MangaBlog

MangaCast posts Ed’s interview with Lara Yokoshima and links to previews of When Worlds Collide (written by Tina Anderson) and more Chikyu Misaki (here and here.)

At Tokyopop, editor Tim Beedle writes about Mitsukazu Mihara’s Haunted House, which he edited. Tim points out that it was adapted by Christy Lijewski, so if you liked Re:Play, you might want to check it out.

Shaenon K. Garrity winds up her Overlooked Manga Festival with a set of picks from Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, who throws in her top five untranslated manga just for kicks.

Just in time for Halloween, Dark Horse is having a horror contest.

Today’s Group Hate is aimed at Tony Long, of Wired, who deems graphic novels to be undeserving of National Book Awards. I once got a free subscription to Wired, but I never read it because it was so jargon-heavy I couldn’t even understand the titles of the articles. So I sort of wonder who died and left Tony Long king of the literary critics. Also, the fact that he writes “He produced a graphic novel (or “comic book,” as we used to call them)” suggests that he doesn’t actually have any idea what he’s talking about. Neil Gaiman has a tart response: he points to numerous other award-winning books, then adds

I like the bit where he says that he hasn’t read the comic in question, but he just knows what things like that are like. It’s always best to be offended by things you haven’t read. That way you keep your mind uncluttered by things that might change it.

At Blogfonte, Mitch wonders why manga are shelved by title in bookstores. My guess is that most readers think in terms of titles rather than creators, partly because they are coming from anime (remember the cartoon network effect?), partly because foreign names are harder to remember, and partly because some manga publishers downplay creators, often omitting their names on their websites and in catalog listings.

From ComiPress comes news of a new magazine, Mangazine, this one in Spanish and published by AniMangaWeb.

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna looks at volume 4 of Crimson Hero, which has apparently changed quite a bit since the first book. Lyle takes a first look at Backstage Prince, which just started running in Shojo Beat. At AoD, Matthew Alexander reviews Because I’m the Goddess, and Robert Harris gives high marks to Welcome to the NHK.

Japanese readers are deserting manga magazines for tankoubons, according to this release from JETRO (Japanese External Trade Organization), translated by Manganews. Sales of magazines were down 5% in 2005 (presumably compared to the year before) and sales of tanks were up 4.2%. I found the article a little hard to follow, but two things really struck me: Magazine sales are down 70% since 1995, and this:

I regard the movement of Viz Media, a US affiliated company with Shogakukan and Shueisha in the US and expansion in the European markets as the reason for the expansion of the market.

Someone asks how that can be, and translator Floating_Sakura suggests that it’s a combination of license fees and increased Japanese manga sales to overseas fans. At Icarus Comics, Simon Jones comments

Conversely, what was bad news for manga in Japan was actually good news for us; the Japanese market slump may have been one of the catalysts for the manga explosion in the West. The promise of new revenue streams pushed publishers to approach foreign licensing with more vigor.

At Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh wonders whether magazines are slipping because because cell phones are replacing cheap paper.

Check out the latest edition of the MangaBlogCast at MangaCast. This week, we take on the power list, direct market vs. chains, and panty shots. Here are the links:

ICv2’s Ten Most Powerful People in Manga
Commentary:
MangaBlog
Precocious Curmudgeon
Icarus Comics
Love Manga’s first attempt last summer
Comics Worth Reading (includes the Next Ten on ICv2’s list)
Precocious Curmudgeon’s ten most creatively influential publishers list
MangaBlog’s ten most powerful bloggers list

Running the numbers

ICv2’s top ten manga properties
Discussion of sales at MangaBlog
Direct market sales figures for September
Dramacon 2 debuts at number 4 on BookScan

Bleach benefits from the Cartoon Network effect

Tanoshimi leaves thong unaltered in UK edition of Air Gear

Manga scholars discuss boxing funerals, fan subculture

Viz to sell Bleach merch “exclusively” in chain stores
Retailer objects
Deppey takes him down

Ken Akamatsu chat

Yaoi-Con

Yaoi Suki’s Yaoi-Con page
New titles and cover scans from Love Manga
New OEL titles from Tina Anderson’s Tokyopop blog

