MangaBlog

As I noted yesterday, the Good Comics for Kids gang posted our picks for the best comics for kids and teens of 2009, and there were quite a few manga on the list. Gia linked to it at Anime Vice, and her fans have some suggestions of their own for younger readers. Gia also wonders if digital distribution would work for a manga magazine in the U.S.

Are manga and anime dying in Japan? Roland Kelts makes that bold assertion in a recent blog post at the new Comics Journal site, and he enlarges on that point in this audio interview at The Monocle. Gottsu-Iiyan adds his thoughts on what ails the industry at The Eastern Edge.

Noting that the same book may appeal to different readers in different ways—one may like the characters, while another may be reading strictly for plot—librarian Joy Kim suggests some different “doorways” into manga for new readers.

David Welsh and Kate Dacey take a look at this week’s new releases, and both David and Tangognat look over the upcoming titles featured in the December Diamond Previews.

Kate Dacey is giving away a fresh copy of Butterflies, Flowers, which has been getting a lot of ink lately; check the details here at The Manga Critic.

Tokyo Scum Brigade (warning: rather off-putting header art) interviews manga creator Kazuo Umezu (part 1, part 2). In a totally different vein, Kurutta posts some beautiful old shoujo manga art by Macoto Takahashi and wonders who he is. (All these links have in common is that I got them all via Same Hat.) And I may stick with Kurutta after looking at the latest post, which is some nice Taiyo Matsumoto art.

In case you missed it, I posted short takes on three manga this week in my contribution to the What Are You Reading? column at Robot 6, and several other contributors, including guest Charles Hatfield, are reading manga as well. Also, while they are not manga, you might enjoy the two laugh-out-loud webcomics I reviewed in this week’s Unbound column.

Reviews: Carlo Santos checks out a handful of recent releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column. EvilOmar has some brief reviews up at About Heroes as well.

Derik Badman on vol. 1 of A Distant Neighborhood (Madinkbeard)
Lori Henderson on vol. 5 of Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President (Manga Xanadu)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Itazura Na Kiss (Comics Worth Reading)
Julie on vol. 19 of Kekkaishi (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 7 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (i heart manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 2 of Lucky Star (About.com)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Lucky Star (Okazu)
Emily on Otona no Jikan (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Joy Kim on vols. 11 and 12 of Ouran High School Host Club (Joy Kim)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 13 of xxxHolic (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Jason Punda on vol. 1 of Yotsuba&! (Manga Jouhou)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of Yotsuba&! (i heart manga)

ICv2 posts the latest sales numbers from Diamond, and despite mutterings about the death of periodical comics, they seem to be doing just fine—in comics shops, that is, which is the market Diamond serves. Graphic novels have slipped since this time last year, partly because Watchmen isn’t big news any more. ICv2 also gives us the November graphic novel chart, in which Berserk is the top-rated manga and Vampire Knight lags way behind.

Going for quality over quantity, the Good Comics for Kids team lists their picks for the best kid- and teen-friendly comics and manga of 2009.

Digital announced yesterday that they will publish Under Grand Hotel under their 801 imprint, which is usually reserved for the steamy stuff.

Danielle Leigh has more recommendations in her latest Manga Before Flowers post at Comics Should Be Good.

Coffeeandink has some harsh words about Butterflies, Flowers.

David Welsh posts some short takes on his weekend reading and some alternate cover designs for Red Snow at Precocious Curmudgeon.

Tangognat invites manga bloggers to be profiled on Manga View.

News from Japan: There’s a new Code Geass manga in the works.

Reviews

Dan Polley on vol. 1 of Deka Kyoshi (Comics Village)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 2 of A Distant Neighborhood (Comics Worth Reading)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Itazura na Kiss (Comics Should Be Good)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Jack Frost (Kuriousity)
Julie on Married Under the Italian Sun (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Julie on vol. 14 of Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Pandora Hearts (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
David Welsh on Red Snow (The Comics Reporter)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Rin-ne (Comics-and-More)
Tangognat on vols. 1 and 2 of V.B. Rose (Tangognat)
Kinukitty on The Wallflower (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 7 of Yotsuba&! (Comics Worth Reading)

David Welsh highlights the manga selections at France’s Angoulême comics festival and unleashes a barrage of license requests for books honored at Angoulême and the Japan Media Arts Festival.

Snow Wildsmith interviews Makoto Tateno at Graphic Novel Reporter.

