MangaBlog

Patrick Macias writes about a new computerized manga creation system that is causing great excitement in Japan.

Lori Henderson sums up this week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu, and Erica Friedman posts the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

David Welsh really knows how to get a conversation started. This time, he asks his readers which manga they have read the most volumes of, and he gets plenty of responses.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi takes a quick look at some shonen manga at Manga Bookshelf and Michelle Smith does the same at Soliloquy in Blue.

Lissa Pattillo on vols. 1-3 of Black Gate (omnibus edition)
Andre on vols. 1 and 2 of Bokurano: Ours (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 2 of Bokurano: Ours (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 5 of Bride of the Water God (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kris on vol. 1 of Brilliant Blue (Manic About Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Chobits (omnibus edition) (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 7 of Cipher (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on Crushing Love (I Reads You)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Dengeki Daisy (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on vol. 11 of The Gentlemen’s Alliance + (Comics Village)
Connie on vol. 5 of Kimi ni Todoke (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Knights of the Zodiac (Slightly Biased Manga)
Jennifer LeBlanc on Loud Snow (The Yaoi Review)
Connie on vol. 1 of Maoh: Juvenile Remix (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of March Story (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 1 of Story of Saiunkoku (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on The Vampire Knight Official Fanbook (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on vol. 6 of Yuri Hime Wildrose (Okazu)

Oops! Vertical, Inc., announced at NYCC/NYAF that it had the license for Usumaru Furuya’s No Longer Human, but the company seems to have jumped the gun a bit:

Due to a communication error between the company’s New York and Tokyo offices, the property was falsely presented as slated for publication. While the licensors for this series and Vertical are currently actively in contract negotiations, the North American rights have not been secured. Vertical, Inc. will continue to work with the rights holders for No Longer Human with hopes to properly acquire the license, and it apologizes to all parties involved in this unfortunate and unintentional error.

Also, Tokyopop will be publishing its Blu manga on Digital’s eManga site. This isn’t the first time manga publishers have crossed boundaries like this—Yaoi Press also publishes at eManga—but it’s an interesting experiment. The books will be $5.99, cheaper than print editions but dearer than eManga’s other offerings. (Although Melinda Beasi points out in comments that if you consider the rent-to-own model, it’s not that much more expensive.) Rob McMonigal has some thoughts.

Both Dark Horse and Yen Press announced at NYCC/NYAF that they would be building their own digital platforms, rather than hopping onto something like comiXology; Lori Henderson thinks that’s a bad idea.

Asako Suzuki, who was responsible for licensing some of my favorite manga as the editor director of manga at CMX, is back in the biz—her Facebook now lists her as a manga line editor at Tokyopop.

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

Melinda Beasi inaugurates a new feature, Three Things Thursday, with a look at some good shoujo manga. David Welsh chimes in with three of his favorites at The Manga Curmudgeon.

David also posts his weekly license request: Yuu Watase’s Sakura-Gari, which is very different from her other work.

Jason Thompson looks at Gold Ring (Siwari Al-Dhahab), a collaboration between a United Arab Emirates writer and a Japanese artist.

At Kuriousity, Shannon Fay continues her Halloween-themed roundup with a look at Cowa!

NYCC/NYAF news: Alex Leavitt posts full audio of the Anime in Academia panel, featuring Casey Brienza, Mikhail Koulikov, and Jennifer Fu. Ed Sizemore has posted his con report at Comics Worth Reading (part 1, part 2)

Reviews

Alexander Hoffman on The Color of Earth, The Color of Water, and The Color of Heaven (Manga Widget)
Kristin on vol. 21 of Hikaru no Go (Comic Attack)
Erica Friedman on vol. 5 of Octave (Okazu)
Tom Spurgeon on the October issue of Shonen Jump (The Comics Reporter)
Victoria Martin on solanin (Manga Life)

Jason Thompson devotes his entire House of 1000 Manga column this week to manga about Jesus.

Gottsu-Iiyan posts the last part of his translation of the conversation between Eiichiro Oda (One Piece) and Takehiko Inoue (Vagabond, Slam Dunk).

Kate Dacey, Sean Gaffney, and David Welsh look at this week’s new manga, and Melinda Beasi makes her Pick of the Week.

Attention Kodansha! If you’re wondering what North American fans would like to see you license, check out this open thread at The Manga Curmudgeon. That is all.

Erica Friedman introduces us to Feel Young magazine at MangaCast; you may never have heard of it, but I’ll bet you have read something from its contributors.

