MangaBlog

Highly recommended: Jason Thompson has a thoughtful take on moe in his latest comiXology column.

What’s Tokyopop up to these days? Johanna Draper Carlson summarizes a recent webinar for bloggers, which I also particpated in but didn’t have time to write up. There were few tidbits, including a look at the upcoming CSI: Interns manga and the news that VB Rose will resume regular updates in November.

David Welsh polls his readers on what Japanese shoujo manga magazines would be good fodder for a U.S. anthology, and he puts in his most recent license request, this one drawn from the nominees for the Prix Asie.

Yaoi Press publisher Yamila Abraham files her con report on Anime Expo. It sounds like she had a great time, although I’d love to know more about the “shoplifter boobytraps.”

Meanwhile, Deb Aoki posts an AX photo gallery at About.com.

Sesho notes that his local Borders has moved the manga to the kids’ section and is not pleased. I went to Borders last weekend myself and noticed that our manga section had also been moved and is now next to the teen section. I don’t necessarly think that’s a bad thing, though, as most of the people who buy manga in Borders are teenagers. Adults are more likely to get their manga online or in a comics store, options that aren’t as available to younger teens with no credit card and no car. As for soccer moms fainting at the sight of MPD-Psycho—um, I’m a soccer mom and it doesn’t bother me. Of course, I’m an unusually cool soccer mom, but most of the other moms I talk to understand that there are different types of entertainment for adults and kids, and when I show them the age ratings and point out that most mature manga is shrink-wrapped, they get it right away. Also, the images in manga aren’t much worse than what the kids are reading in other books and watching on TV anyway—my kids love Bones and NCIS, which have their share of grisly scenes.

Readers of the Heart of Manga blog have chosen their favorite manga of the month—and it’s a tie!

News from Japan: Shogakukan is planning to release a special anthology, Shonen Sunday 1983, which will collect nine titles that ran in Shonen Sunday that year.

Reviews: It’s not manga, but check out my review of the webcomic Family Man if you like historical drama with a supernatural touch (or just hot guys in frilly shirts). Shojo Flash takes a look at Tokyopop’s shojo sampler, which they are giving out free with the last volume of Fruits Basket.

Tangognat on vols. 1-5 of Beauty is the Beast (Tangognat)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of Black Bird (Stop, Drop, and Read!)
Connie on vol. 11 of Crimson Hero (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of A Distant Neighborhood (Comics Worth Reading)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 9 of Emma (Comics Worth Reading)
Emily on Koi Nanka Hajimaranai (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
Kinukitty on Lovers and Souls (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Dan Polley on vol. 1 of Maid War Chronicle (Comics Village)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 2 of Moon Child (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Connie on vol. 12 of Muhyo & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Slightly BIased Manga)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Sarasah (Kuriousity)
Brad Rice on Sayonara, Mr. Fatty (Japanator)
Kate Dacey on Swallowing the Earth (The Manga Critic)
Lorena on vol. 2 of With the Light (i heart manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of You’re So Cool (Slightly Biased Manga)

Viz will launch a new Shonen Sunday imprint that will encompass the print edition of Rumiko Takahashi’s Rin-ne as well as the existing series from Japan’s Shonen Sunday magazine: InuYasha, Hayate the Combat Butler, and Yakitate!! Japan, among others.

Going to SDCC? Gia has an etiquette primer for Q&A sessions.
Andrew Cunningham explains why Faust is important at The Eastern Standard.

Kate Dacey has another half-time poll at The Manga Critic: What do you think is the best continuing series of 2009 (so far)?

Digital will be publishing an omnibus edition of Makoto Tateno’s Yellow (not Yellow 2, as I wrote a few days ago), but it will be under their June imprint, not 801. They will also be publishing Yellow 2 in the June line, but that manga is only 60 pages long and was originally published to cell phones—it has yet to be printed in Japan, according to ANN.

Malaysia needs more homegrown manga, according to this guy.

