MangaBlog

Here’s a quick update: I checked with Tokyopop today and they told me that Fruits Basket and Gakuen Alice will definitely continue—I know, duh on Fruits Basket, but Gakuen Alice is a newer series. They couldn’t give me definite answers on anything else, but Dan Hipp noted on his blog that volume 3 of Gyakushu would be online only. At The Beat, Heidi had this to say:

In other developments, we’ve heard from a couple of good sources that Tokyopop is releasing several creators from their contracts, and negotiating with others for their publishing rights. Expect to see some movement there over the next month or so.

David Welsh fills in for a vacationing Matthew Brady and recommends some good shoujo stories at Warren Peace Sings the Blues.

John Jakala celebrates Father’s Day with a look at his favorite manga dads at Sporadic Sequential.

I was a guest on this last week’s Podtoid-San, the Japanator podcast, where I joined Gia, John Martone, Dick McVengeance, and God Len for a discussion of Tokyopop, office turn-ons, and a bunch of stuff I really didn’t understand. It was good fun, though, so check it out.

Last week a manga creator in Japan posted about being mistreated by the editors at the publishing house Shogakukan. Now Canned Dog rounds up a whole slew of creators piling on to complain about their editors.

Erica Friedman rounds up all the week’s yuri news at Okazu.

News from Japan: Canned Dogs reports that the earthquake in northern Japan this past weekend was predicted in Black Jack—the date, time, location, and even the magnitude all match up! EDIT: Or maybe not; an astute commenter says it’s not that close. On a sadder note, one earthquake victim was crushed to death by his own manga. Also the overreaction to the Akihabara stabbing incident has begun. At MangaCast, Ed Chavez posts his big list of Japanese releases for the month in several parts: ero-manga and the mid-size major publishers (part 1, part 2, part 4—no, I don’t know what happened to part 3). ANN reports that the Korean creators Youn In-Wan and Yang Kyung-Il, who just wrapped up Blade of the Phantom Master, are starting a new battle manga, Burning Hell, in Big Comic Spirits magazine. And the latest Jump Square magazine features a manga about the production of the Dragonball film.

Reviews: Erin F. catches up with some long-running series at PopCultureshock, with a look at vol. 7 of Reborn! and vol. 12 of Hikaru no Go, while Ken Haley reads vol. 1 of Croquis Pop. Xavier Guilbert’s review of Cat-Eyed Boy is now available in English at du9. Chris Mautner reviewed four global manga at Blog@Newsarama this week, and he only liked one. His pick might suprise you. Danielle Van Gorder reviews Endless Rain and Sakura Eries checks out vol. 3 of Hikkatsu at Anime on DVD. Michelle enjoys vol. 6 of Maison Ikkoku at Soliloquy in Blue. John Thomas takes on vol. 5 of MPD-Psycho at Mecha Mecha Media. Julie reviews the BL novel Better Than a Dream at the Manga Maniac Cafe and Weekend Lovers at MangaCast. Lissa Pattillo reads vol. 1 of Absolute Boyfriend and vol. 5 of Bring It On at Kuri-ousity. Johanna Draper Carlson is not impressed with vol. 1 of Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro at Comics Worth Reading. Connie works her way through the stack with reviews of vol. 1 of Kiichi and the Magic Books, vol. 1 of Strawberry-Chan, vol. 20 of Astro-Boy, vol. 1 of Crayon Shinchan, vol. 4 of Let Dai, and vol. 2 of Zombie-Loan at Slightly Biased Manga. At Active Anime, Scott Campbell reads vol. 3 of Parasyte and vol. 8 of Mobile Suit Gundam: Ecole du Ciel, Rachel Bentham reviews vol. 1 of Kamichama Karin Chu, and Holly Ellingwood checks out the Queenie Chan/Dean Koontz collaboration In Odd We Trust. Tiamat’s Disciple presents his thoughts and impressions on vol. 1 of Aria. Huamulan03 critiques vol. 1 of Rocket Man at the Sunny Side Up Anime Blog. Erica Friedman reads vol. 5 of Strawberry Marshmallow and vol. 3 of Hatsukoi Shimai at Okazu. Greg McElhatton likes the idea of vol. 1 of Gimmick! better than the execution, but he sees potential for improvement, at Read About Comics. The Boys Next Door blog posts reviews of vol. 2 of Yakuza in Love and vol. 1 of Tea For Two. At The Yaoi Review, Sakura Kiss throws in her two cents on vol. 2 of Yakuza In Love as well. Deb Aoki thumbs through the July Shojo Beat at About.com. Sophie Stevens reads vol. 1 of Sand Chronicles at Animanga Nation. Ferdinand finds vol. 1 of The Record of a Fallen Vampire to be more interesting than he expected at Prospero’s Manga. Tangognat gets a good laugh out of vol. 1 of The Gorgeous Life of Strawberry Chan. Bill Sherman reviews Tokyo Metro at Blogcritics.

