MangaBlog

A big thank you to everyone who has commented over the past few days about where they like to buy manga, and what manga would entice them into a special trip to a comics shop. Unfortunately, Johanna Draper Carlson doesn’t think you are the sort of customers a comics shop wants. Boo! It is true, though, that the shopkeeper probably wants to stock what sells—the popular titles—while the customer may be going to a specialty comics shop precisely in order to find books that are not available in chain bookstores. Since manga readers are not likely to fall for that thing Western comics readers do, pre-ordering their comics in advance sight unseen, shop owners are left with a certain amount of risk.

I picked the best manga from a slim selection of this week’s new releases at MTV Geek.

Erica Freidman gives the JManga site a thorough workout, and while she admits her biases (her publishing company ALC partners with JManga to publish yuri manga), she makes a lot of good points, and she provides individual reviews of a number of manga titles on the site.

David Brothers pens a lovely essay on Twin Spica and the nostalgia it evokes for the stargazing boy he once was.

AstroNerdBoy has some thoughts on the end of Negima, which has just ended in Japan.

News from Japan: Barefoot Gen is being used as a textbook for elementary school students in Hiroshima. Tozen Ujiie will start a new series in Kodansha’s Magazine Special next month. Flex Comics has put the comedy Hyakko on hold without warning or much of an explanation.

Reviews

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 19 of 20th Century Boys (The Comic Book Bin)
Danica Davidson on vol. 8 of Butterflies, Flowers (Graphic Novel Reporter)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 6 of The House of Five Leaves (The Fandom Post)
angela Eastman on vol. 7 of Kamisama Kiss (The Fandom Post)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 27 of Skip Beat! (ANN)
Ash Brown on A Zoo in Winter (Experiments in Manga)

In response to the ICv2 article we linked to yesterday, comics retailer Todd Merrick says he has seen a small increase in manga sales in his store, and he hopes to build on that. Part of the problem for retailers is not knowing which manga to stock, so he’s sticking with the popular titles for now.

That actually raises an interesting question: You can buy Naruto anywhere, but Twin Spica is hard to find in a bookstore—I would make a special trip for that, but I can see the opposite point of view as well—retailers want to stock what sells. So let me throw this question to the readers: Which manga would entice you to do your shopping in a comic shop?

At Manga Worth Reading, Ed Sizemore rounds up the first day’s worth of contributions to the Jiro Taniguchi Manga Moveable Feast.

Reviews

Kate Dacey on Benkei in New York (The Manga Critic)
Kristin on Bleach Official Character Book 2: Masked (Comic Attack)
Ken Haley on vol. 2 of Erementar Gerade (Sequential Ink)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Kodoku no Gourmet (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Phillip Anthony on vol. 2 of Sailor Moon (Manga Bookshelf)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-4 of Shiki Tsukai (Manga Xanadu)
Anna on vol. 27 of Skip Beat (Manga Report)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Soulless (ICv2)

ICv2 finds an interesting trend in comics sales: Sales of manga in comics shops have gone up in the past year. As those of us who have tried to buy manga in the local capes-and-tights emporium well know, many comics shops are not friendly to manga, but they do have the ability to offer books you can’t find in Barnes & Noble (which seems to have shrunk its graphic novel section drastically, at least in the store I visit). Borders had a huge selection of manga and catered to a wide variety of tastes, and ICv2 points out that the demise of the chain could be an opportunity for comics retailers. While a lot of folks buy their manga online, you can’t replace the immediacy of picking up the book in your hands and buying it right away, and a comic shop would be a great venue for that—if they have the foresight to stock the books.

Lissa Pattillo gives us a bit of background on Digital’s new licenses at Kuriousity.

Matt Blind looks at the manga best-sellers from the week of Feb. 19.

Time for another peek inside a Japanese manga magazine: Three Steps Over Japan takes a look at Weekly Manga Times.

Reviews: Ash Brown takes us briskly through a week in manga at Experiments in Manga.

Erica Friedman on the March issue of Comic Yuri Hime (Okazu)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of The Earl and the Fairy (Comics-and-More)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 1 of Hana-Kimi (omnibus edition) (The Comic Book Bin)
Drew McCabe on vols. 54 and 55 of Naruto (Comic Attack)
Philip on vol. 2 of Wandering Son (Eeeper’s Choice Podcast)

Erica Friedman adds an op-ed page to this week’s Yuri Network News with her commentary on the CBLDF manga case, Apple and Amazon’s content restrictions, and the difficulty of selling yuri manga in print.

Ed Sizemore kicks off the Manga Moveable Feast at Manga Worth Reading. This month’s featured creator is Jiro Taniguchi, and Ed hosts a review of Taniguchi’s The Walking Man by JE Latosa.

Johanna Draper Carlson looks at the most promising manga from this month’s batch of new releases.

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their pick of the week.

