SDCC got under way for real yesterday, but so far the manga news is just trickling in. The PWCW folks file a first-day roundup that includes news of two new CMX titles: Genghis Kahn, an adaptation of the anime, and March on Earth, which sounds like it has tearjerker potential.
ANN has a concise writeup of the Del Rey Panel, and Gia has a more colorful take. The most interesting announcement was CLAMP in America, a history of, well, CLAMP’s influence in America, to be penned by Shaenon Garrity. Other titles included Soryuden (Legend of the Four Dragon Kings), a novel illustrated by CLAMP; Negima!? neo, the manga version of the anime that spun off from the Negima manga; Orange Planet, a shoujo title from the creator of Instant Teen: Just Add Nuts (a big pre-teen favorite in my house); and Yokai Doctor, which sounds like your health insurer’s next cost-cutting scheme. (Orange Planet cover from the ANN Encyclopedia entry.)
In other news, Bandai Entertainment announced that they have licensed Lucky Star.
Translator Satsuma has more pictures, and for the full immersion experience, check out Christopher Butcher’s Flickr set.
And in case you’re there but forgot to make any plans, Deb Aoki outlines today’s manga events, as well as how you can meet Fairy Tail manga-ka Hiro Mashima, at About.com.
I’m glad someone finally licensed Soryuden, i’m a huge fan. And with it being Del Rey we should get a fairly decent job of it!!
Soryuden novels! Yes! They’ll sell like absolute crap, but I’ll be first in line to buy a copy! Behind Tiamat’s Disciple, it seems.
I largely hate CLAMP, but if their history in America is going to give Shaenon more writing work, I’m all for it. She’s teh awesome.
I didn’t know thar clamp did the art for the novels, and TBH i don’t think i care. I just want the novels!! The anime was awesome and it’s a real shame it’s no longer available anymore. But i’ve always wanted to read the novels that started it all.
The day they’re released i’ll be camped outside the book store waiting, and there’ll be a riot if it’s not there for me hehe
As for Lucky Star, didn’t they announce that it was licensed a while back??
I’m really glad to see that the experiences some other publishers have had with the novel market isn’t putting off others from trying.
As for lucky star, the previous announcement was that they licensed the Lucky Star anime. This new announcement is for the Lucky Star manga.
Not ALL publishers are having troubles selling novels. Dark Horse has had a lot of success with the Vampire Hunter D novels, and I was excited to hear the Blood+ novels (2nd one just came out) are doing well.
Tiamat: They announced the anime ages ago, but the manga’s been in a bit of a licensing war, I gather, since the anime was such a hit. I personally suspect Bandai has to fight for those manga pretty hard, since they don’t have a very extensive track record on manga (unlike, say, Del Rey and Yen Press, who both have massive booksellers behind them, or VIZ or TOKYOPOP, who have been selling manga for ages, or Dark Horse, who is !@#$ing Dark Horse, y’know?). Bandai’s done Eureka Seven and Samurai Champloo, plus the Tomb Raider and Witchblade manga, and they’re just now doing Geass and now Lucky Star.
John, I’m incredibly happy that Blood+ is doing well. It’s been hard for the Blood+ series to find its niche, I think, because it’s attached to Blood: The Last Vampire but is SO different in scope and tone…it’s much more shoujo-y, touchy-feely stuff, not the hard action of the film, so I think a lot of the B:tLV fans didn’t go for it (though obviously some, including myself, did).
Blood is such a neat franchise, because of the way that I.G takes it on: anyone who adds a chunk to the franchise (a manga, an anime, whatever) does their own take entirely, which is why the manga and anime are so incredibly different. (The first novel was pretty close to the anime; haven’t read the second yet so I can’t comment there really.)
But enough blather. Back to Comic Con I go!