Archives for March 2007

How difficult is licensing Japanese material? Kokoro Media counts the ways.

The big retail news of the past 48 hours is that Borders is changing its strategy, with plans to close 250 of its Waldenbooks stores and focus on its “superstores.” This is generally a strategy I deplore, as I resent being sent off to a distant, soul-suckingly ugly commercial strip every time I want to make a single purchase. However, I can see the strategy here, as outside of manga the Waldenbooks inventory strikes me as very limited. The good news is that graphic novel sections seem to be getting bigger, as Wayne Beamer of Blog@Newsarama noted. When I blogged about bookstores last week, lots of people commented, most to say that their bookstores are expanding their GN sections. My local Barnes & Noble recently enlarged its manga section, but managed to do so without really increasing the variety of titles.

At Tokyopop, ChunHyang72 wraps up the latest manga news with handy links in her weekly Manga Minute.

Shaenon Garrity launches a pre-emptive strike at this week’s Overlooked Manga Festival, taking a good look at To Terra so it won’t become overlooked.

The Tennesseean takes a look at Christian manga, complete with quotes from ICv2’s Milton Griepp about the rising tide of graphic novels. That’s impressive but probably irrelevant, because Christian comics are more likely to be sold in Christian bookstores, which are outside the usual distribution and reporting systems, than in a Borders or a local comic store.

Graphic novels from religion publishers have been plagued at times in the past by poor quality art or weak stories, but that’s changing, said Bruce Nuffer, associate publisher of Zonderkidz.

Maybe, but I read the first volume of Serenity and wasn’t impressed with it’s we’ll-save-this-bad-girl-by-praying-for-her approach.

Your Libre/BeBeautiful update of the day: Simon Jones reports that the online store Rabbit Valley has dropped its BeBeautiful titles. So far that’s the only one anyone can find.

Meanwhile, June has published their release list for the immediate future. (Via Yaoi Suki.)

David Welsh points us toward the latest issue of Booklist, which is entirely devoted to graphic novels for youth and includes an article by Robin Brenner on building a library collection of manga.

At the Newsarama blog, Graeme McMillan notes the arrival of a new book and an exhibit on Osamu Tezuka. And here’s one I missed but they caught: Becky Cloonan talks formats and anthologies.

Pata explains how not to learn Japanese—and has some suggestions for doing it right. I have to say, my kids loved the Kana de Manga books, but they still don’t know Japanese, probably because it really is hard to learn a language on your own.

At MangaCast, new contributor Readilbert translates an Indonesian article on manga.

Johanna Draper Carlson welcomes Rob Vollmar as a contributing reviewer on Manga Worth Reading.

Reviews: Jessica Severs reviews vol. 1 of Archlord for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Active Anime’s Holly Ellingwood looks at vol. 7 of Black Cat and vol. 1 of Free Collars Kingdom. Julie checks out vol. 1 of Metamo Kiss at the Mangamaniaccafe. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reads vol. 2 of Saint Seiya and vol. 2 of Monster. Matthew Alexander enjoys vol. 1 of Kedamono Damono at Anime on DVD. Leroy Douresseaux checks out vol. 1 of Backstage Prince at the Comic Book Bin. I love the sluglines at Prospero’s Manga, and they’re particularly good today as Miranda takes on Poison Cherry Drive and Ferdinand checks out vol. 1 of 100% Perfect Girl. At Comics Worth Reading, Rob Vollmar gives Ode to Kirihito a slightly less glowing review than everyone else. And Katherine Dacey-Tsuei shows the rest of us how it’s done with her review of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms.

We e-mailed John O’Donnell of CPM for comment on their issues with Libre and got the same terse reply as everyone else: “We do not comment publicly on licensor issues.” Jordan Marks of Yaoi Suki did a little better and learned that O’Donnell is in Japan right now, and the marketing director’s assistant didn’t even know what was going on. Simon Jones (NSFW as always) offers some thoughts.

Booklist watch: Vol. 12 of Naruto drops from 25 to 30 on this week’s USA Today Booklist, and vol. 12 of Fullmetal Alchemist debuts at number 130.

Yesterday was New Comics Day, and the MangaCast crew picks the best of this week’s slim list.

At Yaoi Suki, Jordan Marks comments on an article about yaoi and child pornography.

Same Hat has some awesome scans you won’t see anywhere else: While in New York, they plundered the bookstore Book-Off, and now they are showing off their spoils, including Osamu Tezuka’s version of Crime and Punishment and some oldies but goodies by Yoshida Sensha.

At No-Sword, Matt looks at the weirdness that is Comic Charge, the latest men’s manga magazine. (Via Journalista, who got it from Postmodern Barney.)

The Manga Creep… it’s everywhere! At least, everywhere that David Welsh looks.

Here’s a manga documentary on the South Bank Show. (Via Manga Talk.)

Yaoi Press has some recent news, including a link to their first TV spot.

The Japanese publisher Gentosha has announced plans to release manga online in seven languages and distribute print manga worldwide in six languages. The articles on this are very brief and it’s not clear how exactly the manga is being released; they do note that Tokyopop has Gentosha’s latest title, Graviation EX, which was released simultaneously in the U.S. and Japan.

