MangaBlog

Sean Gaffney hosts this week’s Manga Moveable Feast, which features After School Nightmare; the links are flying in, so click here for the complete list. And Sean chips in with his own review of vol. 1.

What’s happening at Del Rey? At Kuriousity, Andre picks up on the latest ominous signs: no solicitations in the latest Previews, and no new titles on Amazon until 2013. Meanwhile, in today’s Manhwa Monday post, Melinda Beasi notes that the flow of manhwa has slowed to a trickle, with not too many new titles in the offing.

Deb Aoki collects the Twitter discussion on the alt-manga anthology AX, for the benefit of those who were doing something else this weekend. David Welsh also has the second part of the discussion at The Manga Curmudgeon.

Deb also posts a photo gallery of Moto Hagio and her work from Comic-Con.

Niki takes a quick look at the Japanese indy comics scene at MangaCast and wonders if someday Japan might have its own Small Press Expo.

News from Japan: Saiyuki manga-ka Kazuya Minekura has put the series on hiatus due to health problems, ANN reports.

Reviews: Carlo Santos takes on Hetalia, 7 Billion Needles, and Peepo Choo, along with a handful of other recent releases, in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Kate Dacey posts some short takes on new releases at The Manga Critic.

Julie Opipari on The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber on The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography (All About Manga)
Charles Webb on vol. 10 of 20th Century Boys (Manga Life)
Julie Opipari on The Amalfi Bride (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tangognat on Amber By Night (Tangognat)
Deb Aoki on Baseball Heaven (About.com)
Connie on vol. 6 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 2 of Bunny Drop (Comics Worth Reading)
Deb Aoki on A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (About.com)
Caddy C. on vol. 2 of Library Wars (A Feminist Otaku)
Bill Sherman on vol. 2 of Neko Ramen (Blogcritics)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-3 of Pig Bride (Manga Xanadu)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Urusei Yatsura (A Case Suitable for Treatment)

Deb Aoki takes a look at the first volume of Hetalia three ways, on the Zinio comics reader, on the comiXology reader, and in print, and finds that e-readers aren’t quite ready for unflipped manga. She also talks to comiXology CEO David Steinberger about his plans for publishing more manga via comiXology; while he’s rather coy, it’s hard to imagine that more manga aren’t in the offing.

ICv2 talks to Masaaki Shimuzu of Bitway, which will be bringng e-book manga to American readers.

The Japanese company Libre has confirmed that it has sent cease-and-desist notices to scanlation groups working in English.

Lori Henderson has a concise summary of the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu. Erica Friedman posts the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Paul Gravett discusses how manga reinvented comics.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has a fascinating look at the many faces of prostitution in manga.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith show and discuss some action scenes from Blame and Banana Fish in their latest Let’s Get Visual discussion at Soliloquy in Blue.

This month’s Manga Moveable Feast has begun, and the book under consideration is After School Nightmare. Bookmark this post at Sean Gaffney’s blog, and he will link to all the reviews from there. At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews vol. 1 of After School Nightmare and vols. 1 and 2 of X-Day, another work by the same author.

David Welsh curated and collected a discussion of the alt-manga anthology AX on Twitter on Friday and Sunday nights.

Jason Thompson, writer of Manga: The Complete Guide and The King of RPGs, is the special guest for the What Are You Reading? feature at Robot 6.

Kate Dacey points out that this is Banned Books Week, and she provides some resources, at The Manga Critic.

Matthew Larking of The Japan Times Online visits a show of Shigeru Mizuki’s drawings of yokai in Kobe.

Reviews

Gabe LaMonica on The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography (CNN Belief Blog)
Connie on vol. 10 of 20th Century Boys (Slightly Biased Manga)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of 7 Billion Needles (About.com)
Carlo Santos on vol. 4 of Alice in the Country of Hearts (ANN)
Connie on vol. 5 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Cynthia on Cake (Boys Next Door)
Theron Martin on Chibi Vampire: Airmail (ANN)
Melinda Beasi on vols. 1 and 2 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Bookshelf)
Cynthia on Cute Devil (Boys Next Door)
Connie on vol. 3 of Dokkoida?! (Slightly Biased Manga)
John Mitchell on A Drunken Dream and Other Stories (The North Adams Transcript)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 12 of Fairy Tail (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 23 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Slightly Biased Manga)
Billy Aguiar on .hack//Legend of the Twilight, The Complete Collection (Prospero’s Manga)
Cynthia on How to Control a Sidecar (Boys Next Door)
James Fleenor on vols. 1 and 2 of Mikansei No. 1 (Anime Sentinel)
Edouardo Zacarias on vol. 27 of One Piece (Animanga Nation)
Shannon Fay on Your Love Sickness (Kuriousity)

Deb Aoki interviews the publishers of ComicLoud, a new bilingual Japanese/English manga magazine that is being published on the Kindle.

