Seven Seas announces light novel line. Lots of people got this press release, but I’m linking to MangaCast because their enthusiasm bubbles over so delightfully.
At Love Manga, David Taylor takes a break from his vacation to weigh in on the Tokyopop online exclusives and talk about a new manga slated for Rush, DramaQueen’s global BL anthology.
Simon Jones puts the FMA censorship kerfuffle into perspective.
I think rant fests such as the one pointed towards Viz (and the newspaper publishers of the Mohammed cartoons, and questions of the quality of the cartoons themselves) does a disservice to everyone by overlooking the larger, far more important question… what are the cultural conditions that necessitated these decisions in the first place? This is the underlying problem that should be confronted and discussed.
And then he goes on to explain the nobler purpose of pornography, which pushes the boundaries of acceptability, thus opening up broader horizons for creative expression. Which, he concludes, means that if you don’t like censored manga, you should buy his books.
At Yet Another Comics Blog, Dave Carter crunches more numbers and finds more evidence that Tokyopop releases more volume 1s and 2s per month than Viz. I understand his point, that Tokyopop seems to be flooding the market because they are bringing out more new series, while Viz is plodding along with volume 152 or whatever of Inu Yasha. But I’m curious as to why that is. Is Tokyopop licensing shorter series, or dropping series after a couple of volumes, or did all their series end around the same time, forcing them to start new ones all at once?
Two sites, two good reviews: Active Anime and Comic Book Bin both like volume 3 of Sugar Sugar Rune, even though the Active Anime reviewer hasn’t even read the first two volumes.
On a darker note, David Welsh has good things to say about Drifting Classroom, a manga I also really liked.
This kids-head-to-the-library-to-watch-anime article has some interesting comments on age-appropriateness from teen librarian Carrie Vale:
“I preview them before showing them,” says Vale. “I use the same guidelines for showing my films as for PG-13. It’s different culture so the mores are a little different.”
She also requires that kids be 13 and older to view the films.
and from a parent:
“It’s good that the library will do it for me so I don’t have to worry about what he’s seeing.”
Its easy to get bubbly with the people who were replying
“Is Tokyopop licensing shorter series, or dropping series after a couple of volumes, or did all their series end around the same time, forcing them to start new ones all at once?”
Jake Forbes had suggested over in the comments section at YACB that Tokyopop, which doesn’t enjoy a relationship with major Japanese publishers like Del Rey or Viz, doesn’t have access to longer-running series. He said that smaller publishers tend to run shorter series, so there’s a higher turnover rate in Tokyopop’s roster of titles, necessitating more debuts.
I’d personally guess that the fact that there are so many volume ones being released is because Fruits Basket will end soon (sooner than, say, InuYasha or Naruto), TokyoPop is trying to find a new series that will be as popular.
Elae: I agree. I’m seeing a lot of new series from Tokyopop that fit a sort of formula, shoujo plus a supernatural element. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to give them much of a push. Maybe they didn’t have to do that with Fruits Basket either, but times have changed.
David: That could be. I actually prefer shorter series, but maybe Tokyopop could stagger them a bit more.
Ed: Time to put away the laughing gas over there! Nice redesign, by the way. Can we change it to the Tobin Bridge for the MangaBlogCasts, though?
Hmmm. I’ll see what I can do.
I guess that’s part of the debate for Tokyopop… if they can’t get longer series maintaining their usual monthly output requires launching more series. So which is worse for the company? Too many launches or dropping in quantity (which, I’d presume, has negatives like losing quantity discounts with the printer), which is worse for Tokyopop?
It’s great that the “kids watching freaky foreign cartoon in library” article managed to name not a single serie the kids are actually watching. AT LEAST mention Naruto. Shesh.
TP sounds like it’s getting desperate. Sad.