Reviews: At the BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog, Hung checks out vol. 1 of Lunar Legend Tsukihime and vol. 1 of the light novel Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator. It’s a slow day at Active Anime today, where Holly Ellingwood only reviews two books, vol. 5 of Our Kingdom and vol. 3 of Punch. At the Mangamaniaccafe, Julie enjoys vol. 1 of Pearl Pink, a manga my teenage daughter liked better than I did. Connie of Slightly Biased Manga reads volumes 5, 6, and 7 of Bride of Deimos. Leroy Douresseaux reviews vol. 1 of Wild Adaptor for the Comic Book Bin.

I was going to do a roundup post on the BeBeautiful/Libre dustup, but Simon has done it for me, with links to info and commentary and his own insightful analysis as well. (Link is NSFW.)

In this week’s Flipped column, David Welsh explains exactly what is so good about Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, just out from Last Gasp.

At PWCW, Kai-Ming Cha interviews the affable Stephen Robson of Fanfare/Ponent Mon.

John Jakala reprints part of an interview with Japanese creator Usamaru Furuya, who started out at an avant-garde magazine, Garu, where he was allowed a great deal of artistic freedom but wasn’t paid for his work, and then moved to the more commercial Young Sunday, where he was paid but also expected to collaborate.

ANN interviews Fuyumi Ono, author of The Twelve Kingdoms. A beautiful copy of the hardback edition just arrived from Tokyopop, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

LJ’er Psychoe goes to see Roland Kelts speak about his new book Japanamerica and reflects on Japanese pop culture, the portrayal of women in manga, and the interactivity between fans and anime/manga.

At the MangaCast, Ed posts audio of the Del Rey panel at NYCC and cover images of the newly announced titles.

The final volume of Fruits Basket is out in Japan.

Otaku Champloo points us toward a Manga cafe’s website.

Congrats to Jeremy Atkins, who was recently promoted to director of publicity at Dark Horse. He immediately earned his first paycheck by sending out a blast of press releases, including the news that DH will be publishing the Dirty Pair novels.

They’ve had manga for cell phones for simply ages, so I guess it’s no surprise that a Japanese company is launching the first manga magazine exclusively for cell phones.

Reviews: As always, your first stop should be Pata’s Right Turn Only!! column at ANN, where this month he turns his gaze on the latest volume of Death Note and Brandon Graham’s new King City, among others. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reads the manwha novella collection 9 Faces of Love and deems it weird, but worth checking out; she also enjoyed vol. 4 of Bride of Deimos. Miranda checks out the yaoi one-shot Wishing for the Moon at Prospero’s Manga, while Ferdinand briefly reviews vols. 3 and 4 of Genshiken. Jarred Pine gives high marks to Tapenshu at AoD, and the whole gang chimes in for the latest round of Small Bodied Manga Reviews. Also: Matthew Alexander gets his hands on the galleys of vol. 1 of Princess Resurrection. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 13 of One Piece and Christopher Seaman checks out vol. 7 of Nodame Cantabile. Okazu’s Erica Friedman reviews vol. 3 of R.O.D. Read or Dream. At the Mangamaniaccafe, Julie is disappointed by vol. 1 of Backstage Prince. Jordan Marks enjoys The Day I Became a Butterfly but is confused when the characters dressed like girls turn out to be… girls.

Check it out at the MangaCast or download it directly from iTunes. This week’s podcast features fewer stories but a little more depth in each one. Links after the cut.

Manga Market Meltdown

ComiPress: Manga sales are down in Japan.
ICv2: Yeah, and DVDs too!
Simon Jones: No! Not shrinking! Getting more diffuse!
ComiPress: Yup, see, here’s a partnership between video, game, and manga people.

Manga Pirates Walk the Plank

Creators sue three men for copyright infringement
Commentary from Simon Jones

Viz’s Signature imprint, one year later

Unfinished series: Orphans of the manga world

New Titles Watch

New titles from Shojo Beat
New titles from 801 Media
New titles from Broccoli

ICv2 has the February Diamond sales numbers, and the news is good: graphic novel sales are up 9% over February 2006. As Diamond distributes mainly to comics shops, manga tends to make a poor showing on their graphic novel sales charts. So when vol. 17 of Bleach hits number 11, that’s really pretty good. Here’s the top ten manga, with their ranking on the GN chart following their ranking as manga:

1 (11) Bleach, vol. 17
2 (12) Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, vol. 2
3 (14) Berserk, vol. 15
4 (21) Negima, vol. 13
5 (25) Path of the Assassin, vol. 5
6 (27) Loveless, vol. 4
7 (30) Graviation EX
8 (35) NGE Angelic Days, vol. 4
9 (37) Oh My Goddess, vol. 25
10 (53) My Hime, vol. 2

Just a few quick observations: Bleach and Negima do well in bookstores, so I’m not surprised to see them at the top, but I am a little surprised Kingdom Hearts is doing so well in comics stores, where presumably the audience skews older. With their slim output, I’m impressed that ADV had a title on the charts. Hopefully this bodes well for the future. And what is it about Oh My Goddess that it’s still kicking butt 25 volumes in?