New year, new look, new digs!

Happy new year! If you think things look a little different around here, you’re right: MangaBlog is now part of the Manga Bookshelf family of blogs, meaning I will be sharing internet space with my favorite manga bloggers—Kate Dacey, Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, David Welsh, and our fearless leader, Melinda Beasi. Melinda is an amazing webmaster (webmistress?) and I’m delighted that she will be handling all the technical bits that I don’t understand at all, and even better, I’m looking forward to participating in group discussions with my fellow Bookshelf bloggers.

Onward!

The second volume of Wandering Son is the highlight of this week’s new manga releases; Fantagraphics lists it as out next week, but ComicList listed it this week and Amazon shows it as available now. Crazy. The Manga Village team makes their picks, Lissa Pattillo surveys the latest manga in her On the Shelf column at Otaku USA, Lori Henderson has this week’s all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids, and Sean Gaffney, always one step ahead, is already looking at next week’s new manga.

We have many best-of-the-year lists! Deb Aoki lists her picks for the best continuing series of 2011, as well as the year’s big disappointments, and she also tallies the manga that the critics liked the best. Kate Dacey gives her top picks, plus a few near misses, at The Manga Critic. Ed Sizemore emerges from retirement to give his list of the best manga of 2011 at Comics Worth Reading. Victoria Martin gives her top five at Kuriousity. Erica Friedman posts her top ten yuri of 2011 at Okazu.

At The Manga Critic, Kate Dacey inducts five of this year’s series into her Manga Hall of Shame.

Derik Badman discusses some manga he enjoyed in 2011, including Nastume Ono’s House of Five Leaves.

Lori Henderson looks forward to 2012 with some thoughts on digital comics and managing her manga collection as well as an exhortation to JManga that I will second: Put some volume 2s on your site!!

It’s holiday time, and Jason Thompson relaxes with a look at Jiro Taniguchi’s Walking Man in this week’s House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Connie looks at manga that have a picture running across their spines at Slightly Biased Manga.

Three Steps Over Japan muses over whether Herge’s Tintin was one of Osamu Tezuka’s early influences.

Sean Gaffney rounds up the links for day one, days two and three, day four, day five, and day six of the Manga Moveable Feast, which features Sailor Moon. There are a lot of interesting articles, including Manga Bookshelf’s own Sailor Moon Roundtable, so go, click, read!

Meanwhile, Ash Brown is inviting everyone to participate in the next MMF, which will feature Usumaru Furuya.

Tell Ash Brown about your favorite magical girl manga, and you could win the first volume of Sailor Moon.

Erica Friedman made a last-minute trip to Winter Comiket; check out her photos and commentary here and here.

Reviews

Connie on Angel’s Coffin (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 8 of Arata: The Legend (ANN)
Connie on vol. 7 of Black Butler (Slightly Biased Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 16 of Black Jack (ANN)
Matthew Warner on vol. 37 of Bleach (The Fandom Post)
Sweetpea616 on vol. 3 of Cardcaptor Sakura (omnibus edition) (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Connie on vol. 9 of Cipher (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Cross Game (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 4 of ES: Eternal Sabbath (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 5 of Kobato (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 5 of Kobato (Kuriousity)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 1 and 2 of K-ON! (ANN)
Connie on vol. 3 of March Story (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vols. 7 and 8 of Mars (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rebecca Silverman on Mr. Convenience (ANN)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 9 of Natsume’s Book of Friends (The Fandom Post)
Zack Davisson on Oishinbo A La Carte (Japan Reviewed)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 6 of Oresama Teacher (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 3 of Please Please Me (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 3 of Pokemon Adventures Diamond and Pearl Platinum (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 1 of Pokemon Black and White (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Psyren (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 3 of Redmoon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Rumic Theater (Slightly Biased Manga)
TSOTE on Sayonara Nippon (Three Steps Over Japan)
Connie on vol. 2 of Shadow Lady (Slightly Biased Manga)
Jocelyne Allen on Tatsumi (Brain Vs. Book)
Connie on A Truthful Picture (Slightly Biased Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 8 of Twin Spica (ANN)

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Comments

  1. Ooh! Then I guess I’ll be the first commenter to welcome you here! :D

  2. Melinda's mom says

    It is so nice to read you here. I’m a fan of all of you though I don’t read much manga. Glad to find you here in the group. Yay!

  3. Recent reader, first time poster. A minor complaint: the green text looks a little too close to the standard black. Apart from that love these updates and stuff.

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