MangaBlog

Vertical has made everybody’s day by announcing that they are licensing yet another Osamu Tezuka classic, Apollo’s Song. If you liked Ode to Kirihito, you’ll love this one as they are publishing it as a single 500-page volume in a similar format.

ICv2 has more on the three new Broccoli titles.

At Deutsche Mangaka, Elae lists the global manga titles recently licensed in Germany and draws our attention to an interesting new line: Chibi manga, inexpensive, pocket-sized global titles.

Blu News: Yaoi Suki (no permalink) caught this on the Blu forums: Love Pistols and Love Mode have been delayed, but they’re moving a couple of other titles up to compensate.

Newsarama has an interview with Pop Mhan, creator of the Tokyopop manga Blank. And, via the Newsarama blog, the Nichi Bei Times talks to creator Yoshitaka Amano.

At TokyoSpace, ChunHyang72 has another great roundup of manga-related posts and news.

This is the sort of thing that appeals to geeks like me: Comipress translates an article on the physics of anime and manga.

The Rush blog offers a glimpse of work in progress.

A new outfit called Purrsia Press announces an anthology of U.K. manga. (Via MangaNews.)

Every now and then someone on the other side raises the question of whether manga is a gateway to Western comics. It’s that time again over at the Comics Journal messageboard. Simon Jones isn’t sure the question is worth asking but adds a few thoughts of his own. Floating Sakura has some thoughts on OEL manga and national styles. John Jakala explains, with visual aids, why he likes manga better than superhero comics: Because manga is fun!

Make mine Viz: Here’s the latest gift guide, this one from Jason Yadao of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Seven Seas has a guide to Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl. And Pata reviews it at ANN.

And speaking of girls meeting girls, Erica has new reviews of two Japanese yuri manga, Himitsu no Kaidan and Rakka Ryuusi

Interesting thread at the AoD forum on how Del Rey decides which manga to license.

Simon Jones comments (NSFW) on the proposed revision of Tokyopop’s ratings system, and he makes a good point:

One thing censors have proven time and time again is that context is not important to them… a scholarly work using a small image with nudity as an example makes no difference to them as, say, one of our books. So I’m all for more reasonable, honest labelling, applied consistently. If a book has violence, say it has violence. If it has T & A, say it has T & A… age appropriateness may be subjective, but these things, not so much.

Of course, one person’s warning is another person’s selling point.

The shopping news: Pata has links to a couple of posts about Borders, one detailing an otaku’s embarrassment when buying Strawberry Marshmallow, the other about the time limit some stores are imposing in the manga section (which, interestingly, none of the commenters objected to). But the Star of Malaysia finds the opposite: a manga club in a Borders. And here’s an interesting nugget:

“The Borders store at Berjaya Times Square [in Kuala Lumpur] is the No. 1 in manga and graphic novels sales among Borders stores worldwide,” said Chen.

His explanation is that they are in Asia, which makes sense. UPDATE: Mely has her taste questioned by a bookstore cashier, which prompts some thoughts on the state of the comics industry.

Blogger David Welsh joins the rest of the cool kids by moving Precocious Curmudgeon to WordPress, so update your bookmarks and blogrolls.

Reviews: Holly Ellingwood of Active Anime reviews two volume 21s (!), Basara and Boys Over Flowers. Johanna reads Love Roma. At Manga Maniac Cafe, prolific reviewer Julie delivers her take on Disgaea, volume 2 of Beauty Pop, volume 5 of Claymore, and volume 1 of Nodame Cantabile. The Star of Malaysia takes a look at Re: Play and The Empty Empire. MangaCast takes on seinen manwha with a podcast review of Let’s Be Perverts, Banya, and YoDong’s Vampire.

Mickle at The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller posts on a Tokyopop rep’s talk at a local library meeting. (Background is here. It may sound vaguely familiar.) There are some interesting nuggets, like this:

Tokyopop is in the early stages of revamping it’s rating system. Generally, some of the OT stuff will become M, some T stuff will become OT, etc. Don’t expect to see it until fall, and they may or may not go back and adjust some of the already published titles still in print.