Steady Beat creator Rivkah Greulich heard from her editor at Tokyopop last week that the third volume of Steady Beat would be web-only.

I’m not sure how much I should say for fear of causing an outright panic with other creators, but essentially, nearly all of Tokyopop’s future books will be going straight to web. This wasn’t a case-by-case scenario. Neither I nor any other single creators were singled out. It looks like the whole line of non-licensed material will cease printing and be promoted online only.

Actually, it turns out that the outlook is better for some creators, worse for others. Bettina Kurkoski was told that volume 3 of My Cat Loki would not be published, which is a shame, but she’s going to keep busy working on Tokyopop’s Star Trek and Warriors manga, which have not been cancelled, plus she has some other irons in the fire.

On the other hand, Christy Lijewski’s Re:Play made the cut, and vol. 3 will not only be published, it will be published in print form. Tony Salvaggio is waiting for the other boot to drop on Psy-Comm. And Rikki Simons posted a few days ago that all systems are go for vol. 6 of Shutterbox.

Even before Tokopop split into two companies, a number of creators were told their series were cancelled or curtailed, including Dark Moon Diary, Divalicious, and Sea Princess Azuri.

One point to ponder: So far there has not been a huge wave of outrage from creators. One reason for that may be that a number of them seem to be working on Tokyopop’s licensed properties, which don’t seem to be in any danger of cancellation: the Star Trek, Warcraft, and Warriors series, and of course the many Princess Ai projects. I wonder if this is what the future holds for Tokyopop: More focus on licensed properties, fewer original projects?

Edit: Heidi posted Rivkah’s comments at The Beat, and as always, her comment thread is well worth a look.

It’s been a busy weekend. I went out with friends on Friday night, and while I was out there was a spasm of internet uncertainty about whether the magazine PiQ, the successor to Newtype-USA, had folded. The final answer is that it did, and the publisher posted a message to that effect.

While PiQ had come in for some heavy criticism during its short life, the message hints that the real reason for the magazine’s failure is a lack of support from parent company ADV. [Edit: There’s actually a PiQ, LLC, which is technically the parent company of PiQ, but, as Simon Jones (NSFW) points out, it has the same address as ADV.] Perhaps “hints” is too weak a term:

It’s unfortunate that we’ll never get a chance to see how successful PiQ could have been, but a combination of low advertising revenue, poor business management and a lack of proper marketing and promotion all hamstrung the magazine from the start. We, the editorial/creative/production staff, did the best we could to put together a quality publication, but as we’ve discovered, without a good financial backing, it’s all an exercise in futility.

PiQ freelancer Lesley Smith weighs in, and Josh of Josh’s Anime Blog looks at the situation and wonders about the implications for ADV, as well as for his subscription:

As for those of us with subscriptions, they say they will have “more details later.” If they’re just going to refund money, I don’t know why they wouldn’t just say so, which means that we’ll probably eventually get our money back in some sort of round-about way.

Like, another magazine?

First of all, I want to thank all the bloggers who voted for MangaBlog for Best Manga Blog Gold Award in the inaugural Anime Blog Awards. I’m very honored. Congratulations to THAT Anime Blog and the Manga Maniac Cafe, which took the silver and bronze awards, respectively; THAT Anime Blog also won the People’s Choice award. Congrats also to frequent link-ees Zepy (Canned Dogs) and Gia for their silver and bronze awards for Best News Blog. And go check out all the blogs on the list—there’s an interesting variety of talent out there, and I have added several to my RSS feeds.

Speaking of the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie got her June Previews and has chosen the best of the August manga releases.

Tokyopop watch: ANN reports that Tokyopop is reducing the number of releases in the UK as well as the U.S. And here is an incredibly rosy PR piece (warning: annoying interstitial ad) about Tokyopop signing Big Tent Ent. as its licensing agent. Not only does the press release not mention Tokyopop’s recent troubles, it isn’t even clear on which arm of the newly divided company is involved. At The Anime Almanac, Scott gives a capsule history of Tokyopop and how they got to this point. JP Meyer disputes one of Scott’s points, that Manga Sutra (Futari Ecchi) isn’t available in chain bookstores; he found it in Borders. Omonomono considers the problem of OEL manga and the differences between Fred Gallagher and other global manga creators. (The last three links are via Japanator.)

Alex Woolfson discusses why age ratings are useful for graphic novels, and what the consequences could be of different systems, at Yaoi 911.

