MangaBlog

I’m back from San Diego, bags filled with books, head filled with stories to be written. Thanks to Kate Dacey for filling in so admirably while I was away, and to Deb Aoki for being the best Comic-Con roommate ever!

I was covering the con for CBR, so I wrote my big manga story for them: JManga plans to launch an “all you can eat” website that will post a chapter a week of both new and older manga; the site will be free but a paid subscription will get you the manga faster—and may get you more titles as well.

Speaking of Deb Aoki, she has been more industrious than me and has already written up two of the major stories from Comic-Con, the Kodansha panel and the news that Picturebox will be publishing bara manga (gay erotic manga).

And Lissa Pattillo has a handy roundup of all the SDCC news at Kuriousity.

Jason Thompson takes a look at the exceptionally talented manga-ka est em in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Sean Gaffney looks at this week’s rather sparse new-manga lineup at A Case Suitable for Treatment.

News from Japan: Stepping on Roses manga-ka Rinko Ueda has a new series in the works, Sakura Jūyūshi, which will debut in the August 4 issue of Margaret. Sora Inoue, the artist for Real Bout High School, has started a new manga, My Ball, about a school soccer club. Fist of the North Star creator Buronson is writing a new manga to be illustrated by Yuka Nagate, who did the art for the Toki side story.

Reviews: Ash Brown reports in on another week of manga at Experiments in Manga.

Ken Haley on Barbara (Sequential Ink)
Connie on vol. 16 of Black Jack (Slightly Biased Manga)
Ash Brown on vol. 11 of Blade of the Immortal (Experiments in Manga)
Connie on vol. 4 of Claymore (Slightly Biased Manga)
AstroNerdBoy on vols. 29 and 30 of Hayate the Combat Butler (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog)
Anna on vol. 1 of Jiu Jiu (Manga Report)
Erica Friedman on vol. 9 of Jormungand (Okazu)
Anna on vol. 20 of Kaze Hikaru (Manga Report)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 12 of Natsume’s Book of Friends (I Reads You)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 35 of Negima! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 9 of Oresama Teacher (The Comic Book Bin)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Polterguys (The Manga Critic)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Wonder! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and grab a Danish — Ryan Holmberg has posted another in-depth article about the early manga industry, this time examining the influence of American cartoonists on Osamu Tezuka’s early artistic development.

Derek Bown dedicates his latest Combat Commentary column to Naruto.

Sequential Tart interviews Gina Biggs, creator of the OEL manga Red String.

And the Eisner goes to… Shigeru Mizuki’s autobiographical comic Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths, which won the award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material — Asia. Katsuhiro Otomo also got a nod from the judges, earning himself a spot in the Eisner Hall of Fame.

Shiftylook, a webcomic initiative of Namco/Bandai, has hired manga-ka Hitoshi Ariga (The Big O, Megaman Megamix) to draw a new webcomic based on popular game Klonoa; Canadian artist and writer Jim Zub will pen the script.

Reviews: Over at Anime News Network, Carlo Santos dedicates his latest Right Turn Only!! column to such new releases as 5 Centimeters Per Second and Jiu Jiu. Closer to home, the Manga Bookshelf gang posts an assortment of brief reviews.

Patti Martinson on vol. 20 of Claymore (Sequential Tart)
Connie on vol. 2 of Dawn of the Arcana (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on Genshinken: Second Season Book One (Manga Worth Reading)
Erica Friedman on Jigoku NEET (Okazu)
Connie on vol. 14 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 63 of One Piece (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lissa Patillo on vol. 18 of Ouran High School Host Club (Kuriousity)
Connie on vol. 2 of Princess Knight (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lori Henderson on vols. 8-9 of Rin-ne (Manga Xanadu)
Connie on vol. 2 of Wandering Son (Slightly Biased Manga)

If you weren’t able to attend San Diego Comic-Con, fear not: Sean Gaffney has posted a report detailing the major licensing news from Kodansha Comics, VIZ Media, and Yen Press. Among the most exciting announcements at SDCC came from JManga, which has teamed up with Kodansha to rescue titles left unfinished by Tokyopop and Del Rey. JManga hasn’t revealed which titles it will be releasing through its online portal, so stay tuned.

Chip Kidd announced that he’s working on a new anthology of bara manga for PictureBox. Entitled The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame: Bara Master, the book will feature a dozen or so short stories by Tagame, and will be translated by Anne Ishii.

In honor of the just-announced Sailor Moon reboot, Mike Toole takes a look at the franchise’s fascinating twenty-year history, from storylines to swag.

The Manga Bookshelf gang — myself included — weigh in on this week’s new arrivals.

