Archives for October 2008

Over at Publisher’s Weekly Comics Week, I talked to Kurt Hassler of Yen Press and Joe Monti of Little, Brown Books for Young People about their plans for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, both the manga and the novels. The interesting part is that they are marketing the novels to the mainstream, not just the otaku crowd, in hopes that Haruhiism will catch on.

Manga makes the New York Times, with a mention of the unlicensed title Drops of the Gods in a piece on wine in today’s paper. This follows on an article that ran a couple of weeks ago that mentioned an anime in which the character made bread in a rice machine. Yakitate Japan, anyone?

Also, at Good Comics for Kids, which I edit, manga maven Robin Brenner lists the top-circulating manga and graphic novels in her library system and hosts a group discussion with other librarians of why some titles are more popular than others. The results may surprise you: The Wallflower is the top pick in Robin’s public library system. Also at SLJ: Lori Henderson lists last week’s new all-ages comics and manga.

Pink Kryptonite posts this week’s new manga.

The Taiwan News interviews manga-ka Naoki Urasawa and director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, who will be bringing Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys to the big screen. Urasawa is better known here for Monster, but Viz will be publishing 20th Century Boys starting in January. (Via Deb Aoki’s blog.)

So’s your face! Translators Athena and Alethea Nibley argue about literal versus idiomatic translations at Manga Life.

Matt Blind continues his analysis of last summer’s manga sales with a look at Viz manga and individual publishers’ rankings.

Icarus Comics (NSFW) is going to give Google Reader a try.

Yet another prosecutor tries to link manga and murder, this one in Perugia, Italy:

The prosecutor also made specific references in court to rocker Marilyn Manson and the violent, sexually charged Japanese “Manga” comics Sollecito was fond of, Biscotti said.

The lawyer pointed out that an issue of the comics taken from Sollecito’s apartment tells a tale of killing female vampires on Halloween night and includes gruesome details that were similar to the scene police discovered.

German blogger Jonathan posts his October shopping list at Manly Manga and More.

News from Japan: Oh My Goddess creator Kousuke Fujishima will launch a new manga, Paradise Residence, in the premiere issue of good! Afternoon magazine, due out on November 7. Kenji Tsuruta, creator of Spirit of Wonder, is drawing a manga adaptation of the Sasurai Emanon novels. And Osamu Tezuka’s old school unveiled a giant Astro Boy statue in his honor.

Reviews: Lori Henderson reviews the kid-friendly title Cowa! at Good Comics for Kids. Sam Kusek reads vol. 1 of The Mysterians, his first global manga, at Manga Recon. Let’s Fall Asleep takes a look at one of my favorite titles, vol. 1 of After School Nightmare. Katherine Farmar reads Future Lovers at Comics Village. Kristin, the teen librarian at the Glendale Public Library, gives her take on Crescent Moon and Fruits Basket, and a couple of teens chime in as well. Connie checks out vol. 1 of Faust and vol. 10 of Hino Horror at Slightly Biased Manga. At Boys Next Door, Cynthia reviews vol. 11 of Love Mode, Romantic Illusions, and Lover’s Pledge. James Fleenor checks out vol. 1 of Afro Samurai at Anime Sentinel. New at Active Anime: Sandra Scholes on vol. 1 of Saihoshi the Guardian, Rachel Bentham on Falling Into Love, and Scott Campbell on vol. 2 of Gantz. And at Manga Life, Joy Kim reviews vol. 3 of Two Flowers for the Dragon, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane checks out vol. 11 of Kaze Hikaru, and David Rasmussen dives into vol. 1 of the special collectors edition of Neon Genesis Evangelion and finds it most excellent. Johanna Draper Carlson recommends vol. 6 of High School Debut at Comics Worth Reading. Lissa Pattillo enjoys vol. 7 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service at Kuriousity. Julie reviews vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Emily checks out the untranslated title Holiday at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. Michelle Smith reads vol. 1 of Banana Fish at Soliloquy in Blue. Dave Ferraro has good things to say about Solanin! at Comics-and-More. And at Manic About Manga, blogger Kris lives up to her title with reviews of Flamboyant, vol. 3 of Kiss All the Boys, Sweet Regard, Today’s Ulterior Motives, Golden Prince and Argent King, Millennium Darling 2006, A Gentleman’s Kiss, vol. 1 of Clear Skies, One Night Lesson, Shy Intentions, vols. 1 and 2 of Roureville, vol. 1 of Hitohira, vol. 2 of Red Angel, vol. 1 of Sunflower, Total Surrender, and Love for Dessert.

