MangaBlog

At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh makes his picks from this week’s new manga releases, and he reaches the letter F in his Josei Alphabet.

Kate Dacey nominates Kazuo Koike’s schlocky Wounded Man to her Manga Hall of Shame.

Attention, Yen Press! Alex Hoffman has a license suggestion for you: Barakamon, a slice-of-life manga in the vein of Yotsuba&! and Bunny Drop.

Reviews: At Manga Report, Anna takes advantage of Viz’s 99-cent sale in their iPad app (all volume 1s are 99 cents) to check out vol. 1 of Captive Hearts.

James Fleenor on vol. 1 of Happy Cafe (Anime Sentinel)
Julie Opipari on vol. 6 of Honey Hunt (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Sakura Eries on vol. 2 of My Girlfriend’s a Geek (Mania.com)

Lissa Pattillo takes a look at the most promising of Viz’s newly announced manga.

Melinda Beasi takes a look at what we can expect in March in her latest Manhwa Monday post.

Melinda, Kate Dacey, Michelle Smith, and David Welsh discuss their candidates for Pick of the Week at Manga Bookshelf.

News from Japan: GTO manga-ka Tohru Fujisawa and Nineteen artist Sho Kitagawa are collaborating on a new mystery series, Soul Messenger, which will run in Super Jump. Bunny Drop is coming to an end. The Black Rock-chan 4-koma manga, based on the game franchise Black Rock Shooter, launches this week in 4-Koma Nano Ace magazine. And two K-On! series will run in two different magazines, with the girl band’s high school years chronicled in Manga Time Kirara Carat, beginning with the June issue, and their college career in Manga Time, starting with the May issue. The first run of the manga ended last year.

Reviews: Ash Brown takes a quick look at the past week’s manga reading at Experiments in Manga.

Connie on vol. 3 of Bakuman (Slightly Biased Manga)
Erica Friedman on Dare Ni Mo Ienai (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on vol. 2 of The Dark Hunters (Manga Xanadu)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Dogs: Bullets and Carnage (The Comic Book Bin)
Marcus Speer on vol. 11 of Higurashi: When They Cry (Japanator)
Penny Kenny on vol. 2 of Kobato (Manga Life)
Connie on vol. 3 of Kobato (Slightly Biased Manga)
Eduardo Zacarias on vol. 50 of Naruto (Animanga Nation)
Todd Douglass on vol. 4 of Pandora Hearts (Anime Maki)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Toradora! (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of Toradora! and vol. 1 of Vampire Cheerleaders (The Manga Critic)

Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy says that the Borders bankruptcy is behind the latest round of layoffs:

The facts are simple. Borders—our biggest customer—went bankrupt, owed us a lot money, which they didn’t pay us, and as a result we are in a very challenging situation, and have had to react quickly to the situation. We did need to let a few people go—and it’s horrible for everyone involved to ever have to let people go.

Daniella Orihuela-Gruber has some further thoughts on this, wondering who she would support, manga publishers or Borders. At Kuriousity, Lissa Pattillo takes a broader look at Tokyopop’s problems, including the fact that the gaming company Blizzard has ended its relationship with Tokyopop, which that Tokyopop’s licensed Warcraft manga will be coming to an end as well. And Lori Henderson expresses concern that the leadership just doesn’t care about the books she loves.

Diamond Bookshelf chats with legendary Dark Horse editor Carl Horn.

Erica Friedman brings us the latest round of Yuri Network News at Okazu.

David Welsh takes a look at the March Previews and finds a lot to like there, but he also asks the readers to help him choose between three iffy series.

Melinda Beasi reviews the Viz iPad app at Manga Bookshelf.

Viz has confirmed that Inubaka is on hiatus.

Christopher Butcher is salivating over the newly announced Tank Tankuro manga from PressPop.

Tomo Kimura shows off an alternate cover for the Japanese edition of Black Butler.

Chrono Crusade creator Daisuke Moriyama is coming to Sakura-con.

