MangaBlog

I’m still writing up my backlog of New York Comic Con stories—watch for some great manga posts next week—but in the meantime my Manga Bookshelf colleague (and con roommate) Melinda Beasi has a great video roundup of the manga scene at NYCC, and Sean Gaffney has detailed reports for day 1, day 2, and day 3. At The Manga Critic, Kate Dacey opens a discussion on the best licensing news from NYCC. Lori Henderson posts her take on the NYCC news at Manga Xanadu. Tony Yao files a brief con report, with pictures, at Manga Therapy. And Linda from Anime Diet attended the Viz meetup at Kinokuniya and scored an interview with Nagumo, the creator of Let’s Eat Ramen (published by GEN Manga).

Lissa Pattillo checks out this week’s new manga releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA.

Lissa also rounds up the new titles announced at YaoiCon.

Erica Friedman brings us up to date with her latest Yuri Network News post at Okazu.

Sean Gaffney looks ahead to next week’s new manga. The Manga Village folks make their picks from last week’s new titles.

Jason Thompson looks at the work of Junko Mizuno in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Same Hat is back! After a hiatus of almost a year, Ryan is back with all sorts of interesting horror, underground, and early manga. I won’t even try to summarize it; just click and enjoy.

Matt Blind calculates the manga best-sellers (online sales) for the week ending October 7.

A Japanese doctor debunks the common manga trope that arousal causes bloody noses. Also: Aoba doesn’t throw like a girl, says Swedish researcher Ylva Sommerland, who has done a study on tomboys in manga.

The Daily Yomiuri has some bits of interesting news about anime and manga outside of Japan; one is about an Indian version of the Kyojin no Hoshi anime, and the other is about manga publication in China, where Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Tezuka Productions have all set up shop or partnered with local publishers because of restrictions on imported manga.

Reviews: Ash Brown recounts a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Milo on Black Joke (Blog of the North Star)
Kristin on vols. 46 and 47 of Bleach (Comic Attack)
J. Caleb Mozzocco on vols. 1-2 of Blue Exorcist, Dance in the Vampire Bund, Soul Eater, and Witch Hunter (Robot 6)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Crazy for You (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 20 of Fairy Tail (ANN)
Lori Henderson on Ju-On: Video Side (Manga Xanadu)
Kristin on vol. 4 of March Story (Comic Attack)
John Rose on vol. 58 of Naruto (The Fandom Post)
Zenestex on vol. 1 of Oreimo (Geeks of Doom)
Anna on vols. 1 and 2 of Pride (Experiments in Manga)
Erica Friedman on vol. 9 of Rakuen le Paradis (Okazu)
Lesley Aeschliman on vols. 31 and 32 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 7 of Sailor Moon (Blogcritics)
Rebecca Silverman on vols. 5-7 of Sailor Moon (ANN)

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posting! I have been away for the past few days at New York Comic Con, and I’ll be writing up my experiences shortly. In the meantime, I recommend ANN’s writeups of the manga and anime panels, as well as Sean Gaffney’s insightful coverage at A Case Suitable for Treatment. And at Manic About Manga, Kris has a roundup of the new license announcements from Yaoi-Con, which was going on at the same time.

Here’s a bit of NYCC news that may not have made it to the major outlets: The digital comics service comiXology has struck a deal to carry all the manga of Shotaro Ishinomori. Launch titles include the first two volumes of Cyborg 009 and the first two volumes of Kikaider.

The last episode of the Manga Out Loud podcast assembles an all-star cast of Frederick Schodt, Helen McCarthy, and Ada Palmer to join Ed Sizemore and Johanna Draper Carlson in a discussion of Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara, which was recently released by Digital Manga.

Lissa Pattillo comments on the past week’s new manga releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Sean Gaffney looks forward to this week’s new manga at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

Laura celebrates National Sports Day with a look at sports in shoujo manga.

Reviews: Ash Brown reflects on the past week’s reading at Experiments in Manga.

