MangaBlog

Publisher’s Weekly reported yesterday that DC Comics has invested in a fairly new Japanese company, Flex Comics, that produces original manga. There are two interesting things about this: It’s unusual for an American company to invest in a Japanese company, rather than vice versa (Viz, ADV), and Flex puts their comics online first, then collects them into tankoubon, a la Netcomics. It’s clear yet how this will tie in with DC’s CMX imprint.

Speaking of Netcomics, Yaoi Press started running Winter Demon on their site yesterday. This is the first fruits of their partnership, but watch for more. Mangamaniaccafe has the press release.

Hey! Look who’s blogging on the Tezuka: Marvel of Manga site—Shaenon Garrity! She’s taking a look at Tezuka’s manga in English, and she starts with a look at Adolf.

This article uses the Tezuka exhibit as a springboard to showing how manga and anime have become a global phenomenon.

In Japan, the president of Shobunkan lost his last appeal and was found guilty of distributing obscene manga, which means he has to pay the 1.5 million yen penalty. Simon Jones (naturally) has more.

Summer con season is almost upon us, and the press releases are flowing like wine. Here we go: Anime Expo announced their speakers and panels. DMP will be unveiling a new imprint, Platinum, at Anime Expo, and June’s guest there will be Satoru Kannagi, creator of Only the Ring Finger Knows.

Reviews: Dirk Deppey reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Tanpenshu. Kethylia checks out vols. 1 and 2 of DVD and throws in a bit of juicy licensing gossip as well. Billy Aguiar checks out vol. 1 of Trinity Blood for Comics Buyer’s Guide. At Manga Life, Michael Aronson takes a look at vol. 1 of Strawberry 100%. Greg Hackmann reviews vol. 1 of Gunsmith Cats Burst for Anime on DVD. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie checks out vol. 19 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Daijoubu checks out vol. 1 of Shugo Chara! At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 13 of Fullmetal Alchemist and vol. 2 of The Moon and The Sandals.

Divalicious creators T Campbell and Amy Mebberson have some fun with the plot of newspaper strip For Better or For Worse. Don’t know what they’re talking about? Check here for background and here for Shaenon Garrity’s impassioned essay on why Anthony is not the man for Liz. And yes, that’s T and Amy in the last panel of T’s webcomic.

Shaenon Garrity has a special literary Overlooked Manga Festival this week.

There’s a flurry of activity over at MangaCast, where Ed links to previews of The Last Uniform, XHybrid, and Premature Priest; finds a new manga carried in an English magazine; anticipates Anime Expo and the summer con season; and completes the list of new releases from Japan.

Chris Mautner pens a brief overview of Nouvelle Manga and short reviews of a handful of Fanfare/Ponent Mon titles for the Patriot-News.

Business Wire takes a look at the Tokyopop vocabulary guides with a nice twist on the standard “Pow! Bam!” headline.

At Manga Life, Park Cooper does some Q&A with Dan Hipp, Phil Amara, and the creators of Dark Moon Diary.

There’s still time to enter the Same Hat 4-koma contest and win a copy of Junji Ito’s Flesh-Colored Horror manga. Also, if you told them you’d like a copy of their mini-comic, check the list for your name.

The sharp-eyed scouts at Anime on DVD find a few new Tokyopop titles on Amazon.

A manga musical? Johanna has the scoop.

Reviews: Kethylia reviews vols. 1, 2, and 3 of Eden: It’s an Endless World. Mangamaniac Julie reviews vol. 2 of Phoenix for MangaCast. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of Dragon Eye. and The Twelve Kingdoms, Sea of Shadows. Okazu’s Erica Friedman checks out vol. 2 of Rakka Ryuusui. Jog reads vol. 9 of Golgo 13. At Mecha Mecha Media, John Thomas has a nice long review, with scans, of vol. 1 of MPD Psycho. Matt Brady checks out vol. 1 of Gyakushu!

It’s almost the weekend, and here’s a treat to get you started: Lea Hernandez has put Cathedral Child up on the web for free, as a thank-you to all the fans who helped out after her house was destroyed in a fire. It’s beautifully drawn and has a couple of nice twists; I reviewed it yesterday on Digital Strips.

Seven Seas president Jason DeAngelis talks about the cutthroat world of licensing in his latest blog post. It’s a bit shy on specifics but the webcomic next to it is hilarious.

BookListWatch: Manga continues to occupy the lower reaches of the USA Today Booklist, with vol. 14 of Negima debuting at number 94, vol. 19 of Bleach rising to number 104, and vol. 14 of Naruto slipping to number 118.

Mangaijin has relaunched as a manga review blog, with a focus on scanlations and stuff you won’t find anywhere else, like this Harry Potter doujinshi. Go check it out!

Speaking of things you won’t find anywhere else: Hulk Hogan manga! (Via The Comics Reporter.)