Lori Henderson posts her digest of the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu, and Erica Friedman brings us up to speed on all things yuri at Okazu. Melinda Beasi rounds up recent manhwa news and reviews in her latest Manhwa Monday feature at Manga Bookshelf.

Nightschool and Dramacon creator Svetlana Chmakova is resuming work on her webcomic Chasing Rainbows, which is hosted at the Girlamatic. Watch for a podcast interview on the site soon.

The Manga Village writers reveal their picks from the past week’s manga releases.

The New York Times “graphic books” best-seller list is up, and the YA global manga Warriors tops the manga list.

In case you missed it, we announced the winners of our Color of Earth trilogy giveaway at Good Comics for Kids.

ANN’s Evan Miller talks to artist Hanjun Ni.

News from Japan: ANN has Oricon’s list of the top-selling manga series for the year 2009, and the list should look familiar to American readers: One Piece, Naruto, Bleach… It’s an interesting list and worth a look. They also post individual volume rankings (top 25, next 25) Meanwhile, One Piece is all over, popping up in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and the fashion magazine Men’s Non-No, where Monkey D. Luffy is the cover model for Januar. The late writer Kaoru Kurimoto, who wrote the Guin Saga novels and manga, has been given a posthumous Nihon SF Taishō award. Fed up with manga, Zenki creator Yoshihiro Kuroiwa is selling his manuscripts from earlier Shonen Jump series. And Takashi Takeuchi (Type-moon) and Jin Kobayashi (School Rumble) are teaming up to make their own doujinshi.

Patrick Macias has one more look at the gekiga Jaws.

And if you’re in the mood for a bit of swordfighting (hey, Monday does that to me), check out these pages from Blade of the Immortal at Jog’s blog.

Reviews: The Manga Recon team greets the new week with a new set of Manga Minis. At Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie reviews two of Digital’s Harlequin e-manga, Prisoner of the Tower and Sale or Return Bride. And I’m posting Scott VonSchilling’s review of vol. 2 of Yokaiden with some reservations. Scott didn’t read vol. 1 and complains that he couldnt pick up on the story; I think that’s the fault of the reviewer, not the book. While Scott argues that regular recaps are a feature of Japanese manga, Yokaiden was not serialized in a monthly magazine and shouldn’t be expected to follow that format. Scott has some other comments as well, so read it and judge for yourself; feel free to post your take in comments.

Connie on Apothecarius Argentum (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of Arm of Kannon (Slightly Biased Manga)
D.M. Evans on vol. 3 of B.Ichi (Manga Jouhou)
Sophie Stevens on vol. 1 of Black Bird (Animanga Nation)
Connie on vol. 1 of Breath (Slightly Biased Manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Butterflies, Flowers (Manga Bookshelf)
Connie on vol. 1 of Butterflies, Flowers (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erin Jameson on vol. 1 of Butterflies, Flowers (PLAYBACK:stl)
Nick Smith on vol. 1 of Butterflies, Flowers (ICv2)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 8 of Comic (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of Deka Kyoshi (MangaCast)
Ken Haley on .hack//Alcor (Manga Recon)
Tangognat on .hack//Legend of the Twilight (complete collection) (Tangognat)
Erica Friedman on vol. 3 of Hanayashiki no Junin-tachi (Okazu)
Michelle Smith on vol. 7 of Honey and Clover (Soliloquy in Blue)
Tangognat on vol. 3 of Honey Hunt (Tangognat)
Carlo Santos on vol. 3 of Ikigami (ANN)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Itazura Na Kiss (The Manga Critic)
L. on vol. 1 of Mad Love Chase (The Book Bark)
Zaki Zakaria on vol. 1 of The Manzai Comics (The Star of Malaysia)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 7 of Moon Boy (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Rob on vol. 1 of Nana (Panel Patter)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of Nightschool (Stop, Drop, and Read)
Connie on vol. 26 of One Piece (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Raiders (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 13 of School Rumble (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Laura on vol. 1 of Shinobi Life (Heart of Manga)
Lori Henderson on the January issue of Shonen Jump (Manga Xanadu)
Rob on vol. 1 of Tanpenshu (Panel Patter)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 24 of Tsubasa (Kuriousity)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Two Flowers for the Dragon (i heart manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Vampire Hunter D (Comics Village)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 7 of Yotsuba&! (Kuriousity)

Recession? What recession? The manga companies seem to be jumping with both feet into 2010. Yen Press, which already has a best-seller in their manga adaptation of James Patterson’s Maximum Ride novels and will probably make out like bandits on their Twilight manga, announced another adaptation today: Cicely von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl YA novels will be rendered into sequential art by Korean artist HyeKyung Baek. It looks like the comic will be debuting in the pages of Yen Plus magazine.

