Bad news from The Beat: Tokyopop has released a list of titles that were scheduled for January 2009 but have been cancelled. Here it is:
Beyond the Beyond, Volume 5
Blazin’ Barrels Volume 11
Karma Club Volume 2
Kat & Mouse Volume 4
Kindaichi Case Files, The Burial Francs
Lagoon Engine Volume 6
Lagoon Engine Volume 7
Nosatsu Junkie Volume 7
Queen’s Knight, The Volume 13
Queen’s Knight, The Volume 14
Saver Volume 7
Meanwhile, io9 reports on the current trend at One Tokyopop Plaza: manga based on popular sci-fi properties.
At Newsarama, Benjamin Ong Pang Kean has a comprehensive look at Kodansha’s entry into the American market, in which he talks to the U.S. publishers who currently license Kodansha titles about what the future may hold. In part two, he surveys other publishers about the manga market in general. Susie at Studio QT notes an omission in part one. (She also found an error in the Studio Proteus Wikipedia article.)
John Thomas continues his discussion of light novels at Mecha Mecha Media with a look at the difficulties of bringing light novels to American audiences.
Yen Press has posted their cover images from Yen Plus, the manga anthology set to debut at SDCC.
Scott VonSchilling reposts an oldie but goodie, The Story of the Train Man, at Anime Almanac.
Attention aspiring artists: Viz will be conducting portfolio reviews at SDCC.
The Yaoi Press blog has moved. Go there now to read an interesting theory about the manga market.
Reviews: Back from his honeymoon trip to Japan, EvilOmar posts some brief manga reviews at About Heroes. I haven’t been to the Manga Recon blog at PopCultureShock in a few days, and it looks like I missed some good reviews: Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Gantz, Sam Kusek on vol. 1 of Kamisama Kazoku, Erin F. on Cowa!, and Phil Guie on vols. 2-4 of Puri Puri. Julie reviews vol. 3 of Orfina and the BL novel A Promise of Romance at the Manga Maniac Cafe.
I wonder if Yen Press picked their cover images to purposely make the English/Korean side look “better,” ww.
I’m a bit more interested in this Real Drive series with what appears to be a MOE FEMALE LOLI on the cover, that which is so rare and desperately needed in western comics.
Er, Maximum Ride, rather.
What a drag about Kindaichi. That actually looks like it’s volume 18 (going by titles) so it’s 3 volumes we’re missing instead of 2.
I’m surprised we’re only hearing of cuts made as of Jan 2009. Does this mean everything originally scheduled to come out before then is safe? I guess it would make sense as I assume most books due out from now to December have already basically been completed, so it’d be a waste of time and resource to cut them now…
Either way I hope that’s the case so I can still get a few volumes of my less-than-popular favourites before I continue fearing their possible demise!
I’m not surprised that Kindaichi was canceled, but I’m still pretty disappointed. i guess the twelve or so of us rabid fans weren’t enough to sustain it. :(
Those PupCutureShock links for the reviews don’t seem to be good.
I think the links are OK, but the site is down. PCS actually seems to be down a lot lately.
John:
We’re in the process of upgrading our server. The links are good, but the site is a little buggy at the moment. Things should be running more smoothly soon. In the meantime, please bear with us—we have a lot of great reviews in the pipeline!
Kate
I didn’t even realize Blazin’ Barrels 10 was out. Great series but I’m not surprised it’s getting the bite.
Sad to see Kat & Mouse go too.
No way !!! Blazin’ Barrels was my favoite … noooooooooo ….. whyyyy ?????????