I’m back from an incredible weekend at MangaNEXT; watch for news, interviews, and all sorts of interesting features in the next couple of days. I posted the big license news at Robot 6 already: Vertical announced two new licenses, The Limit, by Life creator Keiko Suenobu, and Heroman, which is based on a plot by Stan Lee.
Also: I reviewed Viz manga on the Nook at MTV Geek.
Lissa Pattillo takes a look at the past week’s new manga in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA.
Kate Dacey rounds up the Day 5 links for the Tezuka-flavored Manga Moveable Feast at The Manga Critic, and she also posts a transcript of a fascinating discussion about sex and gender in Tezuka’s manga. Connie posts her own Tezuka Index at Slightly Biased Manga. Vertical marketing director Ed Chavez joins Ed Sizemore and Johanna Draper Carlson for a discussion of “Tezuka for adults” on the latest Manga Out Loud podcast. At All About Manga, Daniella Orihuela-Gruber talks about her dream of someday publishing Tezuka’s Rainbow Parakeet, and at PLAYBACK:stl, Jason Green channels his Tezuka-lovin’ 18-year-old self.
Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss Princess Knight in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.
Cast your vote for the best new manga, shoujo manga, and shonen manga in Deb Aoki’s Readers Choice Awards at About.com.
Daniel BT looks at Encounter, a series that was advertised in the pages of Raijin magazine but never ran there.
Digital Manga rounds up the past week’s new digital releases.
Translator Tomo Kimura has some notes on vol. 7 of Kamisama Kiss.
News from Japan: The French site Manganews reports that Kaiji Kawaguchi and journalist Osamu Eya will collaborate on Ore Shika Inai – Kuroi Nami wo Norikoete, about last year’s earthquake in Japan. It will run in Big Comic. Mashashi Tanaka will start drawing Gon again after ten years away from it. Three Steps Over Japan looks at a fairly new magazine AltimaA. And this could be big news: The president of Kodansha announced that the company would begin some same-day print/digital releases, although it is not clear from any of the news reports I saw that he was talking specifically about manga. Perhaps someone who can read Japanese could add some clarity to this?
Reviews
Lori Henderson on Apollo’s Song (Manga Xanadu)
Matthew Warner on vol. 38 of Bleach (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 4 of Blue Exorcist (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 5 of Bokurano: Ours (Slightly Biased Manga)
Justin on The Book of Human Insects (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Connie on vol. 11 of Cipher (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Close the Last Door (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Cold Trilogy 01: Cold Sleep (Slightly Biased Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 6 of Cross Game (ANN)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-5 of Dazzle (Manga Xanadu)
Connie on vol. 8 of Dengeki Daisy (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Dororo (Experiments in Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 17 of Fairy Tail (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 2 of Gravitation (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on vol. 8 of Jormungand and vol. 19 of 20th Century Boys (Comic Attack)
Voitachewski on Junji Ito’s La Maison de Poupées (in French) (du9)
Connie on vol. 11 of Mars (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sweetpea616 on MW (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Connie on vol. 7 of Natsume’s Book of Friends (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 33 of Negima! (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Kristin on vol. 3 of No Longer Human (Comic Attack)
Joy Kim on vols. 56-60 of One Piece (Joy Kim)
Danica Davidson on vol. 1 of Only Serious About You (Otaku USA)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1 and 2 of Princess Knight (Manga Xanadu)
Anna on vol. 2 of Princess Knight
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Psyren (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on vol. 6 of Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari (Okazu)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 12 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (The Fandom Post)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Sugar Sugar Rune (Blogcritics)
Matthew Warner on vol. 11 of Twin Spica (The Fandom Post)
Connie on Want to Depend on You (Slightly Biased Manga)
“The president of Kodansha announced that the company would begin some same-day print/digital releases, although it is not clear from any of the news reports I saw that he was talking specifically about manga. Perhaps someone who can read Japanese could add some clarity to this?”
He was referring to the entire line of Kodansha books, including, but not limited to, manga.
All the stories I’ve seen only about what the Kodansha president said only talked about setting up the capability to do simaltaneous digital releases for all new print books beginning in June.
No specific references to manga, or magazines for that matter, that I saw.