Archives for November 2011

This week brings new volumes of Sailor Moon and Codename Sailor V and three very nice new volumes from Viz. Check out my take on this week’s new manga at MTV Geek.

Lissa Pattillo takes a look at next year’s lineup from Seven Seas, which includes several Victorian-mystery series.

At Manga Bookshelf, C.J. Thomas posts some helpful advice for getting manga on the cheap.

Reviews

Katherine Farmar on vol. 2 of Angelic Runes (Manga Village)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Chobits (Blogcritics)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Gate 7 (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Hikaru no Go (Blogcritics)
Kristin on not simple (Comic Attack)
Dave Ferraro on Princess Knight (Comics-and-More)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 4 of Saturn Apartments (The Comic Book Bin)
Kristin on Tesoro (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on vol. 13 of Vampire Knight (Manga Maniac Cafe)

In preparation for the launch of Shonen Jump Alpha, which will lag the Japanese Shonen Jump by just two weeks, Viz is ramping up their digital releases of the six affected series, releasing new volumes of Naruto and Bleach digitally ahead of print. I discuss the Naruto changes a bit at MTV Geek, and Deb Aoki has the details on Bleach, which include skipping ahead to a new story arc, at About.com.

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their Pick of the Week, and the Manga Village team checks out the best of the past week’s new releases.

The Manga Moveable Feast continues at Manga Widget, where your host Alex Hoffman, rounds up all the Day One posts on Natsume Ono.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, publishers are starting to put out suggested gift guides; Lissa Pattollo runs the Viz gift guide at Kuriousity.

Three Steps Over Japan continues its look at Japanese manga magazines with a peek at Morning Tsu, a spinoff of Weekly Morning.

Reviews: It’s a new week, so the Manga Bookshelf crowd has a new set of Bookshelf Briefs for us. Ash Brown takes us through a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Erica Friedman on The Book of Human Insects (Okazu)
Ken Haley on Breathe Deeply (Sequential Ink)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of The Drops of God (Comics-and-More)
Animemiz on Gate 7 (Anime Diet)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Love Hina (omnibus edition)
David Welsh on vol. 1 of Only Serious About You (The Manga Curmudgeon)
David Welsh on Tesoro (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 10 of Twin Spica (A Case Suitable for Treatment)

I rounded up the past week’s manga news at MTV Geek, and Erica Friedman updates us on all things yuri with a new edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu. Erica also wants to be sure we know all the place to find Yuricon, her publishing company, on the web.

Digital Manga, which often finds a different way to do things, caused a bit of controversy this week with their launch of a Kickstarter drive to reprint Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth. Lissa Pattillo and Johanna Draper Carlson discuss the pluses and minuses of this approach.

The Manga Moveable Feast gets under way this week, with Natsume Ono being the topic of this month’s discussion. Check the archive page at host blog Manga Widget for a complete list of MMF posts. Alex Hoffman starts off with an essay on The House of Five Leaves, and David Welsh adds links to some posts he has written on Ono at The Manga Curmudgeon.

Matt Seneca interviews Yuichi Yokoyama, the creator of Travel and Garden.

Dave Ferraro and Patrick Markfort launch manga week at Comics-and-More with a video discussion of Sailor Moon and Codename Sailor V.

Translator Tomo Kimura posts some translation notes on vol. 5 of Kamisama Kiss.

Reviews: The Manga Bookshelf bloggers review the Kodansha iOS app and a variety of manga available digitally in their latest Going Digital column. Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss a handful of recent releases in their Off the Shelf column, also at Manga Bookshelf.

Connie on vol. 1 of Black Knight (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sweetpea616 on Genshiken (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 2 of Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Pokemon Adventures: Diamond and Pearl (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 10 of Real (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 1 of Shadow Lady (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rebecca Silverman on Tesoro (ANN)
Connie on vol. 13 of We Were There (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of X (omnibus edition) (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of X (omnibus edition) (I Reads You)
Connie on X Zero (artbook) (Slightly Biased Manga)

Over at MTV Geek I take a look at this week’s new manga, and Lori Henderson has the list of this week’s new all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

ICv2 talks to Viz founder and CEO Seiji Horibuchi about many things, but I’ll save some time and just link to the part that’s about manga.

Digital Manga just unveiled its Digital Manga Store for the iPad; up till now, Digital was putting their yaoi manga on every platform but the iPad, so this is a logical move for them.

Matt Blind lists the manga best-sellers for the week ending October 30. Sailor Moon, Yotsuba&!, Vampire Knight—go figure!

Danica Davidson takes a look at the popularity of manga artbooks, and how American publishers view them, at Publishers Weekly.

Manga collector Jade shows off her collection to The Manga Critic.

David Welsh reaches the letter I in his alphabet of manga favorites.

News from Japan: Arina Tanemura is ending her exclusive agreement with Ribon magazine and striking out on her own, although she assures readers she will finish up Sakura Hime: The Legend of Princess Sakura before she goes. Police in the Gifu area arrested a 49-year-old office worker on suspicion of uploading manga using file-sharing software; his excuse was that he wanted to raise awareness of the title.

