Archives for December 2006

There are a few other things happening besides retrospectives.

There are two manga on the USA Today Booklist this week, and neither comes as a surprise: vol. 15 of Fruits Basket checks in at number 108 while Naruto drops from 67 last week to 133 this week.

At the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon interviews Vertical’s Anne Ishii, one of the sharpest people in the business, who delivers some clear insights into the realities of marketing. Two other interviews, with webcomicker and Viz freelance editor Shaenon Garrity and Joe “Jog” McCulloch, also touch on manga and make interesting reading in any case.

At Deutsche Mangaka, Elae translates an interview with Georg F.W. Tempel, director of the publisher EMA. There are some interesting commments regarding sales figures, series length, and genre:

He also stated that BL and romance are the best-selling genres, regardless of whether they’re Japanese or German manga, with comedy doing very poorly.

Did you know that there are five comics artists in Austin, Texas? Nope, me neither. The Austin Chronicle interviews all five, including Steady Beat creator Rivkah.

ICv2 has a brief announcement that Media Blasters will publish the two-volume manga The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry Chan, by Ai Morinaga. The first volume is due in June 2007, the second in September.

From the Broccoli blog: Disgaea 2 will be previewed in the February Anime Insider. Also, a few tantalizing details about vol. 7 of Kamui. Meanwhile, the E’S character designs certainly rocked Ed’s world at the MangaCast.

Patrick Macias interviews American film director Michael Arias about his animated film Tekkonkinkreet, which is based on the manga of the same name (Black and White in English) by Taiyo Matsumoto. According to this accompanying article, Arias is the first foreigner to direct a full-length animated film in Japan.

Amazon has opened an otaku store.

Two advance reviews at Active Anime: Holly Ellingwood on vol. 8 of Ouran Host Club and Christopher Seaman on vol. 6 of Kikaider Code 02.

Evidence that Team Comix still has some work to do on polishing the ol’ image: The Toronto Globe and Mail has an article on the impending Archie makeover that includes these paragraphs:

But don’t expect Betty and Veronica to go all manga with skimpy clothes, teen sex or violence. Good golly, no. The new-look story will stay firmly within what Silberkleit calls “the Archie Comics code of decency.”

“There will be no denigrating anybody, no putting down authority or family, no sex, no drugs. The characters will still wear seatbelts. There’ll be no smoking. Nobody is going to break the law. It’s going to be the same thing from dear old Riverdale [the characters’ hometown] that we know and love,” he says.

Note that in the next paragraph the reporter reveals that in olden times Betty and Veronica were “the ultimate sweater girls with A-bomb warheads.” And cars didn’t have seatbelts back then, either.

Seriously, while it’s true that scanty costumes are a manga standard, most shoujo manga in the 13+ range (the Archie demographic) have an almost prudish moral code. The kids take on a lot of family responsibility, take school seriously, and act like they have to marry the first guy they kiss. It’s true that I don’t see a lot of seatbelts, though.

Never read it? Don’t feel bad—even though it’s the number one manga of 2006, according to PWCW. Here are some reviews in case you want to fake it. Madinkbeard read it last summer, but apparently in French.

And here’s Christopher Butcher, ‘way back in 2004, recommending it as a manga that would sell better in the direct market than bookstores.

A young european graphic novelist trained in Europe and Japan, and telling really lovely stories. Mature, less melodramatic romance/slice-of-life stuff. Combines the sales power of manga with the die-hard hipster fanbase of EIGHTBALL or OPTIC NERVE. In fact, I’d say match this one dollar-for-follar with the last issue if OPTIC NERVE and you’d probably be bang-on, orderwise. Also falls into the category of “good manga”, and even if you order only one copy to have on the racks, you’d be one of less than 100 retailers who did.

At Publisher’s Weekly, comics maven Kai-Ming Cha gives her picks for the best manga and manwha of 2006. First of all, kudos to PW for being sophisticated enough to do separate manga and manwha lists, although it’s a little odd that having made that distinction, they lump global and Japanese manga together.

