MangaBlog

Kate Dacey has some summer reading suggestions in her latest Good Manga for Kids column.

Here’s the full press release on the three new series that Seven Seas announced yesterday: As predicted by ANN, they are ToraDora, Amnesia Labyrinth, and A Certain Scientific Railgun.

San Diego Comic-Con starts today, technically, with Preview Day. It can be a bit overwhelming, but fortunately, Deb Aoki is here to get your priorities straight with her list of the Top 20 manga must-sees at SDCC. ANN has a more comprehensive anime and manga fan’s guide to the weekend’s events. Meanwhile, Erica Friedman and David Welsh fantasize about manga licenses they would like to see (but probably won’t) at SDCC.

Kate Dacey and Brad Rice offer their suggestions for the best of this week’s new manga.

Matt Blind posts the past week’s comics rankings, based on online sales, at Rocket Bomber.

Here’s an interesting, longish post on the struggles of the Dutch-language manga industry in Belgium, where comics still are mainly for kids, and fans think of English as the natural language for anime and manga.

News from Japan: ANN brings news of some new manga from veteran manga-ka, with the creators of Hellsing and Venus Versus Virus, among others, launching new series in the near future.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi reviews Garden Dreams as part of Fumi Yoshinaga Week at Manga Bookshelf.

Emily on 1LDK ♥ Shitsuji (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Shannon Fay on Age Called Blue (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Black Butler (Manga Xanadu)
Sesho on vol. 2 of Blame! (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Zoey on Cute Devil (Manga Jouhou)
Charles Webb on Darker than Black (Manga Life)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 23 of Fullmetal Alchemist (The Comic Book Bin)
Zack Davisson on vol. 3 of Happy Cafe (Japan Reviewed)
Carlo Santos on vol. 26 of Negima! (ANN)
Sesho on vols. 3 and 4 of The Prince of Tennis (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 1 of Reversible (Comics Village)

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun

The sleuths at ANN think they have figured out the third Seven Seas license: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun), by Motoi Fuyukawa.

The Manga Village team looks over the past week’s new releases and makes their picks.

The last print issue of Yen Plus is on the stands. Nobody is sure what happens next…

Fumi Yoshinaga Week continues at Manga Bookshelf with Melinda Beasi’s review of All My Darling Daughters, and readers are invited to vote for their favorite continuing manhwa series in her latest Manhwa Monday post.

A Swedish manga translator has been fined for the offense of having child pornography, apparently manga samples he downloaded from the internet, on his hard drive. The usual issues get hashed over in this fairly complete news article, but it’s kind of interesting that the judge said the man didn’t need all of the 50 or so images he had, suggesting that just a few might be OK.

Reviews: Carlo Santos rips through a whole batch of new manga in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Other reviews of note:

Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of 13th Boy (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Kristin on vol. 9 of 20th Century Boys (Comic Attack)
Grant Goodman on vol. 33 of Berserk (Comics Village)
Connie on Black-Winged Love (Slightly Biased Manga)
Alexander Hoffman on vol. 1 of Bokurano: Ours (Comics Village)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Fairy Navigator Runa (Prospero’s Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Flower in a Storm (Slightly Biased Manga)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Hyde & Closer (Comics-and-More)
Julie Opipari on vol. 12 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Sophie Stevens on vol. 4 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Animanga Nation)
Michelle Smith on vols. 22-24 of One Piece (Soliloquy in Blue)
Laura on vol. 5 of Pig Bride (Heart of Manga)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 4 of Rasetsu (Manga Life)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 16 of S.A. (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Andre on vol. 23 of Yakitate!! Japan (Kuriousity)

Amnesia Labyrinth

New title guessing game: Seven Seas has three new titles to announce, and they are doing it in an unorthodox way: As puzzles via Twitter. Yesterday’s clues were “Anagram: ‘Toad Roar'” and “Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” ANN is taking this to mean that the title is Toradora. Their guess for today’s clues is Amnesia Labyrinth. Stay tuned for the third set of clues tomorrow.

At 4thletter!, David Brothers has posted insightful illustrated essays on manga creators Eiichiro Oda and Inio Asano, focusing on their work as writers.

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

Melinda Beasi is featuring the work of Fumi Yoshinaga all week long at Manga Bookshelf, and she kicks things off with a review of vols. 1-4 of Flower of Life.

Dale North finds manga at Wal-Mart and asks his readers: Are they doing it right? The comments reveal a wide range of responses.

This piece on the Wall Street Journal’s Japan Real Time blog doesn’t break any news about the anti-scanlator coalition, but it has some rather pointed quotes from Vertical editorial director Ioannis Mentzas, and it’s notable that the Wall Street Journal is following the story at all.

The JoongAng Daily News has a brief article about South Korean cartoonist Kim Sung-hwan, who started his career as a teenager, drawing quick sketches of the events of the Korean War.

Matt Blind is back at it again with his manga rankings based on online sales; here are his figures for last week, and you can trace back to earlier weeks if you’re interested.

Deb Aoki shows off a new Junko Mizuno print that the artist will be offering at San Diego Comic-Con next weekend—look for her at the Last Gasp booth. Deb also has the details on two SDCC events, Udon’s 10th anniversary and Vertical’s signing schedule (at SDCC and beyond, actually) for Peepo Choo creator Felipe Smith.

With summer intern season in full swing, Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has some advice for would-be manga interns.