Blog@Newsarama is reporting that Chinese authorities seized almost 6,000 copies of Death Note.

According to a circular issued by the agency tasked with fighting illegal publications, “Death Note stories contain elements of mystery, death and revenge, and are harmful to children’s psychological development.”

But that’s what makes it good! Aren’t mystery, death, and revenge the underpinnings of almost all literature?

Local news watch: Teenager gets hooked on manga, then draws her own.

At TZG2.0, Myk reveals what he’s buying this week.

Reviews: At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reviews vols. 1, 2, and 3 of Elemental Gelade and vol. 2 of Stray Little Devil. Kethylia likes vol. 3 of Tuxedo Gin better than the first two. At Active Anime, Scott Campbell checks out vol. 11 of Zatch Bell and Holly Ellingwood reads vol. 26 of Oh My Goddess. Julie reviews vol. 17 of Boys Over Flowers at the Mangamaniaccafe. At Manga Life, Michael Aronson likes vol. 7 of Tezuka’s Buddha. At Every Day Is Like Wednesday, J. Caleb Mozzocco reviews a slew of decent manga. (Via When Fangirls Attack.) Patricia Beard checks out Seven at Anime on DVD. At the BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog, Hung checks out vol. 2 of VS. Versus.

UPDATE: It was very nice of you all to pretend you didn’t notice. Or were you just as spacy as I was this morning?

This article claiming that UK retailers are missing out on the manga boom is only three paragraphs long, but it raises a heap of questions. First of all, the claim is being made by Emma Hayley, who works for Self Made Hero, which puts out the Shakespeare manga books. So I’m wondering if the problem is more acute with smaller publishers, and if Viz and Tokyopop have the same problem. Certainly plenty of manga is published in UK editions, and before it went bust, the Ottaker’s chain even had a manga club. And this doesn’t seem right:

Hayley added that UK retailers should follow the lead of US booksellers. “Our books have been featured in both Borders and Waterstone’s and they do a good job,” she said. “However, they put all manga in a dedicated section. If you look at the US, stores have manga biography in the biography section for example. They are no longer treating manga as a genre.”

I know Yen plans to market With the Light in parenting sections, but that still seems to be more the exception than the rule. The manga section certainly isn’t in danger of disappearing. Has anyone seen manga biographies in the biography section?

At PWCW, Billy Aguiar has a nice interview with Jason Thompson, former Viz editor and current author of the awesomely comprehensive Manga: The Complete Guide.

The MangaCast crew run through this week’s new comics, highlights the manga news from BEA, and presents part 2 of the Big List of manga being released in Japan this month.

Comicsnob Matt Blind launches this week’s manga watch list with a commentary about cine-manga.

ComiPress reports that Kyoto police are cracking down on manga showing sex with children and Osaka police are checking bookstores to make sure “harmful” manga are being shelved away from the clean stuff. The article seems to mix two messages. At the beginning, the article states the problem is that sexy manga are available in convenience stores and bookstores. Later on, there’s this:

An official of the Kyoto police juvenile section said, “Intercourse involving children under 13 is in violation of the criminal law. Lolicon manga may stimulate similar crimes in the real world, so we can’t leave this situation unattended. We are going to warn the parents through these labels. This is not a restriction of the “freedom of press” since the act of labeling is not banning the publication of the books itself.”

Not logical. It’s unlikely that a loli manga would cause someone otherwise not inclined in that direction to rape an underage child, so labeling them and keeping them away from the general public doesn’t solve that problem. The effect on actual pedophiles is unclear, but it seems the labeling would serve the double purpose of making such manga easier to find for them as wants it. Simon Jones thinks this is not about erotica but about manga for teen girls, which would change the scenario a bit. And he asks, wisely, “Are local police really the best arbiters of what is indecent material, as they seem to be in both reports?” At The Beat, commenters discuss the labeling issue.

In this week’s Flipped, David Welsh plans for summer with a list of manga-related activities and upcoming releases.

Reviews: At Mecha Mecha Media, John Thomas has a lengthy and thoughtful review of vol. 1 of Kamui. Okazu’s Erica Friedman has a two-part review of vol. 8 of Yuri Hime magazine. The Anime on DVD staff all kick in on this week’s Small Bodied Manga Reviews. At Manga Life, Michael Aronson gives middling grades to vol. 2 of DN Angel. Rob Vollmar reviews Hokusai: First Manga Master at Comics Worth Reading, and readers chime in with more recommended reading in comments. At the Mangamaniaccafe, Julie checks out vol. 3 of After School Nightmare. Active Anime’s Christopher Seaman reads vol. 3 of Vampire Doll.

Going to Anime Expo? Why not roll up your sleeve? The American Red Cross will be there, and anyone who donates blood will get a free box of Pocky. And if you’re puzzled by the Japanese interest in blood types, it’s explained in this discussion thread.

