Retrospectives, roundups, and reviews

The MangaCast crew post this week’s new releases and discuss their favorites. At Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh reveals what he will be reading as well.

Ed Chavez continues his manga report cards at MangaCast with a look at Bandai Entertainment. What, you don’t think of them as a manga publisher? That’s OK: Neither does Ed.

Part two of ANN’s smart women’s roundtable on censorship is up.

Over at Manly Manga and More, Jonathan takes a look at Tokyopop Germany’s Kodansha licenses and notes that two of the five licenses in question were selling poorly. He also lists Tokyopop Germany’s new licenses.

Sharp-eyed Simon Jones spotted this one: A comics publisher called Studio 407, which neither of us was familiar with before now, is talking to Bambi and her Pink Gun creator Atsushi Kaneko as well as “one of the biggest manga artists in China” about publishing their work here. Simon also points to an interesting discussion of the age-old question of why manga characters look white to white people, at Alas, a blog.

Matt Blind does his weekly number-crunching at Rocket Bomber and comes up with the top 500 manga (online sales), new releases and pre-orders, an emerging trends report, and rankings summary for the week.

Ryan Sands posts his picks for best manga of 2008 at Same Hat! Same Hat!

Deb Aoki has more manga polls up, for the best original English language manga, all-ages manga, and one-shot of 2008, at About.com.

Bill Randall posts some notes and sources for his article on Kazuo Kamimura’s Dousei Jidai, which appears in this month’s issue of The Comics Journal.

Translators Alethea and Athena Nibley have an interesting discussion of Japanese ritual expressions at Manga Life, including some thoughts on their translation of Fruits Basket.

Manga Widget writer Alex Hoffman points us to the first issue of Eye of the Vortex, a gaming magazine that also includes anime and manga reviews. You can read it using issuu or download your very own PDF.

Eigomanga and Visionary Comics Studio announce that they will publish The Frog Princess, a graphic novel written by Jeff Loew, a finalist in Visionary’s comics contest. Indonesian artist Rie Ikaza (Fitri) will do the art.

News from Japan: ANN posts the Japanese manga rankings for last week. Canned Dogs notes that there is a new bishoujo comics magazine, Gelatin, on the horizon. Also, the Otaku Awards results are up, and the 2chan crowd weighs in on the best eromanga of 2008.

Reviews: Webimpulse reviews The Manga Guide to Statistics at Japanator. Seanan McGuire takes a look at a global manga that ended too soon, vols. 1 and 2 of Divalicious. The latest Manga Pulse podcast features reviews of Beck and Priest; the latter promises to be scathing. Faith McAdams takes a look at vol. 4 of Honey and Clover at Animanga Nation. Sesho has a podcast on Edu-manga: Ludwig von Beethoven. Casey Brienza roundly pans vol. 4 of Ai no Kusabi at her Kethylia LJ but has much nicer things to say about vol. 1 of 07-Ghost at ANN. Micole reviews vol. 9 of Saiyuki Reload at coffeeandink, and readers chime in with opinions (and spoilers) in the comments. Adam Stephanides reads The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, the fourth Haruhi novel, at Completely Futile. Erica Friedman critiques vol. 7 of Yuri Hime S at Okazu, and unfortunately for us, she tells a reader what Love Cubic is about. Apparently there really is a comic for everything in Japan. Cyn checks out vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie and vol. 15 of Let Dai at Boys Next Door. Dan Polley takes a brief look at vol. 4 of Shiki Tsukai at Comics Village. Over at Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out vol. 20 of One Piece, vol. 11 of Let Dai, and vol. 4 of Fairy Tail. Melinda Beasi reads vol. 14 of Nana at there it is, plain as daylight. The Yaoi Review takes a brief look at Lovers and Souls. James Fleenor posts his impression of vol. 1 of Hayate x Blade at Anime Sentinel. Billy Aguiar reviews Solanin and Be With You at Prospero’s Manga. Tangognat thinks vol. 1 of Blank Slate “might be the perfect shojo title for people who hate shojo.” Julie reads vol. 3 of Dance in the Vampire Bund, vol. 2 of Basilisk, vol. 1 of The Record of a Fallen Vampire, and vol. 2 of Sugar Princess at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Lissa Pattillo checks out vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie, vol. 5 of Nightmare Inspector, vol. 1 of breath, and White Brand at Kuriousity. Tiamat’s Disciple reviews vol. 6 of One Thousand and One Nights, vol. 3 of You’re So Cool, and vols. 1 and 2 of D.Gray-Man. Joy Kim takes a look at vol. 3 of Silver Diamond and Park Cooper checks out vol. 1 of Dragon Ball Z, the VizBig edition, at Manga Life.