Unlike Yen’s other projects, the Gossip Girls manga will not follow the original story but will be a side story set in the world of the novels and featuring two of the characters. This is a strategy that has worked pretty well for Tokyopop, with their Warriors manga. Read on for all the juicy details.

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 2, 2009 – Yen Press has announced that it will publish a manga adaptation of Cecily von Ziegesar’s New York Times bestselling series, GOSSIP GIRL, about the lives of girls at an elite New York City private high school. GOSSIP GIRL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY will be serialized monthly in the YEN PLUS manga anthology, starting with the January 2010 issue.

Unlike other manga adaptations that Yen Press has undertaken in the past, GOSSIP GIRL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY will be an original re-imagination of the girls’ senior year focusing on the lives of Blair and Vanessa, written and illustrated by HyeKyung Baek.

Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers’ Poppy imprint, the series, called “deliciously catty and immediately engrossing” by Kirkus, launched in 2002 and has sold over 5.3 million net copies. There are 13 original Gossip Girl books in addition to 4 books devoted to “The Carlyles” as well as a hit television series airing on the CW. The New Yorker noted that author Cecily von Ziegesar “pulls off the tour de force of wickedly satirizing the young while amusing them” and The New York Times notes that “these novels are fantasies and projections of imaginary world where…lost boys and girls struggle on their own with good and evil, or in this case, Bergdorf Goodman and evil.”

Kurt Hassler, Publishing Director of Yen Press says: “There are few series in the publishing world that have been as impactful or successful as Cecily von Ziegesar’s GOSSIP GIRL. The novels have captured the imaginations of young women around the world, and we look forward to demonstrating with GOSSIP GIRL: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY that graphic novels as a medium can be just as welcoming to girls as it is to boys.”
Cecily von Ziegesar is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Gossip Girl series. She grew up in Manhattan and attended a small private girls’ school on the Upper East Side. She began writing poems and short stories as soon as she could hold a pen. Gossip Girl was her first novel. She has always lived in New York City. You can read Gossip Girl’s juicy secrets at www.gossipgirl.net

HyeKyung Baek, a renowned manga artist in South Korea who made her professional debut with HAPPY SPIDER has since established herself with her beautifully detailed art, fresh characters, and a unique sense of humor that maximizes the effect of the medium. Her best known titles, Bring It On! and Chiro specialize in capturing the hearts of teenage girls, and as a huge fan of von Ziegesar’s GOSSIP GIRL, Baek is the perfect artist to bring these characters to life, in manga.

Simon Jones leads a discussion of what Tokyopop might be up to at the Icarus blog. Everything is very speculative at the moment, since the Tokyopop folks have been quite vague about the notion of using “fan translations,” but this comment from Simon was rather arresting:

Technically, TP doesn’t even need the permission of the scanlators to use their translations. Since all translations are derivative works, Tokyopop as the designated rights holder already owns them. @_@

Now that’s what you call… ironic. Not that Tokyopop would actually do that, but it would certainly put an interesting spin on the whole scanlation debate.

Danielle Orihuela-Gruber posts a brief audio interview with Tokyopop Senior Editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl at all about comics.

Derek Halliday is pretty excited about Udon’s Mega Man manga, and he posts some images to show why. (Via Comics212.)

Librarian and reviewer Joy Kim lists the manga she spent her own money on this year.

Lori Henderson posts some resources for a librarian looking for suitable manga for a 10-year-old reader. Lori also posts this week’s all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

Ryan shows off his original Shintaro Kago art at Same Hat!

Reviews

Kinukitty on Crossdress Paradise (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Gia on Gurren Lagann (Anime Vice)
Emily on Konna Koto ya Anna Koto (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Blog)
Julie on vol. 1 of Kurashina Sensei’s Passion (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 25 of One Piece (Slightly Biased Manga)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Pandora Hearts (Comics Should Be Good)
Travers C on vol. 6 of Sundome (TaCK’s Pop Culture)
Julie on vol. 1 of Time and Again (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Erica Friedman on vol. 7 of Zombie-Loan (Okazu)

It seems like things have been quiet at Blu, Tokyopop’s yaoi imprint, for a while, but now they are roaring back with a lineup of new titles for spring and beyond, including continuations of popular series like Junjo Romantica and new books from familiar creators like Hinako Takanaga. Read on for more, and also check out their website, Blumanga.com, which is not only lovely to look at but organized in a simple, straightforward way that I wish more manga publishers (including the parent company) would emulate.

