This mildly entertaining article about the popularity of Japanese culture in southern California includes a peep at the Tokyopop offices and an interview with Stu Levy, who suggests some good places for lunch and reveals that Tpop has “a few films in development,” whatever that means.
Pantheon will be publishing Bat-Manga, a translation of the Batman comics published in Japan in the 1960s. It’s rare manga—neither publisher had a copy—and Chip Kidd is designing it. Sweet!
The MangaCast team of experts chooses the best of this week’s new manga. At Same Hat, Ryan has a more idiosyncratic selection.
YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, has published its Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, and there’s plenty of manga on it. Gia Manry breaks it out by pubisher and declares Go!Comi the winner. Tom Spurgeon, who seems to have broken the news, and David Welsh both agree that the list features plenty of the comics they like.
Charles Tan writes about five influential sports manga.
Tiamat’s Disciple says people like fansubs and scanlations because the translations are better, but a commenter disagrees.
ComiPress has updates on Japanese manga, including news of a new one-shot by Yuu Watase (Fushigi Yugi) and a new series by Tohru Fujisawa (Great Teacher Onizuka).
ICv2 has more on that Cloverfield manga.
Manly Manga and More presents the German manga charts for December.
Reviews: Ed Sizemore has a very thorough review of Book 1 of Manga Sutra at Comics Worth Reading. Julie checks out Fumi Yoshinaga’s Garden Dreams at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Tangognat reads Fall in Love Like a Comic and High School Debut. Emily discusses a Japanese title, Koi Oto, at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. At PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blog, Katherine Dacey reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Two Will Come and Ken Haley looks at vol. 1 of Appleseed. Eric Turner reviews vol. 1 of Shugo Chara! at Manga Jouhou. Ferdinand reads the novel Missing: Spirited Away at Prospero’s Manga. The Anime on DVD folks post some Small Bodied Manga Reviews.
Apologies to Tiamet regarding ….
Still, I’ve been collecting anime for 10 years, and dont’ appreciate being told I know nothing about the market. When I saw the prices listed from the “anime supplier”, I assumed it was bootlegs, but had the conversion of pounds to dollars wrong, in addition to taking “How many ‘official’ dvd’s did i buy? None.” as Tiamet admitting they weren’t legit dvd’s [if they were buying R1’s, those were pretty official, even though being imported to Britain]…… I’d appreciate if Tiamet had made it clearer those were R1’s I think Tiamet glosses over the negative aspects of Bootlegging, and I’m sorry to say I won’t be checking out their blog anymore. I also don’t appreciate having my opinion trashed on or having posting privleges blocked, as I don’t think I was that vicious, just a little overenthuiastic regarding my opinion mabye.
Sorry for offering an alternate opinion Tiamet. And sorry to Bridget for posting this here, but I thought it was important to point out that not everything’s sunshiney when it comes to fan translations, and that the companies who are “overcharging” aren’t exactly in the best of financial help, and are often directly responsible for getting many of our favorite series made in the first place.
“regarding my posts” that is….
*sighs* Andre, you were asked several times to read what i was writing and you refused. You then went on to accuse me of bootleging. Something i do not appreciate since i am very antipiracy. Bootlegging and fansubbing are two different ellements, i again explained that to you, but again you choose not to read it. You also tried to state what the british fans are like, and what the british market is like, which i also found rediculas since unless your british and are trying to use the market, you can not know the market.
I have no problems with people who take opposite views to what i believe, in fact i welcome it. I do however, as all bloggers do, expect people to be civil and to read whats been said. Not just parts of it and jump to conclusions.
I do not believe that fansubbing and scanlations are angles, i state that both in the original post and in my comments. So please stop saying that i do.
As for making it clearer, i did that, several times. Again you just read parts and assumed i was buying bootlegs.
Nor do i appreciate you going onto other blogs and bashing me. If you have a problem with me take it up with me, don’t move to someone elses comments and do it. If you don’t want to take it up with me then set up your own blog and do it, and then i’ll come along and give my 2p worth.
I closed the comments because i wanted constructive comments such as wht i was getting from Rex and Doinkies, not a random accusations of bootleging which is what i got from you.
In short, if you come into my sandbox to play, you will play nice. I didn’t ban you completely, just stoped the comments on that post.
Sorry if I’ve offended you Tiamet. As I’ve pointed out though, I misunderstood your comment ““How many ‘official’ dvd’s did i buy? None.””. I normally take time to compose my arguments better then that, and I apologise I hadn’t made myself clearer in my posts on your blog. I still stand by my opinion of Fansubs as piracy/bootlegs, and that many fans overlook the harm they do cause to the market.
