Archives for June 2011

Jason Thompson’s pick for this week’s House of 1000 Manga column is the Manga of Deep Feminist Shame, Hot Gimmick. Go, read, and remember why you kept on reading it even though you hated yourself for it.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith are hosting this month’s Manga Moveable Feast at Manga Bookshelf, and they kick it off with an introduction to this month’s main course, Wild Adapter. This inspires fellow Bookshelf-er David Welsh to ask his readers to name the sexiest manga they ahve ever read.

The Manga Village team looks at the best of the most recent batch of new manga.

Erica Friedman brings us the latest yuri news at Okazu, and she catches a bit of yuri in a shoujo magazine with a look at Blue Friend, Second Season.

At The Manga Critic, Kate Dacey notes that Viz has just announced a round of new series on their iPad app and makes some suggestions for their next move, including using the app to bring back some out-of-print gems; this inspires David Welsh to make a list. David’s latest print license request is Sakuna Hitona, a josei manga that has already been licensed in France.

Viz is looking for a yaoi/BL editor to help “establish and grow Viz Media’s line of mature content titles.” This is a verrry interesting development, as Viz doesn’t really publish yaoi at the moment. Lissa Pattillo rounds up some other Viz news, including their 25th anniversary plans and their announceent that they have licensed the Cinnamoroll manga, based on the Sanrio character of the same name.

David Brothers analyzes an example of multi-strand storytelling in Akira, and he also takes a look at the character of Kaneda.

Noah Berlatsky writes about identity and essence in Ghost in the Shell, but he’s not too impressed with it.

Erica Friedman dusts off a column that ran at MangaCast but is well worth another look, about Ultra Jump, the home of Tenjho Tenge, Hayate x Blade, and Battle Angel Alita.

If you’re yearning for some snippets of classic shoujo manga, and you don’t mind bad words in your browser window, go check out Fuck Yeah Year24, a tumbler devoted to the art of the Magnificent 49ers.

Convention season is upon us! Lissa Pattillo has a sneak peek at the manga programming for Animaritime, which takes place July 1-3 and will feature Vertical, Inc. marketing director Ed Chavez as a special guest.

Speaking of Ed Chavez: Animemiz reports on the Vertical, Inc. panel at AnimeNEXT, at which Ed provided a wealth of information on Vertical’s schedule and what we can expect from them in the next few months.

News from Japan: Last week brought news of two new projects from well known manga-ka: Hana-Kimi creator Hisaya Nakajo is launching a new series, Wild Kiss, that will run for just two chapters in Hana to Yume, and Arina Tanemura is embarking on a manga about the idol group Fudanjuku, to be titled Fudanjuku Monogatari. And Kathryn Hemman posts a guide to finding doujinshi in Tokyo at Contemporary Japanese Literature. (Via The Manga Critic.)

Reviews: Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi discuss snacks and recent releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf. Anna looks at the last volumes of some Tokyopop series at Manga Report.

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 15 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Diana Dang on vols. 1-3 of Bakuman (Stop, Drop, and Read!)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of Bakuman (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 9 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
TSOTE on vol. 2 of A Bride’s Story (Japanese edition) (Three Steps Over Japan)
David Welsh on vol. 1 of A Certain Scientific Railgun (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Theron Martin on vol. 18 of Claymore (ANN)
TSOTE on vol. 10 of Geobreeders (Three Steps Over Japan)
Carlo Santos on vol. 5 of Hyde and Closer (ANN)
Julie Opipari on The Palette of Twelve Secret Colors (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 5 of Papillon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 9 of Rasetsu (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Rosario + Vampire Season II and vol. 18 of Claymore (Manga Xanadu)
Connie on vol. 12 of Sensual Phrase (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on World’s End (I Reads You)

AstroNerdBoy posts his “dream list” of the Tokyopop series he’d like to see rescued.

Sean Gaffney takes a look at next week’s new manga, which apparently will include some Tokyopop titles—I heard this from Matt Lehman of Comicopia as well. In fact, one series, Hanako and the Terror of Allegory, will actually be wrapping up.