News from Japan: An Nakahara, creator of Kirarin Revolution, has a new series, Kururun-Rieru Change!, that will launch in the August 3 issue of Ciao magazine. ANN has last week’s comics rankings.

Reviews

David Welsh on vol. 3 of Astral Project (Precocious Curmudgeon)
Holly Ellingwood on vol. 1 of Black Bird (Active Anime)
Davey C. Jones on vol. 6 of Black Lagoon (Active Anime)
Michelle Smith on vol. 26 of Boys Over Flowers (Soliloquy in Blue)
Terry Boyden on vol. 1 of Detroit Metal City (BuzzFocus.com)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 3 of Gunsmith Cats, Revised Edition (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Julie on vol. 2 of Happy Happy Clover (Manga Maniac Cafe)
James Fleenor on vol. 3 of Hayate Cross Blade (Anime Sentinel)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Itoshi wo Tome (Okazu)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 1 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Shojo Flash on vol. 10 of Kitchen Princess (Shojo Flash)
Lorena on vol. 3 of Land of the Blindfolded (i heart manga)
Andre on Over the Rainbow (Kuriousity)
Margaret Veira on vol. 32 of The Prince of Tennis (Active Anime)
Alex Hoffman on Short-Tempered Melancholic (Comics Village)
Tangognat on vol. 2 of Two Flowers for the Dragon (Tangognat)

David Welsh takes a look at this week’s new manga, which includes the final volume of Fruits Basket (and he has a special request for those of you who haven’t read it… yet).

Tangognat makes her picks from the July Previews.

801 Media will be publishing Yellow 2, the sequel to Yellow, as an omnibus edition.

Sadie Mattox presents her criteria for the best manga of 2009 at Extremely Graphic.

If you’re in NYC, drop by Kinokuniya today for the latest Vertical Vednesday with Ed Chavez. The topic this time: Sports manga.

Reviews: Over at Comics Should Be Good, reviewers Danielle Leigh, Melinda Beasi, and Michelle Smith have started a roundtable discussion that will eventually cover all of Nana. All three are sharp, intelligent critics so this project promises to be interesting. At Manga Life, Barb Lien-Cooper reaches into the time capsule and pulls out a variety of short reviews from 2005.

Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess (Prospero’s Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Amefurashi: The Rain Goddess (Comics Worth Reading)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Black Bird (Comics Should Be Good)
Lorena on vol. 6 of Black Jack (MangaCast)
Michelle Smith on vol. 25 of Boys Over Flowers (Soliloquy in Blue)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 36 of Boys Over Flowers (Manga Life)
Katherine Farmar on vol. 2 of Future Lovers (Comics Village)
Lori Henderson on vol. 3 of Gimmick (Manga Xanadu)
Lorena on vol. 1 of Millennium Snow (i heart manga)
Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 4 of Mixed Vegetables (Manga Life)
Emily on Penguin Kakumei (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page)
David Rasmussen on vol. 3 of Ral Grad (Manga Life)
Tiamat’s Disciple on Tail of the Moon Prequel – The Other Hanzo(u) (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Tena on S-String (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Time Guardian (Kuriousity)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Yokai Doctor (Read About Comics)
Julie on You & Harujion (Manga Maniac Cafe)

First of all, there’s a good reason why my header image is missing—Mr. MangaBlog upgraded me from WordPress 2.5 to 2.8 yesterday, and the image didn’t survive the transition. It will be back in a few days, and hopefully some sort of redesign will follow shortly. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it!

In the meantime, here’s what’s going on.

At MangaCast, Ed Chavez provides covers and commentary on the new releases announced at Anime Expo by CMX and Viz. He’s bullish on Tokyopop as well, if the rumored new titles pan out. Gia has some comments on CMX as well and notes that Tokyopop will have a booth at SDCC.

In other AX news, Deb Aoki has more detail on the Viz panel at About.com, Lissa Pattillo rounds up all the news and announcements at Kuriousity, and Julie thinks over her overall experience at the con at Manga Maniac Cafe.