Johanna Draper Carlson on vols. 21 and 22 of 20th Century Boys (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 22 of 20th Century Boys (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz (Manga Report)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Angelic Layer (Blogcritics)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 13 of Bakuman (Comics Worth Reading)
Connie on vol. 13 of Black Bird (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ash Brown on vol. 14 of Blade of the Immortal (Experiments in Manga)
Leroy Douresseaux on vols. 48 and 49 of Bleach (The Comic Book Bin)
Philip on vol. 1 of A Bride’s Story (Eeeper’s Choice Podcast)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 44 of Case Closed (The Fandom Post)
Kate Dacey on chapters 1 and 2 of Cross Manage (The Manga Critic)
Kristin on vol. 4 of A Devil and Her Love Song (Comic Attack)
Jessi Silver on vol. 2 of The Earl and the Fairy (The Fandom Post)
Connie on Five Centimeters Per Second (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on Flutter (Slightly Biased Manga)
Victoria Martin on vol. 10 of Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden (Kuriousity)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Golondrina (Okazu)
AstroNerdBoy on vol. 20 of Hayate the Combat Butler (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 8 of The House of Five Leaves (The Comic Book Bin)
Jocelyne Allen on Human Scramble (Brain Vs. Book)
Chris Beveridge on vol. 1 of The Limit (The Fandom Post)
Connie on Manga (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 11 of Nabari No Ou (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 11 of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 52 of One Piece (Slightly Biased Manga)
Serdar Yegulalp on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (Genji Press)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 30 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 5 of Sailor Moon (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Totally Captivated (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 12 of Twin Spica (Blogcritics)
Lori Henderson on Wonderful Life with the Elements (Manga Xanadu)

With New York Comic Con just around the corner, we are seeing a flurry of announcements from publishers about licenses and digital deals. JManga announced on Friday that they are adding Kodansha manga to their digital service, and so far that seems to mean the series that were previously published by Del Rey and not picked up by Kodansha Comics, the U.S. arm of Kodansha. The series up there right now include School Rumble, Code:Breaker, Pumpkin Scissors, Princess Resurrection, Pastel, and The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls. ANN went to JManga and asked the obvious question: Yes, they will be publishing the volumes that weren’t released in English as well.

And Seven Seas announced three new licenses: The Sacred Blacksmith, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy; Kanokon, a harem comedy; and Zero’s Familiar, a fantasy romantic comedy.

Here’s my roundup of the past week’s new manga releases at MTV Geek. Sean Gaffney looks ahead to this week’s new releases at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

Sean also posts a handy guide for readers who want to see more manga being licensed—he lists which publishers are most likely to publish which manga.

Jason Thompson looks at Moyoco Anno’s Flowers and Bees in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Erica Friedman has a big announcement in this week’s edition of Yuri Network News: ALC has published Rica Takashima’s Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, and it’s available to read for free online.

Volume 7 of Sailor Moon and vol. 58 of Naruto were the top two graphic novels in the bookstore market last month, according to BookScan. Vol. 11 of Yotsuba&! took the number six slot in the chart, and vol. 2 of Alice in the Country of Clover was number nine. That’s in the brick-and-mortar world; at Manga Bookshelf, Matt Blind calculates the top-selling manga via online sales for the week ending September 30.

Fantagraphics has posted a 23-page preview of Heart of Thomas.

News from Japan: AstroNerdBoy catches up with the latest chatter on Ken Akamatsu. GTO creator Tohru Fujisawa is one of the minds behind a webcomic adaptation of the tokusatsu show Space Sheriff Gavan, which will debut a few days before the live-action movie. The first episode of a new series by Kaiji Kawaguchi, the creator of Eagle and Zipang, will appear in the first 2013 issue of Kodansha’s Morning (available December 6). The goddess Athena will go to middle school in Chū-2-Shin Attēna, a gag manga by Kōji Ōishi that will run for three episodes in Young Jump. Champion RED magazine will run the epilogue to Shin Mazinger Zero in their January issue.

