Archives for June 2011

At MTV Geek, I reviewed Viz’s iPhone and iPod Touch app, and I was surprised how comfortable it was reading manga on that small screen. I wouldn’t want to read all my manga that way, but it certainly is convenient.

David Welsh looks at the most interesting manga in the latest Previews, and he joins the other Manga Bookshelf bloggers to discuss their Pick of the Week.

Publishers Weekly recently published a sneak preview of the new CLAMP manga, Gate7, and while that seems to have gone behind a paywall, Deb Aoki has a good description of it. Meanwhile, AstroNerdBoy is unhappy about the much-delayed release of vol. 2 of Cardcaptor Sakura (another CLAMP manga), and he worries that Dark Horse will be equally slow with Gate7.

Tomo Kimura posts some helpful translator’s notes for vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss.

At Otaku Champloo, Khursten Santos compares the old and new looks of Descendants of Darkness, which is back in The Hana to Yume (a supplement to the regular, definite-article-free Hana to Yume, apparently) after a long hiatus.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, Michelle Smith, and David Welsh check out a stack of new releases in their latest Bookshelf Briefs at Manga Bookshelf. Carlo Santos critiques more new releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Anna checks out three new Harlequin manga at Manga Report. Other reviews of note:

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 35 of Bleach (The Comic Book Bin)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 35 of Bleach (Kuriousity)
Kristin on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (Comic Attack)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of A Certain Scientific Railgun (The Manga Critic)
Ed Sizemore on vols. 1-3 of Genkaku Picasso (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vols. 8, 9, and 10 of Goong (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Madara (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 2 of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Dave Ferraro on The Quest for the Missing Girl (Comics-and-More)
Connie on vol. 6 of Seiho Boys’ High School (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 1 of Twin Spica (Panel Patter)
Connie on vol. 4 of Venus Capriccio (Slightly Biased Manga)

David Welsh invites his readers to vote for some dubious shonen manga and even more dubious yaoi manga from this month’s Previews at The Manga Curmudgeon.

The Manga Village team looks over the past week’s new releases.

Erica Friedman has the latest Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Lissa Pattillo shows off her latest purchases at Kuriousity.

News from Japan: The horror manga Shiki comes to an end in the July issue of Jump Square. And Moto Hagio will be a guest professor at Joshibi University of Art and Design.

Reviews

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 6 of Arata: The Legend (Kuriousity)
Serdar Yegulalp on vol. 14 of Black Jack (Genji Press)
Alexander Hoffman on vol. 3 of Bunny Drop (Manga Village)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 13 of Fairy Tail (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Erica Friedman on Honnou to Senshokutai, Instinct and a Chromosome (Okazu)
Carlo Santos on vol. 5 of Maoh: Juvenile Remix (ANN)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 29 of Negima! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
James Fleenor on not simple (Anime Sentinel)
Bill Sherman on vol. 1 of Pavane for a Dead Girl (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Tenjho Tenge: Full Contact Edition (The Manga Critic)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 12 of Vampire Knight (The Comic Book Bin)

At MTV Geek, I take a look at the new est em manga that will start in Japan in July, and I speculate a bit about who will license it here (hint: It will run in IKKI magazine).

Jason Thompson looks at a favorite manga that CMX published back in the good old days, Two Flowers for the Dragon, in his latest House of 1000 Manga column for ANN.

Lori Henderson has the lineup of this week’s all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

ANN reports on some new manga listings that have shown up on Amazon, including Takashi Murakami’s Stargazing Dog, Yuichi Yokoyama’s Color Engineering, and a new volume of the global manga Vampire Kisses, based on Ellen Schreiber’s YA novels. Vampire Kisses was a Tokyopop series that was done under their co-publishing agreement with HarperCollins, and it has moved to the HarperCollins imprint Katherine Tegen Books. This raises the possibility that the Warriors manga, which were also produced under the joint agreement, might continue as well.

Molly McIsaac has more classic manga you should be reading at iFanboy.com.

This week’s license request from David Welsh is Taiyo Matsumoto’s Takemitsu Zamurai. Also, David has reached the letter R in his josei alphabet.

Convention news: Kimagure Orange Road creator Izumi Matsumoto and Megatokyo creator Fred Gallagher are both slated to be guests at Anime Expo this year; I wonder if this means Kimagure will finally be licensed here? At Welcome Datacomp, astrange translates some commentary from 2chan on FanimeCon; it’s an interesting look at U.S. fans by Japanese fans.

News from France: A Distant Neighborhood creator Jiro Taniguchi is going to be knighted in France; he will become a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters).

News from Japan: The shojo cooking manga Yumeiro Pâtissière will come to an end this week. The monthly comic magazine Ryū will go on hiatus in August to prepare for a December relaunch. A group of over 50 manga-ka are planning a doujinshi to be sold at summer Comiket to benefit the victims of the March 11 earthquake.

Reviews: Charles Solomon reviews Hiroshima: The Autobiography of Barefoot Gen, for the Los Angeles Times.

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Arisa (Kuriousity)
Kristin on vol. 4 of Bakuman and vol. 3 of Gente (Comic Attack)
Corinna Lawson’s son on vol. 1 of Bleach (omnibus edition) (GeekDad)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Maniac Cafe)
J. Caleb Mozzocco on Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden (Blog@Newsarama)
TSOTE on vol. 8 of Geobreeders (Three Steps Over Japan)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 13 of Higurashi: When They Cry (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Steve Bennett on vol. 1 of Kekkaishi and vol. 1 of Naruto (omnibus editions) (ICv2)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of Rasetsu (The Comic Book Bin)
Jocelyne Allen on Soil (Brain Vs. Book)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Toradora! (Good Comics for Kids)
Erica Friedman on Umesato the Third! (Okazu)

At MTV Geek, I check in with Viz and learn that they are not only publishing a two-volume film comic based on Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty the Borrower, they also have a picture book and an art book in the works.