You know, I’m the mother of two daughters, ages 12 and 13, and I think I’m fairly protective of them, but even I think Tokyopop’s ratings system is rather conservative. Or rather, it’s uneven. It will be interesting to see if they come up with something more consistent than the current system. (Via Crocodile Caucus.)

Meanwhile, Fruits Basket fan David Welsh offers his take on that series reaching the 2 million mark.

New Broccoli titles revealed: A while back, Broccoli hinted at some new titles on their blog. The titles have now been revealed: Murder Princess, Coyote Ragtime Show, and Hakoiri Devil Girl (aka Boxed Devil Girl). MangaCast has cover scans of these and two new titles from Icarus, which make the page ever-so-slightly NSFW.

Shaenon Garrity’s latest Overlooked Manga Festival features the Warren Buffett manga. Yes, you read that right.

Go!Comi has an animated preview up of an upcoming title, Train + Train.

Floating Sakura takes an early look at Takeshi Obata’s new manga, Blue Dragon Ω Ral Grado, and is not impressed.

Comics artist Takeshi Miyazawa has moved to Japan to get a job in the manga industry, and he’s blogging about his experiences. Not much there yet, as he just arrived, but that makes it a good time to start reading. (Via Journalista.)

ComiPress lists the top ten manga in Japan this week.

Robin Brenner of No Flying, No Tights will be one of the judges of this year’s Eisner Awards.

Via ComiPress, here is a video of a guy doing a dramatic reading of manga in Japanese.

Reviews roundup: AoD reviewer Julie Rosato has a hard time warming up to Gerard et Jacques. Dirk Deppey reviews Ohikkoshi. Bill Sherman at Blogcritics takes a look at Black Cat.

With the release of volume 15, there are 2 million copies of Fruits Basket in print. Manga-ka Natsuki Takaya’s response is typically noncommital:

That definitely flatters and pleases me. Thank you very much. As for a reason, I can’t clearly distinguish one, but if people read Fruits Basket and think ‘I like this,’ then that alone is enough to bring me joy.

Tokyopop’s press release was vague about what the 2 million figure refers to, but according to ICv2, it’s 2 million shipped, presumably in the U.S. since this chart shows the series has sold 11 million copies in Japan. Ed pays tribute at the MangaCast.

Meanwhile, volume 12 of Naruto debuts at number 147 on the USA Today Booklist.

We’re day late with the link, but the MangaCast crew posted their picks of this week’s new comics.

Jason Thompson asks “Why are there no less than five separate translated manga about girls who have crushes on guys disguised as female models?”

Tech talk: With all the talk about downloadable comics sites, David Welsh reminds us that Netcomics has been selling comics over the web (not downloads, though) for almost a year. Also, here’s a site repeating a rumor about a $50 e-book reader that Amazon may or may not roll out to compete with Sony’s E-Reader. (Via ComiPress.)

Wonder Woman watch: John Jakala links to a CBR Forum thread displaying mixed reactions to Tintin Pantoja’s pitch for a manga-style Wonder Woman. In the comments on his own blog, Jakala observes

The thing I found most interesting about that thread is that no one bats an eye when DC puts out a gazillion different Batman books (and not all in “real” continuity, either) but suggest one other Wonder Woman project and suddenly everyone’s baffled. “But I don’t UNDERSTAND. How would this fit in with OYL???”

I think we’re messing with their heads.

After Ellen has an interview with Megan Gedris, who just received a $1,000 grant from Prism Comics to publish her lesbian manga Yu + Me.

Anthology talk: Writer Caleb Monroe interviews the editors of four anthologies, including the Rising Stars of Manga series and Flight, about the advantages of the format and the sort of balance they look for when choosing entries. (Via Blog@Newsarama.)

Viz licenses Ichigo100% and the scanlation community breathes a sigh of relief. Ed has cover scans of this and several other new Viz titles. UPDATE: The titles aren’t confirmed, says Floating Sakura in comments.