The latest Comic Foundry is out, with the usual fanfare (parties, etc.), and there are many excellent reasons to check it out, not the least of which is the cover story “Why manga is totally f#%ked,” by my PWCW colleague Kai-Ming Cha. (I haven’t read it yet but expect some opinions when I do.) I’m in there too, in the fine print in the back, with reviews of Disappearance Diary and vol. 1 of Black Jack.

Danielle Leigh looks on the bright side with a list of ten manga and anime things that make her happy in her Manga Before Flowers column at Comics Should be Good.

Japanator lists this week’s new releases.

What does the future hold? Lissa Pattillo posts a cease-and-desist list that Tokyopop sent to scanlators a while ago. Tokyopop subsequently licensed many of the titles on the list, which leaves the possibility that some of the others may turn up here as well.

John Thomas talks to Tokyo Zombie editors Ryan Sands and Colin Turner at Mecha Mecha Media.

ICv2 has the September comics sales numbers from the direct market, including their chart of the top 100 graphic novels.

Matt Blind continues his analysis of summer online manga sales with a second look at publishers’ market shares and a closer look at sales of novels that are linked to manga, non-fiction titles, and Shakespeare manga.

Christmas is just around the corner, and Lori Henderson has a suggestion…

Naoki Urasawa’s new manga, Billy Bat, seems to be breaking new ground.

Reviews: David Welsh reviews the latest Fanfare/Ponent Mon offering, The Quest for the Missing Girl, at The Comics Reporter. Isaac Hale reviews vol. 1 of Black Lagoon, Chloe Ferguson reads Tonoharu, and the gang pitches in with some Manga Minis at Manga Recon. Theron Martin checks out vol. 10 of Chibi Vampire at ANN. Salimbol posts a really detailed review of vols. 29-30 of Boys Over Flowers at The Chocolate Mud Wyvern Presents. Sabrina checks out three Shojo Beat titles and Charles Tan looks at vol. 21 of Eyeshield 21 at Comics Village. Connie reads vol. 1 of Time Stranger Kyoko, vol. 1 of Fate/Stay Night, vol. 1 of Barefoot Gen, vol. 3 of Takumi-kun: Takes Out of Season, and vol. 6 of Monster at Slightly Biased Manga. Alex Hoffman reviews vol. 2 of Rosario + Vampire at Manga Widget. Deb Aoki looks at the pros and cons of vol. 1 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya at About.com. Ferdinand is not too impressed with vol. 1 of Blank Slate at Prospero’s Manga. Julie enjoys Future Lovers at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Guest reviewer Gizmo takes a look at vol. 1 of Shoulder-A-Coffin-Kuro at Kuriousity. Tiamat’s Disciple reviews vols. 4 and 5 of Le Chevalier d’Eon.

ICv2 seems to be working its way around the industry talking to all the honchos. This week’s get is John Ledford of ADV, but don’t expect any insight into when the next volume of Yotsuba&! is coming out. Manga doesn’t get a single mention in the interview, not even when ICv2 asks about ADV’s product mix going forward. Also, when the interviewer asks whether ADV has been able to find fresh capital after breaking up with Sojitz, Ledford talks for quite a while about other things, “reinvent our business,” “reached out to new partners,” “focused on our core strengths,” etc. Presumably if they had found a new investor, the answer would have boiled down to a simple “yes.” That wasn’t the case here, although they did have some anime announcements to make.

Yamila Abraham of Yaoi Press follows up her previous post about the state of the global manga business with some more optimistic thoughts for creators.

Tiamat’s Disciple follows up a discussion on this blog with his own thoughts on scanlations and how publishers can increase sales. At the Icarus blog (NSFW), Simon Jones points out that Google ads for pirate manga sites turn scanlations (and just plain scans) into a commercial activity.

I’ve seen all the justifications, and the continually moving goal posts… ”we can scanlate because these aren’t licensed”, then “we can scanlate because these aren’t commercially available yet”, then “we can scanlate because the official translations are awful.” I may disagree with some of those arguments, but they are rooted in legitimate grievances, and all within the realm of reason. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and for the love of Tezuka, if the fandom as a whole cannot come out and roundly denounce the illicit profit-making off of scanlations and scans of commercially-available manga before turning this into another entitlement debate, then there’s no hope for this industry at all.

