MangaBlog

It’s the calm before the storm here at MangaBlog Central, as the first manga panel at San Diego Comic-Con isn’t till tonight. Check out the full schedule of manga events at MTV Geek, and stay tuned for the latest news. In the meantime…

Jason Thompson picks up Masamune Shirow’s sci-fi classic Appleseed for his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

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

Lori Henderson’s latest license request is The Mythical Detective Loki, a manga set in the world of Norse mythology.

Queenie Chan posts some sneak previews of the art for the latest Odd Thomas graphic novel, House of Odd.

News from Japan: Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa has a new manga, Silver Spoon, and the first volume sold over 90,000 copies in three days, making the number 4 spot on the Oricon chart.

Reviews

Connie on vol. 6 of 13th Boy (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 36 of Case Closed (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Challengers (Slightly Biased Manga)
Thomas Zoth on vol. 1 of Cirque du Freak (The Fandom Post)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 4-6 of Kekkaishi (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 5 of Laon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 6 of Ooku: The Inner Chambers (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 23 of Skip Beat (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ben Leary on vol. 13 of Slam Dunk (The Fandom Post)
Noah Berlatsky on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (Experiments in Manga)

Some big news breaking just before Comic-Con: Yen Press is doing a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, retelling the story from the point of view of Claudia. I talked to Rice and Yen Press editor JuYoun Lee about the book and interviewed artist Ashley Marie Witter as well.

Over at MTV Geek, I check out the best of this week’s new manga releases. If you’re wondering “Will she go for Twin Spica????” the suspense is over. David Welsh checks out the newest manga as well at The Manga Curmudgeon, and he joins the rest of the gang at Manga Bookshelf to discuss their pick of the week.

At Comic Book Resources, I interviewed Chuck Austen about his book The Boys of Summer, which was published by Tokyopop but never promoted or even distributed to bookstores (the distributor balked at the adult content). It’s an interesting inside story of everything that can go wrong.

Heidi has the 50 top-selling manga from June 2011 at The Beat; not surprisingly, Naruto tops the list.

The Manga Village team recommends some space manga for your summer reading.

Patrick Macias explores doujinshi in Akihabara in the latest episode of Otakuverse Zero.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has already seen Stargazing Dog, and she’s really looking forward to NBM’s edition.

Tony Yao has a license request at Manga Therapy: Shingeki no Kyojin, a shonen manga about the battle between humans and man-eating giants called Titans.

David Welsh reaches the letter Y in his josei alphabet.

David Brothers shows off some pages from Dirty Pair.

Cryptozoic, which picked up the digital rights to Tokyopop’s World of Warcraft manga, has announced its July releases.

News from Japan: Shogakukan is planning a collection of Rumiko Takahashi’s short stories. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure creator Hirohiko Araki will draw a spinoff manga featuring Rohan Kishibe for a women’s magazine this October. Artist Naoyuki Kageyama (Yu-Gi-Oh! GX) is launching a new manga about baseball, Strike Zone!, in the September issue of V Jump. The mahjong manga Saki is going on a brief hiatus.

Reviews: Carlo Santos delivers another stack of rapid-fire reviews of recent releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Ash Brown chronicles a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. The Manga Bookshelf gang weighs in on this week’s new releases with their latest set of Bookshelf Briefs.

Kristin on vol. 4 of Cross Game (Comic Attack)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 2 of Daniel X (The Fandom Post)
Thomas Zoth on vol. 5 of Gintama (The Fandom Post)
Erica Friedman on Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru (Okazu)
Dave Ferraro on La Quinta Camera (Comics-and-More)
Lori Henderson on The Manga Guide to Relativity (Manga Xanadu)
Anna on vol. 1 of Moon and Blood (Manga Report)
Chris Kirby on vol. 6 of Raiders (The Fandom Post)
Kristin on vols. 1 and 2 of A Strange and Mystifying Story (Comic Attack)
Chris Kirby on vol. 5 of Toriko (The Fandom Post)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Alexander Hoffman on A Zoo in Winter (Manga Widget)

The Manga Village team picks the best of the past week’s new releases.

Erica Friedman updates us with the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

Mike of Anime Diet interviewed Megatokyo creator Fred Gallagher on video at Anime Expo.

Tezuka comes to your iPad with a new app that gives you unlimited access to 62 translated volumes and 39 episodes of “Motion Manga” for $9.99 a month; Patrick Galbraith talked to the Tezuka folks and the app developers and got all the details for the Japan Times.