Reviews

Rebecca Silverman on vols. 5 and 6 of Ai Ore! (ANN)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz (ANN)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Angelic Layer (Blogcritics)
Dan Polley on vol. 1 of Ballad of a Shinagami (Manga Village)
Kristin on vols. 44 and 45 of Bleach (Comic Attack)
Michael Buntag on vol. 7 of Black Lagoon (NonSensical Words)
Theron Martin on vol. 20 of Claymore (ANN)
Drew McCabe on chapter 1 of Cross Manage (Comic Attack)
Jessi Silver on vol. 2 of Dr. Slumpp (The Fandom Post)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 10 of Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vols. 1 and 2 of Give My Regards to Black Jack (The Manga Critic)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 17 of Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time (ANN)
Shannon Fay on vol. 7 of Highschool of the Dead (Kuriousity)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 1 of Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries (ANN)
Ash Brown on vol. 1 of Message to Adolf (Experiments in Manga)
Carlo Santos on vol. 10 of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (ANN)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Oh My Goddess (Blogcritics)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 64 of One Piece (The Comic Book Bin)
Chris Beveridge on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (The Fandom Post)
Clare Stewart on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (Forbidden Planet)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 1 of Polterguys (Read About Comics)
Erica Friedman on vol. 2 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Okazu)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 29 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Philip Anthony on vol. 6 of Sailor Moon (Manga Bookshelf)
Laura on Sakuran (Heart of Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 29 of Skip Beat! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 8 of The Story of Saiunkoku (The Fandom Post)
Kate Haddock on Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (The Collegian)
Rebecca Silverman on vol. 14 of Vampire Knight (ANN)
Victoria Martin on vol. 19 of xxxHoLiC (Kuriousity)

The fine folks at GEN, the digital manga magazine, have shared a preview of Let’s Eat Ramen with us over at MTV Geek; this is a short manga about—you guessed it!—eating ramen, and the creator, the singly-named Nagumo, will be at New York Comic Con next week. It’s very charming, so go take a peek, and if you like it, there’s more in issue 8 of GEN.

Lissa Pattillo looks at this week’s new releases in her latest On the Shelf column at Otaku USA.

At Heart of Manga, Laura looks at the new shoujo manga coming out in October.

Ryan Holmberg has a lengthy article up at The Comics Journal about Osamu Tezuka’s New Treasure Island.

The October Manga Moveable Feast is almost upon us, and this month’s host, Anne Whittingham of Chick Pixel, puts out the call for entries. This month’s theme: Vampires!

Meanwhile, Milo has declared October to be “Go Nagai Month” at Blog of the North Star, and he explains why in his first post.

Matt Blind posts the list of manga best-sellers for the week ending September 23.

News from Japan: Tohru Fujisawa’s GT-R, the third GTO spinoff, ended in Weekly Shonen Magazine recently, but it will be back in Kodansha’s monthly Magazine Special sometime next year.

Reviews: As part of The Hooded Utilitarian’s roundtable on the worst comics ever, Melinda Beasi discusses why she hates The Color of Love trilogy.

Kristin on vol. 6 of Ai Ore! (Comic Attack)
Matthew Cycyk on vols. 1-8 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Matt Talks About Manga)
John Rose on vol. 4 of D.Gray-Man (The Fandom Post)
Sakura Eries on vol. 4 of GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class (The Fandom Post)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries (Comics Worth Reading)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Until Death Do Us Part (Manga Village)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 2 of Until Death Do Us Part (The Fandom Post)

The Manga Bookshelf bloggers discuss their choices for Pick of the Week.

Thomas Zoth has an account of the Arina Tanemura panel at Anime Fest.

News from Japan: Ken Akamatsu’s J-Comi website just completed a successful crowdfunding drive that offered limited-edition e-books, such as a complete set of Love Hina, plus autographed postcards, to sponsors. The e-books sold out in about 20 minutes. Kazuhiro Kumagai (Samurai Gun) will launch a new manga adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo in the October 24 issue of Shueisha’s Grand Jump Premium. Author’s Pet creator Deathco Cotorino will draw a 4-koma manga based on the Brothers Conflict novel.