Kate Dacey is compiling her manga for newcomers list at The Manga Critic, and she asks readers to help her compile a list of manga genres.

David Welsh reaches the letter T in his josei alphabet.

Reviews

Connie on vol. 13 of Black Jack (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 7 of Butterflies, Flowers (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 7 of InuYasha (omnibus edition) (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Ash Brown on Oishinbo A la Carte: Sake (Experiments in Manga)
Connie on vol. 11 of Sensual Phrase (Slightly Biased Manga)

I looked over today’s new manga releases at MTV Geek.

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers debate their Pick of the Week.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber discusses her collection of out-of-print manga.

Reviews: Ash Brown brings us through a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. The Manga Bookshelf group posts some short reviews of new manga in their Bookshelf Briefs column.

Tim Maughan on 7 Billion Needles (Tor.com)
Anna on vol. 3 of Afterschool Charisma (Manga Report)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Afterschool Charisma (The Comic Book Bin)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Bakuman (The Comic Book Bin)
Lori Henderson on vol. 8 of Black Bird (Manga Village)
TSOTE on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (Three Steps Over Japan)
Julie Opipari on vol. 14 of Gantz (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Manga Xanadu)
Kristin on vol. 4 of Kurozakuro (Comic Attack)
Ed Sizemore on Lychee Light Club (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 2 of March Story (Slightly Biased Manga)
Eduardo Zacarias on vol. 51 of Naruto (Animanga Nation)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 57 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 4 of Seimaden (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 10 of Sensual Phrase (Slightly Biased Manga)
Charles Webb on vol. 1 of Tenjho Tenge: Full Contact Edition (MTV Geek)

Ed Chavez, marketing director for Vertical, Inc., confirmed at Anime Next that Vertical will publish an omnibus edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo.

At The Daily Yomiuri, Roland Kelts contrasts the continuing enthusiasm for anime and manga in the U.S. with malaise in the Japanese industry.

The denizens of Manga Village choose the best of last week’s new manga.

New to manga? Kate Dacey, a.k.a. The Manga Critic, is going to start posting some reading lists for new readers interested in different genres.

Erica Friedman brings us the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Lori Henderson looks at different digital versions of Vampire Hunter D and finds some sharp price discrepancies.

Michelle Smith finds an English edition of vols. 1 and 2 of Twinkle Stars, by Natsuki Takaya.

At Same Hat, Ryan finds and shows off some pages from Junji Ito’s Cat Diaries. (Warning: May be disturbing to some readers!)

News from Japan: The manga team CLAMP announced on their website that their latest series, Kobato, will end next month.

Reviews: Sean Gaffney posts brief thoughts on a stack of recent manga at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

Kristin on vol. 15 of 20th Century Boys (Comic Attack)
Ed Liu on Ayako (Toon Zone)
Todd Douglass on vol. 9 of Bamboo Blade (Anime Maki)
Connie on vol. 19 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (ANN)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 7 of Butterflies, Flowers (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 7 of Butterflies, Flowers (Kuriousity)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 4 of Cat Paradise (Panel Patter)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of Detroit Metal City (The Comic Book Bin)
Shannon Fay on vol. 1 of March Story (Kuriousity)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 57 of One Piece (The Comic Book Bin)
Carlo Santos on vol. 16 of Slam Dunk (ANN)
Amy Grockl on vol. 4 of Stepping on Roses (Manga Village)

I reviewed Shigeru Mizuki’s Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths for Graphic Novel Reporter and vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story for MTV Geek.

Melinda Beasi updates us on life in the Digital Manga Guild, where editing teams are have gotten their contracts and are contending with some inconstency from the home office, and Daniella Orihuela-Gruber contrasts editing manga with editing other material.

Speaking of Digital Manga, they just put Vampire Hunter D on comiXology, thereby effectively doubling the amount of manga available through that particular reader. (comiXology lists 10 series as “manga” but most of them are more manga-ish than actual manga.) And Lissa Pattillo turns up another bit of news that hasn’t been so widely broadcast: Digital is starting a hentai imprint.

