Archives for June 2006

… will be presented by Love Manga and MangaCast from now on. With both of them doing such a great job, I don’t see any point in my continuing to run the new manga list. I’ll link to them every week, though.

Yes, the headline doesn’t lie: According to this press release, the Best Western Miyako Inn, in San Francisco, will be remodeled to reflect “the vibrant energy of Japanese pop culture”:

Undergoing a more dramatic change will be the 125-room Best Western Miyako Inn, which will take inspiration from contemporary Japan, featuring the bright colors, modern embellishments and art styling found in Japanese anime, manga and street fashion. An optimistic blend of practical comfort and quirky details, the Inn will attract a diverse spectrum of guests.

I like that “optimistic.” The stodgier Miyako Hotel will retain its “respectful interpretations of Traditional Japanese culture”—soaking tubs, rice paper screens, like that.

Gynocrat has an interesting tale for us about plagiarism and vengeance among Japanese manga-kas.

The folks at the AoD forums are managing to contain their excitement about today’s ADV news.

Pata has some fun with the Japanese Anti-Smoking Association’s objections to Nana (found via ComiPress).

With Fool’s Gold due out in less than a month, Amy Hadley is going to Anime Expo, and she’s worried about the etiquette of autographs. Just a little first-time jitters.

Hey, kids! ANN has a blog! Ikimashou is not impressed.

A French publisher is announcing a new global manga anthology magazine, Shogun, featuring content by European creators. The announcement is in French, but The Comics Reporter has a summary: “based roughly on the Shonen Jump model (lots of pages, low price).” Given that the French have done some really nice work, I will be interested to see this one. The website goes online on July 9; there’s a placeholder there now if you want to bookmark it.

ADD Theater comments on objectification of women in manga: It’s not that it doesn’t happen, it’s just easier to ignore.

This is a nice Fred Gallagher fan site, freshly updated to celebrate the release of volume 4 of Megatokyo.

Next step in Japanese evolution: a maid cafe on wheels.

ICv2 reports this morning that a Japanese holding company, the Sojits Corporation, has made a substantial investment in ADV through two of its subsidiaries.

Why?

Shinichi Uchiyama, Senior Vice President of Sojitz’ New Business Development Group, said of the investment, “Anime has become a global phenomenon, and the North American and European markets are slated for sustained growth. As the market leader, A.D. Vision is the best partner to realize that growth.”

So naturally, this is about anime, but manga is in the mix as well:

The investment will allow ADV Films to raise its output of new anime titles, which had dropped in 2006, back to previous levels or above. And an ADV spokesperson told ICv2 that in the wake of this new agreement, “ADV has big plans for its manga business.”

Emphasis mine. If this pans out, it’s obviously good news for all the fans who have been complaining over the last few weeks about their favorite series disappearing.

One wonders, though. It seems the problems came about the first time because ADV had big plans; people more knowledgeable than I feel that they overextended themselves, bringing out too many titles too quickly. I think we’d settle for a modest stream rather than a flood, perhaps finishing out some of the more popular series before starting anything new.

Volume 4 of Yotsuba&! would be an excellent start.

I held off over the weekend, but I guess it’s time to add my two cents to the controversy over the censorship/editing of Cannon God Exaxxion.

Here’s the story in a nutshell: Dark Horse publishes the series, which was included in Dark Horse’s anthology magazine, Super Manga Blast, until SMB was discontinued last year. In a posting on the Dark Horse forums, series editor Chris Warner explained that

work with very strong adult content was created in Japan long after the series began running in the States, content much stronger than what had been established when the license was secured. Publishing this more adult content unaltered would have pulled the book into an adults-only category, which would have cut it off from a large number of its regular readers.

Dark Horse contacted the creator, who authorized some edits to bring it back to the 16+ age category.

For his trouble, Warner has been slammed by posters on that forum. Reaction in the blogosphere has been a bit more measured. At MangaCast, Ed Chavez says,

Personally, I think a mangaka can do what he wants. The creation process has artists changing things all the time (the artist might do so and who knows what editors will do, right). But as a fan, and there is no logic to being a fan, I would like to get what was licensed. So I want Kodansha’s eXaXXion.

And at Love Manga, David Taylor is sympathetic to Warner but thinks the the-manga-ka-said-it-was-OK excuse is a little wishy-washy. Also, shouldn’t Dark Horse have seen this coming?

Was Cannon God Exaxxion (CGE) a playful children’s series in the first four volumes and then suddenly took on a wholly unexpected adult theme in volume five?

David checks back to make sure, but the answer is no. Also, Warner’s argument that the pages had to be edited to be suitable for Super Manga Blast falls apart when you observe, as David does, that Super Manga Blast is no more. (Presumably the editing was done before that happened, but that’s an awful long lead time.)

With the caveat that I have never read Cannon God Exaxxion (hell, I can barely spell it), here are my observations:

1. First off, Dark Horse is a pretty good publishing house. As Chris Warner points out, they have plenty of books with serious adult content, and that’s OK because they plan and market them as such.

2. As much as we would like to pretend otherwise, manga is a commercial product. If the publishers lost money, there would be no manga.

3. Because Dark Horse does a good job with mature manga, I do think the change may have caught them unawares.

4. Warner presents this as a change-or-die scenario. The book isn’t selling all that well to begin with, and putting an M rating on it will hurt sales, as many bookstores won’t carry it, and probably kill the series. I’m inclined to believe him, because this sounds like a strictly marketing decision.

5. Hey, they talked to the artist, and he OK’d it. Presumably if he’d found the changes offensive, he would have objected, but he didn’t.

6. Major points to Warner for going on the boards and trying to explain this. Even though he got slammed, I’m glad he did it. It’s better than CMX’s obstinate silence.

I would like to see Dark Horse make another gesture, either putting uncensored pages up on the site or making the uncensored volumes (yes, that would be another edition) available through other channels, but if the series is as marginal as they say, they probably can’t spare the expense.

I also think we need to be clear on what we mean by “censorship.” I think of it as restraint imposed by the government. Self-censorship by artists, writers, and publishers happens all the time—it’s part of the creative process. I don’t use profanity when I write for a community newspaper, for example, and I usually have to cut out information for space or because it doesn’t flow logically with the rest of the story.

Here’s another example. I used to edit how-to-paint books, in which the author gave examples of his or her work and explained the techniques. I was showing a set of color proofs to my editor when she picked up her lupe, squinted at a painting, and said, “Look at that guy’s hard-on!” Yes, a figure in one of the paintings had a full erection, and I had totally missed it. Ulp! This is not something our audience would expect, and since we would be mailing it out sight unseen to our book club, the painting would have to go. We contacted the artist, and he chuckled (“I was wondering if that was going to get by you!”) and sent a replacement. No harm, no foul, except that color proofs are expensive to change.

So. We all want authentic manga, but the fact is that the marketplace sometimes dictates against it. If things have to be changed, I’m happy that Dark Horse was at least thoughtful about it, got the creator’s OK, and explained themselves to fans. I’m just sorry that Warner got slammed so badly by the fans. He was respectful to them, and he deserved the same in return.

Found on the referrer logs: Bento Physics, a brand-new blog that aims to take a fresh approach to anime and manga. It starts off strong with posts on Ouran High School Host Club and yaoi manga.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin takes a look at a couple of manga that weren’t blockbuster successes, and explains why. Also, a peek at internet reactions to their article on ADV manga, or rather, the lack thereof.

At Love Manga, David Taylor comments on the latest Flipped.