Happy endings

Sean Gaffney looks ahead to next week’s new manga.

Jason Thompson takes a look at the early sports manga Harlem Beat in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith go shoujo—well, mostly—in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

At Blog of the North Star, Milo posts an exuberant appreciation of the pro-drunkenness, anti-vegetarian, anti-Japan’s-allies manga Toriko.

At The Grand Line, Greg translates Takuya Kimura’s interview with One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda; Kimura, who has been voted the Sexiest Man in Japan, is an unabashed One Piece fan.

Kate Dacey continues her Show Us Your Stuff series with a peek at the manga collection of “Calvinist otaku” Aaron.

News from Japan: Ken Akamatsu is winding up his long-running (37 volumes so far) series Negima!, and he is taking a brief hiatus before completing the last three chapters. Tite Kubo’s Bleach is heading into its final story arc. MM! is coming to an end this month. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: The About Heroes team files some brief reviews of recent releases, most (but not all) from Kodansha.

Lissa Pattillo on vol. 6 of Cross Game (Kuriousity)
Jason Yadao on vols. 1-3 of Genkaku Picasso (Otaku Ohana)
Chris Beveridge on vol. 1 of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan (The Fandom Post)
Kristin on vol. 7 of Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee (Comic Attack)
Joseph Luster on vol. 11 of Twin Spica (Otaku USA)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Wandering Son (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Matthew Warner on vol. 1 of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s (The Fandom Post)
TSOTE on Zombie Loan (Three Steps Over Japan)