Over at MTV Geek, I summed up some recent developments in digital manga, took a look at the work of Natsume Ono, and checked out Kodansha USA’s debut lineup, which includes lots of Del Rey favorites.
And be warned: Go! Comi’s web domain expired over a year ago, and whoever has put up a site at the gocomi.com domain, reposted a bunch of their content, and is asking (in broken English) for donations for a relaunch… is a fraud.
Lissa Pattillo spotted that site too, along with some tantalizing new manga listings on Amazon.com.
Jason Thompson takes a fond look at the otaku-friendly manga Genshiken in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.
David Welsh checks out this week’s new releases. Sean Gaffney takes a look at next week’s new manga, with an eye toward the ones you will find in a comic shop.
Nastume Ono’s The House of Five Leaves gets Tony Yao thinking about “chivalrous robbers” and why people turn to crime at Manga Therapy.
Lissa Pattillo reports on the Usamaru Furuya panel at TCAF, and at Anime Diet, Animemiz files her report on an evening with Natsume Ono in New York.
Johanna Draper Carlson celebrates Viz’s 25th anniversary with a list of her favorite Viz manga.
David Welsh reaches the letter O in his josei alphabet.
Attention bloggers: The next Manga Moveable Feast will have Cross Game as the main dish.
News from Japan: It’s awards season: The Kodansha Manga Awards have been announced, and the winners include Chika Umino’s March comes in like a lion. The 40th Japan Cartoonist Awards went to a diverse selection of titles, including Riki Kusaka’s Help Man!, and Moto Hagio was honored with a special award. On the other hand, the people who run the Kyoto Animation Award decided that no manga merited a grand prize or even an honorable mention this year. Volume 62 of One Piece sold 2.37 million copies, which is not too shabby, and ANN has the complete Japanese comics rankings for last week. Detroit Metal City creator Kiminori Wakasugi has a new series in the works, to run in Hakusensha’s Young Animal magazine: a comedy called Kappei whose tagline is “when the times need him the least, a hero will appear!!” And the Tokyo National Museum has an exhibit that pairs images from Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha with classic depictions of the Buddha, some of which may have inspired Tezuka.
Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss some new releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.
Julie Opipari on vol. 15 of Claymore (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie Opipari on The Expectant Princess (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso (The Comic Book Bin)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 7 of Jormungand (The Comic Book Bin)
Carlo Santos on vol. 4 of Kurozakuro (ANN)
David Welsh on vols. 4 and 5 of Maoh: Juvenile Remix (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Monkey High (Manga Widget)
Ai Kano on vol. 2 of Seiho Boys’ High School (Animanga Nation)
Kristin on vol. 16 of Slam Dunk and vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (Comic Attack)
I really enjoyed your article over on MTV Geek about Natsume Ono. Since the comment process over there was…complicated…I hope it’s okay that I comment here. Anyway, Tesoro was published in 2008, but it actually compiles a lot of Ono’s earlier work – including several of her doujinshi! So not such a long shot after all, which is wonderful, because the short works in Tesoro are really interesting. I’m looking forward to the North America release!