MangaBlog

Fred Gallagher drops in at The Engine to talk about how and why MegaTokyo got picked up by Kodansha.

At Comicsnob, Matt Blind looks at online manga sales rankings for this week.

LJ’er redplasticglass muses on the recent seinen-josei discussions. (Via When Fangirls Atttack.)

The Nichi Bei Times has a nice package on manga, with a lengthy article on Tezuka, another on cosplay, and primers on manga and manga genres.

At TZG2.0, Myk takes a look at the Amazon sales charts in Germany.

New blog alert: Manga Xanadu is a new LiveJournal that shows plenty of promise, from the first two posts: The blogger is literate and thoughtful, and she’s a mom like me! I’m looking forward to seeing what she has to say in the future.

Reviews: At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 2 of Galaxy Angel II and vol. 2 of Mamotte! Lollipop. Tim Janson reviews vol. 1 of War Angels at Manga Life. At The Comic Book Bin, Leroy Douresseaux checks out vol. 1 of Avalon High: Coronation.

This week marks the 40th edition of MangaBlogCast, and as a special treat, Ed Chavez himself is hosting this week’s show. Check it out to hear news and commentary about new licenses, seinen sales, and more. Links after the cut.

Anime Expo draws to a close

Advanced Media Network coverage of the Dark Horse panel
Anime Online on DrMaster panel
MangaCast new title round-up

Manga: No Boyz Allowed?

Kethylia on seinen
David Welsh on seinen
David Welsh on the age question

The urge to surge

ICv2’s Anime and Manga Guide predicts record number of new titles

Netcomics makes the move to manga

Netcomics adds Yaoi Press titles and Japanese manga to its lineup

OK, I have arrived safely in the outskirts of Chicago and will be blogging from here for a few days. The train trip was great—the scenery was beautiful, the train crew were very nice, the food was good, and we arrived more or less on time. I got into interesting conversations with several people, including a software guy who did lunar module landing simulations for the Apollo program and a woman who was hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, one segment at a time. If you have the time, the train is definitely the way to go!

Back to the news: I was in transit Wednesday, but fortunately the MangaCast crew were there to discuss this week’s new titles. Looking ahead, Ed has info on new titles from Viz and Del Rey and a con alert about SDCC.

He also has more on the Japanese edition of MegaTokyo.

Anime on DVD talks to Dark Horse Director of Asian Licensing Michael Gombos about how their various titles are doing. And here’s a good followup, now that you’re in the mood: Same Hat posts an article by Philip Simon, the editor of MPD Psycho, along with all the Japanese covers of that series.

David Welsh contributes an I (heart) comics column about characters who are “intermediaries” for the dead and others at Blog@Newsarama.

Jason DeAngelis has his latest post up on the Seven Seas blog. He talks about cons a bit and drops an interesting hint:

I strongly suspect that we will have our first title licensed by a Japanese publisher. We’ve shown it to a number of major and minor Japanese publishers and they’re showing big interest. There’s even a Japanese video game company that asked if they could make a game of it.

And then he links to a page of 11 new manga and says it’s one of them. Hmmm.

Shaenon Garrity has a new Overlooked Manga Festival up, and this week she considers the merits of the badass, batshit insane JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

At the Vertical Blog, Anne Ishii rounds up some recent reviews of Apollo’s Song, and Shizuki does the same for some Broccoli titles at the Broccoli Blog.

And if you haven’t been over to One Potato Two lately, go check it out: Blogger Satsuma has photos and anecdotes about Anime Expo and a post about a Japanese manga, Kiyoku Yawaku.

At Shuchaku East, Chloe looks at the Tokyopop/Kaplan test prep books. The Christian Science Monitor has a nice article on them as well.

LJ-er thenakedcat discusses why women might like Bleach.

T Campbell has some promo art for vol. 2 of Divalicious up at his blog. And TrekWeb has the cover and info for vol. 2 of the Star Trek manga.

ANN reports that printers in Japan are requiring doujinshi creators to provide contact information on the book and label doujinshi with adult content.

