Archives for March 2008

PR: Guests announced for Yaoi Jamboree

I talked to Yamila Abraham, the publisher of Yaoi Press, at Anime Boston and she toldl me that two major Japanese mangaka will be coming to Yaoi Jamboree: Eiki Eiki, creator of Dear Myself, and Mikiyo Tsuada, creator of Princess Princess. Also on board are La Perrugine, the Italian creators of the YP titles Winter Demon and Cain. Full press release after the jump.

Yaoi Jamboree Announces First Guests

Phoenix, AZ, March 26, 2008 – Yaoi Jamboree, the new yaoi fan convention this summer in Phoenix Arizona, announces their first three guests of honor.

Yaoi Jamboree is pleased to announce the first guests for the June 20th to 22nd Yaoi Jamboree convention. As mentioned in previous announcements Yaoi Jamboree is hosting popular Japanese mangaka, as well as global yaoi creators.

Yaoi Press LLC, the publisher sponsoring Yaoi Jamboree, is bringing guests le Perrugine. This two women Italian studio illustrated the popular Winter Demon yaoi series, and created the Cain graphic novel trilogy.

Digital Manga Publishing, the largest boys love manga publisher in North America, is bringing mangaka guests Eiki Eiki and Mikiyo Tsuada.

Eiki-sensei is the talent behind such popular titles as Art of Loving, Dear Myself, and Worlds End, among several others. Tsuada-sensei is best known in the United States for her extremely popular Princess Princess and Day of Revolution series. Tsuada-sensei has also created numerous popular boys love titles under the pen-name Taishi Zao-. The two guests have collaborated on projects in the past.

About Yaoi and ‘Boys Love’

These terms refer to a romantic genre that deals with stories about men in love with men in a stylized way that was traditionally intended for a female audience. Yaoi originated in Japan where it’s been hugely popular for several decades. Yaoi is released in the form as graphic novels, anime DVDs, comic books, novels, and art books by a dozen publishers in North America.

About Yaoi Jamboree

Yaoi Jamboree takes place at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa, 9495 West Coyotes Boulevard, in Glendale, Arizona, June 20th to the 22nd, 2008. Yaoi Jamboree will have elements common to anime conventions, as well as numerous special events and guests of honor that will appeal to yaoi fans. Yaoi Jamboree is for attendees aged 18 and older.

Short and sweet

I’ll be back later with more, but here are the highlights of recent news:

At Comics 212, Christopher Butcher talks to Viz veep Alvin Lu about the differences between the Japanese and American editions of Kazuo Umezu’s Cat-Eyed Boy. Chris adds plenty of his own analysis, plus lots of illustrations.

Canned Dogs breaks the news we have been waiting for: Rozen Maiden is coming back, starting in Issue 20 of Young Jump.

At Same Hat! Same Hat!, Ryan takes a profanely enthusiastic look at this week’s new comics.

On the Dark Horse message board, Philip Simon explains why vol. 4 of MPD-Psycho is shipping late: He had it pulled back and pulped because of a printing error.

The excellent Rumiko Takahashi fansite Rumic World has created a special page to update English-speaking readers on the 50th anniversary features of Japanese manga magazine Shounen Sunday. (Via ComiPress.)

Jason Thompson devotes his latest Manga Salad column to two manga versions of the Bible.

Anime Boston news: ANN notes the lines; go to the forum for more, including a possible reason why (The Pillows ate the budget!). Erica Friedman was there, and she files reports from day 1 and day 2. I wish I had had time to go to her panels!

Charts: ComiPress has the French manga best-seller list. MangaCast posts the Japanese Gamers light novel rankings and the Toroana doujin rankings.

News from Japan: ANN reports on five new manga series, some by well-known creators, being launched in Young Gangan over the next few weeks. ComiPress has word of a new bishoujo manga anthology from GB Shuppan and a new BL light novel series from Libre Shuppan and MediaWorks.

Reviews: Alibris sent John Jakala vol. 1 of Scary Book by mistake, but it turned out to be a happy accident. Ferdinand gives vol. 1 of Dragon Sister! a dishonorable mention at Prospero’s Manga. Johanna Draper Carlson reviews vol. 8 of Happy Mania and vol. 2 of High School Debut at Comics Worth Reading. The villagers have a fresh crop of manga reviews up at Manga Village: John Thomas on vol. 13 of Death Note, Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of The Crimson Spell, Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Andromeda Stories, Dan Polley on vol. 4 of Miki Falls, Charles Tan on vol. 1 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Sabrina on vol. 1 of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad. Back under the pleasure dome at Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson checks out vol. 1 of King of Cards and vol. 1 of Eagle: The Making of an American President, which is particularly apropos in this election year.