Kate Dacey takes a look at this week’s new manga at The Manga Critic, and Red Baylon has a slightly different take at Japanator.

Reviews: At The Comics Reporter, David Welsh looks at three comics bout helping the dead cross over: Rin-ne, Omukae Desu, and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. Carlo Santos takes on a stack of recent releases in his latest Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. The Manga Recon team post short takes on a variety of recent releases in their latest Manga Minis feature. And the newlywed Ninjaconsultants, Erin and Noah, discuss 20th Century Boys in their latest podcast.

Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 3 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Worth Reading)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Bamboo Blade (The Manga Critic)
Lorena on vol. 6 of Black Jack (i heart manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Dogs (Slightly Biased Manga)
Casey Brienza on A Drifting Life (ANN)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Gestalt (Kuriousity)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 2 of Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 28 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of I”s (Slightly Biased Manga)
Casey Brienza on vol. 1 of Kimi ni Todoke (ANN)
Anna on vols. 2-5 of King of Cards (2 screenshot limit)
John Thomas on vol. 1 of Negima!? neo (Comics Village)
Julie on New Beginnings (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 3 of Otomen (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Laura on vol. 1 of Pig Bride (revised review) (Heart of Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 4 of Red Garden (Okazu)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Rosario + Vampire (Comics-and-More)
Scott VonSchilling on Swallowing the Earth (The Anime Almanac)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of We Were There (Comics Worth Reading)

The Anime Expo folks say that attendance topped 44,000 this past weekend, making AX the biggest anime and manga show in the country. Opinion Prone summarizes Deb Aoki’s tweets on the global manga panel and adds some opinions, and Evan Miller has a fuller report for ANN. Yaoi Press announced that they will be starting a light novel line. Japanator’s Tim Sheehy reports on Takashi Okazaki’s panel. (Okazaki is the creator of Afro Samurai.) ANN has cover shots for the new licenses announced by CMX at AX.

At Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson has a few things to say about Viz’s plans to accelerate the release of One Piece.

Lissa Pattillo spots a few possible Tokyopop titles on Amazon.

Erica Friedman summarizes a week’s worth of yuri news at Okazu.

Japan Today’s Patrick Galbraith talks to Jamie Lano, an American artist who is currently working as an assistant on The Prince of Tennis in Japan.

News from Japan: Ed Chavez posts the weekly manga rankings from Taioysha at MangaCast. Bandai Visual is serializing the AIKa ZERO Cute manga online.

ComiPress is looking for proofreaders for an independent manga project.

Reviews: Want to know what I’m reading this week? Check it out at Robot 6. The latest Manga Pulse podcast features a look at Old Boy and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle.

Erica Friedman on vol. 3 of Alice on Deadlines (Okazu)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Angelic Runes (Kuriousity)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of BakeGyamon (Comics Village)
Connie C. on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinigami (Manga Recon)
Jog on vol. 1 of Children of the Sea (Jog – The Blog)
Medora on Cirque du Freak (BSC Review)
Melinda Beasi on Color (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Dororo (i heart manga)
Lori Henderson on vol. 4 of Eagle: The 2008 Election Edition (Manga Xanadu)
J. Caleb Mozzocco on vol. 1 of Fairy Idol Kanon and vol. 1 of The Big Adventures of Majoko (Every Day Is Like Wednesday)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Game X Rush (Prospero’s Manga)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Gestalt (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Ed Chavez on vol. 3 of He Is My Master (MangaCast)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 9 of High School Debut (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 16 of Hikaru no Go (Slightly Biased Manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 16 of Hikaru no Go (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Connie on The History of the West Wing (Slightly Biased Manga)
Danielle Leigh on The History of the West Wing (Comics Should Be Good)
Lissa Pattillo on The History of the West Wing (Kuriousity)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 13 of Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 4 of Kiichi and the Magic Books (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Land of the Blindfolded (i heart manga)
Melinda Beasi on vol. 5 of Legend (There it is, Plain as Daylight)
Nebs on Lucky Star (Nebs Blog)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of The Loudest Whisper (Prospero’s Manga)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 1 of Ludwig II (Comics Should Be Good)
Laura on Mars (Heart of Manga)
Lorena on vol. 2 of Me and the Devil Blues (i heart manga)
Hisui and Narutaki on issue 1 of Mechademia (Reverse Thieves)
Brian Cronin on Mijeong (Comics Should Be Good)
Julie on vol. 5 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Max Loh on Orange (The Star of Malaysia)
Sesho on vol. 1 of Ouran High School Host Club (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
David Brothers on vol. 1 of Path of the Assassin (4thletter!)
Ed Sizemore on vol. 5 of Sundome (Comics Worth Reading)
Zaki Zakaria on vol. 1 of Tsubasa: Those With Wings (The Star of Malaysia)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 4 of Very! Very! Sweet (Kuriousity)