Two boys for every girl makes for tiresome shoujo manga, writes Hinano, who backs her argument by citing Vampire Knight, Special A, and the untranslated title Brilliant na Mahou, among others.

The Daily Yomiuru interviews Brigitte Koyama-Richard about her new book, One Thousand Years of Manga.

It’s a Bleach-o-rama at Sporadic Sequential, where John Jakala spots a number of different ways to sample his favorite franchise. But will he join the Bleach customer community?

Jason Thompson will be making several public appearances in Northern California in coming weeks; check his LJ for the schedule.

News from Japan: Gia notes that Japanese readers have snapped up over 1 million copies of vol. 50 of One Piece, according to Oricon.

Reviews: Ed Sizemore reads vol. 1 of Red Angel at Comics Worth Reading. Julie finds vol. 1 of Nephilim entertaining despite a lack of story at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Danielle Van Gorder reads two very different manga, Kiss All the Boys and vol. 21 of Berserk, at Anime on DVD. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand feels the cuteness that is vol. 1 of Kamichama Karin Chu. Kate Dacey checks out vol. 1 of Nephilim at PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon blog.

We stopped by my local Borders yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the manga section, which was already pretty big, had been moved to a more central location and expanded. Anime has been relocated to that section, and one whole row (four bookcases) is given over to other graphic novels and how-to books. The employee who was responsible for the move said manga sells quite well, and she thinks it will sell even better now because they can actually shelve all the books. They seemed to have at least one of every volume of most series, and when someone buys a volume, she immediately orders another one. She was surprised to hear that Borders just sent back a bunch of unsold Tokyopop titles, but she admitted that they don’t sell too well; Naruto, Bleach, Gravitation, Shojo Beat titles, and Hellsing were the series she sees flying out the door. We had come there from Barnes & Noble, so it was possible to do a quick compare-and-contrast; our B&N has a large manga section as well as quite a few American graphic novels, but it’s harder to find an individual volume of a long-running series there. Anyway, it was refreshing to see that despite the recent reports of gloom and doom, manga is still doing pretty well in my part of the world.

Charts: Vol. 29 of Naruto is in 109th place on the USA Today best-seller list, down from 96th place last week, and vol. 23 of Bleach makes it to number 121.

Lissa Pattillo has penned a spirited defense of global manga at Kuri-ousity. Be sure to read the comments as well.

Free manga on the web: John Jakala is enjoying some sneak previews at Sporadic Sequential.

Good news for Furuba fans: At Sleep Is For the Weak, Lianne Sentar, who freelances for Tokyopop, has been told her series, Fruits Basket, Saiyuki, Tactics, and Rave Master, have not been canceled, but she is mourning the loss of her longtime co-workers.

Michael Lorah interviews Adrian Tomine about Yoshihiro’ Tatsumi’s Goodbye, which Tomine edited, and Rachel Kaufman talks to Daniel Pink about The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. (Both found via Journalista.) Also from Journalista: Fish porn. (Probably SFW, unless you work in an aquarium.)

Reviews: Ferdinand gives thumbs up to vol. 1 of Two Flowers for the Dragon at Prospero’s Manga. Erica Friedman checks out vol. 4 of Battle Club at Okazu. NotHayama reviews Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross at Sleep Is For the Weak. Ed Chavez’s latest podcast discusses vol. 1 of Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro and vol. 2 of Metro Survive at the MangaCast. Connie checks out vol. 1 of Two Flowers for the Dragon, vol. 2 of Oyayubihime Infinity, and vol. 11 of Saint Seiya at Slightly Biased Manga. At Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews, Sesho’s latest podcast covers vol. 1 of Dance in the Vampire Bund. Deb Aoki reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Flower of Life at About.com. Scott Campbell gives his take on vol. 8 of Suzuka, vol. 15 of Monster, and vol. 12 of Claymore at Active Anime. Lori Henderson reads vol. 2 of Muhyu & Roji’s Bureau of Supernatural Law at Manga Xanadu. Michelle has a big yawn for vol. 23 of Bleach at Soliloquy in Blue. Leroy Douresseaux reads vol. 4 of Junk at The Comic Book Bin. The Ya Ya Yas take a quick look at The Manga Cookbook. At Manga Life, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane reviews vol. 1 of Fever and vols. 2 and 3 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Barb Lien-Cooper reads vol. 10 of Gals!, and David Rasmussen checks out vol. 1 of Priest. Cathy writes about Restart at It can’t all be about manga. At Anime on DVD, Danielle Van Gorder takes a look at one of our favorites, vol. 1 of Yakuza in Love, as well as vol. 3 of Cantarella and The Reformed. Julie looks at vol. 2 of Minima! at the Manga Maniac Cafe.