John Thomas continues his discussion of the perils of translation at Mecha Mecha Media.

Deb Aoki has an insightful interview with Wendy Pini, creator of Elfquest and Masque of the Red Death, about publishing, bringing girls to comics, and more.

Erica Friedman rounds up this week’s yuri news at Okazu.

Matt Blind has crunched the summer online sales numbers and presents them in five different formats: an info dump of all the data, the top 10 series and volumes, the top 150 series, estimated publisher market share (with a colorful pie chart!), and a publishers’ scorecard.

The Viz blog spotlights Eagle, a manga that features an Asian-American candidate for president. (Via Manga Recon.)

Japanator is giving away free manga to two randomly selected readers. Drop them a comment to enter.

News from Japan: Monthly Dragon Age magazine has announced a new manga series will be based on the Chrome Shelled Regios light novels by Shūsuke Amagi. This will be the fourth series based on the novels. And here’s a post from a travel blog on where to buy manga in English when you’re in Japan.

Reviews: Madeline Ashby took my advice and read vol. 1 of Astral Project, and she’s glad she did; her review reflects her own experiences in Japan. Lissa Pattillo has short reviews of ten good Halloween reads as well as a longer look at vol. 8 of Loveless at Kuriousity. Ed Sizemore critiques vol. 2 of Toto! The Wonderful Adventure at Comics Worth Reading. Deb Aoki reviews MW at About.com. At ComicMix, Andrew Wheeler reviews three manga that have little in common: the first volumes of B.Ichi, Wild Animals, and Mao-Chan. At Manga Recon, Kate Dacey and Michelle Smith are On the Shojo Beat with a look at vol. 1 of Blank Slate and vol. 1 of Captive Hearts. Dan Polley isn’t too impressed with vol. 1 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Official Casebook. EvilOmar posts a flurry of short manga reviews at About Heroes. Michelle Smith checks out vol. 4 of Fairy Tail and vol. 2 of Silver Diamond at Soliloquy in Blue. Hazel has a positive review of Red Colored Elegy at Anime Infatuation. Tiamat’s Disciple reads vol. 1 of Wild Animals and vol. 5 of Cynical Orange. Mangamaniac Julie reviews Lover’s Pledge at the MangaCast and Angel’s Coffin and vol. 13 of Nana at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Erica Friedman looks at a Japanese yuri title, vol. 1 of Hakodate Youjin Buraijou Himegami, at Okazu. Ferdinand checks out vol. 1 of Slam Dunk at Prospero’s Manga. Tangognat reads vol. 5 of High School Debut. Sesho checks out vol. 2 of Vampire Knight at Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews.

ICv2 has a four-part interview up with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson in which they talk about about all sorts of things, including the state of the manga market, the question of where shoujo readers will go next, and the impact of scanlation on retail sales. Start here with part one and click your way through, although if you’re only interested in manga, you can skip part four. And thanks to Journalista, here’s another interview with Mike, this one centering around Dark Horse’s recent donation of comics to Portland State University. (Art is the cover to vol. 10 of Oh! My Goddess, the series that first brought Dark Horse into my house.)

ICv2 has brought up the question of scanlations in several interviews recently, as there seems to be an increased perception among retailers that illegal online manga sites (some of which carry scanned American manga in addition to scanlations) are cutting into their business. In that context, I found David Doub’s article about Goodle ads for pirate sites to be an interesting read. While the Google exec that David contacted him assured him that they are “working diligently” to prevent ads from linking to sites that infringe copyright, I have to say that I myself have been noticing more ads for pirate sites.

In their latest podcast, the Ninja Consultants chat with Yani from Vertical and Serger from Advanced Media Networks about The Guin Saga.

The MangaCasters choose the best of this week’s new releases. And at Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh takes a second look at the newest releases.

Same Hat links to another chapter of Dance! Kremlin Palace! and highlights some new Japanese art-comics from PictureBox.

At Rocket Bomber, Matt Blind summarizes last week’s online manga sales and calculates the top 500.

This article about concern among adults in Viet Nam that manga is corrupting their children has a very familiar feel to it; I’m sure I linked to it or something like it before. Anyway, it’s worth a look, if only so you can enjoy John Jakala’s commentary on it.

Thanks to Manga Recon for reminding me that Tokyopop is taking a survey of visitors to its recently redesigned website.

News from Japan: Honey and Clover artist Chika Umino is one busy lady; her latest project is the cover art and a manga booklet for the new Dreams Come True CD. ANN also has the Japanese comics rankings for the past week.