Lissa Pattillo has some background on Viz’s latest license rescue, 07-Ghost, as well as the news that Amazon is carrying listings for omnibus editions of the early volumes of Loveless. Yen Press announced at NYCC last year that it had rescued Loveless, but they only revealed plans to publish the volumes not already published by Tokyopop, so this is something new.

Connie continues her look at the Eroicaverse (the world of From Eroica with Love) with an article about Der Freischütz, a side story from 1982.

Matt Blind compiles another list of manga best-sellers, looking at online sales, from mid-February. Six of the top ten volumes are Sailor Moon or Codename Sailor V.

News from Japan: As Skip Beat celebrates its 10th anniversary, there are 10 million copies of its 30 volumes in print in Japan. A new Devilman spinoff, Devilman G, will be previewed in the May issue of Champion RED. And Kotaku catches a blooper in the latest issue of Comic Yurihime.

Reviews: The Manga Bookshelf team kicks off the week with a new set of Bookshelf Briefs. Other reviews of note:

Sweetpea616 on Angel Gunfighter (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Chobits (omnibus edition) (Blogcritics)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of The Earl and the Fairy (Comics Worth Reading)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of The Earl and the Fairy (Manga Village)
Philip on vols. 1-4 of Kingyo Used Books (Eeeper’s Choice Podcast)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 7 of Library Wars (The Comic Book Bin)
Dan Morrill on Nadesico (Comics Forge)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 9-11 of Natsume’s Book of Friends (ANN)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 13 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Swan (Blogcritics)

It was bad news, then good news for Digital Manga, which was informed earlier this week that Amazon was suspending their Kindle account. Digital has been publishing quite a bit of manga in digital format, including Kindle, so this would be a blow to them and their readers; furthermore, as they point out in their blog post, there is a lot of other adult content on Amazon that doesn’t seem to be threatened. The good news is that they were informed yesterday that their account has been restored, although Amazon cautioned that it could be terminated at any time if their content violates Amazon’s guidelines.

Sean Gaffney looks forward to next week’s new manga. And Lori Henderson has the list of this week’s all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

License rescue news! Viz has confirmed with ANN that they have licensed 07-Ghost, a shonen fantasy series that was originally published in English by Go! Comi. Lori Henderson explains why that’s awesome at Manga Xanadu.

Jason Thompson takes on Pretty Face, the story of a boy who fell in love with a girl—and woke up looking like her twin sister—in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN. Thompson also guests on the ANNcast, talking about his years as a manga editor, his own graphic novels, and what he thinks of the industry now.

The next Manga Moveable Feast is coming up; it will feature the work of Jiro Taniguchi and will be hosted at Manga Worth Reading.

Anna has been checking out some manga-themed podcasts at Manga Report.

AstroNerdBoy looks at the fates of several different series and wonders whether bad endings or the time lag between Japanese and U.S. publication hurt some manga.

Derek Bown’s latest Combat Commentary focuses on a recent chapter of One Piece.

In case you were wondering what Stu Levy has been up to since the implosion of Tokyopop, here is an L.A. Times article about his experiences during and after the Japan earthquake and the movie he made about it.

Manga fan Neokitty shows off her manga stash to The Manga Critic.

If you’re heading to WonderCon this week—or maybe just thinking about it—Deb Aoki has a rundown of the attractions for manga and anime lovers.

Kanata Konami, the creator of Chi’s Sweet Home, will make her first North American appearance at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May.

News from Japan: Ai Kano has announced a spinoff to Your and My Secret, which will run as a webcomic on Mag Garden’s Web Comic Beat and will feature the four main characters from the original story.

Reviews: Melanie Valdivieso, Tommy Pfeiffer and Omar Valdivieso post some quick reviews of recent manga at About Heroes. Other reviews of note:

Anna on vol. 7 of Blade of the Immortal (Manga Report)
Leroy Douresseaux on Bleach MASKED: Official Character Book 2 (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vols. 2 and 3 of A Bride’s Story (The Manga Critic)
Jocelyne Allen on Chokodoshujin (Brain Vs. Book)
Anna on vol. 3 of Dawn of the Arcana (Manga Report)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of The Earl and the Fairy (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-choume (Okazu)
Anna on vol. 12 of Otomen (Manga Report)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Poor Poor Lips (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 3 of Sailor Moon (ANN)
TSOTE on vol. 21 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (Three Steps Over Japan)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 20 of Slam Dunk (The Comic Book Bin)
Tony Yao on solanin (Manga Therapy)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Soulless (Comic Attack)

As manga readers are well aware, Canadian customs views all comics, and especially manga, with great suspicion. Two years ago, Ryan Matheson was detained at the Ottawa airport and ultimately arrested and charged with criminal possession of child pornography because of a manga image on his computer. Today, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund announced that the Crown has dropped all criminal charges in the case. Check out my article at CBR for all the details, and I’ll be back tomorrow with the regular roundup.