At the Hooded Utilitarian, Yoshimichi Majima and Timothy Finney dig into Manga Legends, a company that claims to sell original manga artwork—a claim that the investigators find rather dubious.

For this week’s House of 1000 Manga column, Jason Thompson takes a look at one of Naruto’s literary ancestors, Raiko.

Jonathan Clements writes about Katsuhiro Otomo and Akira at the Official Schoolgirl Milky Crisis blog.

David Welsh checks out this week’s new releases at The Manga Curmudgeon, and Sean Gaffney is already looking ahead to next week’s new manga at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

Kristin checks out the highlights of this month’s Previews at Comic Attack.

Ed Sizemore and Johanna Draper Carlson discuss A Bride’s Story in the latest Manga Out Loud podcast.

Molly McIsaac has another roundup of classic manga you should be reading at iFanboy.com.

Over at Same Hat, Ryan meets one of his heroes, Usamaru Furuya, and he talks not only about their meeting but why Furuya is so awesome, with lots of links and images to bolster his case (may be NSFW). And he also posts a sampling of art by Jiro Ishakawa, which is definitely NSFW unless your workplace is totally insane.

David Welsh reaches the letter S in his josei alphabet. David draws his license requests this week from winners of the Prix Asie, and he reports in on his Previews order, which was done with significant reader input.

On Lori Henderson’s wish list: Pet Diary, which she spotted as a scanlation. (Gasp!)

News from Japan: Matt Thorn takes a look at the new web manga by Wandering Son manga-ka Takako Shimura, which is about romance in a large, all-female theatrical troupe. There is a real all-female theatrical troupe in Japan that really, really doesn’t like its name connected with these things, but Matt manages to fill in some background without naming names at all. Let’s leave that to Google. Three Steps Over Japan has a post (NSFW) about three men’s magazines that include freebies: Young King, Young Animal, and Young Magazine. I sense a trend here. Tony Yao writes about baseball manga and the popularity of baseball in Japan at Manga Therapy. The creator TAGRO, who is an old college buddy of Ken Akamatsu, is publishing three of his short stories on Akamatsu’s online manga site J-Comi. Meanwhile, the president of the company that maintains Co-Op Land Tokyo’s website accidentally uploaded the first 20 volumes of One Piece to the site, and when word got out on 2chan, traffic surged and the site was overwhelmed. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith have lots to say about some recent releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Lori Henderson on vols. 1 and 2 of 7 Billion Needles (Manga Village)
Connie on vol. 5 of Alice in the Country of Hearts (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on vols. 1 and 2 of Blue Exorcist (Manga Report)
Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (ANN)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of A Certain Scientific Railgun (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Carlo Santos on vol. 6 of Chi’s Sweet Home (ANN)
Vicki Paull on A Drifting Life (Manga Bubbles)
TSOTE on vol. 9 of Geobreeders (Three Steps Over Japan)
Connie on vol. 11 of Goong (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kate Dacey on vol. 3 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (The Manga Critic)
Ayra on vol. 4 of Ichiroh! (Okazu)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 2 of Knights (Slightly Biased Manga)
Vicki Paull on Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! (Manga Bubbles)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 16 of Ouran High School Host Club (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on Pine Kiss (Slightly Biased Manga)
Danica Davidson on vols. 7 and 8 of Rasetsu (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Connie on vols. 7, 8, and 9 of Sensual Phrase (Slightly Biased Manga)
Todd Douglass on vol. 6 of Soul Eater (Anime Maki)
Connie on vol. 7 of With the Light (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on Your Story I’ve Known (Comic Attack)

I made my own picks from this week’s new manga at MTV Geek.

News from Japan: Kyoto Seika University will start offering a PhD in manga in 2012. And the fourth volume of Hunter x Hunter, which has been on hiatus since 2004, has popped up on retail websites.

Reviews: Ash Brown looks at a week’s worth of manga reading at Manga Report.

Connie on vol. 28 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Library Wars: Love and War (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Sakura Hime (Kuriousity)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 16 of Slam Dunk (The Comic Book Bin)