Archives for December 2008

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.

Kai-Ming Cha writes about No Starch Press’s manga guides to subjects like calculus and statistics at PWCW, which also features a review of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto.

The big news of the day for BL fans is that Deux Press has picked up the license for Cigarette Kisses, which was to have been published by Broccoli’s Boysenberry imprint. And they are also assisting with the Japanese company LIBRE’s “Repeat After Me,” which is a romantic comedy manga that teaches the reader English.

The best read of the day, though, is the pair of opinion pieces by Jason Thompson and Carl Horn on the Christopher Handley manga trial. If for some reason you haven’t heard about this, the details are here. The short version: Dude is being prosecuted, with the possibility of up to 20 years in prison, for owning a manga for his own personal use that some government entity has deemed offensive. If you find this offensive, as I do, please consider making a donation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which is helping with Handley’s case.

Ryan Sands has posted his interview with veteran manga expert Fred Schodt at the Electric Ant site.

The Anime Vice folks present part two of their video invasion of the Viz offices; here’s Gia’s interview with Viz marketing folks Candice and Mark about what to look forward to in the near future. 20th Century Boys! Yes!

The votes have been tallied for Danielle Leigh’s Best Manga of 2008 poll. Now that it’s over, the comments thread on the original post makes some interesting reading as well. Well done, Danielle!

The Manga Recon gang have a roundtable discussion about which manga character they would like to be.

Speaking of roundtables, the smart women at ANN discuss crossdressing in manga.

Lori Henderson features Nana for the second day of her Twelve Manga of Christmas feature at Manga Xanadu.

New Blog Alert: The Official Schoolgirl Milky Crisis blog, with plenty of insights into manga and anime, which has been set up by Jonathan Clements to promote his upcoming book Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade. (Via Otaku News.)

News from Japan: Kannagi creator Eri Takenashi has halted work on the popular manga because of a serious illness; according to this article from Akiba Today, some fans aren’t taking the news well.

Reviews: At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson has a good critique of The Manga Guide to Statistics, and she links to Jog’s hilarious review as well. You’ll be hearing about it soon at this site as well, once my sister (a mathematician) and my husband (a physicist) finish reading it. Let me just say that the storyline didn’t seem all that unrealistic to me! At soliloquy in blue, Michelle Smith dips her toe into josei waters with her review of vol. 1 of Suppli. Nadia Oxford has some good things to say about vol. 1 of The Mysterians at Mania.com. Ferdinand enjoys vol. 1 of Kyo Kara MAOH! at Prospero’s Manga. Connie reads vol. 6 of Let Dai, vol. 2 of Barefoot Gen, and vol. 13 of Hikaru No Go at Slightly Biased Manga. Lissa Pattillo checks out vol. 3 of Fairy Cube at Kuriousity. Julie reviews vol. 6 of I Hate You More Than Anyone and vol. 5 of Vampire Knight at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Rachel Bentham digs into some yaoi titles at Active Anime with reviews of vol. 2 of Loveholic and vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie. Erica Friedman turns her sharp eye on the 4-koma manga Soutennenshoku-iro Otome-gumi at Okazu. Emily has reviews of two more untranslated manga, Tobiiro Shadow and Yokubou Strawberry, up at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. Tangognat reviews vols. 1 and 2 of The Wallflower and vol. 1 of Silver Diamond at her eponymous site. At Comics Village, Katherine Farmar reads vol. 1 of Close the Last Door! and Lori Henderson checks out vol. 2 of Record of a Fallen Vampire. Casey Brienza has vastly different reactions to vol. 5 of One Thousand and One Nights and Ruff Love at ANN.

The MangaCast crew makes their picks from this week’s new releases.

Gia and Maxwell of Anime Vice get a guided tour of the Viz offices. Also from AV: Gia reports that Amazon.jp will stop carrying lolicon and other potentially controversial manga and wonders how far that could go.

Kristy Valenti gets into the holiday mood with a look at Manga Claus at comiXology.

Broccoli Books is having its final warehouse sale this Friday. If you’re in the Los Angeles area and want to check it out, details are here and here.

Jonathan has the list of new German licenses at Manly Manga and More.

News from Japan: Koge-Donbo has a new manga in the works.

