MangaBlog

ICv2 has the April sales figures, and it was a cruel month indeed for manga, with none at all in the top ten. In fact, the first manga to make the list is volume 11 of Berserk, at number 14. Then we have volume 25 of Inu Yasha at number 21.

Here are the rest of the manga on the list:

39 SAMURAI DEEPER KYO VOL 18
44 RUROUNI KENSHIN VOL 25
52 ROZEN MAIDEN VOL 1
53 BLEACH VOL 12
54 INITIAL D VOL 22
57 RUROUNI KENSHIN VOL 26
59 OH MY GODDESS VOL 2
61 FULL METAL PANIC OVERLOAD MANGA VOL 4
62 ART O/LOVING
63 FUSHIGI YUGI VOL 18
64 GET BACKERS VOL 14
66 BOYS O/SUMMER VOL 1
68 ANIMA VOL 1
72 KING O/HELL VOL 13
75 ANGEL SANCTUARY VOL 13
77 CONFIDENTIAL CONFESSIONS DEAI VOL 1
78 HANA KIMI VOL 11
82 ALMOST CRYING VOL 1
83 BLAME VOL 4 GN
84 GUNGRAVE ANIME MANGA
86 ONE PIECE VOL 10
87 SCRAPPED PRINCESS VOL 3
88 DEATH NOTE VOL 5
90 JU ON VIDEO SIDE
92 SHRINE O/MORNING MIST VOL 1
94 BOYS BE VOL 9
98 LA ESPERANCA VOL 2
99 KINGDOM HEARTS VOL 3
100 PHD PHANTASY DEGREE VOL 6

It looks like April was not chock full o/manga, as the ICv2 folks would probably put it, at least not for people who buy their books in comic stores. Compare this to March, when vol. 13 of Fruits Basket was number 2 on the top 100 graphic novels and vol. 9 of Naruto was number 5, with respectable showings from Fullmetal Alchemist (no. 15), Kingdom Hearts (no. 19) and Negima (no. 21).

In fact, Furuba and Naruto, which both made the USA Today top 150 books (not comics, books!) list in April are completely absent from the ICv2 list, which covers only comics stores. Kingdom Hearts, which also made the USA Today list, is number 99 on the ICv2 list. Obviously it’s bad to extrapolate from a single month, but gee, it does look like the most popular titles are doing better in bookstores. To test my hypothesis, I’ll be watching next month to see how vol. 7 of Fullmetal Alchemist does in stores vs. comics stores. (We bought our copy in Borders.) But I’ll really be convinced if Death Note does poorly in the ICv2 top 100 for May. That’s a grownup title, and it’s the sort of thing I would think would sell well in comics stores. We’ll see.

It’s that time of the week again! From ComicList, here are the new manga to expect in bookstores this week.

A. D. VISION
Cromartie High School, vol. 6, $10.95

DC/CMX
Tenjho Tenge, vol. 7, $9.99
Young Magician, vol. 4, $9.99

ICE KUNION
Antique Gift Shop, vol. 2 GN (resolicited), $10.95

SEVEN SEAS ENTERTAINMENT LLC
Boogiepop Returns Vs Imaginator Part 1, $9.99

TOKYOPOP
Ai Yori Aoshi, vol. 13 (Of 15), $9.99
Angel Cup, vol. 1 (Of 5), $9.99
Beyond The Beyond, vol. 1 (Of 2), $9.99
Blazin Barrels, vol. 5 (Of 18), $9.99
Broken Angels, vol. 2 GN (Of 5), $9.99
Cars Cinemanga, $7.99
Cars Jr Cinemanga, $3.99
Dogby Walks Alone, vol. 1 (Of 3), $9.99
Gto Early Years Shonan Junai Gumi, vol. 1 (Of 15), $12.99
Honey Mustard, vol. 4 (Of 4), $9.99
Kamichama Karin, vol. 4 (Of 6), $9.99
Mobile Suit Gundam Lost War Chronicles, vol. 2 (Of 2), $9.99
Pita-Ten Art Book, $19.99
Platinum Garden, vol. 1 (Of 10), $9.99
Queens Knight, vol. 6 (Of 15), $9.99
Rave Master, vol. 20 (Of 32), $9.99
Threads Of Time, vol. 7 (Of 11), $9.99
Tramps Like Us, vol. 9 (Of 12), $9.99
Tsukuyomi Moon Phase, vol. 3 (Of 8 ), $9.99

UDON ENTERTAINMENT
New Onimusha Night Of Genesis, vol. 1, $12.95

Three Japanese men who scanned lots and lots of manga and posted it on a website were sentenced and fined on May 17.