That said, I looked at this list and it is so different from what my picks would be that it really gives me pause. Ed reacts at the MangaCast:

I like the range of titles in this listing but for that very same reason it seems to be a little too perfect. You know almost every pub that deserves recognition is represented. No single publisher dominates the list with the required nouvelle title no one has heard of taking the top spot. Almost too convenient is the quirky Project X title, controversial OEL title and of course my favorite “guys in suits” BL title!! All of those titles deserve recognition but I this feels orchestrated to me.

What he said! Kethylia weighs in as well, and again, I agree with a lot of her comments (but not the one about bias—Kai-Ming strikes me as too professional for that). Actually, I like Kethylia’s list a lot better, although I agree with the commenters who nominated After School Nightmare and Oyayubihime Infinity as well.

Everyone has different tastes, and maybe the chief value of lists like these is that they are starting points for some interesting discussions. Certainly I would question a lot of the choices on the PW list, but I also have not read a lot of these titles, and now I probably will check out at least some of them. Maybe Boys of Summer and Air Gear are better than I think, and that’s why they edged out Ode to Kirihito, ES: Eternal Sabbath, Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, Afterlife, the second volume of Dramacon… I guess I’ll find out.

I’d be interested in hearing what you all think of the list—and what your picks would be. So consider this an open thread for nominations and commentary.

UPDATE: David Welsh asks

Has anyone ever seen a copy of Vanyda’s The Building Opposite (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) in a bookstore or comic shop?

Good point. I haven’t. (It’s number one on the PW top ten list.) Anyone?

UPDATE 2: Simon Jones checks in.

With just 11 days left in 2006, people all over the web are starting with the retrospectives and best-of lists. At Anime on DVD, Ed Chavez begins his publisher-by-publisher year-end summary with a look at ADV, which, unsurprisingly, gets low marks. This is a shame, because they should do better. They have some strong titles, and at one point their production values weren’t bad, but they seem to have sunk so low they aren’t even trying to do damage control any more—what, they couldn’t hire a college student to update the website? To me, that shows contempt for the readers. Given the number of people they have disappointed, it’s not surprising that the forum turns into a group hate.

I’m saving the PW top manga lists for another post, but also at PW, a panel of critics votes on the best comics of 2006. Manga makes a poor showing on this list, with none getting more than two votes (out of six).

Meanwhile, the best-selling novel in Japan this year was based on the Gintana manga. The article notes that novels based on manga have been selling well in the U.S. as well.

In other Japanese news, MangaCast has the winners of the 10th Annual Japanese Media Arts Festival. Check it out so you can look longingly at that Yotsuba&! cover, as that may be the closest you ever get to it. Darn you, ADV!

First things first: It’s Wednesday, so check out the rundown of new manga at the MangaCast. Also: info on the new Broccoli titles.

Get two of the most articulate women in comics, Johanna Draper Carlson and Steady Beat creator Rivkah, together and what is the result? An Interview Worth Reading. More from PWCW: Yaoi Press will be publishing art books and Kai-Ming Cha takes a look back at Ranma 1/2.

Speaking of Rumiko Takahashi, Joel Bryan points out that she’s the world’s most popular comic artist. I’m not sure how true it is any more that few people outside Japan have heard of her, though.

ComiPress: Your source for moe news? They have an interview with moe artist Houmitsu and info on a moe cookbook.

At the Yaoi Review, Sakura Kiss wonders about the effect of yaoi on the parents of young readers, and vice versa. And the June blog has some bad news for J-Boy fans: no volume 2 is forthcoming. (Via Yaoi Suki.)

Viz is announcing some changes to Shojo Beat. It looks like they have redesigned the magazine a bit and beefed up the non-manga pages to make it a bit more girl-friendly. David Welsh has a few comments, and as the January issue is on newsstands now, I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about it soon.

Here’s the Witchblade trailer. View at your own risk.

Reviews: At Read About Comics, Greg McElhatton enjoys the first two volumes of Old Boy. Anime on DVD’s Josephine Fortune, a self-professed Junji Ito fan, gives high marks to Museum of Terror, despite some flaws. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 5 of Moon Phase and has an early peek at vol. 4 of Skip Beat. Mangamaniaccafe reviews vol. 1 of Soul Rescue. At MangaCast, Jarred Pine has a podcast review of Kamui.