Mid-week reading list

At PWCW, Calvin Reid has the details on the Seven Seas-Tor Books deal, including two new titles coming from Seven Seas: Inukami, a manga, and Kuro Majo-san ga Touru (roughly, Here Comes the Black Witch), a light novel aimed at girls 8 to 12. Also: Kai-Ming Cha and Ed Chavez interview Genshiken creator Kio Shimoku.

PWCW’s best-seller list includes five volumes of Naruto and vol. 18 of Fruits Basket, plus some other stuff that’s not manga.

Katherine Dacey-Tsuei has a nice article on manga that make the transition to newspaper strips (the latest is Undertown) at the Manga Recon blog on PopCultureShock.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek, Simon Jones presents the Icarus Comics year-end report.

Mely of Coffeeandink, whose opinions are always worth reading, lists what she’s reading this year; readers chime in in comments.

Ed Chavez looks at the seinen magazine Comic Marble at MangaCast.

Tokyopop is offering manga videos via V CAST, a Verizon service. It’s their imanga videos, which I believe are the same ones they are showing on their MySpace page.

Today’s Manga 101 article hails from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, where the teen manga club is going strong. I liked this:

One of the group’s favorite topics is to compare the manga in Japan to the watered-down version sold in the United States. Some of the themes — such as sexuality, nudity, violence and smoking — are often edited out for American readers. The teens have a blast pointing out all the differences to each other. For instance, in one graphic novel, lesbians were turned into cousins for American readers. Sometimes, cigarettes were erased from books, leaving a trail of smoke coming out of a toothpick.

The Living Hero podcast will be interviewing Daniel Pink, and you’re invited to send in your questions. Pink is the author of the recent Wired piece on Japan, Ink., as well as the upcoming business manga The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. (Via ComiPress.)

Reviews: There’s a handful of new manga reviews up at Comics Village, most by bloggers whose names are familiar if you click the links around here: Charles Tan on MW, John Thomas on vol. 1 of Gyo, Sabrina on vol. 1 of Dramacon, Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Wild Ones, and Lissa Patillo on vol. 1 of Voice or Noise. Sesho gives vol. 1 of Orfina a C in a podcast review. John Zakzrewski checks out the fanservice-fest vol. 1 of My Dearest Devil Princess at Anime on DVD. Michelle has a positive review of vol. 11 of Hikaru no Go at Soliloquy in Blue. At Comics Worth Reading Ed Sizemore has mixed feelings about vol. 1 of Sundome: he’s both frustrated and intrigued, and he does a good job of articulating exactly why. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie looks at vol. 4 of Ouran High School Host Club, vol. 8 of Pastel, vols. 3, 4, and 5 of Real/Fake Princess, vol. 6 of Oh My Goddess, vols. 8 and 9 of Boy Princess, and vol. 3 of Le Chevalier d’Eon.

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Comments

  1. Hmm… I’m pretty sure that Haruka and Michiru were turned into cousins for the dub of the Sailor Moon anime. Was that also the case in the manga version? Or is this some other series entirely?

  2. I have no idea, but I’m hoping that one of my astute readers will figure it out!

  3. I’m pretty sure they’re referring to animes in both these cases. I have the translated Sailor Moon manga and to my knowledge, nothing like that was edited, all female-closeness was kept intact and left to readers’ own thoughts on the matter. The erased cigarette bit sounds both like the erasing of cigarette’s in the dub of ‘One Piece’ to resemble a sucker and the series ‘Pilot Candidate’ in which cigarette’s were indeed erased, leaving a smoking toothpick.