Domo creator speaks; yaoi readers pick their faves

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

Just a quick update today as I’m heading out for what I anticipate will be a busy day at work. One important reminder, though—if there’s an election going on where you live, get out and VOTE! We’re having municipal elections today, and although we all pay more attention to the president, local officials have a much more direct effect on everyday life. So take a minute to pull that lever or fill in that bubble.

OK, on with the manga news…

Lissa Pattillo and Deb Aoki write up the most recent Tokyopop webinar, which featured Domo creator Tsuneo Goda.

Deb also reports the results of a Twitter poll on the essential yaoi and BL manga.

Hey, someone’s writing an academic book on Boys’ Love manga, appropriately titled Boys’ Love Manga, and the contributors include a few famliar names: former Tokyopop editor Hope Donovan and Yaoi Press publisher Yamila Abraham.

The four-day Barcelona Manga Show drew 60,000 people, according to the Barcelona Reporter.

Christopher Butcher posts more photos of his recent trip to Japan at Comics212.

News from Japan: Canned Dogs notes that Yabuki Kentarou, creator of ToLoveRu, will be starting a new series in Jump Square soon. The post includes some discussion of the length of time it takes a creator to get rolling again once a series ends.

Reviews: The Manga Recon team starts the day with a fresh set of Manga Minis. Johanna Draper Carlson checks out three kid-friendly manga at Comics Worth Reading.

Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 4 of Apothecarius Argentum (i heart manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Arm of Kannon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Asamisgirl on vol. 4 of Breath (The Yaoi Review)
Julie on Cigarette Kisses (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Connie on vol. 15 of Claymore (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Click (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 1 of Fushigi Yugi (VizBig edition) (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Hino Horror 14: Skin and Bone (Slightly Biased Manga)
Alex Hoffman on vol. 1 of Honey Hunt (Comics Village)
James Fleenor on vol. 1 of Momogumi Plus Senki (Anime Sentinel)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Sugarholic (Comics-and-More)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Sumomomo,Momomo (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Connie on vol. 1 of Tale of the Waning Moon (Manga Recon)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Tale of the Waning Moon (Fujoshi Librarian)

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The Tyrant finds a home

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

DMP made a splash at Yaoi-Con with its new title announcements, including license rescues of The Tyrant Falls in Love (from DramaQueen) and Kizuna (from BeBeautiful), the latter in double-sized volumes. ANN has cover images of the new titles. Also, DMP will be putting Harlequin manga on its eManga website and is accepting submissions of original graphic novels and prose novels as well.

Asamisgirl links to her Yaoi-Con photos at The Yaoi Review.

Lori Henderson rounds up all the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu. She also finds some handcrafting manga, although the crafting is generally incidental to the story. And Erica Friedman updates on the latest yuri news at Okazu.

The Comics Village gang selects the best new manga from the latest round of releases.

Melinda Beasi has started a new feature at Manga Bookshelf: Manhwa Monday, in which she rounds up recent reviews of Korean comics.

The Eastern Edge treats us to some Takehiko Inoue sketches.

Here is some evidence that The Man is hijacking manga and using it to sell stuff. As if we didn’t already know.

News from Japan: Japan Today reports that the real-life baseball player who inspired the character of Kagura in the baseball manga Abu-san is now contentedly running his own yakitori restaurant.

Reviews: As always, I have joined the Robot 6 team for our Sunday roundup of What Are You Reading?

Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Andromeda Stories (Comics Village)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of Aria (Comics Worth Reading)
Clive Owen on vol. 28 of Bleach (Animanga Nation)
Danielle Leigh on Boys Love (Comics Should Be Good)
Colette Bennett on Boys Over Flowers: Jewelry Box (Japanator)
Julie on vol. 2 of Brilliant Blue (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Zaki Zakaria on vol. 1 of Children of the Sea (The Star of Malaysia)
Bill Sherman on vol. 1 of Deka Kyoshi (Blogcritics)
Julie on vol. 3 of Honey Hunt (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Jennifer Dunbar on vols. 1-3 of Kaze Hikaru (A word is a unit of language)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 2 of Ludwig (Kuriousity)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of March on Earth (i heart manga)
Jennifer Dunbar on vols. 1-3 of Minima (A word is a unit of language)
Michelle Smith on vol. 12 of Ouran High School Host Club (Soliloquy in Blue)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Soul Eater (Kuriousity)
Jennifer Dunbar on vols. 1 and 2 of Sugarholic (Manga Recon)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of Two Flowers for the Dragon (i heart manga)
Sesho on vol. 6 of Yotsuba&! (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Kitty Sensei on vol. 1 of Zone-00 (The Star of Malaysia)

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Review: Deka Kyoshi, vol. 1

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

DekaKyoshiDeka Kyoshi, vol. 1
By Tamio Baba
Rated T+, Teen Plus
CMX, $9.99

Detective Toyama is a big, bumbling, good-hearted guy, so when his superiors suspect a schoolteacher has been murdered, they send him undercover as the new teacher for her class. It sort of works, because he obviously loves kids, but Toyama tends to lead with his heart, not his head.