Anime Boston con report

First of all, the organizers of Anime Boston need to get the registration thing under control. I heard tales of eight-hour waits on Friday, and on Saturday the line filled an entire exhibit hall. The folks in the registration area were working hard and they were quite efficient, so that wasn’t the problem; I got my press pass in less than five minutes. But perhaps there should have been more of them.

For me, the best part of the whole day was having coffee and conversation with my fellow bloggers: Kate Dacey, Erin Finnegan, and Ken Haley of PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blog, Chloe Ferguson of Shuchaku-East and ComiPress, super-librarian Robin Brenner of No Flying, No Tights fame, Erica Friedman of Okazu, and Scott Green of Ain’t It Cool News. We compared notes on new releases and manga personalities for almost an hour and a half.

Then Robin and I headed into the fray. We started out in Artists’ Alley, where I was looking for people with stacks of comic books on their tables. We briefly chatted with My Cat Loki creator Bettina Kurkoski, Sonic the Hedgehog penciller Matt Herms, the folks from Foongatz! Studios (who were kind enough to autoraph one of their SAM comics for me), David Montoya, Ace and Queenie creator Rusty Haller, Dominic Deegan, Garth Graham, and JD Calderon, among others. And we took the opportunity to hang out a bit at the Wirepop booth with Svetlana Chmakova, J. Dee Dupuy, Dan Hess, and Myung Hee Kim. As you can see if you click some of these links, the art was pretty varied, and some folks had traveled impressively long distances from places like Virginia and Ohio to be there.

Several publishers had booths in the dealers’ room this year, including Drama Queen, Vertical, ALC Publishing, and Yaoi Press. The books all looked beautiful, and sales were brisk. I don’t remember seeing any publishers there last year, but several told me that they had really wanted to be at Anime Boston for some time. I also picked up a few manga from Comicopia’s well-stocked display. True and strange fact: Comicopia owner Matt Lehman is one of my sister’s students. But we didn’t get to chat much as the booth was getting lots of traffic.

I didn’t have time for panels or anime screenings, but I did enjoy the costumes. There was plenty of creativity on display, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. One scheduling note: It was unfortunate that Anime Boston was scheduled over Easter weekend, because family obligations kept me away on Friday and Sunday, and I’m sure lots of others were in the same boat—this is highly Catholic Boston after all, and even the non-religious were probably expected at family dinner. On the plus side, there is a Catholic chapel right at the entrance to the Hynes, for those who want to combine events, and it’s always fun to see the interplay between the cosplayers and churchgoers when mass is getting out.

Overall, from the few hours I was there, I would say it was a success. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, there was quite a bit of talent on display, and people were definitely buying comics. But if I had come on Saturday and spent half of it on line, I might not be so sanguine. Hopefully the AB folks will figure this out by next year.

Sticky: Anime Boston bloggers' meetup

OK, Boston-bound (or Boston-based) bloggers, here’s the plan: We’ll meet at 9 a.m. on Saturday in the Prudential Center food court, in the table in front of Qdoba Grill. Kate Dacey will be there and so will I, and hopefully lots of other like-minded folk. If you can’t be there but want to meet one of us during the con, drop a line in the comments.

Review: Kitchen Princess, vols. 1-5

Kitchen Princess, vol. 1Kitchen Princess, vols. 1-5
Art by Natsumi Ando
Story by Miyuki Kobayashi
Rated T, ages 13+
Del Rey, $10.95

Kitchen Princess is an entertaining shoujo soap opera that centers on the connection between emotions and food. It doesn’t exactly break new ground, but the characters are likeable, and it’s fun to watch the heroine, Najika, rattle the pans as she solves everyone’s problems with food.

Keep your shoujo manga cliche bingo card handy when you read volume 1, though. Is the heroine a plucky orphan? Check! Do the other girls in her snooty school-for-high-achievers pick on her? Check! Do the two hottest guys in the school come to her rescue and subsequently become attracted to her? Check! Are those two guys brothers? Check! Feuding brothers? Bingo!

The plot hinges on another hoary manga cliché, the search for the mystery boy. Back when Najika was a little girl, mourning her parents’ recent death, a little boy came along and comforted her, giving her his tub of flan. “When you eat something good, you smile,” he told her, setting the tone for the entire series. Then he disappeared, leaving behind a spoon bearing the crest of Seika Academy as the only clue to his identity. Grasping at the flimsiest of straws, Najika gets herself admitted to Seika Academy so she can find him.