News from Japan: Both Tenjho Tenge and Shugurui are coming to an end in Japan, and manga-ka Kimihiko Tsukuda, creator of the long-running newspaper strip Honobono-kun, has died at the age of 80. Erica Friedman reports on two shoujo series with yuri storylines, Blue Friends (which starts out yuri but may not end up that way) and Nobari no Mori no Otome-tachi.

Reviews

Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of Afterschool Charisma (Comics Should Be Good)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Bakuman (Read About Comics)
Sesho on vol. 1 of Blame! (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Kristin on vol. 2 of Butterflies, Flowers (Comic Attack)
Carlo Santos on vol. 5 of Detroit Metal City (ANN)
Julie Opipari on vol. 1 of Fairy Navigator Runa (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 5 of Fake (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Flower in a Storm (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 2 of Itazura Na Kiss (Comics Worth Reading)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 1 of Kobato (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 1 of Lone Wolf and Cub (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Maoh: Juvenile Remix (ANN)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 6 of Megatokyo (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Clive Owen on vol. 1 of Ninja Girls (Animanga Nation)
Daniella Orihuela-Gruber on Oishinbo (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 50 of One Piece (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Peepo Choo (The Manga Critic)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Peepo Choo (Sequential Ink)
Charles Webb on vol. 1 of Peepo Choo (Manga Life)
Carlo Santos on vol. 6 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (ANN)
Todd Douglass on vol. 2 of Spice and Wolf (Anime Maki)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 7 of Teru Teru x Shonen (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Ultimo (The Comic Book Bin)

Sean Gaffney takes an advance look at next week’s new manga.

Melinda Beasi, Danielle Leigh, and Michelle Smith continue their roundtable, The Nana Project, with a look at vols. 11 and 12 at Manga Bookshelf.

Jason Thompson’s latest House of 1000 Manga column is not to be missed—it’s a look at the classic Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga.

Christopher Butcher likes Twin Spica but fears the cover will put off potential readers. David Welsh, looks at two more manga, Library Wars and Code:Breaker, that are not well represented by their cover blurbs.

If you’re planning on going to San Diego Comic-Con next weekend, Kate Dacey makes it easy for you with a roundup of all the manga-oriented programming.

Reviews: EvilOmar pens some brief manga reviews at About Heroes.

Emily on 1-nen 5-kumi Ikimono Gakari (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of Black Lagoon (The Comic Book Bin)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Chi’s Sweet Home (ICv2)
Connie on vol. 3 of Crown of Love (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vol. 1 of Dengeki Daisy (Soliloquy in Blue)
Sesho on vol. 9 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Todd Douglass on vol. 4 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Anime Maki)
Justin Colussy-Estes on vol. 1 of Peepo Choo (Comics Village)
Liz Reed on vol. 1 of Raiders (Manga Life)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Stolen Hearts (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Tangognat on vols. 4 and 5 of Suppli (omnibus edition)
James Fleenor on vol. 1 of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World (Anime Sentinel)
Sandy Bilus on vol. 1 of Twin Spica (I Love Rob Liefeld)
Erica Friedman on vol. 13 of Yuri Hime S (Okazu)

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber picks the manga she’d like to read from this month’s new releases.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss lots of new manga in this week’s Off the Shelf feature at Manga Bookshelf.

Translators Alethea and Athena Nibley take the whole translation notes thing to the extreme in their latest Words of Truth and Wisdom column at Manga Life, leaving all the nouns in a passage in Japanese and then providing notes afterwards. It’s an interesting exercise.

A new reader checks out some shoujo manga in the latest Manga Out Loud podcast.

A reporter from the Mainichi Daily News visits the hometown of Gegege no Kitaro creator Shigeru Mizuki.

Reviews

Tangognat on vol. 1 of Afterschool Charisma (Tangognat)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Alice the 101st (Comic Attack)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-4 of Antique Bakery (Manga Xanadu)
Ken Haley on vols. 1 and 2 of Biomega (Sequential Ink)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Bokurano (Manga Widget)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Dengeki Daisy (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on vol. 8 of Goong (Comics Village)
Chris Zimmerman on vols. 34-36 of One Piece (cbs4.com)
Chris Zimmerman on vol. 3 of Soul Eater (The Comic Book Bin)
Bill Sherman on vol. 2 of Vampire Hunter D (Blogcritics)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Yuri Hime Selection (Okazu)

At The Eastern Edge, Gottsu-Iiyan presents part 2 of his translation of a joint interview with Takehiko Inoue and Eiichiro Oda, accompanied by illustrations from the latest chapter of Vagabond, which makes for a very sweet package.

Kate Dacey wouldn’t go hungry for any of this week’s new manga, but she does find a few that would suit her tastes. Interestingly, David Welsh and Brad Rice take a swing at this week’s list as well.

David Brothers has an interesting piece examining the theme of hate in Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto.

A Feminist Otaku looks at rivalry between the female characters in Skip Beat!

Blogging about blogging: Osmosis Online turns the tables and interviews Melinda Beasi about her life as a manga blogger.

Reviews: Kate Dacy posts short takes on recent volumes of Children of the Sea, Raiders, and Twin Spica at The Manga Critic.

Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Afterschool Charisma (ICv2)
Julie on vols. 1 and 2 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Zack Davisson on Disappearance Diary (Japan Reviewed)
Todd Douglass on vol. 3 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Anime Maki)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Neko Ramen (Prospero’s Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 54 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Otodama: Voices from the Dead (The Comic Book Bin)
Clive Owen on Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles (Animanga Nation)