According to Deb Aoki, Ultimo manga-ka Stan Lee is going to team up with Yoshiki to create a “motion manga.”

NYCC/NYAF news is still trickling in. Lissa Pattillo has the lowdown on the Dark Horse panel at Kuriousity, and Deb Aoki ably sums up the Yen Press panel. Casey (a.k.a. Kethylia) lists her higlights and lowlights of the event. And here are some “General Impressions” from the Reverse Thieves. At Manga Therapy, Tony Yao notes that NYAF was a minor part of the whole show and wonders if its days are numbered.

Lit Crit of the day: Alex Hoffman considers the metafiction of solanin, comparing it to J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man.

‘Tis the season: Lori Henderson updates her list of Halloween manga at Manga Xanadu, and she looks at some series that feature tricks (rather than treats). At Kuriousity, Shannon Fay counts down to Halloween with 13 supernatural manga, including Sugar Sugar Rune and D.Gray-Man.

Ryan posts some videos of Shintaro Kago working on his latest manga at Same Hat.

Alex Woolfson has some preview pages of Your Brother’s Keeper up at Yaoi 911.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber asks her readers where they find their anime-manga community, and she also bemoans the impecunious life of a freelance editor.

Erin Finnegan is compling a holiday gift guide and she needs your help. Yes, you!

News from Japan: Manga-ka Shintaro Miyawaki has died. A new manga magazine, Monthly Comic Zenon, will be launching soon with many of the creators who once graced the pages of Comic Bunch. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Carlo Santos rounds up some recent manga in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi discuss some recent releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Julie Opipari on vol. 5 of 13th Boy (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Kate Dacey on The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography (The Manga Critic)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 11 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of 7 Billion Needles (Read About Comics)
Carl Kimlinger on vols. 15-17 of Air Gear (omnibus edition) (ANN)
Connie on vol. 2 of Bakuman (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vol. 2 of Bakuman (Soliloquy in Blue)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of Black Butler (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Eduardo Zacarias on vol. 9 of Black Lagoon (Animanga Nation)
Michelle Smith on vol. 3 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Soliloquy in Blue)
Tangognat on Cowa! (Tangognat)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Cross Game (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Cross Game (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Tangognat on vol. 6 of Detroit Metal City (Tangognat)
Carlo Santos on vol. 2 of Dorohedoro (ANN)
Emily on A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Connie on vol. 1 of Evil’s Return (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1 and 2 of Hellsing (Manga Xanadu)
Connie on vol. 21 of Hikaru No Go (Slightly Biased Manga)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of House of Five Leaves (Comics-and-More)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of House of Five Leaves (ANN)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 17 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Comics Worth Reading)
Kristin on vol. 2 of In the Walnut (Comic Attack)
Animemiz on I.O.N. (Anime Diet)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Jormungand (Okazu)
Kelakagandy on vols. 4 and 5 of Kimi ni Todoke (kelakagandy’s ramblings)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 6 of Maid-Sama! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Brian Ruh on Manga: Masters of the Art (ANN)
Leroy Douresseaux on Odd Is on Our Side (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 55 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vols. 3-5 of Orange Planet (omnibus edition) (The Comic Book Bin)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Otodama: Voice from the Dead (Sequential Ink)
Charles Webb on vol. 2 of Peepo Choo (Manga Life)
Michelle Smith on vols. 1-3 of Planetes (Soliloquy in Blue)
Erica Friedman on Princess Princess (Okazu)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Renai Joshika (Okazu)
Tangognat on vols. 5 and 6 of Shinobi Life (Tangognat)
Zack Davisson on vol. 6 of Shinobi Life (Japan Reviewed)
Alexander Hoffman on solanin (Comics Village)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 3 of Stepping on Roses (ANN)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Soliloquy in Blue)
Caddy C. on vol. 3 of Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (A Feminist Otaku)
Ken Haley on vol. 5 of Vampire Hunter D (Sequential Ink)

Hey all, I’m back from NYCC/NYAF—sorry about the hiatus, but the con was busier than I expected. I had so many commitments that I didn’t make it to either of the manga publishers’ panels, but fortunately a good portion of the manga blogosphere was there, and they got you covered.

The fact that there were only two manga publisher panels gave me a bit of pause. Neither Viz nor Tokyopop showed up at the Javits Center, and the smaller yaoi publisher Digital was also absent. Kodansha, which is taking its licenses back from Del Rey, did not offer a panel, although the panel was not pulled at the last minute, as some people thought.

