There’s an unusually rich crop of manga news and commentary on the web today, so get comfortable and we’ll begin.
In this completely awesome LiveJournal post, manga editors name their favorites. Lots of scans and lots of opinions. Be sure to read the comments, too! (Via Journalista.)
Speaking of Journalista, in today’s post, Dirk Deppey ponders the greater meaning of Naruto winning the Quills award.
LiveJournaler Kethylia went to MangaNEXT and, unlike me, didn’t bring a 12-year-old, so she was able to go to lots of panels and write a thorough report. (Via Guns, guys, and yaoi.) At Okazu, Erica Friedman gives her take.
Newsarama interviews June Kim, the creator of the forthcoming Tokyopop global manga 12 Days. This book has a bizarre premise—a woman consumes her lover’s ashes in smoothies over 12 days—but sounds promising nonetheless.
Telophase reads Comic and Volume 2 of Dramacon. An interesting discussion on name changes follows in the comments. In another post, she catalogs Saiyuki links
Wai Wai has some advice for thieves who would target otaku: don’t bother, they’re broke cheapskates.
Foreign language links: Deutsche Mangaka has some sample pages of some original German manga. The pages are in German, but blogger Elae provides English translations of the text. And here’s a French article on the Frankfurt Book Fair, which I keep meaning to translate but never get around to.
Jarred Pine is like the sin-eater of the MangaNet this week. First he read the ghastly Innocent W, today he reviews the unreadable Judas. Better him than me! In happier news, Brain Food Lunch reviews volume 3 of Loveless.
Press releases from Active Anime: Pokemon manga from Viz! Because there’s always a new generation coming up. And Infinity Studios is having a contest: win volume 2 of Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun.
Fresh from three months as a Borders Exclusive, Yoki Koto Kiku goes into general release today.
I have to wonder what the qualification process was for picking up these recent TP titles. Did they just go through a bunch of books and go “Ooooh! Panties, check! Gore, check! Pandering, check! Let’s get it!!”
I mean, I’m a pretty open person and try to find the good in everything. I hadn’t given out many D’s over the past couple years (maybe 3?) as I believe that US companies should be filtering out the “crap” for us. But these were just awful, and two in one week no less! :(
It’s okay, Vertical’s Ode to Kirihito has restored my faith. ;)
Yeah, but in the same batch as those two dogs I got Vampire Doll, which was wicked funny, and RIP by Mitsukazu Mihara. So it ain’t all bad. I wish they’d give those Mihara titles some PR love, though, because they’re great and they’re being ignored.
Ha! Coincidentally I have both Mihara’s RIP and Haunted House in the queue, which arrived with those books. So I’m glad to hear that sunny days are ahead. :)
Thanks for posting links to MangaNEXT impressions! As a concept for a con it especially interests me, so I’d be keen to learn more about it. I’m curious as to whether there was much or even any place for global manga amongst it all, it seems that the excitement (from those impressions at least) is solely placed around yaoi and yuri books, and cosplay of course.
I really enjoyed the recorded interviews on the mangacast by the way.
Oh, yes. Most prominent was Boys of Summer, because the artist, Hiroki Otsuka was there. And Tania Del Rio was a guest as well. A lot of the panels included global manga, and of course there was a manwha panel as well. Drama Queen was displaying their new line of shoujo manwha and manhua. Of course the doujinshi was global, although I’d put Lime Studios in the semipro range. So yes, I’d say apart from the cosplay (which dominated visually) there was a lot of global content.