Reviews

Johanna Draper Carlson on Age Called Blue (Comics Worth Reading)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Arata: The Legend (The Comic Book Bin)
Connie on vol. 4 of Black Butler (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 14 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kristin on vol. 6 of Butterflies, Flowers (Comic Attack)
David Welsh on vols. 1-3 of Dorohedoro (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Angela Eastman on Dragon Girl (Suite 101)
Anna on vol. 2 of Dragon Girl (Manga Report)
A Library Girl on vol. 10 of Emma (A Library Girl’s Familiar Diversions)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 18 of Excel Saga (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Nicola on vol. 2 of Genkaku Picasso (Back to Books)
Connie on vol. 22 of Hikaru No Go (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 1 of Lives (Slightly Biased Manga)
Anna on vol. 8 of Rasetsu and vol. 6 of Butterflies, Flowers (Manga Report)
Alex Hoffman on vols. 1 and 2 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Manga Widget)
Nicola on vol. 4 of Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee (Back to Books)
Connie on vol. 3 of Yurara (Slightly Biased Manga)

Today is our birthday: The first MangaBlog post went up six years ago today, and I’m happy to say we have grown and changed a lot since then. Thank you all for reading—it’s the community that really makes this site interesting and helps keep it fresh. So have a cupcake and celebrate!

In the news…

Jason Thompson devotes his House of 1000 Manga column to Sailor Moon this week. Appropriately enough, this was the book that got the whole manga thing started in our house—I found a couple of the books at a garage sale, 5 for a dollar, and picked them up for my kids. It turned out to be an expensive bargain, because they quickly developed a full-blown manga habit.

Sean Gaffney takes us through next week’s new releases at A Case Suitable for Treatment, and Lori Henderson has this week’s all-ages comics and manga at Good Comics for Kids.

Viz has announced a whole slew of new licenses and releases. David Welsh knows which one he wants.

Melinda Beasi looks at the three faces of Tokyopop.

The 50th volume of Naruto was the top-selling graphic novel in bookstores last month, according to ICv2.

David Welsh’s latest license request is Jin, one of the nominees for the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize.

I think I missed this when it first went up: Michael Arthur presents a gay man’s perspective on BL manga at The Hooded Utilitarian; Melinda Beasi uses that as a starting point for her own essay on “intimacy porn” at Manga Bookshelf.

Also at The Hooded Utilitarian, Erica Friedman looks at some Japanese manga magazines that don’t fit the standard categories.

Kodansha International is shutting down, but that’s not as huge a deal as it seems to we manga folk, because they don’t publish manga (except for books about manga, like Fred Schodt’s Manga! Manga!). Kodansha USA and Kodansha Comics are still around, and it was the parent company that bought a stake in Vertical last week.

Alex Woolfson posts some character designs for yaoi superheroes at Yaoi 911.

News from Japan: Rule 35: If it exists, someone in Japan will make a moe version of it. The latest example: Kawaii Security, a book that discusses computer viruses and security using a combination of manga and illustrated text.

Reviews

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 3 of Kurozakuro (The Comic Book Bin)
Ng Suat Tong on Oishinbo (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 1 of Oresama Teacher (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Kristin on vol. 1 of Oresama Teacher and vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (Comic Attack)
Kate Dacey on Qwan (The Manga Critic)
Rob McMonigal on vols. 11 and 12 of Ranma 1/2 (Panel Patter)
Ken Haley on vol. 1 of Replica (Sequential Ink)
Erica Friedman on Strawberry Panic Omnibus (Okazu)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 11 of Trinity Blood (I Reads You)

The news that rocked the manga world this week was that Tokyopop laid off their senior editors Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl and Troy Lewter, as well as newer hire Asako Suzuki (formerly of CMX) and several others. I wrote about Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy’s pattern of doing this at Robot 6, and at The Beat, Heidi asked “Is Stuart Levy the Charlie Sheen of comics?” Daniella Orihuela-Gruber, who is a freelance editor for Tokyopop, has a more personal perspective on the loss of her mentor. Johanna Draper Carlson tries to figure out who’s left and sums up the situation neatly:

I used to work for a guy who, whenever he read a business book, we all avoided him, because he would change the entire company focus based on whatever idea he’d just been introduced to. Does Levy have similar company focus ADD?