I’m sorry if you misunderstood some of my comments. I also fail to understand how spending more money on anime each year then other fans gives you an authority on saying what is and isn’t bad for the industry [this isn’t exactly sometihng that will bring out the best in most fans- we’ve both made our mistakes evidently].
I’ve based my opinion on my own experiences of buying anime for the past 10 years [being Canadian, I dealt with overpriced merchandise for ages due to differences in the dollar, and most VHS having to be imported from the US even at retail], as well as opinions of industry insiders, such as ADV’s comments at State of the Industry Panels, Nabeshin’s comments regarding fansubs, and the discovery of a wide range of websites I’ve discovered such as NarutoFan who actively exploit fansubs loving fans for their money, without giving back to the producers in anyway whatsoever.
I’m simply saying it’s not all sunshine and roses. My initial posts were not directed to you personally, and were directed towatrds the pro-bootlegging aspect of fandom, and I fail to understand why it merited such harsh words from you. I was simply taking on your views relating to fansubs, and not attacking you personally, and I didn’t appreciate being told I “clearly know nothing” over and over. I only made the post at MangaBlog to clarify what I had said regarding you purchasing Bootlegs, and because I was confused over why it would be locked.
I’m also sorry if I couldn’t of made economics clear- I tried to use comics as an analogy, but I guess it was too late at night to make it make sense. The basic thing is, these companies charge what they charge because it’s what they have to do to keep making anime. Being able to play them on you PS3 is neat and all, but in doing that you don’t given back to the original creators in anyways whatsoever- things like official streaming sites, television airings, and even library use are examples of lowcost ways to enjoy anime [and manga with libraries] that are all based on beniffiting the series creators/owners, and allow them to continue making anime.
With prices lower then ever in R1, I fail to see why people keep flocking towards fansubs as some pincacle of coolness while overlooking their negative aspects.
As for what I know about the UK market- While things might not be as bright in the UK, it’s partly due to a lack of growth in the UK market over the years, with companies like ADV UK and Beez only coming in the past decade. It takes years to grow a market, and coming into things with widely available pirated video content is probably part of their difficulties, in addition to the waiting period to have things rated by the British Film authorities [which from my understanding is a required item, that companies do have to pay a fee for]. Add in a smaller audience then the US market, the use of PAL format, and I can see why companies have to charge higher prices there.
I’m not saying everythings peachy keen all around [BVUSA anyone?], but for the most part, whoever’s still distributing anime isn’t doing such a horrible job.
Many companies in R1 are trying to increase episode content [Media Blaster’s 5disc/series releases for two recent 26 episode series, Funimation’s Ragnarok], do direct to boxset releases [Viz and Funi both, and it looks like Manga UK is doing this with Naruto based on reviews I’ve seen on AnimeonDVD, wisely forgoing singles altogether]. There are better ways to tackle the problems of the industry then promoting the (arguable) quality of pirated content.
Your scoffing of independent news sites like AnimeonDVD and ANN tell me you have a jaded perception of the R1 industry, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to offer a clearer viewpoint. I love anime, and have dedicated a lot of my life to it, and am consistently dissappointed by the lack of support Anime companies get from fandom journalists, and the rather open support of piracy much of fandom embraces- anime is more popular then ever, yet anime companies are having their most difficult market period ever, and while fansubs aren’t the only reason, it’s foolish to downplay or ignore their negative role in the industry.
PS- looking over your comment to RexRox, you do make some points regarding negative aspects, but then keep repeating that companies should look towards fansubs as a basis for quality. I think this overlooks the excellent subtitle work done on series like His and Her Circumstances and Animeigo’s entire lineup [which existed long before the realm of digital fansubs as a fandom standard]. I’m sorry that my comments were mostly inspired by your initial post, and comments like “The anime industry isnt so much as ‘broke’ as in it’s run by a bunch of crooks out to bleed the fans for as much as they can” [which tend to overshadow any positive notes you made].
I’m also confused about your reference to 12 Kingdoms’ boxsets lack of extras- the boxsets used the exact same discs as Media Blaster’s original release, simply reprinting them. They’re the same discs, unless you purchased something that wasn’t the “Economy” editions they issued recently [or unless your 29.99 pound imports of singles weren’t the MB editions]…… in addition, I’d also like to point out again I never said that Japanese DVD’s were bootlegs [I think you seem to think I’d confused R2 discs with HKBootlegs, which I never mentioned]. I think we both made mistakes while reading posts… I simply said that importing DVD’s from the US and Japan are very different things from downloading fansubs [ie- in that doing so rewards the original creators and/or licensors, whereas downloading fansubs does not, even if it means buying outside your official DVD region]