Reviews: Animanga Nation’s Ai Kano is my kind of reviewer:

I love to cook and so a Shojo Beat Manga like Mixed Vegetables comes along and I’m all over it like Elvis and a banana and peanut butter sandwich.

Too bad she finds vol. 1 of Mixed Vegetables to be a dud! Snow Wildsmith checks out vol. 5 of Chocolat at Manga Jouhou. Ken Haley reads the Goth manga and contrasts it with the novel at Manga Recon. John Thomas looks at an interesting hybrid, The Akiba: A Manga Guide to Akihabara at Comics Village. Connie reads Hino Horror 9: Ghost School and Solanin at Slightly Biased Manga. Julie reads vol. 11 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Lissa Pattillo gets in the mood for Halloween with a new theme and reviews of vol. 3 of Psychic Power Nanaki and vol. 2 of Metro Survive at Kuriousity. Tiamat’s Disciple checks out vol. 4 of Black God and vol. 7 of Angel Diary. Sandra Scholes reviews vol. 1 of .hack//XXXX and Scott Campbell looks at vol. 10 of D.Gray-Man at Active Anime. Michelle Smith checks out vol. 3 of Akira and vol. 1 of Touch at Soliloquy in Blue. Erica Friedman judges a book by its cover and then finds out she’s totally wrong when she actually reads vol. 1 of Poor Poor Lips at Okazu. At Read About Comics, Greg McElhatton reviews vol. 19 of Blade of the Immortal after reading the entire series in a massive Blade-a-thon, which gives him some interesting perspective on this most recent volume. Ferdinand is not impressed by Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney at Prospero’s Manga. Emily checks out Royal Green at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. Tangognat can’t get enough of Black Jack. Kris reviews Candy and vols. 1 and 2 of Oh my god! at Manic About Manga.

At the Yaoi Press blog, YP publisher Yamila Abraham writes about the realities of global manga publishing and the marketing mix that works for Yaoi Press. This is fascinating reading for anyone who is interested in the nitty-gritty of manga publishing. She begins by pointing out that it’s actually more expensive to produce OEL (original English language) manga than licensed titles, and that publishers are more interested in tie-ins to existing properties (Dean Koontz and CSI are the examples she gives) than original global manga. Then she discusses how Yaoi Press makes its money, and the importance of convention sales to the mix. (Image is of vol. 4 of Winter Demon, written by Abraham and illustrated by Rhea Silvan.)

David Welsh looks over this week’s new comics and thinks Solanin looks like a good risk. Park Cooper spotlights it in the latest Manga Life.

Dave White discusses character design in My Heavenly Hockey Club at 741.5 Comics.

Lissa Pattillo finds some more new Tokyopop titles on Amazon.

Apparently vampire manga cross cultural boundaries, as Vampire Kisses tops Tokyopop’s German manga chart this week, according to Manly Manga and More.

News from Japan: MegaMan NT Warrior artist Ryo Takamisaki will be the artist for a manga based on the game Shooting Star Rockman 3 in CoroCoro Comic.

Reviews: Carlo Santos critiques the latest new releases in his Right Turn Only!! column and Casey Brienza reviews vol. 6 of MPD-Psycho at ANN. Chris Mautner rounds up a trio of manga for adults at Panels and Pixels. Over at Manga Recon, Sam Kusek reads vol. 1 of Suzunari, Isaac Hale turns two thumbs up for vol. 2 of Dororo, and Sam and Kate Dacey team up for some manga minis. Kate also reviews the kid-friendly SUIHELIBE! at Good Comics for Kids. Alex Hoffman reads vol. 1 of I, Otaku: Struggle in Akihabara at Manga Widget. Deb Aoki checks out vols. 1 and 2 of Astro Boy at About. com. At the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie thinks vol. 1 of Papillon is too much like Peach Girl, which isn’t suprising as it’s by the same creator. Lissa Pattillo reads Sugar Milk and vol. 4 of Moon Boy at Kuriousity. Tiamat’s Disciple checks out vol. 2 of Kieli. At Manga Life, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane reviews vol. 9 of La Corda d’Oro and Joy Kim looks at vols. 16-18 of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. Michelle Smith gives vol. 2 of Akira an A at Soliloquy in Blue. Leroy Douresseaux looks at Ghostbusters: Ghost Busted at The Comic Book Bin.