At the MangaCast, Ed posts the Big List of manga coming out in Japan in June. This is only the first installment; the second will cover the big publishers.

Manga News has a bountiful roundup of news, including some info from Monthly Shonen Jump‘s final issue. And a year after Osaka Prefecture cracked down on “harmful literature” for youths, things are going about like you’d expect:

In a comic specialty store at a Northern area in Osaka, five volumes of sexually depicted comics were lined up together with sports and friendship theme manga.

How else would the kids find them?

ChunHyang72 has another Tokyopop Round-Up, with links to columns and reviews and a list of noteworthy manga coming out this week. In her other incarnation, Katherine Dacey-Tsuei, CH72 posted a list of upcoming manga at PopCultureShock last week and I think I missed it. Thanks to Alex Woolfson of Yaoi 911 for pointing it out!

The blog for the Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga exhibit is coming up with some interesting stuff. Here’s a link to a video of an interview with curator Phil Brophy and manga god Fred Schodt. And one of the bloggers has been inspired to create a manga about the experience.

I’m posting this up here because it’s not your normal review: a n00b reads Naruto, and likes it. Sort of. It’s an interesting peek at how manga looks to someone who doesn’t read it regularly. (Via The Beat.)

It’s hard out there for a publisher: Comicsnob’s Matt Blind explains how the retail biz works, and why it’s hard for a smaller publisher to get their books on bookstore shelves. He has lots of interesting links at the end for those who want to know more.

Reviews: Michael Aronson gives vol. 2 of Millennium Snow a big fat “meh” at Manga Life. At Anime on DVD, Connie Zhang finds vol. 1 of One Missed Call “as scary as missing a phone call.” Holly Ellingwood checks out vol. 18 of Hana-Kimi at Active Anime. Johanna Draper Carlson talks about what makes Voices of a Distant Star special in her latest Comics Unlimited column (scroll down). Julie reviews vol. 3 of Baby and Me at the Mangamaniaccafe. Kethylia reviews vol. 2 of Tuxedo Gin and Only Words. At the BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog, Hung has image-heavy reviews of vol. 1 of High School Girls and vol. 7 of Kamui.

This Reuters article explains that while about 10% of the student body in Kyoto Seika University’s manga program is foreign (mostly South Korean), there’s more to manga than the mechanics. Here’s department head Keiichi Makino:

“Manga is all about the audience, so no matter how good the manga is, it won’t sell if it doesn’t touch the Japanese people’s hearts,” he told reporters.

Makino talks about the spread of manga to China and ends on a philosophical, and very idealized, note:

“Japanese manga will reach its most sophisticated form when ordinary people, even those who are not manga artists, are able to draw manga about their daily lives and thoughts with ease.”

(Via Journalista.)

Is the new magazine Otaku USA designed to fool you into thinking you’re buying Newtype, only for three bucks less? Ninja Consultant Erin F critiques the design of the magazine (and the content as well) at PopCultureShock. And if you can’t get enough Ninja Consultant, and you’re in or near New York tonight, go see Erin and Noah talk about the best Japanese anime you’ve never heard of at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art at 6:30 p.m.

AICN’s Scott Green takes a long look at ADV manga (“denial-of-manga-attack”—heh!) and reviews two of their most popular titles, Yotsuba&! and Gunslinger Girl. (Via Simon Jones.)

Ryan and Evan from Same Hat present a copiously illustrated roundup of events at BEA.

Manga maven Jason Thompson pays homage to Hiroyuki Takei’s short series Juki Ningen Jumbor.

David Welsh trolls through Previews looking for potential good reads, and finds a few.

Johanna orders manga from Deep Discount and is disappointed.

Japan Probe has a video of the top 50 manga series in Japan, set to music. (Via Simon Jones.)

The 4-koma manga-ka Taizo Yokoyama has died.

The Japanese publisher MediaWorks will be producing manga versions of several light novels.

It’s not manga, but I’m taking a sisterly interest in the Minx line, so I’m pleased that The Plain Janes is one of the graphic novels on NPR’s summer reading list, along with the manga-influenced Scott Pilgrim. (Via Sequentially Speaking.)

Reviews: The French blog du9 translates Xavier Guilbert’s review of Kazuo Umezu’s Hebi-Onna. Robots Never Sleep checks out an untranslated Japanese work, and this one looks pretty strange: Donki Korin. It’s not manga but of interest to many manga readers: John T reviews Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter at Mecha Mecha Media. Warren Peace enjoys vol. 1 of To Terra. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 20 of Angel Sanctuary and Scott Campbell checks out vol. 1 of Grand Theft Galaxy. Kethylia is writing reviews again, and she checked in this weekend with her view of vol. 1 of Tuxedo Gin. Tangognat checks out Chika Shiomi’s Yurara.