Reviews: Congratulations to Prospero’s Manga bloggers Ferdinand and Miranda, who have reached a significant milestone: Cowa! is the 500th book to be reviewed on their site. Lissa Pattillo reviews Sighing Kiss at Kuriousity. Connie checks out vol. 4 of Sand Chronicles and Heaven’s Will at Slightly Biased Manga. Isaac Hale takes the long view in his review of vols. 24 and 25 of Bleach at Manga Recon. John Thomas takes a look at a classic, vol. 1 of Lone Wolf and Cub, at Comics Village. Deb Aoki reviews the print version of Wendy Pini’s webcomic, vol. 1 of Masque of the Red Death, at About.com. Michelle Smith reads vol. 1 of Blade of the Immortal at Soliloquy in Blue. New at Manga Life: Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 15 of Skip Beat! and vol. 3 of Fairy Cube, and Park Cooper on vol. 2 of Real. Julie enjoys vol. 33 of Boys Over Flowers at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 6 of Le Chevalier d’Eon and Davey C. Jones reads vol. 25 of Bleach at Active Anime.

ICv2 reports that Bookscan’s graphic novel sales numbers were almost 15% lower this Thanksgiving weekend than in 2007. However, this tracks books, not dollars; non-manga trade paperbacks, which are more expensive than manga, have been doing better on the charts, so the economic picture might not be as grim as it seems. Diamond sales and marketing vp Kuo-Yu Liang saysanga scheduling is a factor and provides a brief view of the overall picture.

But hey, it’s a new week, and God Len lists this week’s new anime and manga releases at Japanator.

Ed Chavez looks at some upcoming releases from Tokyopop at MangaCast.

Matt Blind is back after a brief hiatus with his summaries of online sales for the week ending November 16: The top 500, new releases and pre-orders, emerging trends report, and rankings summary.

John Thomas applauds the editors of OTAKU USA for their decision to drop the DVD that usually comes bundled with the magazine and lower the cover price.

Last week, the news broke that “Naruto” was among the top ten searches at Yahoo. But what about Google? It’s not quite as clear-cut, but Brack at Awesome Engine manages to tease out the trend, and it looks pretty good for the ninja lad. (Hat tip: Erin F.) Also via Erin: The Video Vicar has a nice roundup of old Astro Boy shorts at Fantasy Magazine.

Congrats to Melinda Beasi, who is the newest reviewer at Manga Recon!

Lori Henderson starts her countdown of the Twelve Manga of Christmas with a longtime favorite, One Piece.

Here’s a website worth watching: The Anime Portal tracks online discussions of anime and manga, so you don’t have to!

Not comics, but awesome anyway: MIT has an online exhibit of Japanese postcards from the Russo-Japanese War (190-05). Click the “Visual Narratives” link for some lovely graphic art of horrible things. (Via Journalista.)

News from Japan: Ed Chavez lists some recent responses to a survey on shoujo manga with boy-appeal.

Reviews: Carlo Santos turns his gaze on a handful of new manga in his latest Right Turn Only!! column. Also at ANN, Casey Brienza manages to find a few good things to day about vols. 1 and 2 of You’re So Cool despite the irritating plot but is less than thrilled with vols. 1 and 2 of Atelier Marie and Elie Zarlburg Alchemist. David Welsh looks at Tokyo Zombie at The Comics Reporter. Erica Friedman enjoys a 4-koma manga, Tori Koro MW-1056, at Okazu. Deb Aoki reviews vol. 1 of Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo at About.com. The Manga Recon crowd dishes up a heaping helping of brief reviews in their latest Manga Minis. Alex Hoffman checks out vol. 1 of Stray Little Devil at Comics Village. Julie reads vol. 1 of Hitohira at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Lissa Pattillo takes a look at vol. 6 of Wild Adapter at Kuriousity.

Lori Henderson discusses why Yen Press doesn’t sell back issues of Yen+ magazine at Manga Xanadu.

This article from The Independent does state the obvious (Manga is popular! It outsells The Beano!), but it is a nice overview of the UK manga scene. (Via Gia.)

It’s mid-December, and you know what that means: Year-in-review lists! New York Magazine lists the top ten graphic novels of 2008 in a format that makes MySpace seem user-friendly by comparison; no text in the post itself, just a slideshow with commentary. Two manga made the list, Disappearance Diary and Travel, which is an interesting pair of choices. (Via Deb Aoki, without whom I would never have found it, as the site is well-nigh unnavigable.) Also, NPR’s Laurel Maury made her graphic novel picks last week, and Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Good-Bye was the one manga to make the list. So, the non-mainstream stuff at least is making an impact. Douglas Wolk’s list for the New York Times includes Travel as well.

It seems to me that this was announced last summer, but here it is: Udon is teaming up with Crunchyroll. Isn’t everyone?

