Archives for July 2009

David Welsh takes a look at this week’s new manga, which includes the final volume of Fruits Basket (and he has a special request for those of you who haven’t read it… yet).

Tangognat makes her picks from the July Previews.

801 Media will be publishing Yellow 2, the sequel to Yellow, as an omnibus edition.

Sadie Mattox presents her criteria for the best manga of 2009 at Extremely Graphic.

If you’re in NYC, drop by Kinokuniya today for the latest Vertical Vednesday with Ed Chavez. The topic this time: Sports manga.

Reviews: Over at Comics Should Be Good, reviewers Danielle Leigh, Melinda Beasi, and Michelle Smith have started a roundtable discussion that will eventually cover all of Nana. All three are sharp, intelligent critics so this project promises to be interesting. At Manga Life, Barb Lien-Cooper reaches into the time capsule and pulls out a variety of short reviews from 2005.

Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess (Prospero’s Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess (Comics Worth Reading)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Black Bird (Comics Should Be Good)
Lorena on vol. 6 of Black Jack (MangaCast)
Michelle Smith on vol. 25 of Boys Over Flowers (Soliloquy in Blue)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 36 of Boys Over Flowers (Manga Life)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 2 of Future Lovers (Comics Village)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Gimmick (Manga Xanadu)
Lorena on vol. 1 of Millennium Snow (i heart manga)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 4 of Mixed Vegetables (Manga Life)
Emily on Penguin Kakumei (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
David Rasmussen on vol. 3 of Ral Grad (Manga Life)
Tiamat’s Disciple on Tail of the Moon Prequel – The Other Hanzo(u) (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Tena on S-String (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Time Guardian (Kuriousity)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Yokai Doctor (Read About Comics)
Julie on You & Harujion (Manga Maniac Cafe)

First of all, there’s a good reason why my header image is missing—Mr. MangaBlog upgraded me from WordPress 2.5 to 2.8 yesterday, and the image didn’t survive the transition. It will be back in a few days, and hopefully some sort of redesign will follow shortly. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it!

In the meantime, here’s what’s going on.

At MangaCast, Ed Chavez provides covers and commentary on the new releases announced at Anime Expo by CMX and Viz. He’s bullish on Tokyopop as well, if the rumored new titles pan out. Gia has some comments on CMX as well and notes that Tokyopop will have a booth at SDCC.

In other AX news, Deb Aoki has more detail on the Viz panel at About.com, Lissa Pattillo rounds up all the news and announcements at Kuriousity, and Julie thinks over her overall experience at the con at Manga Maniac Cafe.

Kate Dacey takes a look at this week’s new manga at The Manga Critic, and Red Baylon has a slightly different take at Japanator.

Reviews: At The Comics Reporter, David Welsh looks at three comics bout helping the dead cross over: Rin-ne, Omukae Desu, and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Carlo Santos takes on a stack of recent releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. The Manga Recon team post short takes on a variety of recent releases in their latest Manga Minis feature. And the newlywed Ninjaconsultants, Erin and Noah, discuss 20th Century Boys in their latest podcast.

Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 3 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Worth Reading)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Bamboo Blade (The Manga Critic)
Lorena on vol. 6 of Black Jack (i heart manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Dogs (Slightly Biased Manga)
Casey Brienza on A Drifting Life (ANN)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Gestalt (Kuriousity)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 2 of Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 28 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of I”s (Slightly Biased Manga)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Kimi ni Todoke (ANN)
Anna on vols. 2-5 of King of Cards (2 screenshot limit)
John Thomas on vol. 1 of Negima!? neo (Comics Village)
Julie on New Beginnings (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 3 of Otomen (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Laura on vol. 1 of Pig Bride (revised review) (Heart of Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Red Garden (Okazu)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Rosario + Vampire (Comics-and-More)
Scott VonSchilling on Swallowing the Earth (The Anime Almanac)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of We Were There (Comics Worth Reading)

The Anime Expo folks say that attendance topped 44,000 this past weekend, making AX the biggest anime and manga show in the country. Opinion Prone summarizes Deb Aoki’s tweets on the global manga panel and adds some opinions, and Evan Miller has a fuller report for ANN. Yaoi Press announced that they will be starting a light novel line. Japanator’s Tim Sheehy reports on Takashi Okazaki’s panel. (Okazaki is the creator of Afro Samurai.) ANN has cover shots for the new licenses announced by CMX at AX.

At Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson has a few things to say about Viz’s plans to accelerate the release of One Piece.

Lissa Pattillo spots a few possible Tokyopop titles on Amazon.

Erica Friedman summarizes a week’s worth of yuri news at Okazu.

Japan Today’s Patrick Galbraith talks to Jamie Lano, an American artist who is currently working as an assistant on The Prince of Tennis in Japan.