Tony Yao watches Stu’s Greatest American Otaku show at Manga Therapy.

Melinda Beasi reports from inside the Digital Manga Guild on last week’s teleconference with Digital president Hikaru Sasahara, in which many of the details of the program were laid out, including timing and payments.

David Welsh looks at this week’s new manga, and he reaches the letter E in his josei alphabet at The Manga Curmudgeon.

Melinda Beasi, Danielle Leigh, and Michelle Smith continue their roundtable discussion of Nana in part 9 of the NANA project. And Melinda and Michelle discuss a trio of Harlequin manga in their latest Off the Shelf column.

The first handful of nominations for the Great Graphic Novels for Teens list is up, and Joy Kim, who chairs the selection committee this year, invites everyone to nominate their favorite books.

Viz is having a special promotion of its iPad app: All volume 1s are 99 cents for the month of March. The app is nicely designed, and they are loading it up fast with lots of volumes (over 100 in March) so if you have an iPad, give it a whirl.

News from Japan: At Manga Therapy, Tony Yao looks at why One Piece is so popular with adults in Japan. Neon Genesis Evangelion will return from hiatus in the April issue of Young Ace magazine. Chinese creator Liu Chong has a series in Monthly Big Comic Spirits; Chong is one of the few non-Japanese creators in the profession and he seems to have stirred a bit of comment. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.

Reviews

Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 34 of Bleach (The Comic Book Bin)
Anna on vol. 1 of Butterfly (Manga Report)
Lori Henderson on vols. 3 and 4 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Xanadu)
Sean Gaffney on vols. 7 and 8 of Higurashi: When They Cry (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
David Welsh on vol. 5 of Kimi ni Todoke (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Erica Friedman on Kyoumei Suru Echo (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on vol. 56 of One Piece (Comic Attack)
Julie Opipari on vol. 7 of Rasetsu (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Lori Henderson on vol. 5 of Rin-Ne (Manga Xanadu)
Greg McElhatton on vol. 5 of Rin-ne (Read About Comics)
Michelle Smith on vol. 2 of The Story of Saiunkoku (Soliloquy in Blue)

Since they had pretty much taken over the place anyway, the manga reviewers at Comics Village have decamped and formed their own site, Manga Village. Reset your bookmarks and RSS feeds and stay tuned!

Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, Michelle Smith, and David Welsh discuss their pick of the week at Manga Bookshelf.

At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson is wondering if Inubaka has been cancelled. The upcoming volume disappeared from her Amazon wishlist and is currently listed as “no longer available.”

Patrick Galbraith has posted an interesting analysis of maid cafes.

Sam Kusek posts a quick list of all the podcasts he has contributed to at A Life in Panels.

News from Japan: Peach-Pit has brought Zombie-Loan to an end; the last episode ran in the March issue of G Fantasy magazine. Min Ayahana has created a Red Riding Hood Cha Cha (Akazukin Cha Cha) one-shot story, which will run in the May issue of Cookie. And Tanbishugi is working on the April release list.

Reviews: Carlo Santos checks out the latest releases in his new Right Turn Only!! column at ANN. Ash Brown recounts a week’s worth of manga reading at Experiments in Manga. Other reviews of note:

Kristin on vol. 3 of Bakuman and vol. 3 of Dorohedoro (Comic Attack)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of The Beautiful Skies of Houhou High and vol. 1 of Replica (The Manga Critic)
Dave Ferraro on vol. 1 of Black Knight (Comics-and-More)
Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Cardcaptor Sakura (omnibus edition) (Okazu)
Lori Henderson on vols. 3 and 4 of Chi’s Sweet Home (Manga Xanadu)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Dragon Girl (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 2 of Kamisama Kiss (The Comic Book Bin)