I’m back! Many thanks to Melinda Beasi and Kate Dacey for being such good stewards of the blog during my hiatus—I began to feel quite redundant! They seem to have covered the manga scene pretty comprehensively, so here’s what has popped up since then:
Jason Thompson looks at the vintage dog-battle manga Ginga Legend Weed in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.
Kristin takes a manga-centric look at the December Previews at Comic Attack.
The Manga Moveable Feast rolls onward as Ed Sizemore writes about what makes One Piece so appealing at Comics Worth Reading and Kate Dacey lists three reasons to read One Piece at The Manga Critic. Alex Hoffman discusses what he has learned from the series at Manga Widget, David Welsh compares the Straw Hats to the Avengers, and Anna looks at some other stretchy comics characters at Manga Report. David Brothers takes a look at the Baroque Works arc at 4thletter, and David rounds up the latest posts at The Manga Curmudgeon.
Melinda Beasi names her three favorite manga heroines of the past year—and none are from shoujo manga. She also has a brief discusson of the fanservice in Sundome.
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber, who is a freelance manga editor, makes a mistake and learns the world won’t come to an end, although it was a lot of work fixing it.
News from Japan: Shueisha is replacing its seinen magazine Monthly Young Jump with a bimonthly magazine titled Miracle Jump.
Reviews: Erica Friedman’s review of Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories begins by putting the stories in context, an important first step for anyone who wants to critique Hagio’s work.
Sarah Boslaugh on vol. 1 of Arisa (Playback:stl)
Alex Hoffman on Ayako (Manga Widget)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 33 of Bleach (Kuriousity)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 36 of Case Closed (The Comic Book Bin)
Ken Haley on vol. 4 of Itazura na Kiss (Sequential Ink)
Erica Friedman on vol. 5 of Jormungand (Okazu)
Angela Eastman on vol. 1 of Kamisama Kiss (Suite101.com)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of My Girlfriend’s a Geek (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Eduardo Zacarias on vol. 49 of Naruto (Animanga Nation)
Katherine Farmar on No Touching At All (Comics Village)
Justin Colussy-Estes on vol. 2 of Toriko (Comics Village)