At The Comics Journal, Roland Kelts discusses the absurdities of the amendments that the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly just passed to the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance, including the fact that it specifically mentions “manga and anime” and leaves photography untouched—so real child pornography remains legal, while drawn images are banned.
Melinda Beasi reveals her Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf.
Kate Dacey has declared Osamu Tezuka Appreciation Week at The Manga Critic, and she starts off with an essay about what she finds so compelling about his work and review of vols. 1 and 2 of Black Jack.
Melinda Beasi, Danielle Leigh, and Michelle Smith resume their discussion of Nana with volumes 15 and 16 in the latest installment of The NANA Project. And Melinda and Miichelle discuss some manga for girls in their Off the Shelf column.
David Welsh has some suggestions for Eisner nominations, and he also reaches the letter T in his Seinen Alphabet.
Tony Yao has been taking a look back at Japanese pop culture in 2010 at Manga Therapy; part three of the series is up now. And he posts photos from Sunday’s Anime and Manga Day at Kinokuniya, at which Kodansha Comic announced their new lineup.
Linda Thai continues her interview with Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy with a discussion of piracy and the lag between publication in Japan and the U.S. at Something Deeper.
Translators Alethea and Athena Niblye are the new team on Negima, and as they explain at Manga Life, it wasn’t easy keeping mum about it.
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber wraps up her 2010 guide to manga gift guides at All About Manga.
Ash Brown discusses buying manga at Half.com at Experiments in Manga.
The makers of ComiPo!, a manga-drawing software that includes pre-designed characters that users can customize and pose, plan to be release an English-language version in the spring.
News from Japan: Erica Friedman sings the praises of Nakayoshi, the oldest continuously published shoujo manga magazine in Japan and the home of Sailor Moon. The first chapter of Raiden-18, by Fullmetal Alchemist manga-ka Hiromu Arakawa, is online at Shogakukan’s Club Sunday site, and the second will follow shortly. These two chapters ran in Sunday GX magazine in 2005 and haven’t been republished since; the third chapter will run in the January issue of Sunday GX. ANN has the latest comics rankings from Japan.
Reviews: Todd Douglass looks at a stack of recent manhwa, many the final volumes of their series, at Anime Maki.
Lori Henderson on vol. 2 of Bunny Drop (Manga Xanadu)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Children of the Sea (Comics Village)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Itsuwaribito (The Comic Book Bin)
Anna on vol. 1 of Kurozakuro (Manga Report)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of Library Wars: Love and War (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of Millennium Prime Minister (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Carlo Santos on vol. 9 of Real (Anime News Network)
Kristin on vol. 22 of Skip Beat and vol. 11 of Vampire Knight (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 5 of Sugarholic (Slightly Biased Manga)
“so real child pornography remains legal” Actually real CP is already illegal.
This is a law on morality not porn which is already illegal to sell to minors.
The example I have been using is that Dragon Ball could be restricted due to the large amount of sexual and scatalogical humor in the manga and anime. Humor that was heavily censored in the US TV broadcasts.