News from Japan: Ed Chavez posts the weekly manga rankings from Taioysha at MangaCast. Bandai Visual is serializing the AIKa ZERO Cute manga online.

ComiPress is looking for proofreaders for an independent manga project.

Reviews: Want to know what I’m reading this week? Check it out at Robot 6. The latest Manga Pulse podcast features a look at Old Boy and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.

Erica Friedman on vol. 3 of Alice on Deadlines (Okazu)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Angelic Runes (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of BakeGyamon (Comics Village)
Connie C. on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinigami (Manga Recon)
Jog on vol. 1 of Children of the Sea (Jog – The Blog)
Medora on Cirque du Freak (BSC Review)
Melinda Beasi on Color (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Dororo (i heart manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Eagle: The 2008 Election Edition (Manga Xanadu)
J. Caleb Mozzocco on vol. 1 of Fairy Idol Kanon and vol. 1 of The Big Adventures of Majoko (Every Day Is Like Wednesday)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Game X Rush (Prospero’s Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Gestalt (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Ed Chavez on vol. 3 of He Is My Master (MangaCast)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 9 of High School Debut (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 16 of Hikaru no Go (Slightly Biased Manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 16 of Hikaru no Go (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Connie on The History of the West Wing (Slightly Biased Manga)
Danielle Leigh on The History of the West Wing (Comics Should Be Good)
Lissa Pattillo on The History of the West Wing (Kuriousity)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 13 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 4 of Kiichi and the Magic Books (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Land of the Blindfolded (i heart manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 5 of Legend (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Nebs on Lucky Star (Nebs Blog)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of The Loudest Whisper (Prospero’s Manga)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Ludwig II (Comics Should Be Good)
Laura on Mars (Heart of Manga)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Me and the Devil Blues (i heart manga)
Hisui and Narutaki on issue 1 of Mechademia (Reverse Thieves)
Brian Cronin on Mijeong (Comics Should Be Good)
Julie on vol. 5 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Max Loh on Orange (The Star of Malaysia)
Sesho on vol. 1 of Ouran High School Host Club (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
David Brothers on vol. 1 of Path of the Assassin (4thletter!)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 5 of Sundome (Comics Worth Reading)
Zaki Zakaria on vol. 1 of Tsubasa: Those With Wings (The Star of Malaysia)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 4 of Very! Very! Sweet (Kuriousity)

Friday was a busy day for the manga folks at Anime Expo. Here’s a roundup of news and announcements:

SPJA Awards: The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) gave their awards at AX. Here are the manga-related ones:

Best Manga – Action
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, by CLAMP (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Comedy
Fairy Tail, by Hiro Mashima (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Drama
Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz Media)

Best Publication
Shonen Jump (Viz Media)

Anime Vice has a comprehensive report on the awards.

Bandai Entertainment: Edward Zacharias of Animanga Nation covers their panel from a manga-centric point of view. They discussed a number of manga, although I think most of these were previously announced. ANN and Anime Vice have more.

CMX Manga: DC’s manga arm seemed to go quiet for a while, and after the demise of Minx, some of us started wondering if they would be the next to go, although there were some hopeful signs at NYCC. Now they have come roaring back with a set of new license announcements and a promise of more to come at SDCC. The new titles lean heavily toward shoujo, with a handful of shonen and one mature-rated seinen title, Rampage. Below is a list of all the titles discussed in the panel, some of which have been previously announced.

The Battle of Genryu, by Shouko Fukaki (August 2009)
A Tale of An Unknown Country, by Natsuna Kawase (September 2009)
Oh! My Brother, by Ken Saito (October 2009)
Deka Kyoshi, by Kamio Baba (November 2009)
The Lizard Prince, by Asuka Izumi (November 2009)
The World I Create, by Ayami Kazama (January 2010)
Stolen Hearts, by Miku Sakamoto (January 2010)
Rampage, by Yunosuke Yoshinaga (February 2010)
My Darling Miss Bancho, by Mayu Fujikata (March 2010)
Diamond Girl, by Takanori Yamazaki (April 2010)
Polyphonica: Cardinal Crimson, by Ichiro Sasaki / Ocelot (May 2010)
Nadeshiko Club, by Miku Sakamoto (June 2010)

Deb Aoki has capsule summaries of each title at About.com, and Carlo Santos has more at ANN. Julie has notes on some of the series and remarks that scheduling problems with Swan and From Eroica With Love were attributed to problems getting the source material from Japan as well as the need to keep the new releases flowing.