Reviews

Connie on vol. 14 of Black Jack (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 40 of Case Closed and vol. 18 of Slam Dunk (Manga Village)
Ash Brown on vol. 10 of Death Note (Experiments in Manga)
Connie on vol. 7 of Dengeki Daisy (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of The Drops of God (Comics Worth Reading)
Sarah Boslaugh on Gandhi: A Manga Biography (PLAYBACK:stl)
Connie on vol. 9 of Human Club (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on vols. 2 and 3 of Itsuwaribito (Manga Report)
Connie on vol. 4 of Itsuwaribito (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 4 of Kizuna (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ed Sizemore on Mechademia 5: Fanthropologies (Comics Worth Reading)
TSOTE on vol. 1 of Murder Princess (Three Steps Over Japan)
Kristin on vol. 1 of No Longer Human (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 18 of Please Save My Earth (Slightly Biased Manga)
David Welsh on vol. 1 of Princess Knight (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Erica Friedman on Private Lesson (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 3 of Recipe for Gertrude (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on Spotted Flower (by Genshiken creator Shimoku Kio) (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Bill Sherman on Stargazing Dog (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 5 of Tegami Bachi (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on Tesoro (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Tokyo Mew Mew (omnibus edition)

Lissa Pattillo checks out this week’s new manga releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Sean Gaffney is already looking at next week’s new manga, and David Welsh peers a bit further into the future with a look at the manga in the latest issue of Previews.

Fred Schodt and Helen McCarthy join Ed Sizemore to discuss Princess Knight in the latest Manga Out Loud podcast.

Jason Thompson devotes this week’s House of 1000 Manga column to Masayuki Fujihara’s mecha parody Dodekain.

Gottsu-Iiyan has returned to the keyboard, and he is translating an interview with Takehiko Inoue about his latest project, a book about the architect Gaudi.

News from Japan: The Japan Newspaper Museum juxtaposes contemporary newspaper articles about World War II with drawings by Shigeru Mizuki, who depicted his own experiences in Onward Toward Our Noble Deaths. Peach Girl manga-ka Miwa Ueda is starting a new series, Rokomoko. What’s Michael? creator Makoto Kobayashi has also just launched a new series, Ippon Gatana Dohyou Iri, set in the Edo period and based on Yū-Go Ōkuma’s new series in Young Champion magazine is Young Black Jack, a series that explores the early years of the outlaw surgeon created by Osamu Tezuka. Hobunsha is planning a new magazine, Manga Time Kirara Carino, that will include a series by Sunshine Sketch creator Ume Aoki. Hiroyuki Takai is working on a sequel to Shaman King, to be titled Shaman King -Flowers-. Two million copies of vol. 64 of One Piece were sold in just three days. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews

Zack Davisson on vol. 1 of Drifters (Japan Reviewed)
Erica Friedman on Himitsu no Recipe (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on Only One Wish and xxxHolic (Manga Xanadu)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 25 of Skip Beat! (ANN)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Yashakiden: The Demon Princess (Experiments in Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 10 of Yotsuba&! (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)

I got to sit down for a few minutes with Fairy Tail manga-ka Hiro Mashima at New York Comic-Con; check out my joint interview with ANN’s Crystal Hodgkins at MTV Geek.

X marks the spot when the Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their Pick of the Week. David Welsh is excited about this week’s new manga, which include the first volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight, and Lori Henderson has the list of the past week’s all ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

Erica Friedman posts the latest episode of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Vertical heard Connie’s license request before she even made it; they announced at NYCC that they would publish Moyoco Anno’s Sakuran. Check out her post at Slightly Biased Manga anyway to see why she thinks we’ll like it.

News from Japan: Sgt. Frog, Deadman Wonderland, and other Kadokowa Shoten titles will be available online with the launch of the digital magazine Kadokowa Nico Nico Ace on the Nico Nico Seiga site. The Bunny Drop Extra spinoff manga is coming to an end, as is the romantic comedy Issho ni Neyō yo (Let’s Sleep Together). Ice Blade (Jiraishin) creator Tsutomu Takahashi has a new diablo (akuma) series in the works for good! Afternoon magazine. Three Steps Over Japan takes a look at the seinen magazine Comic Ran. Crunchyroll has a photo feature on the Mansai-Kocha Manga Festival. And Japanator spots an action-packed hiring manga designed to lure interns to work for Platinum Games.

Reviews: Carlo Santos checks out Mardock Scramble, No Longer Human, and a fistful of other manga in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. The Manga Bookshelf team rounds up some recent releases in their latest Bookshelf Briefs column. Ash Brown reports on another week of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Connie on vol. 6 of Bakuman (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ken Haley on vol. 24 of Blade of the Immortal (Sequential Ink)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Cage of Eden (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Sweetpea616 on CLAMP School Detectives (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Kristin on vol. 5 of Cross Game (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 6 of Dengeki Daisy (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 6 of Dogs: Bullets and Carnage (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on GeGeGe No Kitaro (The Manga Critic)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 16 of InuYasha (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 6 of Itazura Na Kiss (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Junk (Slightly Biased Manga)
Amy Grockl on vol. 1 of K-ON! (Manga Village)
Erica Friedman on marriage black (Okazu)
Danica Davidson on vols. 11-13 of Monster (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of No Longer Human (Comics-and-More)
Connie on vol. 17 of Please Save My Earth (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 11 of Pokemon Adventures (Blogcritics)
Scott Spaziani on vol. 1 of Sailor Moon (Otaku in Review)
Danica Davidson on vols. 3 and 4 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Anna on vol. 5 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Manga Report)
Caleb Dunaway on vols. 1-3 of Toradora! (Guys Lit Wire)
Danica Davidson on vol. 1 of Witch & Wizard (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Erica Friedman on Yurikam (Okazu)