Friday was a busy day for the manga folks at Anime Expo. Here’s a roundup of news and announcements:

SPJA Awards: The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) gave their awards at AX. Here are the manga-related ones:

Best Manga – Action
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, by CLAMP (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Comedy
Fairy Tail, by Hiro Mashima (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Drama
Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz Media)

Best Publication
Shonen Jump (Viz Media)

Anime Vice has a comprehensive report on the awards.

Bandai Entertainment: Edward Zacharias of Animanga Nation covers their panel from a manga-centric point of view. They discussed a number of manga, although I think most of these were previously announced. ANN and Anime Vice have more.

CMX Manga: DC’s manga arm seemed to go quiet for a while, and after the demise of Minx, some of us started wondering if they would be the next to go, although there were some hopeful signs at NYCC. Now they have come roaring back with a set of new license announcements and a promise of more to come at SDCC. The new titles lean heavily toward shoujo, with a handful of shonen and one mature-rated seinen title, Rampage. Below is a list of all the titles discussed in the panel, some of which have been previously announced.

The Battle of Genryu, by Shouko Fukaki (August 2009)
A Tale of An Unknown Country, by Natsuna Kawase (September 2009)
Oh! My Brother, by Ken Saito (October 2009)
Deka Kyoshi, by Kamio Baba (November 2009)
The Lizard Prince, by Asuka Izumi (November 2009)
The World I Create, by Ayami Kazama (January 2010)
Stolen Hearts, by Miku Sakamoto (January 2010)
Rampage, by Yunosuke Yoshinaga (February 2010)
My Darling Miss Bancho, by Mayu Fujikata (March 2010)
Diamond Girl, by Takanori Yamazaki (April 2010)
Polyphonica: Cardinal Crimson, by Ichiro Sasaki / Ocelot (May 2010)
Nadeshiko Club, by Miku Sakamoto (June 2010)

Deb Aoki has capsule summaries of each title at About.com, and Carlo Santos has more at ANN. Julie has notes on some of the series and remarks that scheduling problems with Swan and From Eroica With Love were attributed to problems getting the source material from Japan as well as the need to keep the new releases flowing.

Viz Media: Gia liveblogged the panel for Anime Vice, and Ai Kano covers the manga announcements at Animanga Nation; many of them are for previously announced titles. The big news seems to be that they are doing a speeded-up release of One Piece, as they did for Naruto, with four volumes per month coming out from January through June 2010. As Gia remarks, “That’s pretty badass.” These seem to be the new announcements:

Biomega, by Tsutomu Nihei (February 2010)
Crown of Love, by Yun Kouga (February 2010)
Cactus’s Secret, by Nana Haruto (March 2010)
Stepping on Roses, by Rinko Ueda (April 2010)
Flower in a Storm, by Shigeyoshi Takagi (May 2010)

For more impressions of the con, photos, etc., check out all the coverage at ANN’s AX page, Animanga Nation, Anime Vice, Deb Aoki’s blog, Japanator, and Manga Maniac Cafe.