Tokyopop layoffs, CLAMP mangettes, and best-of lists

Casey Brienza lists her top ten manga for 2008, plus a bonus light novel! The Manga Recon team lists their favorites of the past year as well. Over at MangaCast, Ed Chavez posts a Japanese list of “amazing” manga. Meanwhile, Lissa Pattillo puts together all the shopping advice you’ll ever need at Kuriousity.

Lissa also catches the first glimpse of one of those CLAMP “mangettes” on Amazon.com: Gate 7, to be released in August. And she spots some other new and overlooked titles as well.

We heard rumors of more layoffs of Tokyopop two weeks ago, and on Friday marketing director Marco Pavia confirmed them for Heidi MacDonald. Among the missing are Bryce Coleman, who heads up the color graphic novel line—I just interviewed him a few weeks ago—and former editor Tim Beedle adds that Jenna Winterberg, who edited the novels and the co-productions with HarperCollins, and Hyun Joo Kim, who oversaw the Hee Jung Park manhwa and, according to Tim, was instrumental in influencing Tokyopop to hire Korean artists for their global manga. The company will also be slowing down its releases even more.

Anime Almanac’s Scott VonSchilling writes up an interesting yuri roundtable he participated in with Rica ‘tte Kanji creator Rica Takashima and translator Mari Marimoto.

Meanwhile, Erica Friedman keeps us up to date on the latest yuri news at Okazu.

Job board: ANN is looking for interns.

News from Japan: Melinda Beasi has spoilers for chapter 18 of Bakuman, the newest Ohba-Obata manga, which has not been licensed yet over here. As always, Ed has the weekly manga rankings from Taiyosha at MangaCast.

Reviews: Brenda Gregson reviews vol. 17 of Fullmetal Alchemist and Kiki Van De Camp gives straight A+’s to vol. 3 of Fairy Cube at Animanga Nation. Alex Hoffman finds vol. 1 of Kieli to be too much of a mixed bag for his tastes at Manga Widget. Mangamaniac Julie reviews vol. 3 of Hero Heel at MangaCast and vol. 14 of Nana at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Lissa Pattillo checks out vol 11 of Love Mode and vol. 4 of Comic at Kuriousity. Deb Aoki finds the boys but wonders where the plot went in Love Quest, and is somewhat underwhelmed by vol. 1 of Phantom Dream at About.com. At Boys Next Door, Cynthia takes a look at Meeting You, You Will Fall in Love, and vol. 2 of Loveholic. Oyceter reads Erica Sakurazawa’s short story collection Angel Nest at Sakura of DOOM. Snow Wildsmith checks out Just Around the Corner at Fujoshi Librarian. New at Manga Recon: Phil Guie on vol. 1 of Higurashi When They Cry: Abducted by Demons Arc, Melinda Beasi on The Voices of a Distant Star, and Michelle Smith on vols. 2 and 3 of Suppli, and, at The Otaku Bookshelf, Ken Haley on Promenade of the Gods and Katherine Dacey on The Tarot Cafe. Xavier Guilbert reviews Undercurrent, in French, at du9. Connie reviews vol. 3 of Flock of Angels, vol. 2 of Embalmer and vol. 1 of Vagabond (the VizBig edition) at Slightly Biased Manga. At Manic About Manga, Kris posts her thoughts on Don’t Say Any More, Darling, The Dawn of Love, vol. 2 of Clear Skies! and a handful of starter yaoi manga. Carlo Santos reads vols. 4 and 5 of Parasyte at ANN.

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