This article about the uptick in webcomics and cell phone comics includes this tidbit:

Tokyopop will soon introduce their iManga service, featuring motion graphics and sound.

I think we saw a sneak preview of this at NYCC.

Comic Book Resources has a forum thread going about manga that are adapted from anime.

Reviews: Kethylia is unimpressed by vol. 1 of Blame! At the BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog, Hung checks out vol 2 of Hayate the Combat Butler and vol. 1 of Le Chevalier d’Eon. Johanna reads vol. 4 of Absolute Boyfriend which confirms her decision to drop the series, at Comics Worth Reading. Tim Janson likes vol. 1 of King of Thorn a lot better than I did, but Michael Aronson gives vol. 3 of Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo a D, at Manga Life. Julie has an early look at vol. 19 of Hana-Kimi at Manga Maniac Cafe and she reviews vol. 2 of DVD at MangaCast. Tangognat enjoys My Heavenly Hockey Club. At the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Jessica Severs checks out vol. 1 of Kingdom Hearts II and vol. 1 of Dragon Eye. Katherine Dacey-Tsuei reviews vol. 1 of Hollow Fields, by International Manga Award runner-up Madeleine Rosca, at PopCultureShock. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 8 of Girls Bravo and vol. 7 of Tsukuyomi Moon Phase. Comicsnob Matt Blind checks out vol. 1 of Avalon High: Coronation. At the Comic Book Galaxy blog, Alan David Doane gives his take on Alive. (Via Journalista.)

This will probably be a quick post as I’m blogging from the air-conditioned comfort of the first-class lounge in South Station, Boston. I’m heading out to Chicago shortly, so I’ll be off the air until tomorrow afternoon. To get myself in the mood, I’m bringing Train+Train along to read on the way.

Meanwhile, we do have some news. Fred Gallagher follows up on the Megatokyo website (scroll down) about the news that Kodansha is publishing a Japanese edition of Megatokyo, and he has another exciting bit of news as well: He’s about to become a dad, which is even more awesome. Incidentally, I e-mailed Fred to ask if the Japanese edition would be flipped, and he said it would not. In fact, the preview will start in the “back” of the magazine to avoid confusion. I wonder if the last page will have a big “Stop! This is the back of the book!” message in Japanese.

Tokyopop finally has their revamped website up. Opinions?

And that means I can link to ChunHyang72’s latest Tokyopop Round-Up.

PWCW posts their bestseller list, which is interestingly varied this month but includes less manga than usual.

ComiPress reports that one of the people arrested in Japan in May for file-sharing manga via Winny may face a year in prison.

The Sweatdrop collaborative has a new podcast up, featuring Emma Vieceli, Hayden Scott-Baron (Dock), Laura Watton, Morag Lewis. Also, Emma Vieceli is blogging about her recent trip to Japan.

Bozu’s circus: Ed Chavez expands on the concept of “bozu” at Precocious Curmudgeon.

Asian pop culture expo draws 80,000 people—in France! Not a surprise, really; I think they’re a bit ahead of us, manga-wise. (Via The Beat.)

Reviews: The new weekly Sequential Tart has a nice piece up on vol. 2 of Antique Bakery. The Anime on DVD crew serves up some Small-Bodied Manga Reviews. Erica Friedman takes a look at vol. 2 of Applause at Okazu. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out vol. 7 of Lupin III, vol. 3 of Ouran High School Host Club, vol. 7 of Cantarella, and vol. 2 of To Terra. Julie takes an early look at vol. 4 of Absolute Boyfriend at the Manga Maniac Cafe. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand gives low marks to vol. 1 of Avalon High: Coronation, and Miranda isn’t much more enthusiastic about vol. 1 of Million Tears. Blogging on the new TokyoSpace, Andre reviews vols. 1 and 2 of To Terra.

My Japanese correspondent Ceena just sent me the news that Kodansha will be announcing the winners of its first international manga competition in August and accepting entries for its second competition until December. Details after the cut.

