Archives for October 2009

The Comics Village team picks the best of this week’s new releases.

At ANN, Evan Miller talks to artist Bettina Kurkoski of My Cat Loki and Warriors fame.

Lori Henderson turns out another excellent and thorough look at the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu.

Scott VonSchilling talks to Vertical’s Ed Chavez about his company’s presence at NYAF.

Gia goes all scientific on us at Anime Vice with some interesting reading about the different ways women and men respond to pictures of people having sex, which may shed a bit of light on the yaoi enigma.

The latest lesson at Manga University: How to Draw Males.

At Okazu, Erica Friedman has some advice for anime and manga publishers who go to conventions, and she also rounds up the week’s yuri news.

News from Japan: Apparently the hot new enteprise in Japan is turning company manuals into manga. Also, lucky moviegoers will get a copy of “vol. 0” of One PIece as a special gift.

Reviews: The Manga Recon team checks out some new titles in their latest On the Shojo Beat and Manga MInis columns. (Warning: Obnoxious interstitial ad.) Thanks to the PCS folks for removing the annoying ad!

Alex Hoffmann on Apollo’s Song (Comics Village)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of Apothecarius Argentum (i heart manga)
Lexie on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinigami (Poisoned Rationality)
Michelle Smith on vol. 29 of Bleach (Soliloquy in Blue)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1-6 of Comic (Soliloquy in Blue)
Sesho on vol. 12 of Eden (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Julie on vol. 4 of Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 14 of Monster (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of One Thousand and One Nights (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 5 of Pluto (Slightly Biased Manga)
Snow Wildsmith on vols. 1-3 of Prince Charming (Manga Jouhou)
Grant on vol. 1 of Red String (The Hipster Dad’s Bookshelf)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Rin-ne (Manga Critic)
Connie on vol. 7 of Slam Dunk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vols. 15-18 of Skip Beat! (Soliloquy in Blue)
Julie on vol. 8 of Vampire Knight (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of What a Wonderful World (Read About Comics)
Julie on the November issue of Yen Plus (Manga Maniac Cafe)

The Chicks on Anime Roundtable picks an interesting topic this week: The submissive man is a staple of yaoi manga, but what about submissive women?

The Same Hat guys offer a preview of the latest issue of their zine, Electric Ant #2.

Today is the last day to enter to win a copy of Jiro Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood from Precocious Curmudgeon blogger David Welsh.

News from Japan: Bessatsu Young Magazine is going from bimonthly to monthly, with the new name Monthly Young Magazine, and they wound up five serials in the last issue under the old format.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi, Danielle Leigh, and Michelle Smith post the latest entry in The NANA Project, their review of vols. 5 and 6 of Nana. EvilOmar checks in with some brief reviews of recent manga at About Heroes. Yoshinori Natsume is starting a sequel to Togari in Monthly Comic Flapper.

Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of 13th Boy (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vols. 1-3 of Cain (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 3 of Cirque du Freak (Comics Should Be Good!)
Connie on vol. 3 of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 13 of Monster (Slightly Biased Manga)
Emily on Ougon Kamen (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Shitsurakeun (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Tale of an Unknown Country (Comics Village)

Lissa Pattillo posts the list of October manga releases and some yaoi updates at Kuriousity.

Jake Forbes has a sneak peek at some art from vol. 4 of Return to Labyrinth.

A is for Awesome: David Welsh asks his readers to name their favorite shoujo manga that start with the letter A.

The print edition of Rin-ne will be published simutaneously in the U.S. and Japan.

News from Japan: ANN reports that Boys Be… and Bloody Monday will be starting up again with new story arcs. They also have the latest comics rankings from Oricon and Tohan.

Reviews: Park Cooper and Barb Lien-Cooper discuss Vagabond at Manga Life. Tangognat has some short takes on recent releases from CMX.