Here’s your distraction of the day: Jason Thompson directs us to the grandiosely named Great Catalog of MANGA, which features descriptions of all kinds of manga, many not translated yet. Click on “ENGLISH” to get a machine translation of the page.

Erica Friedman rounds up the week in yuri at Okazu.

At Fujoshi Librarian, Snow Wildsmith has the Deux Press release schedule for this spring.

Double congratulations to longtime manga editor Jake Forbes: He’s celebrating his first anniversary of blogging at Gobblin.net and he’s getting married!

Manly Manga and More has Tokyopop Germany’s weekly top 20.

News from Japan: Ed Chavez posts the Dec. 8 manga rankings from Taiyosha at MangaCast. One Piece, still vigorious at vol. 52, tops the list. He also posts the 2008 best seller lists, which include plenty of familiar titles, and the Dec. 6 doujin rankings from Toranoana.

Reviews: Faith McAdams finds plenty to say about vol. 6 of High School Debut at Animanga Nation. Mangamaniac Julie reivews vol. 2 of A Gentleman’s Kiss at MangaCast and vol. 6 of Alive at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Charles Tan has high praise for vol. 1 of Real at Comics Village. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reads vol. 5 of Let Dai, vol. 19 of One Piece, vol. 9 of Hellsing, vol. 13 of Nana, vol. 7 of Golgo 13, and vol. 1 of Embalmer. Cynthia posts her take on Lovers and Souls and The Dawn of Love at Boys Next Door. Johanna Draper Carlson gives her stamp of approval to vols. 12-14 of Nana. Michelle Smith reviews vol. 1 of Papillon at Manga Recon. Deb Aoki gets a chuckle out of vol. 1 of Yokaiden at About.com. Lori Henderson reviews vol. 3 of King of Cards at Manga Xanadu. Tiamat’s Disciple shares his opinions on vol. 1 of V.B. Rose. Lissa Pattillo reviews Secret Comics Japan and guest reviewer Gizmo checks out vol. 1 of Fate/Stay Night at Kuriousity. Erica Friedman reviews the light novel Wild Bouquet at Okazu.

You may remember that we ran a preview of Tokyopop’s upcoming manhua Orange a few days ago; now I have an interview with the editor of their world graphic novel series, Bryce Coleman, up at Good Comics for Kids.

The MangaCast team pick the best of this week’s new manga, and the Manga Villagers do the same at Comics Village.

Over at The Savage Critic, Jeff Lester asks “Is manga dying?” The discussion continues in comments but veers off into OEL vs. Japanese manga territory. Alex Hoffman has a more optimistic take at Manga Widget.

Meanwhile, Danielle Leigh is taking names of the best manga of 2008 in the comments section of her Manga Before Flowers column at Comic Book Resources. Go, nominate!

Here’s some evidence that the industry is alive and well: Tokyopop UK just confirmed 35 titles for release in July and August.

Gia Manry, who consistently unearthed scoops and kept us laughing at Giapet.net, is taking her act to Anime Vice, a new website that (despite the name) does cover manga. Reset your RSS feeds and go take a look. Already she spots some confused librarians and some quick manga bits in their Daily Shin Buun column.

News from Japan: ANN gets word that Eri Takenashi has put Kannagi on hiatus due to health problems. Kanta Ishida of the Daily Yomiuri takes a look at Beatitude, a manga based on the building where Osamu Tezuka and other budding manga-ka lived in the 1950s.

Reviews: Ed Chavez posts an audio review of vol. 1 of Vagabond (the VizBig edition) at MangaCast. Lissa Pattillo takes a look at Love Quest at Kuriousity. Julie enjoys vol. 1 of Black Sun, Silver Moon at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Ferdinand succumbs to the cuteness of vol. 1 of Mao-Chan at Prospero’s Manga. Emily reads Boku no Sekai Kimi no Real at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. James Fleenor is impressed by All Colour But the Black: The Art of Bleach at Anime Sentinel. Alex Hoffman expands on an earlier review of vol. 1 of Ral Ω Grad at Manga Widget. Kris checks out vol. 1 of Captive Hearts and vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom at Manic About Manga. At Comics Village, Justin Colussy-Estes enjoys Junko Mizuno’s Hansel and Gretel and Katherine Farmar has exactly the opposite reaction to World’s End at Comics Village. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood checks out vol. 2 of Mixed Vegetables, Gaba Kawa, and vol. 5 of Wild Ones, and Rachel Bentham reviews vol. 1 of St. Dragon Girl.