Well, actually, he does lead with his head on the first day of school—hearing a child being bullied, he rushes into the classroom and hits his head on the top of the door frame, leaving a visible head-shaped dent. That’s the only bit of slapstick in the story, though. Although the cover suggests a comedy, Deka Kyoshi is more of a series of moral tales, with a central mystery knitting them loosely together.

The mystery has to do with the first teacher’s death—she fell from a roof, so her students assume she committed suicide, and several of them blame themselves or each other. It’s not clear what Toyama is looking for, but he gets an assistant early in the book: Makoto, one of his fifth-graders, who can see people’s emotions as physical forms. To Makoto, a bully appears as a spiky monster, a girl who doesn’t want to grow up looks like a giant stuffed doll. It’s all pretty basic, although the alternate personalities, called synthes, are well conceived and well drawn.

Makoto’s abilities make him shrink from others, and that in turn makes him a target for bullies—he was the child Toyama heard being bullied in the beginning of the book. After Toyama rescues him, the two hit it off, and Makoto starts helping Toyama. But not with the case of the falling teacher—that case is forgotten as the book turns episodic and Toyama and Makoto start solving the other students’ problems.

In addition to Makoto, Toyama has another ally—Narita-sensei, the school doctor, who is also something of a psychologist. She is cool and logical, proposing sensible solutions and countering Toyama’s hotheadedness. If anything she is too cool, often offering advice that is so laid-back as to be useless. When Toyama gets frustrated that his class is all reading manga instead of paying attention, Narita advises him not to confiscate the offending books. “Being a hardnose about it will have the opposite effect,” she says. “The best thing to do is take time to persuade them that their time here is better spent paying attention.” Like that’s going to work with a classroom full of fifth-graders.

And indeed, the solutions proposed to the students’ problems are too simplistic. In the manga story, a student has been shoplifting manga so he can share it with the class and thus become popular. Narita catches him and makes him promise not to do it any more. Of course the kid backslides, and Toyama yells at him to be a man and stop stealing. The student’s synth disappears and he gives up shoplifting for good. With similar ease, Toyama, Narita, and Makoto manage to cure a girl who cuts herself and another girl who is uncomfortable with her changing body. The stories are nice little self-contained dramas, but they never veer far from the predictable. There does seem to be a dark figure lurking in the shadows who may be causing bad thigs to happen—and by implication may have something to do with the teacher’s death—but that possibility goes unexplored in this volume.

The art in Deka Kyoshi is clean-lined and clear, with a fair amount of exaggeration. People more knowledgeable than me have described it as old-style shonen, ad that does seem to fit, but it’s an accessible style that either girls or boys can enjoy. The synthes are nicely drawn, and creator Tamio Baba does a nice job of using physical forms to describe emotional states.

At about 160 pages, this volume feels a little skimpy, but there are a few extras—a color page in front, a two-page bonus comic in the back. The cover is bright and appealing, although it implies a wackiness that isn’t really present in the book. With its simple stories and clear art, Deka Kyoshi does feel like it is pitched more toward the middle grades than adults, and it will probably have the most appeal for that age group.

This review is based on a review copy supplied by the publisher.

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Halloween treat

Posted on October 31, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

I had to rush out yesterday—the TV crew showed up at City Hall at 7 a.m.—so I figured I’d toss in a bonus post today so you wouldn’t miss all the Halloween goodness that’s out there.

Halloween isn’t the only event this weekend—Yaoi-Con is going on as well, and Deb Aoki posts a handy guide for manga fans at About.com. And The Yaoi Review is tweeting live updates.

The New York Times best-seller list is up, and among the usual suspects (Naruto, Bleach) is a global title, Vampire Kisses, based on Ellen Schrieber’s YA novels.

David Welsh’s license request this week is Hime-Chan’s Ribbon.

Reviews: EvilOmar posts a handful of brief manga reviews at About Heroes.