Reviews: Ash Brown reports in on a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. The Manga Bookshelf team posts some short takes on recent releases in their Bookshelf Briefs column.

Sean Gaffney on Barbara (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Johanna Draper Carlson on The Drops of God: New World (Comics Worth Reading)
Bill Sherman on In These Words (Blogcritics)
A Day Without You on vol. 1 of The Lizzie Newton Mysteries (Gar Gar Stegosaurus)
Raymond Herrera on vol. 1 of Paradise Kiss (Examiner.com)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 28 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Kristin on vols. 4 and 5 of Saturn Apartments (Comic Attack)

With NYCC still two weeks away, Dark Horse broke some big manga news at Anime Weekend Atlanta: Two new licenses, two new editions. The new licenses are Trigun: Multiple Bullets, an anthology of stories by different creators (including one by Trigun manga-ka Yasuhiro Nightow), and Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji Ikari Detective Diary, a detective story with characters from the original NGA set in a different universe. The new editions are omnibus editions of the original Trigun and Lone Wolf and Cub, with the latter in a slightly larger format than the originals.

Vertical also had a new license to announce at AWA: Utsubora – A Story of a Novelist, a mystery by Asumiko Nakamura.

And last week, Seven Seas confirmed that they have licensed Milk Morinaga’s Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink, a collection of 14 short yuri stories.

The Manga Village team takes a look at the past week’s new releases and picks the best.

Erica Friedman posts an interview with Hayate x Blade manga-ka Hayashiya Shizuru that she did whom she met during Winter Comiket, and she also posts the latest Yuri Network News roundup.

Vertical marketing director Ed Chavez is the guest on the latest ANNCast, where he delivers some straight talk on Vertical’s licenses, manga sales in general, and the one that got away.

And speaking of Vertical, they just released the first volume of their new edition of Paradise Kiss, which prompts Jason Thompson to take a long look at what makes this manga so special in his House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith compare the Tokyopop and Vertical editions of ParaKiss in their On the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf, and they also take a look at vol. 20 of Kaze Hikaru and vol. 1 of Limit, the new manga from Life creator Keiko Suenobu.

Attention Wandering Son fans: If you’re willing to pay your money upfront, Fantagraphics is offering a pretty good subscription deal for the next three volumes.

Chris, the Vertical intern who is now writing their blog, discusses his relationship with Great Teacher Onizuka.

Vol. 7 of Sailor Moon tops the New York Times manga best-seller list, with vol. 58 of Naruto and vol. 22 of 20th Century Boys right behind it. Matt Blind does his own calculation of the manga best-sellers for the week ending September 9 and the week ending September 16, working from online sales.

News from Japan: Kekkaishi creator Yellow Tanabe is working on a new manga, which will run in Shonen Sunday sometime in the near future. Pokemon Reburst will end in the October 10 issue of Shonen Sunday. And there are now 17 million copies of Hayate the Combat Butler in circulation.

Reviews: Ash Brown checks out some books from the library at Experiments in Reading.

Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Angelic Layer (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Sean Kleefeld on vol. 15 of Bakuman (Kleefeld on Comics)
A Library Girl on vol. 1 of Code:Breaker (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Ash Brown on Elements of Manga Style (Experiments in Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on Elements of Manga Style (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Anna on vols. 5-7 of Full Moon O Sagashite (Manga Report)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 20 of Hayate the Combat Butler (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Limit (The Manga Critic)
Joseph Luster on vol. 1 of Limit (Otaku USA)
Ken Haley on vols. 2 and 3 of Mega Man Megamix (Sequential Ink)
A Library Girl on Part-Time Pets (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Jocelyne Allen on vols. 6 and 7 of Song of the Wind and Trees (Kaze to Ki no Uta) (Brain Vs. Book)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 11 of Twin Spica (Blogcritics)