Lori Henderson has the list of the past two weeks’ all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids. Manga Curmudgeon David Welsh looks at this week’s new releases, and rather than choose one of two books in Previews, he orders them both. David teams up with Kate Dacey and Melinda Beasi to discuss their Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf. Sean Gaffney looks ahead to next week’s new manga. at A Case Suitable for Treatment. At ComicAttack, Kristin takes the long view with a look at the best manga in the February Previews. And David looks even further into the future with a request for a book that hasn’t been licensed yet, the award-winning mountain-climbing manga Gaku.
Judit Kawaguchi interviews Yoshitaka Amano, the artist for Vampire Hunter D (among many, many other things) for the Japan Times. (Via Japanator.)
Melinda Beasi files her second insider report from the Digital Manga Guild.
It’s funny to think that manga has been around long enough that some of it seems dated, but it’s true. At All About Manga, Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has been catching up with some older series, as well as a few newer ones that are now out of print.
Now this is seriously out of print: Same Hat presents a gallery of art and the short story “Oni” by Go Nagai; both ran in Epic Illustrated #18 in 1983.
After telling Yen Press that they really shouldn’t publish the second volume of Sasameke, Alex Hoffman meditates a bit on the relationship between reviewers and publishers.
Sesho protests the high price of manga, as well as the inconsistency of some publishers in pricing their books, and he is surprised that he didn’t get much support from readers on the ANN forums. Readers, feel free to weigh in: Is manga too expensive? Do you resent the different prices for apparently similar manga? Do you miss the days of the standard $9.99 price point?
Jason Thompson is traveling in charming but apparently manga-free Jordan, so he devotes a second House of 1000 Manga column to odd, old cell-phone manga.
At Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi muses about dreamy manga boys and teams up with Michelle Smith for a boob-free version of Off the Shelf, their weekly new manga discussion. (The title refers to the fact that last week’s column focused on fanservice.)
Tony Yao examines how Bunny Drop portrays single-father parenting at Manga Therapy.
Fruits Basket translators Alethea and Athena Nibley examine the question of what, exactly, is shoujo manga in their latest column at Manga Life.
In the second installment of The Josei Alphabet, David Welsh looks at josei manga that begin with the letter B.
An English-language release of Professor Munakata’s Museum Adventure, created by Yukinobu Hoshino (2001 Nights) for the British Museum, seems to be in the works, as a listing has popped up on Amazon UK.
Erin and Noah, a.k.a. The Ninja Consultants, are featured guests at Genericon this weekend, doing panels on the Japanese Commercial Apocalypse, Unusual Manga Genres, and 50 Manga Recommendations in 45 Minutes.
News from Japan: One Piece continues to break records; the latest release, vol. 61, sold 2 million copies in just three days. Here’s an interesting sidelight: Sankaku Complex (NSFW) reports that almost 90% of One Piece readers are adults. (They don’t really give a source for this, that I can see, just screenshots from a TV show.) There’s a new manga in the works based on the movie Hoshi o Ou Kodomo: Children who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, by Voices of a Distant Star director Makoto Shinkai, and Makoto Raiku has a one-shot Gash/Zatch Bell story due out in March. ANN also has the most recent Japanese comics rankings.
Reviews: Ng Suat Tong examines Oji Suzuki’s A Single Match at The Hooded Utilitarian. Anna has some quick takes on recent Shoujo Beat releases at Manga Report. Rob McMonigal continues his appreciation of Rumiko Takahashi with a look at vols. 6 and 7 of Ranma 1/2 at Panel Patter.
Alex Hoffman on All My Darling Daughters (Manga Widget)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 3 of Bakuman (Comics Worth Reading)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 3 of Bakuman (Read About Comics)
Connie on vol. 1 of Bambi and Her Pink Gun (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vols. 11-13 of Banana Fish (Soliloquy in Blue)
Kristin on vol. 7 of Black Bird and vol. 2 of Grand Guignol (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 13 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ken Haley on vol. 23 of Blade of the Immortal (Sequential Ink)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 6 of Bleach (Panel Patter)
Clive Owen on vol. 31 of Bleach (Animanga Nation)
Nicola on vol. 4 of Children of the Sea (Back to Books)
David Welsh on Chi’s Sweet Home (The Manga Curmudgeon)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 3 of Fairy Tail (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 5 of Fushigi Yugi (VizBIG edition) (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 21 of Gin Tama (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on Himeyuka & Rozione’s Story (Manga Xanadu)
Anna on vol. 1 of Itsuwaribito (Manga Report)
Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of Itsuwaribito (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on vol. 2 of Kurozakuro (Manga Report)
Carlo Santos on vol. 4 of Library Wars: Love and War (ANN)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of LIVES (I Reads You)
Snow Wildsmith on vols. 1-4 of MAOH: Juvenile Remix (Good Comics for Kids)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 4 of MAOH: Juvenile Remix (The Comic Book Bin)
Lori Henderson on Mistress Fortune (Manga Xanadu)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Ohana Holoholo (Okazu)
Emily Kazanecki on vol. 10 of The Sand Chronicles (Manga Life)
Erica Friedman on Soredemo Yappari Koi wo Suru (Okazu)
Bill Sherman on The Story of Lee (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 2 of Yurara (Slightly Biased Manga)
I saw the One Piece buyers statistic on ANN too, here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-02-09/nhk/9/10ths-of-one-piece-manga-buyers-are-adults
According to that article, the source appears to be Kinokuniya bookstores. I’m wondering if that means other booksellers (different chains, or even online sellers like Amazon JP) aren’t counted?