Cynthia on Age Called Blue (Boys Next Door)
Julie on vol. 1 of Beast Master (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie (Manga Jouhou)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Cat Paradise (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Detroit Metal City (Prospero’s Manga)
Cynthia on vol. 3 of Dog Style (Boys Next Door)
Sesho on vol. 4 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Higurashi When They Cry: Cotton Drifting Arc (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Erica on vol. 1 of Hinagiku Junshin Jogakuen (Okazu)
James Fleenor on vol. 4 of Inukami! (Anime Sentinel)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of March on Earth (i heart manga)
Julie on vol. 4 of Mixed Vegetables (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Nightschool (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Ken Haley on Red Snow (Manga Recon)
Andrew Wheeler on Red Snow (ComicMix)
Snow Wildsmith on Rica ‘tte Kanji!? (Fujoshi Librarian)
Michelle Smith on vols. 5-7 of Vampire Knight (Soliloquy in Blue)
Sesho on the December 2008 issue of Yen Plus (Korean and global titles) (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Joy Kim on vol. 6 of Yotsuba&! (Joy Kim)

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Halloween Eve blogging

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

At Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson lists this week’s new kid-friendly comics and manga.

There’s plenty of manga goodness at comiXology today, as Shaenon Garrity lists her top five untranslated manga and Jason Thompson writes about long-running manga series.

News from Japan: ANN has the latest comics rankings.

Reviews: Danielle Leigh discusses three Halloween-friendly manga at Comics Should Be Good. Kate Dacey checks out three more spooky titles at The Manga Critic. Lissa Pattillo lists her recommendations at Kuriousity, and Lori Henderson gets in on the act as well with a look at monster manga at Manga Xanadu.

Dan Polley on vols. 3-4 of B.Ichi (Comics Village)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Fire Investigator Nanase (i heart manga)
Connie on Hino Horror 13: Zipangu Night (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of I.N.V.U. (Comics Worth Reading)
Melinda Beasi on Mijeong (Manga Recon)
Emily on Oniisamakata Goranshin! (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 3 of Rasetsu (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sam Kusek on vol. 1 of Rin-ne (Manga Recon)
Kinukitty on Tale of the Waning Moon (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of X-Men: Misfits (Stop, Drop, and Read)

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More PR: Viz to publish Jormungand

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Brigid Alverson

The Viz folks have been busy, despite the flooding and all. Here’s the hot skinny on their newest release, Jormungand, which apparently involves mercenaries ‘n’ stuff.

VIZ MEDIA LETS THE BULLETS AND ACTION FLY IN NEW MANGA SERIES JORMUNGAND

Death Is A Business And Business Is Good For A Crack Team Of Mercenaries; Staying Alive Becomes Even More Dangerous When A New Young Recruit Joins The Team

San Francisco, CA, October 29, 2009– VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will premiere the exciting new manga series JORMUNGAND to readers across North America next month. The new action adventure by Keitaro Takahashi will be published by VIZ Media’s Signature imprint and will release on November 10th. JORMUNGAND is rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers and will carry an MSRP of $12.99 U.S. / $16.99 CAN.

Jonah is a child soldier, born amidst the chaotic conflicts that rage across West Asia. His family was lost to a war fueled by weapons supplied by the so-called Merchants of Death – international arms dealers. Despite Jonah’s hatred of weapons and violence, he employs them extremely well in the service of high-flying arms dealer named Koko Hekmatyar and her band of mercenaries. Their journey through the dark underbelly of the world’s arms markets may lead to damnation, but will Jonah somehow make his way back to the light? Only one thing is certain: it’s going to be a long, hard road out of hell… Death is their business, and business is good!

In Volume 1, Koko Hekmatyar, the head of H&C Logistic Incorporated, introduces new recruit Jonah to her expert team of troubleshooters, and it isn’t long before they find some trouble to shoot. An Eastern European government official holds up a shipment of aircraft parts that would shift the balance of power in the region. But the real trouble is that shipment belongs to Koko, and she’s not about to miss an opportunity to make a profit, even if it means two nations go to war!

“JORMUNGAND takes its name from the fabled ferocious sea serpent in Norse mythology, and readers will be at the edge of their seats with this fierce band of mercenaries that live up to the name with an insatiable taste for trouble and gunplay,” says Gonzalo Ferrerya, Vice President, Sales & Marketing. “JORMUNGAND is a must-read for any action fan, and Keitaro Takahashi’s manga delivers plenty of bullet-riddled adventures as he fills each chapter with plenty of shady characters, double deals, and enough heavy metal weaponry to make any modern paramilitary jealous! Just remember to keep your head down and eyes glued to the page!”

Keitaro Takahashi’s debut manga, Ordinary±, won the Four Seasons Prize in 1999 and was subsequently serialized in Gekkan Afternoon magazine in Japan. Prior to creating JORMUNGAND in 2006, Takahashi worked as an illustrator for several books and he has drawn considerable acclaim for his striking, realistic and angular style.

For information on VIZ Media titles, please visit www.VIZ.com.

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