Pictures and conversations

ToTerra2The Manga Moveable Feast keeps on rollin’ with reviews of Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra; Kate Dacey rounds up all the links at The Manga Critic.

A host of bloggers join Melinda Beasi for the Banana Fish Roundtable, this time concentrating on vols. 3 and 4, at Manga Bookshelf.

Brad Rice and David Welsh look at this week’s new releases; check David’s piece for some links to the latest round of online opinion-mongering as well.

Librarian Robin Brenner says farewell to CMX and advises fellow librarians on what series to pick up before they disappear.

A host of pundits have called for publishers to put out more manga for adults in order to save the flailing manga industry, but Simon Jones begs to differ.

At 2 screenshot limit, Anna posts a pic of her CMX collection and explains why it’s so awesome.

Reviews

Kris on vol. 5 of Breath (Manic About Manga)
Bill Sherman on vol. 1 of Diamond Girl (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Andre on vol. 1 of Dorohedoro (Kuriousity)
Nick Smith on vol. 1 of I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (ICv2)
Bill Sherman on Isle of Forbidden Love (Blogcritics)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Kingyo Used Books (Comic Attack)
Briana Lawrence on Kiss Your Hair (Mania.com)
Snow Wildsmith on vols. 1 and 2 of Kurashina Sensei’s Passion (Fujoshi Librarian)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 35 of Oh My Goddess! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Susan S. on vol. 2 of Raiders (Manga Jouhou)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Rasetsu (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1 and 2 of Switch (Soliloquy in Blue)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Twin Spica (Comics Worth Reading)

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Comments

  1. I’ve got to call BS on this “there’s no grown up manga options!” complaint. Maybe they’re a little harder to find in some brick and mortar stores, but “grown up” manga, whether that be edgy genre titles, contemplative dramas, quirky comedies, out-there artsy fare, or yaoi, make up a huge percentage of titles released — now more than ever. Just look at your reviews today — not counting the 4 12/2 yaoi titles, you’ve got Dorohedro, I’l Give it My All Tomorrow, Kingyo Used Books, Oh My Goddess! and Twin Spica — quite a diverse grown up offering right there. Sure, there could always stand to be more niche adult titles, but if the people who say “if only there were mature manga titles out there” were supporting the amazing titles that are being released already, maybe sales wouldn’t be so modest and publishers would ramp up even more. Some of this can be chalked up to a lack of marketing, sure, and maybe I’d buy that from man-on-the-street, but any internet literate person who frequents comics blogs and can’t be bothered to investigate who this 5 time Eisner nominated Urusawa guy is, and use that as a starting point, or follow links to any major blogging site where mature titles are discussed daily, is’s being underserved — they’re just being lazy. Ultimately, I think this just ties to our current culture of blockbuster obsession that unless something is a best-seller and a household name, the easiest response is to call it a failure or not count it at all. In this period of manga contraction, it seems to me that grown up manga is faring quite well — it’s just that the people who are releasing it have different standards and expectations than those of speculative publishers during the boom years, which is ultimately much healthier.