MangaBlog

The big news this weekend: DMP is using Kickstarter to raise funds for an English-language edition of Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara (1973-74). With 28 days to go, DMP has raised nearly $5,000 of the $6,500 it needs to bring the project to fruition. Readers curious about Barbara will find a lengthy summary and critical assessment at Tezuka in English. UPDATE: DMP has just exceeded the amount of money needed to publish Barbara.

Deb Aoki and Ed Sizemore join Zac Bertschy for a discussion of 2011’s best manga.

Over at Okazu, Erica Friedman posts her weekly Yuri News Network update.

News from Japan: Motoro Mase will be bringing Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit to an end this year with one final story arc. Mitsuba Takanashi, author of Crimson Hero and The Devil Does Exist, will be launching a new series in February. Called Kujaku no Kyōshitsu (Classroom of Peacocks), the story will focus on a school for children of the rich and famous, and will run in Bessatsu Margaret.

Reviews: Michelle Smith posts an early review of the much-anticipated Durarara!! manga. Her verdict? “Weird but intriguing.”

Rebecca Silverman on vols. 1-3 of Bunny Drop (Anime News Network)
Carlo Santos on vol. 7 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Anime News Network)
Anna on vol. 2 of Dawn of the Arcana (Manga Report)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 4 of Dorohedoro (The Fandom Post)
Julie Opipari on vol. 26 of Kekkaishi (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Sakura Eries on vol. 5 of My Girlfriend’s a Geek (The Fandom Post)
Sean Michael Robinson on Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Matthew Alexander on vol. 10 of Real (The Fandom Post)

“I’ll do my best!” — it’s the rallying cry of shonen manga characters, and my mantra for the next six days, as I fill in for Brigid while she takes a much-deserved vacation. If you spot any link-worthy news stories or reviews, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

The latest issue of GEN features a new story, Let’s Eat Ramen. From the description, Ramen sounds a bit like the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld, with a cute Japanese girl standing in for George Costanza.

Deb Aoki revises her list of ten essential shojo manga.

In the latest edition of Show Us Your Stuff, French comics enthusiast Gemini shares pictures of his extensive manga collection. His advice to frustrated otaku? “You should learn French,” he explains. “It’s easier than Japanese and we have a lot of different manga!”

Over at Manga Widget, Alex Hoffman has a license request: Kita Konno’s Tzusuki wa Mata Ashita (To Be Continued Tomorrow), a josei title about a family coping with loss.

Daniela Orihuela-Gruber just launched a new Tumblr blog, Ladies in Comic Book Stores. Her goal: to increase the visibility of female comic fans, and remind publishers that women are comics consumers, too.

Reviews
Connie on vol. 1 of Boys With Tomorrow to Conquer (Slightly Biased Manga)
Alex Hoffman on vols. 1-5 of Blue Exorcist (Manga Widget)
Matthew on Cafe Latte Rhapsody (No Flying No Tights)
Kate O’Neill on vol. 41 of Case Closed (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 8 of Future Diary (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on vol. 5 of House of Five Leaves (Comic Attack!)
John Rose on vol. 5 of Kobato (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 8 of Otomen (Slightly Biased Manga)
Nic on Pokemon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions (No Flying No Tights)
Connie on vol. 2 of Wild Adapter (Slightly Biased Manga)
Katherine Dacey on Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter (The Manga Critic)

Hey folks: Just a few quick links for today, because as you may have read on Twitter, I am in Ireland at the moment for a family wedding and have limited internet. Kate Dacey will be taking over for the next few days, so please make her feel welcome! I’ll be back at the end of next week. In the meantime…

I looked over this week’s new manga releases at MTV Geek, and I also took a look at the free digital issue of Shonen Jump Alpha that Viz has put up as a teaser for the new magazine, which debuts on Jan. 30.

At ANN, Jason Thompson takes a look at one of my favorite older series, ES: Eternal Sabbath, in his latest House of 1000 Manga column.

David Brothers spends a bit of time exploring a gag he really enjoys from One Piece at 4thletter!

Reviews

Rebecca Silverman on vol. 12 of Black Bird (ANN)
Matthew Warner on vol. 1 of Dawn of the Arcana (The Fandom Post)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Himawari-san (Okazu)
John Rose on vol. 54 of Naruto (The Fandom Post)
Anna on vol. 26 of Skip Beat! (Manga Report)
Rob McMonigal on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (Panel Patter)

Here’s the article you should be reading today, but set aside a bit of time, as it’s long: Ryan Holmberg’s fascinating piece on Akahon manga, the cheap precursors of today’s comics.

I joined my new Manga Bookshelf colleagues yesterday for a discussion of this week’s Pick of the Week.

At Manga Widget, Alex Hoffman looks back at some of the manga highlights of 2011. The Manga Village team takes a look back at 2011 as well.

Connie has a license request: Tokumu Sentai Shinesman, about a group of color-coordinated corporate spies.

Erica Friedman is just back from Comiket, and she shows off her purchases at Okazu.

News from Japan: Translator Tomo Kimura shows off some Black Butler extras. Est em, the creator of Seduce Me After the Show and Red Blinds the Foolish, has a new series in the works, titled Ippo, about a young man who makes fine shoes by hand. Hayate the Combat Butler creator Kenjirou Hata says that the series, which is about to go on hiatus, is about 60% complete. Three Steps Over Japan is curious about a Vagabond parody.