File under “Not Manga, But Relevant”: Manga Bookshelf contributor Sara K. offers tips for mastering a new language. Not surprisingly, she recommends reading comics as a fun vocabulary-building exercise.

Erica Friedman rounds up the latest yuri manga news at Okazu.

DMP’s ambitious Kickstarter campaign is entering its final week. Currently, the publisher has raised enough funds for two titles — Osamu Tezuka’s Unico and A*Tomcat — but is hoping to attract additional support for a third, Triton of the Sea. Readers curious about Triton can read a short preview at Kickstarter.

Reviews: Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith dedicate their latest Off the Shelf column to supernatural shojo titles, including Jiu Jiu and Natsume’s Book of Friends. Over at Experiments in Manga, Ash Brown reviews Bond(z), Hikaru no Go, and Olympos.

Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin Bomba on vol. 20 of Claymore and vol. 9 of Rosario + Vampire Season II (Comic Attack)
Kate O’Neil on vol. 7 of House of Five Leaves (The Fandom Post)
Ash Brown on NonNonBa (Experiments in Manga)
Matthew Alexander on vol. 6 of Omamori Himari (The Fandom Post)
Anna Neatrour on Roman Holiday (Manga Report)

Hey, y’all… Brigid is at San Diego Comic-Con this week where she’ll wearing several hats: journalist, panelist, and jurist. (That’s right: Brigid is one of this year’s Eisner Award judges!) That means you’re stuck with me for a couple of days. I’ll do my best to fill Brigid’s shoes; you can help out by emailing or tweeting me links to breaking news stories, interesting articles about manga, and, of course, reviews!

Speaking of SDCC, the first news items are beginning to trickle in. VIZ just unveiled its new Android manga app, which is available through Google Play. Users will be able to purchase volumes of popular VIZ titles such as Naruto and Black Bird, as well as issues of Weekly Shonen Alpha. VIZ also announced that it will be publishing Street Fighter x Sanrio: World View, in which characters from the video game duke it out with characters from Sanrio’s vast empire of cuteness.

Yen Press will be doing a graphic adaptation of James Patterson’s forthcoming novel, Zoo. Zoo is something of a departure for Yen; unlike Daniel X and Maximum Ride, the novel is clearly aimed at adult readers. Andy MacDonald is adapting and drawing the manga.

At the Kodansha Comics panel, Dallas Middaugh reviewed the company’s fall line-up, which will include three new titles: Genshinken: Second Season, Missions of Love, a shojo comedy by Emi Toyama (Pixie Pop, I Am Here!), and Danza, a short story collection by Natsume Ono (House of Five Leaves, not simple). Middaugh also announced that Kodansha would be re-issuing Battle Angel Alita: Last Order in a new, omnibus edition in 2013.

Rebecca Silverman interviews Kaze editors David Guelou and Raphael Pennes about Japan: One Year Later, an anthology exploring the aftermath of last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Last but not least, Melinda Beasi will be hosting the July Manga Movable Feast at Manga Bookshelf. The topic is CLAMP, and the discussion begins on Monday, July 23rd.

News from Japan: The latest issue of Hana to Yume reports that Julietta Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss will be getting the anime treatment; no word yet on a possible air date, though Akitaro Daichi (Fruits Basket, Kodocha) will direct the series.

Reviews: Over at Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson files brief reviews of Bakuman and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan.

Anna Neatrour on vol. 3 of Alice in the Country of Hearts Omnibus (Manga Report)
Serdar Yegulalp on vol. 2 of The Flowers of Evil (Genji Press)
Jenny on vols. 1-27 of Fullmetal Alchemist (No Flying No Tights)
Kristin Bomba on vol. 7 of House of Five Leaves (Comic Attack)
Paige McKee on vol. 9 of Jormungand (Sequential Tart)
Sean Gaffney on Olympos (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate Dacey on Sakuran (The Manga Critic)
Sheena McNeil on vol. 7 of Tenjo Tenge: Full Contact Edition (Sequential Tart)
Nichole on vol. 1 of Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution (No Flying No Tights)

San Diego Comic-Con is just around the corner, and you can expect plenty of manga action. I’m going this year, for the first time, so I’ll be handing over the keys to MangaBlog to The Manga Critic, Kate Dacey, for the second half of the week. I’ll have a lineup of manga-related programming later in the week, but a few things are jumping out now. One is that three editors from Japanese Shonen Jump will be guests at Viz’s Shonen Jump Alpha panel on Saturday at noon. Interestingly, the Japanese Shonen Jump has a teaser website up with a countdown that ends on Saturday. Could these two things be related?