New manga reference sites

Google manga directory
Comipedia

Incoming

Ode to Kirihito
Museum of Terror, vol. 3
Oh My Goddess, vol. 4 *** release date is now January 2007
Style School, vol. 1 *** oops, don’t bother, release date isn’t till February 2007
Penguin Revolution, vol. 1

Same Hat! Same Hat!! is chronicling a recent trip to Europe, during which they seem to have ignored all the other stuff people go for (castles, restaurants, scenery) and just looked for manga. This post, chronicling their trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair and an alarming conversation with Dark Horse, is great. Since they’re posting about Museum of Terror, I’m going to break a rule and link to their scanlation of Falling, by Junje Ito, Part 1 and Part 2, in the hopes that it will get more people interested and possibly get it published in English (at which point they’ll take the scanlation down).

Free Kirihito: Vertical’s Ode to Kirihito is rapidly becoming the must-have book of the year, and Tom Spurgeon is giving away two copies in a keep-it-simple contest. Check it out.

More free manga: MangaCast links to previews of Swan, When Worlds Collide, and Chikyu Misaki.

I’m OK, yuri OK: Pata directs us to this thread on the ANN forums, which actually has some rational moments but also brings out some serious wank about yuri and yaoi. Pata points out that the arguments about definitions largely stem from Japanese marketing practices, which we are free to ignore:

Personally, I find the target-audience system rather insulting to my tastes because Japan’s idea of What Males Will Like doesn’t always match what I actually like, and I am often enjoying stories from the What Females Will Like section. What kind of implied message is this that “Oh, so-and-so manga is not for you because you have a penis,” or vice versa? Tell me what’s in the story, not who it’s for, and I will let my brain decide if I like it, not my sexual organ.

That’s good advice for many areas of life, not just manga! At MangaCast, Ed has more on labels and marketing. At Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh gives his two cents. And for greater clarity, Tina Anderson gives an illustrated lesson on what yuri is and isn’t.

It’s lonely at the top: Kethylia agrees with ICv2’s top three choices, anyway. And adds this in the comments:

As for Dark Horse, they’ve never broke away from the declining American comic book reader demographic (40+ years old and male), and they are destined to rise and fall (mostly fall) with that niche demographic. BL, on the other hand (for better and for worse), is a growth segment—no one yet knows how big.

Still more yaoi updates: The 801 Media site is up, with previews of hot yaoi titles like The Sky Over My Spectacles. MangaCast continues its Yaoi-Con coverage with press releases and commentary on June and DramaQueen. On her Tokyopop blog, Tina Anderson covers the OEL BL announcements, which have been shamefully neglected elsewhere. At Icarus Publishing, Simon Jones manages to avoid trotting out that old chestnut about the Chinese character for “danger” being the same as “opportunity,” but you know that’s what he’s thinking. Regarding ICv2’s speculation that more explicit books will be harder to place in chain bookstores, Simon says

While ICv2 sees this as a potential problem for retailers, I see it as an opportunity for the DM. Here is an emerging market that book chains are not willing to, or incapable of serving. DM shouldn’t wait for these customers to come to them, but proactively reach out to that audience.

And, he points out, yaoi fans buy other books as well.

Galaxy Angel II is coming!

Erica Friedman is already doing a good job of this, but I keep running into it in different corners of the Internet, so I wanted to do a short post on it.

Seven Seas has clearly tapped into a need with their Strawberry line, but they are not the first licensors of yuri in the U.S.

ALC is. They have been on my radar since last year, when Rica ‘tte Kanje!? started getting some attention. ALC is one of those small manga companies that we fans really like, the sort of place where everyone really is working for love, not money. For that precise reason, their hard work should be acknowledged.

I’m sure Seven Seas is going to do great things with yuri manga, and they will doubtless expand the market. They just weren’t there first.

And while you’re waiting for Strawberry, which launches next year, check out Erica’s welcome-to-yuri essays at Yuricon and her yuri reviews at her own blog, Okazu.