According to a story posted last February, Toratsugu Muramoto, the owner of an Internet cafe in Fukuoka, and two other men, Naoto Takei and Hiroko Yamauchi, were arrested on charges of posting scans of manga on a website without the permission of the creators or the publishers. The three admitted to scanning and posting the manga, which included Slam Dunk and Love Hina. Initially the site offered free viewing, and it was pulling in about 3.3 million page views per month. The three were planning to shift to a paid model in January and had signed up about 1,000 people, who were willing to pay 380 yen a month for the service. Nine manga-ka and three publishers had filed complaints about the site, according to the article, and a followup on Manganews listed some of the pirated titles and noted that police confiscated 17,552 manga when they raided the cafe and the suspects’ homes.

Muramoto stated in regards to the investigation, “To promote the manga cafe, we showed 1 or 2 pages of each title, but I thought if we were going to get caught infringing copyrights anyway, let’s show all of them. I thought we could pay the copyright fees later.”

Well, it didn’t work out that way. Here’s the latest from Anime News Service:

On May 17th The Fukuoka district court handed down a penalty of 500,000 Yen and a 3 year prison sentence (2 years were suspended).

It’s not clear whether all the men got the same sentence, or whether the fine was 500,000 yen each or for all three. But it does look like these guys got the book thrown at them (so to speak).

I’m still helping with flood cleanup (paperwork, not actual digging) so posting and commentary will be light. But here are a few items I woke up to this morning:

FUNimation has picked up distribution rights to “selected titles” in the Tokyopop video catalogue.

Eat your vegetables: MangaCast has news of the freshest Broccoli title, Makai Senki Disgaea.

Pata has some fun with the latest software.

Mayhem rules on Manga Island, where Tony look at East Coast Rising and Kikkaider Code 02.

Los Angeles Alternative reviews Antique Bakery and Cafe Kichoujou. I’m reading the latter and find it a bit episodic for my tastes, but my two daughters adore it.

Cosplay in Calgary: About 4,000 people flocked to the anime convention (Warning: Unreadable white-on-black type.) Cosplay is big:

“There’s nothing quite like having a perfect stranger recognize your character and call out to you. It’s just a really warm feeling to know that you’ve connected with somebody else out there,” said special events coordinator Jenny Chan. She says people are literally drawn into the stories and the culture.

“It’s like watching a regular movie out there except it happens to be drawn.”

ICv2 covers Viz’s announcements at the Book Expo America. Actually, most of these titles were announced at NYCC, but ICv2 provides a bit more info. Buko Rensin, a new series by Rurouni Kenshin author Nobuhiro Watsuki, looks promising and a steal at $7.99. Once more I wonder (quietly, so they won’t hear) why Viz prices their shonen books so low; with a built-in fan base, this book is bound to sell well.

On the other hand, $4.99 sounds about right for the well-intentioned 1 World Manga, which is shorter than their regular books and was developed in partnership with those noted masters of the genre, the World Bank. Volume 4, Child Soldiers, is due out next, and that does seem like a natural theme for a manga.

The Law of Ueki will benefit from synergy with the anime series, which will be released this summer, and O-Parts Hunter has generated a little buzz. I do wonder who will be reading the Naruto novels. The other novel they’re releasing, Be With You, sounds like the Japanese version of Nicholas Sparks and could do well if it attracts attention in the right places (book clubs in the suburbs).

But the real hard-cores will be waiting for October to get the competing versions of Train Man from Viz and CMX.

Elsewhere, ICv2 notes that graphic novels were all over the BEA and predicts that they are so well integrated at this point that next year they won’t have a separate pavilion.

Newsarama interviews the creative team behind Amazing Agent Luna.

An early example of sequential narrative is on display in Kyoto: narrative scrolls from the Heian period.

Ikimashou has an interview with translator David Ury, whose work includes Genshiken and Pastel.

Something called “V for Vendetta” outsells Naruto, but not by much.

Noted comics publication the Las Vegas Weekly reviews a book I’ve been curious about, The Japanese Drawing Room, and finds the backstory more interesting than the book itself.

Full Moon translator Tomo Kimura shows how it’s done on the AoD blog.

At ANN, The Answerman hands out some career advice.

CPM gets a new distributor, but Ed at MangaCast thinks it’s too little, too late. You know, most manga publishers put out lots of books but don’t do a good job of publicizing them, sending out press releases about new titles erratically or not at all. Ed thinks CPM has the opposite problem, announcing new releases with fanfare and then not publishing them.

CPM can get publicity for Sweet Cream and Strawberries and act like the book is coming soon, but in the end like much of their manga history there usually is nothing to show in the end.