Like all the students in her class, Najika has a special talent: absolute taste, the gustatory equivalent of perfect pitch. She can identify the ingredients in any dish and replicate a recipe perfectly, often using inferior ingredients (which is seldom possible in real life). The other students don’t think this is much of a talent, but the aforementioned hot brothers, Daichi and Sora, soon realize the benefits of having a friend who is a good cook. In one of those only-in-shoujo-manga situations, Sora is both a student at Seika Academy and the principal, and one of the curious things about this book is the way he handles his dual role with regard to Najika.

Najika gets a job at a decrepit campus café run by Fujita, a dedicated slacker who spends most of his time reading the paper, cigarette dangling from his mouth. With her culinary talent and plenty of old-fashioned elbow grease, Najika transforms the place into the best restaurant in town. Of course a classmate whose father is on the school board tries to get the diner shut down (double bingo!), but Najika conquers all with her delicious sandwiches.

Despite the pileup of off-the-shelf plot devices in the first volume, Kitchen Princess works pretty well. Most of the stories involve using food to solve a problem, and the inevitable cooking competition emerges in several different guises, but Najika’s solution to a rival’s eating disorder is unorthodox from a culinary as well as a psychological point of view. The byplay between the brothers is also interesting, and a sharp plot twist in volume 5 turns the whole story upside down. Because Najika is sweet, unselfish, and very good at one thing, she is the most boring person in the book. The other major characters all bring a bit more depth to their roles.

And how is the food? Not stunning. The recipes lean heavily toward sweets, and most of them aren’t that unusual. Nor is it visually dazzling. In fact, most of the food doesn’t look all that great; it’s over-toned and just dies on the page. But this manga is less about culinary artistry than the connection between what we eat and how we feel. Najika’s real genius lies in the way she adapts her recipes to suit someone else’s unique needs. She’s an artist who uses food to manipulate emotion, not to amaze her enemies.

The art in Kitchen Princess never rises above average. Artist Matsumi Ando crowds the panels onto the page, often using black borders instead of white space, and applies toning and patterns with a heavy hand. The characters look different from the front, but they all have the same profile, with an oddly Gallic-looking nose. And it seems like a lot of space is given over to close-ups of Najika looking big-eyed and dopey.

The uniform cover design of these books makes them look a bit boring, and it’s unfortunate that Del Rey didn’t print the first few pages of each volume in color, as the converted pages look particularly dark and grey. (In fairness to Del Rey, these pages often aren’t available from the licensor.) On the plus side, each volume includes recipes and translator’s notes.

Despite its flaws, Kitchen Princess is a good read, good enough that I ended up plowing through all five volumes at once on a Saturday afternoon when I was supposed to be doing other things. It’s definitely a good choice for escapist reading, but watch your insulin levels—the sweetness, both figurative and literal, can be a bit much.

(This review is partially based on complimentary copies supplied by the publisher.)

Quickies

Nominations are open for the Anime Blog Awards, which include blogs about manga and other facets of Japanese culture. My thanks to those who nominated me! Click around and you’ll find plenty of other familiar names, and maybe a few new ones to check out.

Jason Thompson asks whether he should continue reading Loveless; check the comments for his readers’ responses.

David Welsh writes about his affection for the women of Monster.

Gia asks Dark Horse about their movie deals and gets an evasive answer.

Lori Henderson encounters a printing problem with vol. 2 of King of Cards. And then it happens again!

If you have been waiting for the moment when you could read Harlequin manga on your cell phone—it’s here! (Via the Sunny Side Up Anime Blog.)

News from Japan: Shueisha has launched a new online manga magazine, Ultra Jump Egg. ANN has the link plus helpful advice on how to navigate if you don’t read Japanese.

Reviews: Ananth Panagariya pens yet another rave review for Yotsuba&! at AppleGeeks 3.0. (Via Journalista.) Isaac Hale finds plenty to like about vols. 10-11 of The Drifting Classroom at PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blog. Ed Chavez posts an audio review of vol. 3 of Battle Club and vol. 1 of Dominion at MangaCast. At Active Anime, Scott Campbell checks out vol. 1 of FLCL and Rachel Bentham reads The Color of Love. Sakura Eries reviews vol. 1 of A.I. Revolution and Matthew Alexander looks at vol. 5 of Junk at Anime on DVD. Tiamat’s Disciple enjoys vols. 1-7 of Emma. Julie reviews vol. 2 of The Palette of 12 Secret Colors at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Otaku Champloo posts a Lenten meditation on Saint Young Men. Ferdinand is not impressed with vol. 1 of Your and My Secret at Prospero’s Manga.