Merry Christmas! I’m sorry for my absence this week—as some of you know, December is the most demanding time of year at my day job, as I’m simultaneously raising money for our charitable fund and distributing aid from the fund—and people always seem to have more problems at Christmas. As I said on Twitter, by the end of this week I felt like a character in a Lifetime movie (several, actually). So I’m off now—yes, now—to do my Christmas shopping and baking. In the meantime, here’s the latest news:
Lissa Pattillo takes Square Enix’s online manga site out for a test drive, and she is not too impressed with what she sees. She sums up the online manga picture neatly in this paragraph:
Online manga should be aiming to offer readers what scanlations are always touted as providing in their purest intentions – manga the reader can’t get in their language or in print at all. Until sites start offering this, and at prices comparable to the value manga readers are used to paying for a fully-owned, physical copy, I don’t think digital manga will be fully embraced just yet.
I noted some recent insights into digital piracy at Robot 6.
Deb Aoki looks ahead to the new year with her list of the 25 most-anticiapated manga of 2011. Sean Gaffney has a shorter time frame: He’s looking at next week’s new manga.
The Comics Village team looks gives their take on last week’s new manga, and David Welsh looks at this week’s new releases at The Manga Curmudgeon.
Alex Hoffman posts some reflections on food manga and his top ten manga of 2010 at Manga Widget.
Melinda Beasi’s Christmas list includes three out-of-print shoujo series she’d like to complete. Lori Henderson celebrates the season with a look at manga that feature angels as characters. And Tim Maughan recommends Chi’s Sweet Home as that perfect last-minute Christmas gift for just about everyone.
Marc Bernabe’s latest video at Masters of Manga is an interview with Legend of Koizumi creator Hideki Ohwada about gambling manga.
Scholar Kate Dacey has put together a bibliography of resources in English about Osamu Tezuka.
Jason Thompson devotes the latest House of 1000 Manga column to a classic: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
David Welsh reaches the letter U in his seinen alphabet at The Manga Curmudgeon, and he also takes a look at manga featuring all-girl musical groups.
Tony Yao wraps up his look back at 2010 at Manga Therapy.
Itochu has launched an iPhone app, Get Your Comic. I played around with it a bit on my iPad. It’s really an iPhone/iPod Touch app, so the page size is small, but you can blow it up on the iPad. The app works pretty smoothly, and if you like Harlequin Romance manga, this is the app for you—they have a good selection and it is shown in full pages, which look great on the iPad. (Most of these seem to be available on Digital’s eManga site as well.) Unfortunately, they chopped up Cyborg009 and Bushido: The Soul of Japan into single panels. The app is free and so is the first chapter of each book, so it’s worth checking out if you have an iThing. (Via ANN.)
Ash Brown is giving away a Strawberry Panic starter pack at Experiments in Manga—just post a comment about your favorite yuri/girls love manga (or admit you have never read any). And you’ll get a bonus chance for Tweeting about it!
News from Japan: ANN reports that Kodansha will publish the short manga stories of the late anime director Satoshi Kon, and they also have the latest Japanese comics rankings. And Weekly Bunshun magazine did the math to figure out how much money One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda has made from his long-running series: 2 billion yen.
Reviews: Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi check out four Boys Love series in their latest BL Bookrack column at Manga Bookshelf. Melanie posts some short takes on recent titles at About Heroes. Caddy C. has some quick takes as well at A Feminist Otaku.
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 12 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-4 of Angel Sanctuary (Manga Xanadu)
Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of Eensy Weensy Monster (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 8 of Gatcha Gacha (Okazu)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of Genkaku Picasso (Soliloquy in Blue)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 11 of Ghost Hunt (ANN)
Shannon Fay on vol. 6 of Honey Hunt (Kuriousity)
Kristin on vol. 2 of I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (Comic Attack)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 9 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Comics Worth Reading)
Kristin on vol. 3 of Library Warsr (Comic Attack)
Zack Davisson on Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater (Japan Reviewed)
Erica Friedman on Maria-Sama Ga Miteru: Cherry Blossom (Okazu)
Adam Stephanides on Money Moon (Completely Futile)
Connie on Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on vol. 5 of Ooku (Manga Report)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 15 of Ouran High School Host Club (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Carlo Santos on vol. 2 of Panic x Panic (ANN)
Connie on vol. 7 of Rasetsu (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 8 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 22 of Skip Beat! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Time and Again (Comics Village)
Erica Friedman on vol. 7 of Tsubomi (Okazu)
Emily on Tsuugaku Densha (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Anna on vol. 2 of Twin Spica (Manga Report)
Thank-you for the bundle of links! Merry Christmas!!