As far as manga pricing goes, yes, many are too expensive for me (at least, brand new – sale prices are also nice). I have found that I often prefer manga over the anime versions based on the manga, but I continue to buy far more anime than manga because it’s cheaper overall, and I feel that I get more bang for my buck. I would LOVE to buy more manga, but I cannot simultaneously support all my multiple expensive entertainment loves at the level I would like, so something has to give. I choose for that something to be manga, because it’s just too much money for something I can get through in a couple hours at most.
That’s one of the reasons I get a chunk of my manga via interlibrary loan, even though the wait is often hideous. There have been a few titles and volumes that I’ve fallen in love with enough that I’m then willing to buy them after reading the library copies, but I don’t like laying down $12.99 for manga I’m not even sure I’ll end up liking or wanting to reread. Also, those kinds of prices make it less likely for me to want to start collecting a long series.
@lys, thanks for the info—I was off the web a lot this past week so I guess I missed it.
@LG I agree that interlibrary loan is a great way to get manga. I also use Paperback Swap. If you have an iPad, check out the Viz app; the standard price there is $4.99 a volume.
I think it’s interesting that price came up when Brian Hibbs just posted his analysis of the book store numbers last year. His research says manga out-sold Western comics by about 300,000 copies last year but made about $40 million LESS than Western comics. I have a hard time feeling like manga is over priced looking at that difference.
Tokyopop’s new pricing is a rip off because it doesn’t meet the price.
When I pay for manga I’m expecting a quality product, from translated sound effects to color pages and anything else( even quality paper)
The only thing that’s changed about them is that they have someone with taste, picking their series and a new trim dress.
That still doesn’t change the way that Tokyopop in general treats their product, when handing it out to consumers. That assures me to not feel obligated to purchase any new series form them anytime soon.
Yen Press does a slightly better job then Tokyopop, but ever since the paper downgrade,( the paper quality is as as normal as Tokyopop’s)and size may not matter sometimes, but a larger trim size usually would reflect a high quality product too. I feel that they also don’t meet the newer price their setting. Ranging from $11.99-15.99 and slightly more than that.
*Sigh* Digital Manga Publishing, if only they could’ve continued giving out those books quality books with the dust jackets and larger size. That made every penny count. Now it’s similar to what Yen and Tokyopop are doing. Only the price had been worth it before, now it’s just..meh. A small size makes me yearn for the older days..
Thus, leaving me to feel more obligated to support Viz’s signature line and Fantagraphics. They seem to be one of the few publisher who are trying to make each and every dollar count.
I think many of the hard-core fans switched to buying manga online at deep discounts from the cover price in the past year or so. For those fans, the effective price at the $9.99 cover price was more like $6 or $8 (less for the Shounen Jump-type titles), so I can see why publishers might need to raise the cover price in order to get that discounted price up closer to $10. But for anyone who buys in stores (like me), raising the cover price does have an immediate effect on buying patterns. I was going to cut back on manga a little due to a change in jobs last summer, but now that I think about it I haven’t bought any at all since then. I’ve gotten a couple from the library, but mostly I’ve been watching TV (not necessarily anime, but TV).
If online discount buying was the reason behind the price switch, I can’t help thinking that they might have been better served by trying to eliminate or lessen those discounts. I imagine publishers like the pre-release discount sales because they give an estimate of how popular something will be, but it’s hard enough for me to convince people to spend ten dollars on one volume of a manga series that they can read sometimes in under twenty minutes. Convincing them to spend $12 when I’m not even doing it myself? Well, I haven’t tried.
The main thing that got me going on the price of manga these days was Lives volume 1. This book is the same size as other Tokyopop tankoban yet it cost $2 more. They said it was because it was a “mature” title. At least Del Rey and Viz make their “mature” titles larger or put semi dust jackets on them so you feel like there’s something unique about them. Not Tokyopop. Their marketing is basically, “well, this book is $12.99. No good reason”. And then Yen’s sliding scale all over the place from $10.99-$19.99. Omamori Himari went up $1 between volumes 1 (october) and 2 (jan). Yen just seems like its experimenting with all types of pricing to see what you will pay. I was suprised at the ANN forums saying they will basically pay any price for manga. I won’t. If standard pricing goes up to $15, I say join the pirates. I’m not one of those who long for the glory days of flipped $15-$17 manga volumes.