MangaBlog

Hard to believe, but Viz is 20 years old. Next year it will be legal!

Speaking of longevity, the Daily Yomiuri has an article on three manga that have reached the 30-year mark. They are Glass Mask, Royal Arms, and This is the Police Box in Front of Kameari Park in Katsushika Ward. That last is a one-panel gag comic, and a statue of its main character, a policeman, has been installed in front of the real Kameari Station.

From ICv2 comes the news that Harlequin is relaunching its manga line, taking control of distribution but leaving translation and packaging to Dark Horse. David Welsh beats me to it:

Dark Horse does a nice job with production, but the Harlequin books have always seemed like a particularly odd fit with the rest of Dark Horse’s line. (Zombies! Samurai! Assassins! Zombie samurai assassins!) And comic shops don’t seem like the best venue for them.

I have seen a few in the manga section of Borders, but I suspect they would sell better if they were displayed near the Harlequin prose novels. The first volume of Nancy Drew, has sold 40,000 copies to date and is expected to clear 75,000 by the end of summer because they are being sold in Target, supermarkets, and the kids section (not the graphic novels section) of bookstores.

Viz seems to have a new imprint, but Ed at MangaCast isn’t impressed.

With the World Cup in full swing, The Star of Malaysia reviews a selection of soccer manga. I’m keeping current by checking MangaCast, where Ed is changing the theme colors each day to honor the winning team.

This is a pretty cool story about an ordinary housewife in Indonesia who turned her house into a library to get kids hooked on books. The manga connection is tangential, just that that’s what the older kids read, but it’s an interesting slice of life.

ComiPress has translated a Chinese article on unlicensed manga downloads in that country. Apparently the practice is common over there, but the article warns:

However, the current Chinese trend of providing download to manga and other material without license is like a cup of poisoned wine mixed with honey. The deal tastes sweet when it first goes down one’s throat, but nobody knows when the poison will spread through the body. If the government suddenly begin hunting down license-less online download sites, most major websites will go down, and perhaps the Chinese online manga community, which took years to develop, will become extinct in one night.

Much of the focus is on a site called Greedland, which recently changed hands, but there is plenty of commentary on the industry in general, both the risks and the rewards.

The Star has the list:

1. XxxHolic Vol.7
2. Negima Vol.10
3. Naruto Vol.10
4. Bleach Vol.13
5. Rurouni Kenshin Vol.27
6. Hot Gimmick Vol.11
7. Nana Vol.3
8. Hana-Kimi Vol.12
9. Eyeshield 21 Vol.8
10. Monster Vol.3

It’s kind of interesting to compare it to the U.S. top ten for this week, which of course had six slots taken up by Naruto. It seems a tad more sophisticated than ours, with XXXHolic and Monster making the cut.

The Daily Yomiuri has an interview with Frederic Boilet, the French founder of the “nouvelle manga” movement, about the anthology JAPAN, which he masterminded. Boilet invited 16 manga artists, nine from France and seven from Japan, to draw short manga about Japan; the French artists were brought to different cities and the Japanese artists returned to their hometowns. The result was JAPAN, which has just won an award from the Japanese Cartoonists Association. I was particularly interested in Boilet’s comments on France, where manga has been around a bit longer than here:

“In France, the 20-something generation were raised with manga…. A lot of people know about manga, so it’s like a whole generation of otaku who are there ready to absorb anything that comes from Japan—as long as it is Japanese, as long as it is manga.”

Without examples of work that goes beyond the mainstream, Boilet is worried.

“I am afraid this trend is going to last. They have no critical faculties, [assuming anything’s good] as long as it is from Japan.

“For me, in Japan, there are very exceptional things being done in manga, which are good for comics everywhere. So what I want to promote is an alternative to the mediocre.”

Well, JAPAN is definitely “an alternative to the mediocre.” It has been hailed by critics and nominated for a Yomi Award for best short or one-shot.

The Mainichi Daily News has a longish article on Death Note, which just ended its run in the Japanese Shonen Jump magazine. There are a few mild spoilers, none of which would ruin my enjoyment of the book, and some intriguing tidbits, like this one about writer Tsugumi Oba:

Mystery surrounding “Death Note” has been compounded because Oba’s true identity has been kept totally secret, even down to gender, with Tsugumi a name that can be used by either men or women.

The article notes that Death Note is popular with elementary school kids as well as adults, but that sales to older readers kept the series going strong. The first volume sold 1 million copies faster than any other Shonen Jump book.

And this is interesting:

Also essential in the success of “Death Note” was the attraction it received from bloggers. Blogging had only started to catch on in Japan when “Death Note” began its run in December 2003.

As the series continued, bloggers led the feverish online discussions about the manga. “Death Nokura,” a parody appeared online and became a hit, using the same pictures as the real series but adding comical dialog. Extensive probes into Oba’s true identity have also been carried out online.

I wonder if buzz from bloggers (as well as the personal efforts of David Welsh) has had a similar effect in the U.S., where Death Note is one of a handful of manga to appear on the USA Today top 150 books.

The article duly notes that part one of the live-action Death Note movie premiered in Japan on June 17, with part two to follow in November. An anime and prose novels are in the works, as well as a video game and tribute album.

Comic Book Resources has the May sales figures from comics stores, and it was another bleak month for manga. Samurai Executioner was the only manga to crack the top ten graphic novels list, with vol. 7 of Fullmetal Alchemist falling just short at number 12. Here are the top ten manga, with their rank on the top 100 graphic novels list in parentheses:

1 Samurai Executioner, vol. 10 (5)
2 Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 7 (12)
3 Negima, vol. 10 (23)
4 NGE Angelic Days, vol. 1 (25)
5 Tsubasa, vol. 9 (26)
(5.5?) Loveless, vol. 2 (31)
6 Ranma 1/2, vol. 34 (35)
(6.5?) Ai Yori Aoishi, vol. 13 (36)
7 Naruto, vol. 10 (37)
8 Samurai Heaven & Earth (43)
9 Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 4 (?)
10 XXXHolic, vol. 7 (46)

Several things are weird about these numbers: Vol. 2 of Loveless, which I could have sworn just came out, shows up on the top 100 list but not the manga list (and yes, I know there’s another Loveless; this is the Tokyopop one). Same thing with Ai Yori Aioshi. And I couldn’t find Vampire Hunter D on the top 100 list. Maybe they’ve hired a new intern at Diamond.