さよなら絶望先生 [Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei] #12

The twelfth volume of Koji Kumeta's darkly comic series presents its brooding protagonist front and center — a pale, bespectacled young man in a flowing black kimono-style coat, seated atop a stack of well-traveled luggage plastered with stamps and stickers. There's a quietly theatrical melancholy to the image that perfectly captures the series' signature blend of despair-as-comedy, with the bold vertical title lettering framing the figure in classic manga style. Fans of Kumeta's sardonic sensibility will find this installment a fitting continuation of one of seinen manga's most distinctively gloomy charms.