The big news broke Friday, at a video event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sailor Moon: Kodansha and Toei will be producing a new Sailor Moon anime. We don’t know too much more than that it exists, but it will be released simultaneously worldwide. Lissa Pattillo has a bit more at Kuriousity.

Lissa Pattillo has the scoop on the new licenses announced by Digital at Anime Expo.

I looked over the past week’s new manga at MTV Geek, and Lissa Pattillo has her selections in her latest On the Shelf column for Otaku USA. Meanwhile, Sean Gaffney takes a peek at what to expect this week, and at Manga Bookshelf, the team discusses their Pick of the Week.

Erica Friedman has the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

For the second year in a row, Yen Press concluded their talent search without announcing a winner. Deb Aoki talks to Yen editor JuYoun Lee about why this is, how Yen Press finds artists, and what they are really looking for.

Jason Thompson takes a look at the classic sci-fi manga Parasyte in his latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.

Tony Yao meditates on the true meaning of strength as expressed in Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond.

Matt Blind looks at the manga best-sellers for the weeks of May 20 and May 27.

This month’s Manga Moveable Feast will focus on CLAMP, and it will be hosted at Manga Bookshelf, where Melinda Beasi posts the Call for Entries.

The Ninja Consultants present their 2012 Anime Boston con report.

Cool things you can only get in Japan at the moment: The omake from vol. 7 of Inoboku and the latest cover of Morning, featuring art from Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond.

Three Steps Over Japan takes a look at the manga magazine Young Ace.

News from Japan: The Japanese Association for Gender, Fantasy, and Science Fiction gave the top prize in its Sense of Gender Awards to Naname no Ongaku (Schräge Musik), by Dolls creator Yumiko Kawahara. Shaman King manga-ka Hiroyuki Takei is creating a one-shot manga for the September issue of Jump Square. Wataru Yoshizumi (Marmalade Boy) is has ended the series Chitose Etc., which ran in Margaret. Also coming to an end: Shigeru Tschushiyama’s Gokudō Meshi, a gourmet manga in which prisoners reminisce about their most memorable meals. JManga has published the first two volumes in English.

Reviews: J. Caleb Mozzocco truly appreciates vol. 1 of Pretty Face, a manga that I have had nothing but mockery for, so go, check out his review at Every Day Is Like Wednesday. At The Hooded Utilitarian, Erica Friedman sings the praises of Sukeban Deka, which has yet to be translated into English. Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss some recent releases in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf. Also at Manga Bookshelf: This week’s Bookshelf Briefs.

Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Attack on Titan (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Alex Hoffman on Barrage (Manga Widget)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 42 of Bleach (The Comic Book Bin)
Khursten Santos on Breathe Deeply (Otaku Champloo)
Kristin on vol. 43 of Case Closed (Comic Attack)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 20 of Claymore (The Comic Book Bin)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 1 of Cowboy Bebop (Blogcritics)
Connie on vol. 1 of Dog x Cat (Slightly Biased Manga)
Lesley Aeschliman on vol. 2 of Dragon Ball (omnibus edition) (Blogcritics)
Sesho on vol. 1 of Gakuen Prince (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Connie on issue 5 of GEN (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Genshiken: Second Season (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Lexie on vol. 2 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Poisoned Rationality)
Sesho on vol. 1 of Harukaze Bitter Bop (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 3 of Hetalia: Axis Powers (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Sesho on vol. 22 of InuYasha (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Jiu Jiu (The Manga Critic)
Kristin on vol. 9 of Jormungand (Comic Attack)
Connie on vol. 6 of Kizuna (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on Knight Princess of Orelian and Serilia of Silver (Manga Report)
Sesho on vol. 28 of Naruto (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Anna on Queen’s Stairs and Love Spice (Manga Report)
Lesley Aeschliman on vols. 14 and 15 of Ranma 1/2 (Blogcritics)
Queenie Chan on Skip Beat! (Queenie Chan)
Manjiorin on vols. 1 and 2 of Slam Dunk (Organization Anti-Social Geniuses)
Sean Kleefeld on vol. 3 of Summit of the Gods (Kleefeld on Comics)
TSOTE on Tabibito no Ke (Three Steps Over Japan)
Connie on vol. 6 of Tenjho Tenge (omnibus edition)
Erica Friedman on vol. 17 of Tsubomi (Okazu)
Lexie on vol. 1 of Until Death Do Us Part (Poisoned Rationality)
Jocelyne Allen on Yagate, Ai ni Naru (by est em) (Brain Vs. Book)
Shannon Fay on Your Story I’ve Known (Kuriousity)