Viz Media: Gia liveblogged the panel for Anime Vice, and Ai Kano covers the manga announcements at Animanga Nation; many of them are for previously announced titles. The big news seems to be that they are doing a speeded-up release of One Piece, as they did for Naruto, with four volumes per month coming out from January through June 2010. As Gia remarks, “That’s pretty badass.” These seem to be the new announcements:

Biomega, by Tsutomu Nihei (February 2010)
Crown of Love, by Yun Kouga (February 2010)
Cactus’s Secret, by Nana Haruto (March 2010)
Stepping on Roses, by Rinko Ueda (April 2010)
Flower in a Storm, by Shigeyoshi Takagi (May 2010)

For more impressions of the con, photos, etc., check out all the coverage at ANN’s AX page, Animanga Nation, Anime Vice, Deb Aoki’s blog, Japanator, and Manga Maniac Cafe.

From glancing at Twitter and my news feeds, it looks like the first day of Anime Expo included some good music and some anime license announcements, but not much of note for manga fans. ANN summarizes the keynote address Austin Osueke, publisher of eigoManga. This was sort of interesting:

according to Osueke, there’s a shared notion among all manga publishers that the big-picture goal is to push past the niche market for manga and introduce the material to the market as a format rather than a genre, which is what manga is currently perceived as among the general buying public.

He then notes that manga sales dropped 17 percent from 2007 to 2008 and that Diamond’s new minimums are hurting independent publishers like eigoManga. The alternatives he cites include webcomics, social media such as Facebook, etc. Apparently eigoManga is working on an iPhone app that would allow users to read a sample and then order the manga straight from their phone.

In a somber (but classy!) reminder of the alternative to such innovation, Central Park Media said goodbye to their fans via an ad in the program.

Other AX events: Ai Kano of Animanga Nation gets a brief interview with Loveless creator Yun Kouga. Gia liveblogged the Anime, Manga, and Hollywood panel at Anime Vice.

Lissa Pattillo lists the new manga we can expect in July.

Attention publishers: David Welsh would like someone to please license Otherworld Barbara.

Lori Henderson goes in search of the elusive Basara Devil Kings manga and gets an answer—but not the one she wanted.

Christopher Butcher posts some more photos from Japan, including the Tezuka World installation at Kyoto Station.

Reviews

Casey Brienza on Clover (omnibus edition) (ANN)
Sadie Mattox on The Color of Earth (Extremely Graphic)
Shannon Fay on Don’t Rush Love (Kuriousity)
Sesho on vol. 2 of Future Diary (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Diana Dang on Gaba Kawa (Stop, Drop, and Read)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of The Gentlemen’s Alliance+ (Comics Village)
Connie on vol. 10 of Golgo 13 (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie on Hard Rock (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 13 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Comics Worth Reading)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 13 of Love*Com (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 3 of Otomen (Slightly Biased Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 3 of Pluto (ANN)
Lorena on chapter 10 of Rin-ne (i heart manga)
Erin Jones on vol. 1 of Shinobi Life (Mania.com)
Connie on vol. 1 of Sugarholic (Slightly Biased Manga)

ICv2 has BookScan’s top-selling graphic novels for June, and manga dominates the list with 17 titles.

If you’re not a regular Yen+ reader, this might be a reason to check it out: Queenie Chan (The Dreaming, Odd Thomas) has a 33-page short-story in the July issue. She shows off a bit of the art in her LJ, and it looks quite lovely.

Kate Dacey isn’t waiting for the end of the year—she has a poll up now for the best manga of 2009. Oddly, I don’t see Witchblade up there…

Are you looking for the elusive vol. 34 of Initial D? Wilma Jandoc found listings for it—but it’ll cost ya!

Alethea and Athena Nibley discuss translators’ notes in their latest column at Manga Life.

Deb Aoki puts on her manga goggles to check out today’s events at Anime Expo.

News from Japan: ANN has the latest comics rankings from Oricon and Tohan.

Reviews: From the sound of it, Erica Friedman’s review of vol. 3 of Ghost Talker’s Daydream is much more entertaining than the book itself. David Welsh’s comments on Emma are more appreciation than review, but it’s a good opportunity to look at some nice art. And Sesho goes all multimedia on us for his review of vol. 1 of Maid Sama: His podcast review includes info on how to win a free copy, and he embeds the first chapter on his blog, using Tokyopop’s manga reader—this is the first time I have seen anyone actually do that.

Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of The Big Adventures of Majoko, vol. 2 of The Magic Touch, and vol. 1 of The Manzai Comics (The Manga Critic)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Dinosaur Hour (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Connie on vol. 18 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Slightly Biased Manga)
Courtney Kraft on vol. 1 of Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (Graphic Novel Reporter)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Julie on vol. 10 of High School Debut (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 3 of Kiichi and the Magic Books (Slightly Biased Manga)
David Rasmussen on vol. 9 of Kurohime (Manga Life)
Lorena on vol. 1 of Land of the Blindfolded (i heart manga)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Leave it to PET (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 2 of Mao-Chan (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 2 of Mixed Vegetables (Slightly Biased Manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Sarasah (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on Tail of the Moon Prequel: The Other Hanzo(u) (Manga Life)