David Welsh makes his pick of this week’s new releases, and it’s an easy choice. Sean Gaffney looks over next week’s new releases, which are a more bountiful offering.

Kate Dacey explains why you should read Rica ‘tte Kanji!?

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith will host the next Manga Moveable Feast at Manga Bookshelf; the main course this month is Wild Adapter.

Blog news: Soliloquy in Blue has a new address, as Michelle Smith makes it official and joins the Manga Bookshelf family.

Events: If you are going to be in San Francisco this Saturday, check out the launch party for the second volume of Jason Thompson’s King of RPGs.

News from Japan: Say Hello to Black Jack creator Shuho Sato, who spends a lot of time thinking about what manga-ka earn, tweeted some statistics about compensation at various levels of sales. The top 100 manga-ka made an average of 70 million yen per year (about $860,000, according to ANN), but that is probably skewed by a few top earners like One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda. The June 25 issue of Hana to Yume will include a new chapter of Descendants of Darkness. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, Michelle Smith, and David Welsh have a four-way conversation on manga in the Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Michelle Smith on vols. 3-6 of 13th Boy (Soliloquy in Blue)
Connie on vol. 15 of 20th Century Boys (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on 7 Billion Needles (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on vol. 16 of Claymore (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 3 of Cross Game (Read About Comics)
Michelle Smith on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (Soliloquy in Blue)
Anna on vols. 15-18 of Kaze Hikaru (Manga Report)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Library Wars: Love and War (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on Lychee Light Club (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 3 of My Girlfriend’s A Geek (Kuriousity)
Rob McMonigal on vols. 10 and 11 of Nana (Panel Patter)
Ai Kano on vol. 3 of Seiho Boys’ High School (Animanga Nation)
Bruce P on Tetsudou Shoujo Manga (Okazu)

At FanimeCon this weekend, Viz panelists announced that they would be publishing two film comics based on Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty the Borrower. The movie, which is loosely based on the British children’s novel The Borrowers, will be released in the UK this summer and in the U.S. next February; the books will debut in January 2012.

I took a look at this week’s new releases at MTV Geek.

Purists may blanch at the thought of manga being flipped to read left-to-right, but Ed Chavez revealed on Twitter yesterday that Usamaru Furuya, the creator of Lychee Light Club and Genkaku Picasso, has taken to drawing his manga twice, once in each orientation, in order to make it more attractive to potential overseas licensors.

Speaking of Ed Chavez, he is open to suggestions for manga that people would like to see Vertical license. Follow him on Twitter to see what books have been discussed already. The big publishers Vertical can license from include Kodansha, enterbrain, MediaFactory, Kadokawa, Hakusensha, and Akita Shoten.

Futuransky liveblogged the Ooku panel at Wiscon this past weekend. (Hat tip: Michelle Smith.) And coffeeandink took notes at the panel on Looking Beyond the Gender Binary in Anime and Manga (warning: Serious spoiler for After School Nightmare).

The folks at The Hooded Utilitarian are holding a poll to determine the best comics of all time. Manga readers, represent!

Del Rey confirms what Lissa Pattillo had suspected: The fanbook CLAMP in America has been cancelled.

Samurai Beat Radio interviewed Natusme Ono fans as they waited for her appearance at Kinokuniya bookstore in New York last month. (Via Manga Therapy.)

Life imitates art: Like a tortured soul coming back from the dead in one of their manga, Tokyopop lurched back to life long enough to send out a newsletter to its mailing list last week, but it wasn’t about their products—it was advertising another newsletter. I got one of these, so I know it’s true. And annoying.

New blog alert: At Brain vs. Book, Jocelyne Allen writes about lots of books, including lots of manga (in English and Japanese). And Kate Dacey has started a Manga Critic Tumblr to accompany her Manga Critic blog.

News from Japan: “Manga: An industry built on starving artists?” asks Matt Alt, rather provocatively, at CNN. Certainly the discrepancy between the top and the bottom is rather large. Rich Johnston remains unconvinced; at Bleeding Cool, he comments “I can think of a number of American comic book artists who would like to earn the average salary mentioned…” although that doesn’t really translate because the cost of living is considerably higher in Japan than the U.S. ANN lists the top-selling manga for the first half of the year by volume and by series.

Reviews: Ash Brown sums up a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. Lori Henderson and Alex Hoffman discuss Bakuman in their latest He Said She Said column at Manga Village.

Steve Bennett on vol. 1 of Ai Ore (ICv2)
Alex Hoffman on vols. 1-3 of Bunny Drop (Manga Widget)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (The Comic Book Bin)
Jocelyne Allen on I Am a Hero (Brain vs. Book)
Michelle Smith on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (Soliloquy in Blue)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-Chan (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Moon vs. Blood (Sequential Ink)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Jennifer LeBlanc on No One Loves Me (The Yaoi Review)
Anna on vol. 2 of Sakura Hime and vol. 10 of Sand Chronicles (Manga Report)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vols. 1 and 2 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Comics Worth Reading)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Tenjho Tenge (omnibus edition) (Kuriousity)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 5 of Toriko (and the Viz iPhone app) (Comics Worth Reading)
Lori Henderson on vols. 9 and 11 of Zombie Loan (Manga Xanadu)