With New York Comic Con just around the corner, we are seeing a flurry of announcements from publishers about licenses and digital deals. JManga announced on Friday that they are adding Kodansha manga to their digital service, and so far that seems to mean the series that were previously published by Del Rey and not picked up by Kodansha Comics, the U.S. arm of Kodansha. The series up there right now include School Rumble, Code:Breaker, Pumpkin Scissors, Princess Resurrection, Pastel, and The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls. ANN went to JManga and asked the obvious question: Yes, they will be publishing the volumes that weren’t released in English as well.
And Seven Seas announced three new licenses: The Sacred Blacksmith, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy; Kanokon, a harem comedy; and Zero’s Familiar, a fantasy romantic comedy.
Here’s my roundup of the past week’s new manga releases at MTV Geek. Sean Gaffney looks ahead to this week’s new releases at A Case Suitable for Treatment.
Sean also posts a handy guide for readers who want to see more manga being licensed—he lists which publishers are most likely to publish which manga.
Jason Thompson looks at Moyoco Anno’s Flowers and Bees in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.
Erica Friedman has a big announcement in this week’s edition of Yuri Network News: ALC has published Rica Takashima’s Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, and it’s available to read for free online.
Volume 7 of Sailor Moon and vol. 58 of Naruto were the top two graphic novels in the bookstore market last month, according to BookScan. Vol. 11 of Yotsuba&! took the number six slot in the chart, and vol. 2 of Alice in the Country of Clover was number nine. That’s in the brick-and-mortar world; at Manga Bookshelf, Matt Blind calculates the top-selling manga via online sales for the week ending September 30.
Fantagraphics has posted a 23-page preview of Heart of Thomas.
News from Japan: AstroNerdBoy catches up with the latest chatter on Ken Akamatsu. GTO creator Tohru Fujisawa is one of the minds behind a webcomic adaptation of the tokusatsu show Space Sheriff Gavan, which will debut a few days before the live-action movie. The first episode of a new series by Kaiji Kawaguchi, the creator of Eagle and Zipang, will appear in the first 2013 issue of Kodansha’s Morning (available December 6). The goddess Athena will go to middle school in Chū-2-Shin Attēna, a gag manga by Kōji Ōishi that will run for three episodes in Young Jump. Champion RED magazine will run the epilogue to Shin Mazinger Zero in their January issue.
Reviews
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 5 and 6 of Ai Ore! (ANN)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz (ANN)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Angelic Layer (Blogcritics)
Dan Polley on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinagami (Manga Village)
Kristin on vols. 44 and 45 of Bleach (Comic Attack)
Michael Buntag on vol. 7 of Black Lagoon (NonSensical Words)
Theron Martin on vol. 20 of Claymore (ANN)
Drew McCabe on chapter 1 of Cross Manage (Comic Attack)
Jessi Silver on vol. 2 of Dr. Slumpp (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 10 of Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vols. 1 and 2 of Give My Regards to Black Jack (The Manga Critic)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 17 of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time (ANN)
Shannon Fay on vol. 7 of Highschool of the Dead (Kuriousity)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries (ANN)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Message to Adolf (Experiments in Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 10 of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (ANN)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Oh My Goddess (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 64 of One Piece (The Comic Book Bin)
Chris Beveridge on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (The Fandom Post)
Clare Stewart on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (Forbidden Planet)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Polterguys (Read About Comics)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Okazu)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 29 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Philip Anthony on vol. 6 of Sailor Moon (Manga Bookshelf)
Laura on Sakuran (Heart of Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 29 of Skip Beat! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 8 of The Story of Saiunkoku (The Fandom Post)
Kate Haddock on Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (The Collegian)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 14 of Vampire Knight (ANN)
Victoria Martin on vol. 19 of xxxHoLiC (Kuriousity)