At The Comics Journal, Ryan Holmberg pens a fascinating piece on the effect of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on the manga industry. In addition to explaining how Japanese comics distribution works—and why the disaster hit it so hard—Holmberg also takes a close look at Suzuki Miso’s “The Day Japan and I Shook,” a journalistic manga about the industry and the aftermath of the disaster.
I checked out this week’s new releases at MTV Geek, and Lissa Pattillo does the same in her On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Always a step ahead, Sean Gaffney looks at next week’s new manga at A Case Suitable for Treatment.
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber counts up her manga and asks readers: How many volumes do you own? I’m probably in the same neighborhood as her, although a good part of my collection now is non-manga graphic novels.
Erica Friedman notes some new yuri titles at JManga.com. Also, if you read Italian, here’s an article about the upcoming Italian edition of Rica ‘tte Kanji!?
David Welsh notes that NPR devoted a Writer’s Almanac episode to Year 24 manga-ka Yumiko Ôshima.
News from Japan: Tohru Fujisawa’s GTO: Shonan 14 Days, the sequel to Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO), is coming to an end.
Reviews: Carlo Santos hands out a fistful of Cs in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi discuss three new manga from Kodansha in their Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf. Other reviews of note:
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 10 of Black Bird (The Comic Book Bin)
Anna on vol. 2 of Cardcaptor Sakura (omnibus edition)
Julie Opipari on vol. 2 of Highschool of the Dead (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Ai Kano on vol. 6 of Oishinbo a la Carte: The Joy of Rice (Animanga Nation)