Sean Gaffney previews next week’s new manga.

Lori Henderson has the list of this week’s new all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

Interesting and obscure old manga is kind of becoming a thing, isn’t it? Kate Dacey writes about Magical Mates, a little-known series from Antarctic, while Jason Thompson looks at Maniac Road, one more entry in the all-about-otaku genre.

Melinda Beasi leads a roundtable on vols. 7 and 8 of Banana Fish at Manga Bookshelf.

Reviews: Wow, Noah Berlatsky really doesn’t like Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories! Other reviews of note:

Serdar Yegulalp on vol. 1 of 7 Billion Needles (Genji Press)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 3 of Arata: The Legend (ANN)
Kristin on vol. 6 of Black Bird (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on Daniel and Daughter (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tangognat on vols. 1 and 2 of Demon Sacred (Tangognat)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of Gravitation (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Charles Webb on vol. 3 of Jack Frost (Manga Life)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Library Wars (Kuriousity)
Zack Davisson on vol. 6 of Maid Sama (Japan Reviewed)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 2 of Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture (Comics Worth Reading)
Mely on vols. 1-3 of Natsume’s Book of Friends (coffeeandink)
Shaenon Garrity on vol. 1 of The Qwaser of Stigmata (About.com)
Animemiz on Record of a Fallen Vampire (Anime Diet)
Erica Friedman on vol. 21 of Yuri Hime (part 2) (Okazu)

Atagoul

Tell it, Shaenon:

To be a truly irritating manga nerd, it’s important to obsess over at least one untranslated manga, boring people with long descriptions of its veiled glories and bitching about the myopia of the U.S. manga market and/or the unappreciative gaijin audience for allowing it to remain unlicensed. The more obscure (at least in the West), the better; anyone can wax regretful about the unavailability of The Rose of Versailles, but the epicure mourns for Train Journey or Wall Man or Honey Honey’s Wonderful Adventures. It keeps the lightweights in their place.

Her choice: Hiroshi Masumura’s Atagoul.

Tokyopop announced yesterday that it is releasing the first volume of Hetalia: Axis Powers through the comiXology app on the same day the print volume goes on sale in stores. Although they touted this as the first day-and-date digital manga release, that’s not strictly true: Hetalia has been available digitally for over a month via Zinio, and as Johanna points out, the real news is that Tokyopop is releasing their manga through comiXology—this seems to be the first manga in that app, which signals that some kind of a deal must have been made.

Watch Hideki Ohwada, the creator of The Legend of Koizumi, sketch former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in the latest Masters of Manga video.

The sharp-eyed folk at ANN have spotted three new BL titles from Digital Manga on Amazon: No One Loves Me (Darenimo Ai Sarenai), A Place in the Sun, and Honey Chocolate Pancakes (Mitsuiro Pancake).

David Welsh reaches the letter J in his seinen alphabet at The Manga Curmudgeon.

The word “hikikomori” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (UPDATE: An alert commenter says it’s the Oxford Dictionary of English, not the OED), which prompts translators Alethea and Athena Nibley to contemplate the practice of leaving words in Japanese rather than translating them.

Manga Therapy delves into the psychology of Pedobear.

Job board: Digital Manga is looking for an intern. Here’s the 411, sent to me by Lanny Liu:

Digital Manga is looking for a graphic design intern in the production department. The intern should be a student who would like to earn school credit and experience in the publishing world. They should also have a basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, along with some graphic design skills. Please send your resume and inquiries to career@emanga.com, with the subject line “Intern”.

Seraphim

News from Japan: The November issue of Monthly Comic Ryū magazine will include a “Satoshi Kon Memorial Book” containing several chapters of Seraphim: 2-Oku 6661-Man 3336 no Tsubasa (Seraphim: 266,613,336 Wings) a manga by the anime producer, who died last month. ANN also has the latst Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith look at four new titles from DMP at Manga Bookshelf.

Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Angelic Runes (Sequential Ink)
Tangognat on vol. 1 of The Antique Gift Shop (Tangognat)
Adam Stephanides on vols. 3 and 4 of Billy Bat (Completely Futile)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Bunny Drop (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Blog@Newsarama)
Connie on vol. 2 of Library Wars (Slightly Biased Manga)
Briana Lawrence on Love Lesson (Mania.com)
Shannon Fay on Tale of a White Knight (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on the September issue of Yen Plus (Manga Xanadu)
Erica Friedman on vol. 21 of Yuri Hime (part 1) (Okazu)

A federal appeals court has struck down two Oregon statutes that banned furnishing “sexually explicit” materials to minors and “luring” minors with such materials, saying both were too broad and could criminalize giving minors some works that have both adult content and redeeming value—including the manga Berserk. The court also name-checked Judy Blume in the decision, which said that while the laws intended to target hard-core pornography, the wording was simply too broad. The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of publishers and booksellers that included Oregon-based Dark Horse, and it was supported by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Kate Dacey, Brad Rice, and David Welsh look over this week’s new manga, while Melinda Beasi reveals her Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf.

Jason Thompson looks back on his epic Year of Manga, in which he posted about a manga every day and gave away his manga online. Apparently, giving away manga is harder than it seems, but he seems to have learned a lot about the quirks of human nature.

Melinda Beasi has a Tumblr, in case you want to see what she’s reading lately—or chime in with what you’re reading.

Atsuhisa Okura (Moe U.S.A.) explains how he draws faces in this video at the Manga University blog.

Helen McCarthy continues her notes on the pioneering Japanese creator Ippei Okamoto.

Udon has previews up of the latest volumes of Ninja Baseball Kyuma and The Big Adventures of Majoko.

News from Japan: Genshiken is coming back, as Genshiken II, to Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine.

Reviews

Danica Davidson on Alice the 101st (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Snow Wildsmith on Alley of First Love (Graphic Novel Reporter)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of Black Sun, Silver Moon (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Bokurano: Ours (The Comic Book Bin)
Danica Davidson on vols. 9-12 of Death Note (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Zack Davisson on vol. 1 of Hetalia: Axis Powers (Japan Reviewed)
Snow Wildsmith on vols. 1 and 2 of Honey Senior, Darling Junior (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Julie Opipari on vol. 16 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Mania.com)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of Itazura Na Kiss (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
AstroNerdBoy on Kitchen Princess (final thoughts) (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Julie Opipari on vol. 17 of Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 27 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles (Kuriousity)

New title watch: ANN confirms that Tokyopop will be publishing the BL title Crimson Snow under their Blu imprint and firms up the release date for the Chibi-Vampire: Bites fan book, and they also found listings for two new Pokemon manga from Viz.

Ed Sizemore and Deb Aoki bring some manga love to this week’s ANNCast podcast.

Melinda Beasi has the latest updates on manhwa and Korean drama in this week’s Manhwa Monday post.

Marc Bernabe’s latest video is of Tetsuya Chiba, the creator of Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe), discussing the death of his character Tooru Rikiishi, which hit readers so hard they had a real-life funeral for him, and his own realization of just how seriously readers took their manga.

David Welsh asks the readers what they think of the covers of Marvel’s Runaways and Vertical’s Twin Spica, and the readers respond with some interesting thoughts.

Matt Blind has this week’s manga rankings (online sales) at Rocket Bomber.

Four men have been arrested in Belgium in connection with the so-called “Manga Murder” case. It was almost three years ago that the Belgian police found body parts in a park in the city of Saint-Gilles; nearby, police found two notes that said “WATASHI WA KIRA DESS,” an apparent misspelling of the Japanese phrase “I am Kira,” a reference to the manga Death Note. Despite the exotic sound of the murder, the facts in the case were fairly mundane: It seems to be a roommate situation gone awry.

Here’s a recession special: Lissa Pattillo spots some 99-cent manga (all from Tokyopop) at BookCloseOuts.com.

Reviews: Caddy C. has some brief comments on manga she has been reading lately at A Feminist Otaku. Michelle Smith checks out three recent DMP manga at Soliloquy in Blue. Other reviews of note:

Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of 7 Billion Needles (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Liz Reed on vol. 3 of Bamboo Blade (Manga Life)
Kate Dacey on Crimson Cross and Tale of a White Knight (The Manga Critic)
Kristin on vols. 1 and 2 of Deadman Wonderland (Comic Attack)
Sean Gaffey on vol. 17 of Excel Saga (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Fairy Tail (I Reads You)
Dave Ferraro on Gente (Comics-and-More)
Deb Aoki on vol. 1 of Hetalia: Axis Powers (About.com)
Angela Eastman on vol. 1 of House of Five Leaves (Suite101.com)
Lori Henderson on vol. 16 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Comics Village)
Kinukitty on Scarlet (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Lori Henderson on the October issue of Shonen Jump (Manga Xanadu)
Tangognat on vols. 6 and 7 of We Were There (Tangognat)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesium (Okazu)