At the ICv2 conference before the show, Milton Griepp delivered a white paper that was sort of a progress report on the industry so far. His figures show manga sales down for the third year in a row, with sales down 20% in the first half of the year and 50% over the past three years. That article I just linked to is well worth reading in full, by the way, because the white paper offers a lot of food for thought.

Vertical announced two new manga series to its lineup, Osamu Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects (Ningen Konchuki) and Usumaru Furuya’s No Longer Human (Ningen Shikaku). Deb Aoki and Lissa Pattillo were there and provide exhaustive coverage.

The big news at the Yen Press panel is that they are rolling out their own digital manga system. No new Japanese licenses were announced, but artist Svetlana Chmakova will wind up her work on Nightschool in order to draw an adaptation of James Patterson’s Witch & Wizard, and Yen also plans to adapt Gail Carriger’s young adult novels into manga form. Lissa Pattillo has coverage at Kuriousity.

Dark Horse also announced two manga, Bloodline Battlefront (Kekkai Sensen), by Trigun creator Yasuhiro Nightow, and Drifters by Hellsing creator Kohta Hirano, as well as the novel Shinjuku, Book 2—Azul, with illustrations by Vampire Hunter D artist Yoshitaka Amano. Deb Aoki was there, and so was I.

Other reporting:

Kai-Ming Cha’s roundup for PWCW
Deb Aoki’s photo gallery
Kate Dacey’s con report: Day 1, Days 2 and 3
Sean Gaffney’s con report: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
Erica Friedman posts the recommended reading list from the panel “Gay for You? Yaoi and Yuri Manga for GBLTQ Readers,” which was one of the highlights of the show
Melinda Beasi on manhwa at NYCC
Lissa Pattillo shows off her swag
Deb Aoki on the special superhero doujinshi created for the show.

Good morning! I’m heading out to New York Comic Con/New York Anime Fest this morning, so the blog will be late today. If you are going to the con and want to meet up, DM me via Twitter or send an e-mail to the address on the upper right In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I will be breathlessly reporting on the action..

Around the blogosphere everyone had something to say about the news that Kodansha was moving from licensing their manga to Del Rey to publishing their manga through their Kodansha USA division but having Random House (Del Rey’s parent company) help with editing, production, and distribution.

Deb Aoki wonders if Kodansha USA will be putting a bit more marketing muscle behind manga that are more popular in Japan than here, such as Moyasimon and Nodame Cantabile.

Christopher Butcher has harsh words for Kodansha’s American venture so far, and his reaction to yesterday’s announcement is “Disappointment bordering on dread.”

Lissa Pattillo thinks we should hold off on the dismal predictions, noting that we may see continuity in design and editing and an expanded range of titles… or then again, maybe not.

Kate Dacey thinks Kodansha should do a better job of communicating with fans. Seconded!

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has some advice for Kodansha USA.

ANN lists Del Rey’s remaining unfinished series.

A number of people point out that the Kodansha Comics website contains only the press release. This is disappointing but not that unusual; Yen Press didn’t have a working website until their books started coming out either. Publishers in general seem to understimate the importance of having a good website. The important thing is to get the Del Rey manga off the horrible Suvudu.com and onto their own website.

In other news and commentary:

Erica Friedman has an interesting piece at The Hooded Utilitarian asking which manga pass the Bechdel Test; she ends up asking Alison Bechdel herself for her opinion, and that in turn leads her to some deeper thoughts about the portrayal of women in comics in general, and the difference between the letter and the spirit of the Bechdel Test. David Welsh follows up with a discussion of both general issues and specific manga at The Manga Curmudgeon.

Melinda Beasi takes a look at manhwa at NYCC in her latest Manhwa Monday post.

Oliver Ho takes a fond look at Gon, the wordless dinosaur comic that was published not once but twice in the U.S.

Kaiji Kawaguchi shows how he draws a manga character from scratch in the latest video at Masters of Manga.

News from Japan: Big Comic Spirits is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a series of one-shots by well-known manga-ka, including Rumiko Takahashi and Taiyo Matsumoto. Hiroyuki Tamakoshi, who drew Boys Be… and Gacha Gacha, is working on a new series, Double Heroine.

Reviews

Julie Opipari on vol. 12 of Gantz (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tangognat on vols. 1-4, 6, and 8 of Kaze Hikaru (Tangognat)
Lori Henderson on vol. 7 of Mixed Vegetables (Comics Village)
Connie on vol. 1 of NG Life (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lexie on vol. 1 of Nightschool (Poisoned Rationality)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Pink Innocent (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 9 of Sand Chronicles (Comics-and-More)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 12 of Slam Dunk (Read About Comics)