As he preps for the next Manga Moveable Feast, which will feature Fruits Basket, David Welsh asks readers to name manga that are critically underappreciated.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber asks her readers: When do you find time to read manga?

Broken Frontier has a preview of Stargazing Dog.

Lissa Pattillo shows off her latest purchases at Kuriousity.

News from France: Xavier Guilbert reports that the French publisher Pika was all over the recent Japan Expo with banners and publicity for their new licenses for GTO Shonan 14 Days and Young GTO – Shônan Junai Gumi, the prequel and sequel to Great Teacher Onizuka, but one thing was missing from the covers on display: Onizuka’s cigarette. Yeah, he’s badass, but smoking—now that’s taking it a bit too far.

News from Japan: The Pani Poni manga will come to an end in September. Go Nagai is starting a new manga, Maō Dante tai Getter Robo G (Demon Lord Dante vs. Getter Robo G), which will run in Akita Shoten’s Champion RED. And Square Enix revoked one of the 18th Square Enix Manga Prizes after the winner was accused of plagiarizing Mardock Scramble.

Reviews: Johanna Draper Carlson posts some short takes on shoujo manga at Comics Worth Reading. Kate Dacey thoroughly enjoys the first chapter of Soulless, which is part of this month’s Yen Plus magazine (there’s a preview on Facebook). Other reviews of note:

Connie on vol. 2 of Ai Ore! (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 3 of Arisa (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 13 of Black God (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ryan Holmberg on Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Black Rainbow (The Comics Journal)
Connie on vol. 34 of Bleach (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 4 of Cross Game (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate Dacey on No. 1 of Gen (The Manga Critic)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (ANN)
Leroy Douresseaux on La Quinta Camera: The Fifth Room (The Comic Book Bin)
Erica Friedman on Renai Manga (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 2 of Toradora! (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (Okazu)
Phillip on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (Eeeper’s Choice)

We’re less than a week away from San Diego Comic-Con, and I rounded up a list of the manga panels at MTV Geek as a handy checklist for those who are going—and a way to keep track of the news that will be coming out of San Diego for those who, like me, will be following the action from home.

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

Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley talks to Kentaro Takekuma and Koji Aihara the creators of one of his inspirations, the book Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga.

Jason Thompson looks at the classic Lone Wolf and Cub in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

PWCW’s Kai-Ming Cha reviews Shigeru Mizuki’s Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and talks to D+Q editors about the significance of the book.

Wandering Son is the topic of the latest Manga Out Loud podcast, featuring Ed Sizemore, Johanna Draper Carlson, David Welsh, Erica Friedman, and Philip.

AstroNerdBoy responds to Lianne Sentar’s essay on Tokyopop that argues that the recently-deceased publisher came in for a lot of internet hate because it was geared towards teenagers.

Melinda Beasi writes about three manga that involve dreams at Manga Bookshelf.

Manga Therapy puts the Gantz character Shion Izumi on the couch.

Lori Henderson writes about the pain of not being able to find a single volume because it is out of print, even though the rest of the series is still available.

David Welsh’s latest license request is the Tezuka Award-winning Onmyôji.

Jason Yadao looks surveys the Christian manga scene and notices something odd on Amazon.

News from Japan: Your and My Secret will come to an end next month. Chikyu Misaki creator Yuji Iwahara is working on a new sci-fi manga, Dimension W, which will run in Square Enix’s Young Gangan. Three Steps Over Japan writes about GanGan, the magazine home of Fullmetal Alchemist and Soul Eater.

Reviews: Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi discuss a stack of new releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf.