Kodansha to have another International Manga Competition

Our first full-scale international competition for manga, the “International Manga Competition,” has received a phenomenal number of submissions from more than ten countries. We sincerely appreciate your enthusiasm and support. It will take time to make our selections since we received more submissions than we expected, so we plan to announce the results in August on our “e-morning” website, and publish the grand prize winning work in “Morning 2” #6, slated for mid-October.

Due to the enormous number of submissions we received, we’ve decided to have a second International Manga Competition. The deadline for the second competition is December 31st, 2007. For more information, visit our website. If you have any questions, email ceena directly at animecomics4u@ybb.ne.jp

Yes, you know the manga revolution really has gone global when this happens: Kodansha is publishing a Japanese edition of vol. 1 of Megatokyo. Details after the cut.

Kodansha to publish Megatokyo in Japan

Popular series becomes one of the first Original English Language manga licensed for the Japanese market

(Ann Arbor, MI: June 10, 2007) — FredArt Studios and Dark Horse Comics announced today that Kodansha will publish a Japanese language edition of Megatokyo Volume 1 under the Kodansha Box imprint. It will contain the same material as the English language Dark Horse edition with additional notes and commentary for Japanese readers. It is the first Original English Language manga title to be licensed by Kodansha for the Japanese market.

“When Kodansha contacted me last year about publishing Megatokyo in Japan, they said that with all of the Japanese manga being published in English that they were interested in balancing the flow by bringing English language titles to Japan,” said Megatokyo creator Fred Gallagher. “I feel honored by Kodansha’s interest in Megatokyo, and I’m very excited about this opportunity to present my work to a Japanese audience.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing how Japanese readers will read Megatokyo,” said Kodansha editor Katsushi Ohta. “On the release day I want to go to Akihabara and observe how people will pick up the book in the stores, see what
comments they might have.”

In September, Megatokyo will be introduced to Japanese readers in a 30 page preview in FAUST magazine. This preview will include an introductory comic by Fred Gallagher, as well as translation notes and an introduction to manga-influenced works produced outside of Japan. FAUST is a quarterly literary magazine edited by Katsushi Ohta which contains the work of notable writers and artists such as Kinoko Nasu (Tsukihime, Fate/stay night), Nishio Ishin (Katanagatari, Shin Honkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka) and Hajime Ueda (FLCL, Qko- chan). An English language edition of FAUST is scheduled for release next year, joining the Taiwanese and Korean editions currently available.

The Kodansha Box edition of Megatokyo Volume 1 will be published several months after the FAUST preview. Kodansha Box is a new line of books launched in November 2006, with each book packaged in a distinctive silver slipcover ‘box.’ Edited by FAUST magazine’s Katsushi Ohta, he describes Kodansha Box as “a collection of works on the theme of the adolescent mind. I hope it will become a sort of index of Japanese popular culture.”

Dark Horse Comics, who published the first three volumes of Megatokyo, was instrumental in helping license the Japanese version of Volume 1 to Kodansha. Megatokyo is currently published by CMX, the manga imprint of DC Comics, the world’s largest English language comic book publisher. This Japanese edition joins several other foreign language editions of Megatokyo, including German, Polish, Italian and French.

— About Megatokyo:

Published to the web three times per week with over 150,000 online readers, Megatokyo is one of the best selling Original English Language manga titles to date. The first three volumes of Megatokyo were published by Dark Horse Comics. In February 2006, Megatokyo moved to CMX / DC comics, where Megatokyo Volume 4 was DC Comic’s fourth best selling book trade title in 2006. The latest collection, Megatokyo Volume 5, was released by CMX in June and is now available. FredArt Studios LLC is Fred Gallagher’s production and licensing entity. For more information please visit www.megatokyo.com.

— About Kodansha Ltd., Publishers:

Kodansha is the largest trade book and magazine publisher in Japan. Founded in 1909, the company by virtue of its long history, the quality of its publishing, and its established network of sales and marketing is regarded as the trade
book market leader in the publishing business in Japan. Moreover, Kodansha has been recognized as the leading publisher with a mission to introduce Japan through its publishing business.