BLU Presents:
The Spring 2010 Publishing Lineup

Forget February – Romance Is in the Air All Year with BLU in 2010

Los Angeles, CA (December 3, 2009) – Romance blooms all year long with the latest releases from BLU. Fans will swoon over the latest JUNJO ROMANTICA, laugh through several unique short story collections, and fall in love with all new yaoi manga from Japan.

The year starts out with LOVE HURTS by Suzuki Tanaka (MENKUI!) in January – a truly unique collection of supernatural stories that are sometimes gruesome and unsettling, and often hilarious. From mysterious corpses to mystical crime lords, this manga will keep you on your toes and your thoughts spinning.

In February, the month of love, world-renowned manga-ka Hinako Takanaga (YOU WILL FALL IN LOVE and LITTLE BUTTERFLY) brings us CROQUIS. Follow Nagi’s path to love and acceptance as a fledgling drag queen saving up for some big changes! When his secret is revealed, will his dreams of love be dashed?

In March, BLOOD HONEY by Sakyou Yozakura introduces us to Yuki Akabane, a vampire’s descendant who also happens to be a popular nurse—at a blood donation clinic! He enjoys drinking the blood of the pretty women who come through, but when he tastes the blood of donation-obsessed Osamu Mayuzumi, will he be able to drink another’s blood again?

Lovers come together in many different ways in LOVE KNOT, a new collection of short stories by Lemon Ichijo. A series of chapters explores the relationship of twins and their respective lovers as they struggle to get along, while, others find love where they least expect it, whether that’s with a childhood friend, at the school nurse’s office, or even in the kitchen!

Blossoming in May is CUTE DEVIL by Hiro Madarame. The story follows Akiyoshi Tohru, a picture of the ideal student. Not only does he have perfect attendance and top grades, he’s also the student council president of his all-boys school. The school “princess,” Naruse Futa, takes a shining to Akiyoshi – and a princess ALWAYS gets what he wants. Will Akiyoshi be able to escape Naruse’s sadistic clutches?

The hot summer sun of June brings ISLE OF FORBIDDEN LOVE by Duo Brand, the creators of CRIMSON WIND and CROSS X BREAK. Aki, a detective, meets the handsome and mysterious Kuga while investigating a string of murders in ancient Edo. Will Kuga help him to solve the crime, or will he turn out to be a much different man than Aki believes him to be?

From Miu Ootsuki, the popular creator of a number of series, including EIEN NO SHICHIGATSU, STAY GOLD, UKKARI CHERRY and YURI HIME WILDROSE, comes the BLU release of CALLING in July. Kazuaki’s life is so ordinary and dull, he can’t tell the difference between one day and the next. But one night he witnesses a rather embarrassing rendezvous, which unexpectedly turns his life upside down…

SCARLET, another title from Hiro Madarame, releases in August. College student Akio is dating Ryo, a gorgeous and seemingly innocent philanderer, unable to withstand the slightest loneliness. Every time a girl approaches him, he just can’t say no! What’s Akio to do with his wandering-eye of a boyfriend?!

And mark your calendars for these new releases of ongoing series:

In April, volume 4 of TEA FOR TWO by Yaya Sakuragi hits the yaoi shelves. In this volume, Christmas is right around the corner for Tokumaru and Hasune, but a romantic night out and a sweet gift exchange is out of the question for this eccentric couple…or is it?

May brings volume 2 of YOU WILL DROWN IN LOVE, another great yaoi title by Hinako Takanaga. Reiichiro and Jinnai’s relationship may have started in volume 1, but it hasn’t stopped rocking! An old acquaintance shows up and creates waves, triggering doubts for both parties. Will this awkward couple ever understand each other?

August offers us Yamimaru Enjin’s VOICE OR NOISE volume 3. Shinichiro and Narusawa continue to explore the question: Can the ability to talk to the animals translate into the language of love? Back after his three years abroad Narusawa is ready to pick up his relationship with Shinichiro right where they left off-but how has the passage of time changed his young lover?

And lastly – September ushers in a Fall of boys’ love with the much-anticipated New York Times bestseller JUNJO ROMANTICA volume 12 by Shungiku Nakamura. The ever-lovable Misaki faces all new challenges and obstacles in life and love. Will his relationship with Akihiko be able to survive his 4th year of college and Akihiko’s pushy, jealous cousin moving in?