Akito has a tutorial on scanning black and white artwork up at the Rush blog.

Test your manwha knowledge and maybe win some new books at the Netcomics Holiday Trivia Contest.

Previews: Jarred draws our attention to a preview of an older CMX series, Madara, that was written by Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service writer Otsuka Eiji.

At the MangaCast, Ed reviews three gender-bender manga, Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, Tenshi Ja Nai, and GA BETA. Active Anime posts reviews of volume 9 of Phoenix, volume 2 of The Day of Revolution, and Del Rey’s version of Train Man. Comic Book Bin gets all philosophical about Rose Hip Zero. So nice they reviewed it twice: Toon Zone has two reviews of Ode to Kirihito; unsurprisingly, both are raves.

The Tintin Pantoja lovefest continues at the Newsarama blog. And it just might be working.

David Welsh checks out this week’s comics and warns us: volume 12 of Naruto comes out today. (But my daughter’s friend already picked it up this weekend.)

As the Minx-storm begins to die down, Simon Jones has an interesting observation on targeting comics to a single sex:

I’d agree that there are few storytelling elements that can be said to be the exclusive domain of either sex. But I feel the specialization in manga, and in magazines, is important to not only their success, but the balanced representation of sexes in their respective readerships. No one would call magazine publishing a boy’s club, but the comic book in America definitely is.

Publisher’s Weekly’s daily newsletter has a piece on Seven Seas’ plans for YA novels, which includes republishing the Avalon: Web of Magic series and publishing two unreleased volumes.

At The Pulse, Jennifer Contino interviews Steve Cummings, but you’re going to have to scroll down to find it because I couldn’t locate a permalink anywhere. Anyway, Cummings, who studied comicking in Japan, is taking Batman to Akibahara in his next issue of Legends of the Dark Knight. Cummings is also drawing Pantheon High for Tokyopop.

At Okazu, Erica’s review of volume 2 of Strawberry Panic made me laugh. That’s the Japanese edition; the U.S. edition isn’t due out until next April. Holly Ellingwood at Active Anime has an early review of Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, a new title from Seven Seas. At Eye on Comics, Don MacPherson finds Mail Order Ninja a bit juvenile, which is a good and a bad thing.

This is not manga, but it’s relevant to our lives: Newsarama has an interview with Josh Blaylock, who has just unveiled a comics download service called Pullbox Online. What impresses me is his attitude: “simple simple simple.”

Everyone’s trying to make everything too complicated with special animation on the balloons, animated “page turning” features, etc. If someone wants to see animated content, there’s a hell of a lot more places to go online for that. People who are downloading comics just want to read a comic, not be distracted by something that makes the reading experience more complicated.

To that end, the site is offering both PDF and CBR format without a lot of bells and whistles. And he’s not loading the comics down with a lot of copy-protection either:

We are not going to overload the site with tedious DRM features. After a lot of consideration and study, it was decided that it’s more important for Pullbox to be the easiest place to download a comic. We want to embrace the currently existing online community of downloaders, not exclude them. Most of these communities are looking for a cheap legal alternative and we’re providing it.

People are already sending them around via scans from print comics, so if they’re determined to do that they’re going to do it anyway. And to be frank, if Pullbox can sell 10,000 downloads of a title and reach a new audience, we don’t care if 100,000 people are reading that same product. That will just make us try to get the circulation up to 1,000,000 so we can be selling 100,000 downloads.

Blaylock goes on to point out that this is how iPod overcame the Napster crowd. A lot of comics on the site (which, to be honest, are not my cup of tea) are 99 cents, which tells me that he really is serious about emulating that model. And without printing and distribution costs, he can still do OK at that price point.

It almost sounds like he read Queenie Chan’s posts on e-anthologies (part one here, part two here) and took them to heart.

Check the comments for some good points of view on how this will work. But disregard the guy who complains that the content is crap—that’s not the point. If this catches on, the content will improve with dizzying speed.

UPDATE: Johanna has more.