Archives for June 2010

Jake Forbes adds his two cents to the scanlation conversation with something constructive: A possible new model for digital manga publishing that includes fan translations but allows the creators to stay in control. Chris Beveridge editorializes at Mania.com (formerly Anime on DVD); in his opinion, the publishers need to offer a digital alternative. Gottsu-Iiyan (who is a professional translator, so like Jake, he does have a dog in this race) doesn’t buy the noble-scanlator version of things. Helen McCarthy, author of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, looks at the whole situation from an author’s perspective. Japanator’s Brad Rice goes straight to the sources and talks to the publishers about their new anti-piracy coalition.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss a variety of recent releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Lori Henderson looks over all the commentary on the demise of CMX and concludes that parent company DC was ultimately to blame for the line’s failure.

Gia Manry talks about sex, religion, and piracy with Gilles Poitras, author of The Anime Companion.

Chih-Chieh Chang reports on a talk by Kenshi Hiroikane, the creator of many business manga, including Kosaku Shima.

Khursten sings the praises of Nakamura Asumiko, creator of Double Mint, at Otaku Champloo.

News from Japan: The Japan Basketball Association is giving Slam Dunk manga-ka Takehiko Inoue a special commendation for helping boost the popularity of the sport. Also, ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: If you’re in a shoujo kind of mood, check out my review of vol. 1 of Fairy Navigator Runa at Graphic Novel Reporter.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber on AX: Alternative Manga (All About Manga)
Connie on vol. 4 of Baby & Me (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Black Butler (Slightly Biased Manga)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 2 of Black Butler (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Connie on vol. 9 of Black Lagoon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Ikigami (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie Opipari on vol. 2 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Blog@Newsarama)
Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of Library Wars: Love and War (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Library Wars: Love and War (ANN)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of Millennium Prime Minister (Tangognat)
Andre on vol. 1 of My Darling! Miss Bancho (Kuriousity)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Otodama: Voice from the Dead (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Clive Owen on vol. 1 of Rosario + Vampire, Season II (Animanga Nation)
Connie on vol. 19 of Saint Seiya (Slightly Biased Manga)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Toriko (About.com)

At Robot 6, I rounded up reactions to yesterday’s announcement that Japanese and U.S. publishers are uniting to fight rampant copyright infringement by scan sites.

Reviews: Carlo Santos looks over a handful of recent releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column. And if you want to take a break from all the scanlation news, check out Erin Finnegan’s review of all 15 volumes of Swan.

Kate Dacey on vols. 1-4 of 13th Boy (The Manga Critic)
Shawn O’Rourke on Black Blizzard (PopMatters)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Cirque du Freak (Comics Village)
Connie on vol. 16 of Claymore (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ed Sizemore on vols. 1 and 2 of Deadman Wonderland (Comics Worth Reading)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Detroit Metal City (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 11 of Elemental Gelade (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of Gentlemen’s Alliance+ (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 3 of Jormungand (Okazu)
D.M. Evans on vol. 2 of Nightschool (Manga Jouhou)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 50 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 18 of Saint Seiya (Slightly Biased Manga)
Zack Davisson on vol. 1 of Toriko (Manga Life)

Last week, we learned that the scan site Onemanga.com, which features not just scanlations but also scans of licensed manga, was one of the top 1,000 websites in terms of traffic. The rise of scan sites like Onemanga and Mangafox has coincided with a dip in manga sales, and no one thinks that’s a coincidence.

Today, a coalition of Japanese and American publishers announced that they plan to take direct action against the owners of these sites. They are a bit vague about the plans, but it will be interesting to see how effective this effort will be, especially given that many of these sites are hosted outside the U.S. and Japan.

Melinda Beasi looks forward to some June Releases in her latest Manhwa Monday post.

Kate Dacey looks at this week’s new releases, and the Manga Village team looks at the batch that just came out.

Japanator’s Brad Rice talks to manga expert Jason Thompson and Vertical, Inc., marketing director Ed Chavez about the state of the manga industry in the first episode of his podcast, Serious Business with Brad Rice.

News from Japan: Young Magazine is posting five issues, including its inaugural issue, online for free to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Reviews: A new week means a fresh batch of Manga Minis from the Manga Recon team.

Sean Gaffney on vol. 4 of Gatcha Gacha (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Oliver Ho on GoGo Monster (PopMatters)
Snow Wildsmith on I’ve Moved Next Door to You and Kiss Your Hair (Fujoshi Librarian)
Connie on vol. 26 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vols. 1 and 2 of Kabuki (Manga Recon)
Erica Friedman on Kimi Koi Limit (Okazu)
Leroy Douresseaux on Kiss Your Hair (The Comic Book Bin)
Sam Kusek on vols. 1 and 2 of Laon (Manga Recon)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Library Wars and vol. 1 of Kingyo Used Books (Comics-and-More)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of My Darling! Miss Bancho (Manga Xanadu)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 7 of Pokemon Adventures (Kuriousity)
Michelle Smith on Ristorante Paradiso (Manga Recon)
Todd Douglass on vol. 1 of Saturn Apartments (Anime Maki)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Saturn Apartments (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on vol. 2 of St. Dragon Girl (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 23 of Yakitate!! Japan (Slightly Biased Manga)
D.M. Evans on vol. 8 of Zombie-Loan (Manga Jouhou)

Jason Thompson’s trip through the world of obscure manga continues with a look at Devilman, a Go Nagai manga that has been through several incarnations but had the misfortune of being published in the U.S. just before the manga boom.

Sean Gaffney checks out this week’s new manga. David Welsh finds the solicitation for Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream in the new Previews.

