulder muscles. After that, the customers have to pay with a workout. Rent-A-Muscle, although short, can deliver a nice pacing with consistent gags and twists.
For duelist Hal, this is how he recommends Wasuremono to Garakuta no Machi manga:
In this story, discarded and forgotten items sometimes acquire souls, and to prevent these items from causing trouble, some people serve as soul purifiers to purify the souls of these items. Regna is a soul purifier who one day encounters a doll from an abandoned house that refuses to be purified because it is still waiting for its owner to return.
Abe Marina is a comic artist whose works are mostly one-shots or short series, and her stories tend to follow the fairytale-like fantasy tradition familiar to shoujo manga. While the stories may be simple, given the short one-shot format, the plot and art style in depicting the settings and emotions create an impression reminiscent of classic fairy tales such as those written by Hans Christian Andersen.
For duelist Shay, here’s how she recommends Oyasumi, Nini-chan manga:
A hurt/comfort one-shot about a high school student who locks himself away due to depression and a little angel who suddenly falls from the sky. The student plans to commit suicide, but instead is told to sleep and play a lot by the little angel, and finally, the student chooses to focus on taking care of the angel, who still resembles a child. The story is short, concise, straight to the heart, with a drawing style that is also pleasing to the eye. The twists revealed at the end of the story don’t feel like a bombshell that is too shocking, but still make us think “oh, so that’s how it is!”.
During the Q&A session, a participant pointed out the pattern for the recommendations this time: Rent-a-Muscle sounds like a parody of a manga with a similar title, while the concept of Wasuremono to Garakuta no Machi is familiar in the fairy tale fantasy genre, and Oyasumi Nini-chan reminded them of a manga titled One Room Angel.
The talk then led to a comparison between Oyasumi Nini-chan and One Room Angel. Duelist Shay made the point that the twists in Oyasumi Nini-chan are not as extreme as those in One Room Angel. The other participant asked whether One Room Angel is a BL, but in the end, the girls in the forum agreed that “nothing happened for it to be a BL, but also things happened for it to not be a BL”. A participant also asked whether Rent-A-Muscle is a 4-koma manga, but it is actually not. Rent-A-Muscle is a regular 40-page one-shot manga.
With that, the bibliobattle entered the voting session. Each participant was asked to vote by reacting to the message sent in the chatroom. Rent-A-Muscle won the majority of the vote by 4, but some participant also put their curiosity into Oyasumi Nini-chan and read both manga in the entire reading session.
When the readalong session was over, a participant said that Rent-A-Muscle manga reminded them of the battle manga Tsuyoshi. But Duelist Pl4tinumDisco replied that Tsuyoshi is more of a Kengan series than a gag manga. Rent-A-Muscle delivers a lighthearted reading with short dialogues and twisty punchlines with consistent bits until the end. The participants discussed the unique characters in the manga and the concept behind “muscle transfer”. Rent-A-Muscle sent lots of surprises to the readers. The art style for Rent-A-Muscle reminded the participant of the Dumbbell Nan Kilo Motteru manga. And as for Kengan Asura and Kengan Omega, the mangaka is actually a martial arts practitioner, so the art for muscles and the fitness guidelines looks realistic.
The session continued with a discussion about Oyasumi Nini-chan, but since we ran out of time, the discussion had to be finished before it really began. That’s it for the 8th bibliobattle. See you next month!
The Indonesian Anime Times ┃Event report by Vina Nurziani