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of 13th Boy (Kuriousity)
Connie on Age Called Blue (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Dan Polley on vol. 6 of Black God (Comics Village)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Bloody Kisstan (About.com)
Julie on vol. 4 of Bride of the Water God (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of Crown (Stop, Drop, and Read!)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Dark Wraith of Shannara (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Julie on vol. 15 of D.Gray-Man (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on vols. 5 and 6 of Gantz (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Stephen Joyce on vol. 13 of Hayate the Combat Butler (Manga Life)
Casey Brienza on vol. 2 of Hot Gimmick (VIZBig edition) (ANN)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Kaze Hikaru (Kuriousity)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol 2 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me To You (Manga Life)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 6 of Legend (Manga Bookshelf)
Connie on vol. 12 of Monster (Slightly Biased Manga)
Matthew J. Brady on vol. 1 of Moysasimon (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Nightschool (Kuriousity)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1-4 of Vampire Knight (Soliloquy in Blue)

Hey, everyone! I want to apologize for posting being a bit spotty over the past week or so. Two things are going on. One is that the touch pad on my computer is dying a slow and ugly death, so everything is taking longer. The other is that I’m busier than usual at work, and one reason for that is that I am organizing this really cool magic show. It’s a benefit for our city’s Emergency Fund, which I administer. It’s been a tough year; basically, everything you read about in the papers about the economy, I have been seeing in real life. So if you’re going to be anywhere near the North Shore of Boston on Saturday evening, come on down and enjoy the show; tickets are cheap, and a good time is guaranteed. And if you’re unfortunate enough to be somewhere else, well, just bear with me a few more days, because things will be back to normal (?) soon enough.

In the meantime…

Kate Dacey and Deb Aoki check out this week’s new manga releases.

Matthew Alexander has a comprehensive interview with Kurt Hassler at Mania.com, covering the company’s Japanese, Korean, and Chinese releases, Yen Plus magazine, their upcoming Azumanga Daioh omnibus, and much more.

My latest Unbound column at Robot 6 is a look at the way scanlators helped fuel the manga boom.

Comics Comics has some choice quotes from the new book of Hayao Miyazaki interviews, Starting Point: 1979-1996, in which he discusses manga in general and gekiga manga in particular.

In this week’s Flipped column, David Welsh meditates a bit on the many dimensions of Jiro Taniguchi. Back at Precocious Curmudgeon, he’s giving away a copy of Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood Details are here.

Lori Henderson has her usual thorough summary of the past week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu, and she is looking forward to Natsume’s Book of Friends, due out soon from Viz.

Erica Friedman brings us up to date on all things Yuri with the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Going to APE this weekend? Deb Aoki calls out the manga highlights for your convenience.

The Comics Village reviewers introduce themselves.

Job Board: Tokyopop is looking for an assistant to the CEO; what struck me is that their version of a full-time job is 55-60 hours a week. At least they are up front about it. (Via Comics 411.)

News from Japan: Sundome and She is Mine are both coming to an end, and Kiss is going to run a Nodame Cantabile side story. Sesho looks at the Japanese comics in the December 2008 edition of Yen Plus. Other reviews of note:

Reviews: Carlo Santos peels back the layers of a stack of new books, including the much-discussed Karakuri Odette, in his latest Right Turn Only!! column. Dave Ferraro sees for himself what’s so controversial about vol. 1 of Dragon Ball at Comics-and-More. Andrew Wheeler takes a look at some recent Yen Press releases. Other reviews of note:

Tangognat on The Color of Heaven (Tangognat)
Connie on vols. 21-26 of Eyeshield 21 (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tangognat on vols. 1 and 2 of Flat Earth Exchange (Tangognat)
Connie on vol. 1 of Forget About Love (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Hanjuku Joshi (Okazu)
Ed Chavez on vol. 1 of Higurashi When They Cry: Cotton Drifting Arc (MangaCast)
Sophie Stevens on vol. 7 of Honey and Clover (Animanga Nation)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 1 of Ichiroh! (Comics Village)
Michelle Smith on vols. 38-40 of InuYasha (Soliloquy in Blue)
Connie on vol. 5 of I”s (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vols. 3-5 of Kaze Hikaru (Soliloquy in Blue)
Emily on Kimo wo Omou Toki (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
David Welsh on Mail (Precocious Curmudgeon)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Ninja Girls (Comics Should Be Good)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Oh My Brother (About.com)
Kinukitty on Prince Charming (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Rin-ne (Comics Should Be Good)
Justin Colussy-Estes on vol. 4 of Slam Dunk (Comics Village)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Soul Eater (Comics Should Be Good)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Summit of the Gods (The Manga Critic)
James Fleenor on vol. 1 of Takeru: Opera Susanoh Sword of the Devil (Anime Sentinel)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Watashi no Taisetsuna Tomodachi (Okazu)
David Brothers on vol. 1 of What a Wonderful World (4thletter!)
Connie on vols. 1 and 2 of What a Wonderful World (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vols. 2 and 3 of Yotsuba&! (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)

This is a fairly short post, as a rogue bit of Javascript thoroughly hosed my computer today. However, I’m linking to some nice, meaty posts, so savor them at your leisure and we’ll be back up to speed tomorrow.