Lori Henderson rounds up the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu, and Erica Friedman posts the latest Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Vertical, Inc., marketing director Ed Chavez is asking fans what manga they would like to see the company license next, and former intern Ko Ransom compiles the Twitter conversation into a single page for your reading convenience.

Animate braves the Cigarette Kisses curse (the last two companies to license it both went under) and brings that and three other yaoi titles to the Kindle, and Media Factory has published an iPad version of My Darling is a Foreigner.

Negima tops the latest New York Times manga best-seller list, and both volumes of Black Butler are still there; Seven Seas makes an appearance in the number 7 slot with vol. 7 of Dance in the Vampire Bund.

At Manga Desu, Andrew considers two possibilities for a series: Sales can drop off once the last volume is published, or it can become a classic and continue to remain available and visible. (Death Note, for instance, continues to place in BookScan’s top 750 sellers each year although it wrapped up a couple of years ago.) He thinks the fans have a lot of influence over this, and he specifically suggests, in the comments, that Amazon reviews can help.

Sesho devotes his latest podcast to scan sites and bloggers who blame them for everything.

Tim Maughan reports in from the London Expo, with plenty of pictures.

An exhibit in Japan shows that we are getting closer to achieving the technology of Doraemon.

Reviews: EvilOmar turns his hand to some short reviews at About Heroes.

Melinda Beasi on vols. 1 and 2 of Arata: The Legend (Manga Bookshelf)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 31 of Bleach (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of Butterflies, Flowers (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
D.M. Evans on vol. 3 of Cat Paradise (Manga Jouhou)
Connie on vol. 3 of Children of the Sea (Slightly Biased Manga)
Eduardo Zacarias on vol. 5 of Detroit Metal City (Animanga Nation)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Flower in a Storm and vol. 3 of Rin-ne (The Manga Critic)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1 and 2 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Soliloquy in Blue)
Connie on vol. 7 of Gentlemen’s Alliance+ (Slightly Biased Manga)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 5 of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Read About Comics)
Kristin on vol. 2 of Itazura Na Kiss (Comic Attack)
Liz McKinney on vol. 5 of Maid Sama (Manga Life)
Shaenon Garrity on Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby (About.com)
Kate Dacey on Mugen Spiral (omnibus edition) (Good Comics for Kids)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 8 of Nana (Panel Patter)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 49 and 50 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Wilma Jandoc on Phoenix Wright Official Casebook Vol. 2: The Miles Edgeworth Files (Otaku Ohana)
Connie on vol. 7 of Sand Chronicles (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 7 of St. Dragon Girl (Slightly Biased Manga)
Zack Davisson on vol. 1 of Toriko (Japan Reviewed)
Erica Friedman on vol. 6 of Tsubomi (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 8 of V.B. Rose (Slightly Biased Manga)

TD's avatar

Francis Metcalfe, known to all of us as Tiamat’s Disciple, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Apparently he was a fan right up to the end; he posted his last tweet on May 31:

did finish macross frontier today though, and i sorta liked it. the music grew on me and i did like the ending

Those of us who follow his blog regularly knew that he was fighting cancer; occasionally it would knock him out for a while, but he would always come back, so it was a shock when this time, he didn’t. Just last week, he had posted to say that his health was declining and he was thinking of putting the blog on hiatus, but even then, he was still hoping for a turnaround.

It didn’t happen. Yesterday, his brother Marcus put up a final blog post to let the world know that TD had passed away. What happened next was remarkable: Over 50 people stopped by the blog to leave condolence messages, and others posted farewells to him on their own blogs.

If you read his blog regularly, you know TD could be cranky and argumentative. I think he ultimately took down his rantiest posts, in which he roundly condemned certain publishers for their poor paper quality, slow release schedules, or failure to make their books available in the UK (the latter was a constant source of frustration for him). Those posts seemed over the top at the time, but knowing now how sick he was, I think I understand a little better. This was what was important to him, and he cared about it, maybe a bit too much. On the other hand, his reviews, which he titled “Thoughts and Impressions,” had a different tone. They were not deep critiques so much as a manga fan chatting to fellow fans about what he did and didn’t like about a book.

Marcus writes that TD became more interested in anime and manga after his diagnosis.

His attitude towards things changed drastically as a result of being close to death twice. While it’s certainly true he had become more abrasive, and forceful, and yes at times he was an obnoxious sod, it was because he always said what he wanted to say and refused to compromise his views anymore. He once told me he was sick of pandering to what people wanted to hear, and decided it was better to just come out and say it. As a result he was frequently butting heads with people over issues he wrote about. However he never took these issues personally, and seemed to rather enjoy the fact that people would argue with him, rather than just agree to get the point dropped.

Over the past 8 months this blog had become his life, more so since for a lot of the time he was bedridden, making here, and his twitter account, his main source of communication.

I can’t tell you what it’s like to read these comments and see that while my brother was a pain in the arse at times, there were people who liked and will miss him. I have to admit I was against him getting into manga and blogging, because I felt it would isolate him more, and I am pleased to see I was wrong to think that.

Of course, comics and manga fans love a good fight, so TD fit right in here. My one hope is that knowing about TD’s struggle will help us remember, even in the heat of battle, that the person on the other side of the screen is a real human being, with a whole offscreen life that we know nothing about.

I asked Marcus how people could remember TD, and he suggested the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund—an appropriate cause for one who was adamant in his rejection of censorship and his embrace of free speech. You can send donations to

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
255 W. 36th Street,
Suite 501,
New York, NY 10018.

or donate online at their website. Marcus is OK with using Francis’s real name, but we both thought “Tiamat’s Disciple” or “TD” is more appropriate, as that is how he was known not only in our community but apparently among his offline friends as well. I suggest that if you donate you leave a comment on the blog or a reply to his Twitter feed so his family will know.