Anime News Network has more on the Tokyopop panel at Anime Boston. In addition to the list of upcoming titles, there are some interesting comments on ongoing series, including the fact that some bookstores have pulled Boys of Summer because of “graphic content.” (I hate to say it, but that cover is sort of asking for it. On the other hand, it’s no worse than Maxim.)
And good news for aspiring global manga-kas:
As Tokyopop has expanded its offering beyond Japanese comics exclusively, the company is actively interested in art and story submissions, both for manga and for novels. Both stand-alone art samples/story proposals, and combinations are acceptable. There are also number of summer internships available as the summer convention starts, and Chen, who himself first came to TP as an intern, urged all those interested to apply.
Finally, here is the list of new titles, courtesy of commenter and MangaCast member Jack:
Strawberry Marshmellow
Trinity Blood
My-Hime
Welcome to the N.H.K.
Genjuno Seiza
Satisfaction Guarenteed
Peach Girl – Sae’s Story
Platinum Guardian
Elemental Gelage
Bus Gamer (one shot)
Grenadier
Otogi Zoshi
Queens
Angel Cup
Voices of a Distant Star
Petite Cossette
What does everyone think?
Heh, when I did my podcast review of Boys of Summer I took a couple of minutes discussing the nudity level, the underage drinking and sexual themes on the pages of this college set romance comedy. And the reason… this was some how rated 16+ by TOKYOPOP. No shrinkwrap, no warning but in the end big foul.
I honestly enjoyed the title quite a bit and hope this will not hurt sales too much. At the same time I hope this will help get publishers closer to some sort of standard rating system because if nipples mean shrinkwrapping for a Japanese title, they should mean the same thing for a Global title.
I agree. Tokyopop needs to devote a little more thought to their ratings system, IMHO. I’m not sure Loveless is a 13+ book, and Roadsong was almost at the Boys of Summer level in terms of sexual content. The thing is, most 16+ books aren’t that racy, so I usually let my 13-year-old read them. So when a book lives up to its rating, I’m startled.
I know we at Broccoli upped the rating for Aquarian Age – Juvenile Orion from 13+ to 16+ for some underaged smoking. ^_^ You know, just in case. For the most part we try to rate our titles on the side of caution.
Love Roma has a 16+ rating because it showed a condom in it! They should get together and figure it out like the video game companies did. Self regulation always beats having “THE MAN” tell you what to do.
When I saw this announced, I instantly recognized it as a reworking of Austen’s shortlived porn series “Hardball.” He never finished that story (or his other, more popular porn series “Strips”). I wondered how much the material would be re-worked from the clearly porn (penetration shots, etc) elements of the original. I guess not much, based on some of these reports.
the thing is, “Hardball” didn’t last long enough to really build up the storyline, but Strips was a good dorm-room soap opera comic. In fact, like Willingham’s “Ironwood,” the sex often got in the way of the story that you WANTED to read more about.
Wait a second! Are you talking about THAT Austen???? Well, that explains a lots of things (like some AWFUL X-Men comics), really… Anyway, What I want to say here is:
1) Isn’t it funny that Tokyopop described Ichigo Mashimaro as a “coming to age shoujo”? I mean, the series’ creator has done lolicon stuff, it is published in Dengeki Daioh and there are a lot of obscure otaku references and jokes. It’s not a shoujo, it’s a moe shonen (seinen?) manga. I can see why they choose to promote the book in the way they did, and maybe girls will find it funny, but i doubt most will understand the Fist of North Star references and some weird jokes (papa ate my pudding…)
2) NHK! NHK! Nippon Hikikomori Kyoukai for godsake! I really hope they don’t butcher this great series. I mean, in the first volume the main character spies an elementary school, and by the fifth one he is already experimenting with Hyper-Self Pleasure (you can wonder what it is…) Even if they don’t censor it, there are lots of otaku jargon and sarcastic jokes that maybe they won’t get—- I’m really looking foward to this, but my hopes are not really too high… Del Rey would have done a great work with this, as they have been doing it with Genshiken…
Thanks for the information on those 2 titles! I don’t think I’ve looked twice at a Tokyo Pop manga series since last year’s Beck.
I’m actually mildly confident TP can do a good job with NHK. At certain times, you can tell they care about a series… Hopefully NHK is one of them.