The ComiPress folks have just unveiled a massive, ambitious project: Inside Scanlation, a comprehensive look at the world of scanlation, featuring interviews with scanlators and industry folks, a timeline, and all sorts of interesting information.

Meanwhile, over at Good Comics for Kids, we had a lively roundtable on the recent controversy over a copy of Dragon Ball in a school library. As several of our panelists are school and public librarians, they had a variety of different perspectives to add. Meanwhile, the Wicomico Public Library has pulled 24 volumes of the series off the shelves, due to concerns over the first volume (the series was toned down in later volumes), and library officials are trying to figure out where to shelve them. This is disconcerting. The initial concerns about the first volume came up because it was in an elementary school library—the book in question is rated 13+, so you can reasonably argue that it doesn’t belong there. A public library is a different matter. Furthermore, as J. Caleb Mozzocco points out, the Wicomico Public Library has a teen graphic novels section. That’s where the book should go, and it’s hard to believe the librarians don’t know that. It just goes to show, as librarian Robin Brenner says in the roundtable, that “Involving politicians in challenges never seems to make matters clearer, only more visible.”

On a more pleasant note, here’s a treat for Rumiko Takahashi fans: Viz has just put the first chapter of Mermaid Saga up on its Shonen Sunday website. (Via The Manga Critic.)

The denizens of Comics Village pick the best of the most recent crop of manga.

Reviews: The Manga Recon crowd make it look easy with their latest batch of Manga Minis.

Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of The Battle of Genryu: Origin (Manga Bookshelf)
Snow Wildsmith on Black Sun (Manga Jouhou)
Laura on Boys Over Flowers (Heart of Manga)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Children of the Sea (Comics Village)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Fairy Idol Kanon (Manga Jouhou)
Connie on vol. 1 of Four-Eyed Prince (Manga Recon)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 18 of Nana (Manga Bookshelf)
Bill Sherman on vol. 1 of Ooku: The Inner Chambers (Blogcritics)
Sam on vol. 7 of Rozen Maiden (The Otaku’s Study)

Deb Aoki gets the 411 on Viz’s new original comics program with an interview with senior editor Eric Searleman, although it seems like things are still rather vague at this point.

I really like J. Caleb Mozzocco’s take on the Maryland Dragon Ball controversy. Lori Henderson takes exception to the way things happened as well.

The latest New York Times graphic books best-seller list is up, and it’s bookended by vampires, with vol. 14 of Chibi-Vampire and vol. 3 of Vampire Kisses in the number 1 and 2 spots and vol. 7 of Vampire Knight, which has been on the list for a couple of weeks now, at number 10.

Comics Comics interviews Yoshihiro Tatsumi, creator of The Push Man and A Drifting Life. (Via Comics212.)

Melinda Beasi posts two NYAF con reports, one on the manga panels at Comics Worth Reading and a more personal take at her own new site, Manga Bookshelf.

David Welsh’s latest license request is Vinland Saga, from the creator of Planetes. Read all about it at Precocious Curmudgeon.

It says here that there’s a new shoujo manga magazine in development, but not much is provided in the way of details.

News from Japan: This article about the success of Square Enix has some interesting facts about the Japanese market, including that Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto sold only 1/10 to 1/20 as many copies in the U.S. as in Japan. Gia boils it down at Anime Vice for those who are pressed for time. Kodansha is posting some of the manga from Bessatsu Shonen magazine online for free. Canned Dogs has the cover of the Toki wo kakeru shoujo manga, an adaptation of the movie that is due out next year. And it’s not too early to start preparing for the 2012 manga summit.

Reviews: Julie posts some short manga reviews at Manga Maniac Cafe.

Melinda Beasi on vol. 17 of Hikaru no Go (Manga Bookshelf)
Emily on Kiniro no Yami (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Casey Brienza on vols. 16-18 of Nana (ANN)
Dan Polley on vol. 1 of Ninja Girls (Comics Village)