Chris Kirby on vol. 15 of 20th Century Boys (The Fandom Post)
Ed Sizemore on vols. 1-4 of 7 Billion Needles (Comics Worth Reading)
Sakura Eries on vol. 5 of Bakuman (The Fandom Post)
Omar on vols. 14 and 15 of Black Jack, vol. 1 of Cardcaptor Sakura (omnibus edition), and vol. 8 of Twin Spica (About Heroes)
Kristin on vol. 35 of Bleach (Comic Attack)
Erica Friedman on Fu-Fu Dengeki 4-Koma Collection (Okazu)
Matthew Brady on Garden (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)
Connie on vol. 3 of Highschool of the Dead (Slightly Biased Manga)
Matthew Warner on vol. 7 of Jormungand (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (Slightly Biased Manga)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 3 of Kamisama Kiss (ANN)
Anna on vols. 3 and 4 of Kamisama Kiss (Manga Report)
Connie on vol. 4 of Laon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vols. 1-4 of Library Wars: Love and War (Manga Village)
Erica Freidman on vol. 5 of Manga no Tsukurikata (Okazu)
Chris Kirby on vol. 2 of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan (The Fandom Post)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 4 of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 4 of Pokemon Adventures (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Pure Trance (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 6 of Rakuen Le Paradis manga magazine (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on vol. 6 of Rin-ne (Manga Xanadu)
Connie on vol. 1 of Sakura Hime (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Sasameke (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 17 of Sensual Phrase (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 6 of Time and Again (The Fandom Post)

At MTV Geek, I take a look at this week’s new manga and blog a bit about Shonen Jump‘s storyboard contest and a preview of Yen Press’s Soulless graphic novel, illustrated by the one and only rem.

David Welsh looks at this week’s new releases and some josei manga beginning with X that he’d like to see licensed. Sean Gaffney peers into his crystal ball at next week’s new manga.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber reflects on how manga editors learn on the job, and she is looking for bloggers to review the digital manhwa Ill-Fated Relationship.

NBM, which usually focuses on other types of graphic novels, will be publishing an interesting manga in September: Takashi Murakami’s Stargazing Dog.

The Digital Manga blog rounds up the highlights of Anime Expo—with pictures.

News from Japan: Masakazu Katsura (Video Girl Ai) is going to draw a one-shot manga based on the Tiger & Bunny anime. ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews: Ash Brown looks at a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Chris Kirby on vol. 4 of 7 Billion Needles (The Fandom Post)
Kristin on vol. 9 of Black Bird (Comic Attack)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 4 of Cross Game (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Ghostface (The Manga Critic)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 4 of Itazura na Kiss (Kuriousity)
Kristin on La Quinta Camera (Comic Attack)
LIssa Pattillo on vol. 2 of One Pound Gospel (Kuriousity)
Michelle Smith on vols. 2-5 of Pandora Hearts (Soliloquy in Blue)
Matthew Warner on vol. 3 of Saturn Apartments (The Fandom Post)
Matthew Warner on vol. 32 of Shaman King (The Fandom Post)
Kelakagandy on vol. 11 of Shugo Chara! (kelakagandy’s ramblings)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of The Stellar Six of Gingacho (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
David Welsh on vol. 1 of Tenjho Tenge (The Manga Curmudgeon)
John Rose on vol. 2 of Tenjho Tenge (The Fandom Post)
Julie Opipari on vol. 4 of Time and Again (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Vicki Paull on Twin Spica (Manga Bubbles)
David Welsh on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (The Manga Curmudgeon)

Viz will be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and the Sequential Tart writers mark the occasion with a roundup of their favorite Viz manga.

Erica Friedman brings us the latest edition of Yuri Network News and a sneak peek at a piece of art from the Rica ‘tte Kanji!? omnibus at Okazu.

The Manga Village team picks the best of the latest manga releases.

David Welsh asks his readers how they feel about endnotes, and they answer with a resounding “Do want!”

News from Japan: At Genji Press, Serdar Yegulalp marks the death of manga-ka Shinji Wada with a look at his manga Sukeban Deka. The 50th Japan Science Fiction Convention will give an award to Fullmetal Alchemist.

Reviews

Connie on vol. 6 of Black Butler (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on vol. 2 of Blue Exorcist (Comic Attack)
Connie on Deeply Loving a Maniac (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on Kila Kila (Okazu)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 9 of Kimi ni Todoke (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Kurozakuro (The Comic Book Bin)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vols. 1 and 2 of March on Earth (Comics Worth Reading)
Shannon Fay on Men of Tattoos (Kuriousity)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 3 of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Vicki Paull on vols. 1-9 of Ouran High School Host Club (Manga Bubbles)
Connie on vol. 3 of Peepo Choo (Slightly Biased Manga)
Michelle Smith on vols. 40-42 of The Prince of Tennis (Soliloquy in Blue)
Vicki Paull on Ristorante Paradiso (Manga Bubbles)
Kate Dacey on Samurai Crusader (The Manga Critic)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 9 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei (A Case Suitable for Treatment)