MangaBlog

David Welsh devotes this week’s Flipped column to an interview with librarian and manga expert Robin Brenner, of No Flying, No Tights fame.

On the Tokyopop site, editor Lillian DP runs through the list of what she’s working on now and what’s coming up.

For those who prefer to stay in the present, Love Manga has this week’s manga and a discussion of whether June manga is taking over DMP.

Ed Chavez has some manga movie reviews at the MangaCast.

Kotaku has a video of a woman who is an avid cosplayer; she seems quite shy when she’s at home with hubby and baby, but then she puts on her costume and … va va VOOM! It’s in Japanese, but the announcer’s tone of voice says it all.

Good news for yaoi fans: The website for Drama Queen’s global BL anthology, Rush, is up. (Via Love Manga.)

Why do artists hate having their work stolen? Telophase counts the ways on her Tokyopop blog. This is very timely not only because of what goes on on the Tokyopop site, but also because of the Mangaquake incident last week, in which an artist discovered his work on the cover of a small-press magazine.

Simon Jones at Icarus Publishing (warning: top banner NSFW) has some thoughts on the recent ComiPress article about yaoi fans influencing (Japanese) Shonen Jump.

At the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wilma Jandoc looks at three franchises that have been made into manga: Harlequin romances, Nancy Drew, and Star Trek.

At Comics-and-more, Manga Monday revolves around a title that’s new to me, Alien Nine. And at The Star of Malaysia, reviewer Cheeky Monkey takes on The Enchanter.

I didn’t realize this, but according to this article in the Toronto Star, anime and manga fans are at the bottom of the “nerd ladder,” as Dave Alexander of Rue Morgue magazine put it.

“Closed quarters do not make a good arena for giant props … when you’re walking around in a crowded convention centre and you see a guy with a sword made out of papier-mâché twice the size of his body, it can be pretty annoying.”

The anime fans, he says, also seem to be louder and more boisterous than the typically staid Trekkies and Star Wars fanatics (though he grants that sweaty Jedi mimicking lightsaber battles in the lobby can be equally obnoxious).

But the unkindest cut of all came from an anime fan:

“The general joke is that it’s for virgins.”

As opposed to the sci fi and fantasy genres, which attract only the studliest of the studly. Perhaps we need to send some of those manly Dark Horse fans to Toronto to sort these guys out.

Manganews has an interesting discussion thread on the appeal of Boys Love manga. The initial posting includes a series of questions and footnotes, which are worth checking out on their own. The discussion is thoughtful and draws together insights on society as a whole and the individuals’ private lives.

Tokyopop has an interview up with Koge-Donbo, whose most recent release over here is actually a Broccoli title, Yoki Koto Kiku. The “interview” is really notes from a press conference at Anime Expo, so there are no direct quotes, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Fun fact: She majored in zoology in college, a course of study that hasn’t come up much in her professional life. (Via ComiPress.)

Telophase likes Re:Play, a new global manga from Tokyopop about musicians. I’m not sure how my daughter heard about it, but she made me make a special trip to B&N to pick it up and she seemed to like it as well. As usual, everyone in the family has to read it before me, so I haven’t had a look at it yet.

Lifestyle advice from the Tokyopop columns:

A Hello Kitty thermos looks cooler when it’s next to a Hello Kitty alarm clock and Frisbee. Grouping like items makes them resemble an arty collection.

Real men read shoujo. That’s the gist of this thread on the ANN forums, in which a poster asks “Is Shojo enjoyable to males?” The answer is a resounding yes, although the jury is still out on Fruits Basket. This conversation is interesting because it flies in the face of the conventional publishing wisdom that girls will read boys’ books but boys won’t read girls’ books.

It certainly takes a lot of self-confidence to post a photo of yourself with an ice bag for all to see, but Tokyopop Editor-in-Chief Rob Tokar is apparently a confident guy. In his blog, Rob comments on a new series that I have enjoyed, Afterlife.

CMX has set up an “Ask CMX” page so readers can communicate directly with the company. It’s a good idea, but it would be even better if the answers were not anonymous.

