Archives for November 2010

Carl Horn talks Kurosagi

Kate Dacey, Brad Rice, and David Welsh make their choices from this week’s new releases.

Melinda Beasi’s Pick of the Week is Real; check out Manga Bookshelf to find out why she likes it so much.

At comiXology, Kristy Valenti quizzes Carl Horn about Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

News from Japan: Ken Akamatsu is working with other manga-ka to create a free “J-Comi” site that will post out-of-print manga as DRM-free PDFs, with advertising. Interesting idea.

Reviews

Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Arisa (Prospero’s Manga)
Anna on vols. 1-3 of Cross Game (Manga Report)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 7 of Emma (Panel Patter)
Todd Douglass on vol. 4 of Hero Tales (Anime Maki)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of K-ON! (Okazu)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Raiders (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lori Henderson on Tale of a White Night (Comics Village)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 4 of Twin Spica (A Case Suitable for Treatment)

Viz nabs TenTen!

The big news this morning is that Viz announced its spring-summer 2011 lineup, and it includes Tenjho Tenge, which will be published in new two-volume omnibus editions that are “100% faithful to the original”—unlike the bowdlerized edition published by CMX back in the day. The series will be published under Viz’s Signature imprint, and ANN catches up with Signature editor-in-chief Leyla Aker for a bit more background. But David Welsh is more excited about another one of Viz’s new titles, Natsume Ono’s La Quinta Camera.

Lori Henderson has some advice for a mom whose teen is reading scanlations online.

Melinda Beasi rounds up the latest Korean-comics news in this week’s Manhwa Monday post at Manga Bookshelf.

At Masters of Manga, Marc Bernabe takes a look at Tokiwa-sō Power!, a collection of manga by the creators who lived in the legendary Tokiwa-sō apartments, which were home to many manga-ka (including Osamu Tezuka) in the 1950s.

The next Manga Moveable Feast will feature One Piece, and if you aren’t reading it already, the prospect of a 55-volume (so far) series can be intimidating. Helpfully, David Welsh suggests some possible jumping-in points at The Manga Curmudgeon.

News from Japan: Japanator reports that the bookstore chain Kinokuniya is opening an electronic bookstore featuring both print volumes and ebooks, with about 30,000 ebooks ready to go when they launch at the end of this year. Perhaps some of those will be manga?

Reviews: Ash Brown looks at a week’s worth of reading at Experiments in Manga.

Erica Friedman on vols. 1 and 2 of Baba Yaga (Okazu)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 2 of Chobits (omnibus edition) (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime & Manga Blog)
Kate Dacey on Dragon Sword and Wind Child, vol. 1 of The Story of Saiunkoku, and vol. 1 of Summoner Girl (The Manga Critic)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 12 of Fairy Tail (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Carlo Santos on vol. 2 of Kingyo Used Books (ANN)
Caddy C. on Ouran High School Host Club (A Feminist Otaku)
Ai Kano on vol. 1 of Seiho Boys’ High School (Animanga Nation)
Kristin on vol. 3 of Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee (Comic Attack)

Year-end lists begin; manga marketing; what fans want to see online

Molly McIsaac starts us off with the first Best Manga of the Year list of the year (at least, it’s the first I have seen) at iFanboy.com. (Via The Manga Critic.) Meanwhile, the Manga Village crowd pick the best of the past week’s new releases. At Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson posts this week’s all-ages comics and manga.

Lori Henderson gives us the week’s manga news in one handy post at Manga Xanadu, and Erica Friedman does the same for the world of yuri in her latest Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Sean Gaffney’s latest license request is Medaka Box, a Weekly Shonen Jump series that is written by NisiOisiN. Sean explains why that’s important:

NisiOisiN is a pen name for one of the more famous young Japanese novel writers at the moment, creator of several series such as Bakemonogatori (which spawned an anime) and Zaregoto (which Del Rey released two volumes of). He is very famous for, pardon the expression, screwing with his reader’s heads, as well as his character and plot twists, where you feel the immediate urge to go back and re-read everything with your newly gained perspective.

Melinda Beasi lists four of her favorite reviewers in her Follow Friday column at Manga Bookshelf.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber thinks the manga industry could do a better job of marketing to the casual fans, the ones who don’t spend all their time on blogs like this one; more in-book ads would be a good start, she says.

David Welsh asks, the readers answer: Which manga and graphic novels do you feel guilty about not reading? Also: What would you like to see the Japanese publishers do with their new web portal?

Erica Friedman writes about the Japanese manga magazine Monthly Shounen Ace, home of Haruhi, Deadman Wonderland, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, at MangaCast.

Astrange takes a look at a textbook doujinshi at welcome datacomp.

Reviews: Deb Aoki takes us through this week’s reading with 10 mini manga reviews at About.com.

Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Ax (Read About Comics)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1-10 of Blame! (Soliloquy in Blue)
Katherine Farmar on The Dawn of Love (Comics Village)
Connie on vol. 6 of Future Diary (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Genkaku Picasso (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douressaux on vol. 1 of Genkaku Picasso (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Hayate x Blade (omnibus edition) (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vols. 7-9 of Hell Girl (omnibus edition) (I Reads You)
Shannon Fay on vol. 21 of Hikaru No Go (Kuriousity)
Johanna Draper Carlson on How to Draw Shoujo Manga (Comics Worth Reading)
Todd Douglass on vol. 3 of Ichiroh! (Anime Maki)
Victoria Martin on vol. 1 of March Story (Manga Life)
Oyceter on vols. 7 and 8 of Pluto (Sakura of DOOM)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of Real (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on Sukoyaka Paradigm Shift (Okazu)
Ash Brown on Tenken (Experiments in Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 4 of Twin Spica (Comics Worth Reading)
Anna on vols. 8-10 of V.B. Rose (Manga Report)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 16 of XXXHolic (Kuriousity)
Erica Friedman on vols. 8-10 of Zombie-Loan (Okazu)

Publishers to set up manga portal

ANN is reporting this morning that 37 Japanese publishers are working together to set up a North American digital distribution portal for manga. What on earth does this mean? It’s not clear, but the players include Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan, the three biggest publishers in Japan, all three of whom publish manga exclusively with a single publisher in the U.S. (Del Rey for Kodansha, Viz for Shueisha and Shogakukan).

Deb Aoki has a preview of Shonen Jump‘s new look, plus a peek at the new series, at About.com.

Sean Gaffney takes an advance survey of next week’s new manga at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

Jason Thompson takes a fond look at Cobra, a manga whose hero looks like a 28-year-old man rather than a 14-year-old girl, in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

At Manga Therapy, Tony Yao looks at the question of sexism in Bakuman.

Melinda Beasi thinks about guilty pleasures in her 3 Things Thursday post at Manga Bookshelf.

Reviews

Anna on vol. 2 of Bunny Drop (Manga Report)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso (Comics Village)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Maoh: Juvenile Remix (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi (Okazu)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of The Stellar Six of Gingacho (The Manga Critic)
Penny Kenny on vol. 1 of Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution (Manga Life)

Happy Pocky Day!

Today’s article about the Shonen Jump reboot comes courtesy of Deb Aoki, who talked to senior editor Joel Enos about plans to update the magazine’s design, add some new series, and provide some content online to subscribers.

Also, today is Pocky Day (11-11—think about it). Lori Henderson celebrates with a look at manga in which characters eat Pocky.

The next Manga Moveable Feast will feature One Piece, and it will be hosted by David Welsh. David also presents the latest episode of the seinen alphabet, focusing on seinin manga whose titles begin with the letter P.

Tanbishugi spots some new Tokyopop and Blu titles on Amazon. (Caveat: This is no guarantee that they are actually licensed, although it is a good bet.)

Nico Nico Seiga is translating Shuho Sato’s Say Hello to Black Jack into English. Their English site is a little clumsy, as it shows the Japanese original as a Flash slide show with English subtitles underneath. They are looking for help, so check the page if you want to join in.

News from Japan: Good news for Chika Shiomi fans: She is starting a new series, Yukarism, in the December issue of Betsuhana magazine. Over 2 million copies of vol. 60 of One Piece were sold the week it was released, which seems to be a new record. Also, ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss a handful of new releases in their latest Off the Shelf column.

Carlo Santos on vol. 4 of Biomega (ANN)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 1 of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (Comics Worth Reading)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Itazura na Kiss (Sequential Ink)
Animemiz on Portrait of M&N (Anime Diet)
Kristin on White Brand and Stop Bullying Me! (Comic Attack)

Stop, drop, and ROFL!

ICv2 talks to Shonen Jump senior editor Joel Enos about the magazine’s “re-launch,” which seems to mean a facelift plus the addition of the subscriber-only online content. Enos seems to realize which way the world is going; as bookstores and newsstands close or downsize, it makes sense to cater more to subscribers.

Chris Sims presents Osamu Tezuka’s fire safety posters. Yes, you read that right. Just go take a look; you’ll be glad you did.

Kate Dacey, Brad Rice, and David Welsh all look over this week’s new releases and pick the ones they like the best. Melinda Beasi’s Pick of the Week is Twin Spica; check out Manga Bookshelf to find out why.

The Yaoi Review kicks off a three-part interview with Hinako Takanaga.

Jason Thompson writes about why there is no Alan Moore of global manga, someone who takes the tropes of the different genres and turns them into something new. An interesting discussion follows in the comments section as well.

Masters of Manga asks: Why do mangaka wear berets? Jirō Tsunoda supplies the answer in the latest video.

News from Japan: Shueisha is launching a kids’ manga magazine, Super Strong Jump (Saikyō Jump), in December; the new mag will include spinoffs from Shonen Jump series like Naruto and One Piece.

Reviews: Carlo Santos takes us through the latest releases in his Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Noah Berlatsky throws all kinds of theory at Moto Hagio’s short story “The Willow Tree,” from A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, but misses the story’s most fundamental problem: It’s boring.

Katherine Farmar on Cafe Latte Rhapsody (Comics Village)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Genkaku Picasso (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Genkaku Picasso (Read About Comics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 54 of InuYasha (The Comic Book Bin)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 3 of Kobato (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Zack Davisson on The Quest for the Missing Girl (Japan Reviewed)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 8 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (Comics Worth Reading)