Reviews: The Manga Bookshelf team files the latest set of Bookshelf Briefs. It’s time for Ash Brown to present the latest week’s manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Kristin on vol. 5 of Afterschool Charisma (Comic Attack)
Sakura Eries on vol. 3 of Ai Ore (The Fandom Post)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Beauty Pop (Blogcritics)
John Rose on vol. 17 of Black Jack (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 26 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 8 of Jormungand (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on Kyudo Boys (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep (Okazu)
TSOTE on The Minotaur’s Plate (Three Steps Over Japan)
Ken Haley on vol. 10 of MPD Psycho (Sequential Ink)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 6 of Oresama Teacher (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 17 of Ouran High School Host Club (Kuriousity)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 14 of Pokemon Adventures (Blogcritics)
Tomo K. on Prunus Girl (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 26 of Skip Beat (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Song of the Hanging Sky (Blogcritics)
Erica Friedman on vol. 14 of Tsubomi (Okazu)
Matthew Warner on vol. 10 of Yotsuba&! (The Fandom Post)

Lissa Pattillo takes a look through the manga listings in the January Previews.

The Manga Village team examines the past week’s new manga releases, and at Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson has the list of the latest all-ages comics and manga.

Melinda Beasi and Sean Gaffney look at the Digital app and some new titles on JManga.com in their Going Digital column at Manga Bookshelf.

AstroNerdBoy has some concerns about Kodansha, after a few glitches with marketing and quality control in the books themselves.

Jason Thompson takes a fond look back at the manga magazine Raijin in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Matt Blind tallies the manga best-sellers of the first week in December at Manga Bookshelf, and he also introduces a new feature, Manga Radar, in which he looks at new additions to the sales charts.

Do you have any plans for 2012? Deb Aoki has a handy list of this year’s manga-friendly cons for those who like to think ahead.

Reviews: Johanna Draper Carlson reviews Kodansha’s December releases at Comics Worth Reading. Omar returns to manga reviewing with some short takes, mostly on Vertical manga, at About Heroes. Andrew Wheeler balances that out with a stack of Yen Press titles at ComicMix. Lori Henderson is whittling down her manga stack at Manga Xanadu.

Justin on vol. 1 of Anestheseologist Hana (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Justin on vols. 7 and 8 of Bakuman (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Bokurano: Ours (The Comic Book Bin)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 2 of Border (ANN)
Andre Paploo on vol. 4 of Dorohedoro (Kuriousity)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Fluffy, Fluffy Cinnamoroll (The Manga Critic)
Julie Opipari on vol. 15 of Gantz (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Shannon Fay on vol. 2 of Higurashi When They Cry – Atonement Arc (Kuriousity)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 7 of Hyde & Closer (The Comic Book Bin)
Sweetpea616 on Me and the Devil Blues (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 17 of Ouran High School Host Club (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Julie Opipari on La Quinta Camera (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Kristin on vol. 2 of Wandering Son (Comic Attack)

Over at MTV Geek, I looked at the evolution of digital manga in 2011 and picked my favorites from this week’s new releases. At Robot 6, I did a rough tally of responses to a Tokyopop Facebook post and concluded that manga readers still prefer print over digital.

Lissa Pattillo checks out this week’s new releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA, and Sean Gaffney takes a look at next week’s new manga.

Bandai Entertainment president and CEO Ken Iyadomi explains what happened to his company in an interview at ANN; long story short: The Japanese parent company wanted to keep anime prices higher than U.S. customers were willing to pay.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss the long-running series Fullmetal Alchemist, which just ended with volume 27, in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Sean Kleefeld looks at the universe of One Piece, in which government is bad and oppressive and pirates are the good guys, and ties it in to today’s political reality.

A couple of the Udon guys got to talk to Hitoshi Ariga, creator of Mega Man: Gigamix.

Sharpen your pencils: Kate Dacey posts this year’s schedule of Manga Moveable Feasts.

If you speak French, check out this interview with Izumi Tsubaki, creator of Oresama Teacher.

News from Japan: Rinko Ueda is bringing her shoujo manga Stepping on Roses to an end in the issue of Margaret that ships Feb. 20.

Reviews

Alexander Case on vol. 1 of Bakuman (Bureau 42)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 37 of Bleach (Kuriousity)
Alex Hoffman on Breathe Deeply (Manga Widget)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 4 of Chobits (Blogcritics)
Thomas Zoth on vol. 3 of Dorohedoro (The Fandom Post)
Kristin on vol. 5 of Grand Guignol Orchestra (Comic Attack)
John Rose on vol. 19 of Hayate the Combat Butler (The Fandom Post)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 8 of Nabari no Ou (The Fandom Post)
Joe Iglesias on Nabari no Ou (Eastern Standard)
John Rose on vol. 53 of Naruto (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 54 of Naruto (The Comic Book Bin)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 13 of Pokemon Adventures (Blogcritics)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 2 of Wandering Son (Read About Comics)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Warratte! Sotomura-san (Okazu)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 8 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX (The Comic Book Bin)