Lyle wonders which title will be dropped next from Shojo Beat and reflects that he likes Absolute Boyfriend better in small bites than in full volumes.

Comics-and-more does a Double Take on vol. 7 of Death Note. Warning: Spoilers, and I believe there’s a major plot development in this volume.

Manga Junkie gets the final volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Happy for a buck. Why is this one not licensed here? She has a theory:

Even though there are no cultural barriers for sports, sports manga just doesn’t do well in the US. Is it because otaku are indoor people? Sports manga always has kandou (感動), the touching moment, where you can cry your eyes out… aah, mottainai. Let’s sweat together & cry together with sports manga!

New on the blogroll today is Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page, which is a redesign of a site that’s been around for a while. The main feature is very literate reviews of untranslated shoujo manga (some of which is licensed, like Kare Kano.) Additional pages have witty and well-written essays giving her personal take on shoujo. I particularly liked her comprehensive listing of shoujo plot devices, which included Discussions on Park Swings, Declaration of Love Through Clumsy Scarf Knitting, and, of course, Obligatory Onsen (hot springs) Story

Meanwhile, bemused_muse has short, witty takedowns of “fluffy shoujo trash that I don’t especially recommend.” Even though I liked some of the books, I still had to agree with the analysis. (Via When Fangirls Attack.)

Checking back on another WFA find, you may remember that beppo_astrid had asked for some manga suggestions. Check the comments; you might find something you never heard of before. (I did.) Another post includes some criticisms of Godchild’s lack of versimilitude and the new Tokyopop Manga magazine.

Leave the slashing to us: That seems to be the reaction of fujoshi, female yaoi fans, as summarized in this article on ComiPress. It’s a little complicated, but if I’m following this right, some (Japanese) Shonen Jump manga-kas have been gearing their stories toward the fujoshi, causing fans to complain that the quality is declining, and causing the fujoshi to complaint that they are being blamed for this decline, and that they don’t need to be catered to.

There is no need for fujoshi, who can have debates about covers and comforters and which one is the “giver” and which the “taker,” to be fed yaoi elements by the author. Creating fantasies in their mind comes as naturally as breathing to these people.

Summer reading: It’s a bit late in the season, but Manganews translates a list of the top 100 manga for summer.

What took you so long? Blog spam hits the Tokyopop site.

The cat is out of the bag, so I’ll go ahead and link: the beta version of Dirk Deppey’s new/old blog journalista is up. (You can comment on the new site here.) He starts off with a post on why some people think Bandai’s warning about not fansubbing Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society is of interest to comics readers. Basically, the same principle applies to scanlation: The company seems to be going after those who fansub licensed material while perhaps tolerating those who stick to unlicensed anime. Check it out, and then you can rinse your brain with fandom_wank’s take on the whole thing.

On a more serious note, Otaku Champloo suggests that we come up with a manga canon, like the literary canon we all studied in undergrad school, a list of the essential manga, as it were.

As learned from the discussion of Western Literature Canon, it’s a great way to institute standards on stories. Simply put, it could save us from intellectual stagnation. Having a canon challenges writers to create a story that could change the world of manga forever. More so, it serves as a standard to perhaps, keep us away from those raunchy sex-infused shoujo stories.

I would have thought raunchy sex-infused shoujo stories were the canon, which shows how much we need one.

Completely Futile annotates the latest volume of Fruits Basket.

At Tokyopop, ChunHyang72 laments both the lack of content on many Tokyopop blogs and the lack of attention to the blogs that do have content. She points out that Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy is blogging and no one seems to have noticed because they’re too busy saying how bored they are and asking who’s your favorite Fruits Basket pairing. A commenter has some advice for Mr. Levy:

Maybe he should’ve followed it with more punctuation and emoticons.

XD! Until Tokyopop comes up with some way to sort the blogs (such as an editors’ section and a friendslist), ChunHyang72 remains our best guide to the site; I’m subscribing to her RSS feed so I won’t miss anything. But its a shame an outsider has to do this. Maybe they should just hire her.