Just a few quick things—it was a busy weekend, and while there wasn’t a huge amount of manga news out of San Diego, there was definitely some food for thought. I rounded up Thursday’s announcements from Comic-Con at MTV Geek, and I also summed up the JManga.com panel at Robot 6. For more detail, check out the reports from ANN and Anime Diet—they were there.
Yen Press announced three new manga titles: Durara!!, Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, and Olimpos. The first two are based on light novels (and Funimation just licensed the Korezom anime). Yen’s director of publishing Kurt Hassler mentioned at the beginning of the panel that they were working on a couple of light novel licenses, and since Yen often licenses manga and light novels in pairs, it’s reasonable to expect that these novels will be coming along shortly. Olimpos is based on Greek mythology, and Yen will publish the manga, originally two volumes, as a one-volume omnibus. Yen also announced an iPhone/iPod Touch version of its app, and to get people rolling, they are offering all volume 1s for $2.99, a steep discount from the regular digital price of $8.99. Yen has added quite a few Japanese titles to its app recently, so if you haven’t been there in a while, it’s worth giving it another look. Again, here’s coverage from ANN and Anime Diet.
ANN also covered the Shonen Jump panel, at which Japanese SJ editor Hisashi Sasaki critiqued some of the entries in the Shonen Jump storyboard contest. Other panel coverage: Anime Diet liveblogged the Manga Censorship panel, while
ANN covered the manga scholars’ poster session, the Best and Worst Manga panel, and the Shonen Jump panel.
Lissa Pattillo wasn’t there, but she posts her impressions of SDCC from afar at Kuriousity.
In other news…
This month’s Manga Moveable Feast features Fruits Basket, and host David Welsh gets the discussion started with a post on why Fruits Basket is worth discussing and another on romantic triangles.
The Manga Village team looks over the newest batch of manga releases. Meanwhile, the Manga Bookshelf bloggers debate their Pick of the Week.
News from Japan: Masami Tsuda (Kare Kano) is bringing her historical comedy manga Chotto Edo Made to an end.
Reviews: Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, Sean Gaffney, and Michelle Smith file another set of Bookshelf Briefs at Manga Bookshelf.
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 4 of Cross Game (Comics Worth Reading)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Magic Knight Rayearth (The Manga Critic)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 4-6 of Naruto (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
I gotta be blunt.
In terms of manga announcements, this has been the worst San Diego Comic-Con to date. Where were the license rescues for Tokyopop titles (like Hetalia and Deadman Wonderland)? When will Kodansha resume publishing some of their other titles that got thrown under the bus (like School Rumble and Suzuka)? Will Viz actually resume publication for Inubaka (and, anime-wise, when will they releases Inuyasha: The Final Act on DVD)?
Anime-wise, it was pretty much a repeat of (nearly) everything mentioned at Anime Expo (save for DBZ coming to Blu-Ray, but that was pretty much a given).
And here I was, hoping that there would be some good news. Now, I’m no industry expert, but when you hold an industry panel at the largest pop-culture convention in the country, conventional wisdom (no pun intended) would suggest bringing your biggest announcements to the table, not dodging questions (Kodansha!) or (intentionally?) running out the clock so there’s no Q & A time (VIZ!).
In summation, to say I was disappointed would be a vast understatement. I can only hope that New York Comic-Con will restore my faith in Viz, Kodansha and Yen Press (since there are no industry panels at Otakon for any of the publishers mentioned above).