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Brigid Alverson


This Week's New Manga: The Mensches of Haruhi Suzumiya

Posted 3/1/13 11:44 am EST by in Manga


It's the last week of the month, and that means it's time for a blizzard of new releases from Yen Press, with one new volume from Kodansha.

Tanigawa_KyonKoizumi_TP

Let's kick off the week with yet another volume set in the Haruhiverse: "The Misfortune of Kyon & Koizumi." If you have ever read "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya," or watched the anime you already know Kyon; he's the nice-guy narrator who is generally on the receiving end of Haruhi's demands. Itsuke Koizumi is a bit more complicated. Even if you're new to Haruhi, this one-shot spin-off is an easy read, just a collection of short comics and drawings about the guys of the SOS Brigade.

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Shonen Jump Goes Same Day as Japan: Interview with EIC Andy Nakatani

Posted 1/22/13 5:33 pm EST by in Digital Comics, Manga


Yesterday was a big day for the folks at Viz: Their weekly digital magazine, Shonen Jump Alpha, changed its name to Weekly Shonen Jump, the same as its Japanese counterpart, and started running manga chapters the same day they come out in Japan. We talked to Andy Nakatani, the editor in chief of the American Weekly Shonen Jump, about making that transition and the changes that started this week.

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New Manga for the Week of January 9: Twos for Tuesday

Posted 1/8/13 10:23 am EST by in Manga


After last week's bumper crop of great manga, things are a bit quieter this week. Actually, there are some interesting volume 2s popping up, so this might be a good week to pick up some volume 1s to go with them.

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Manga News for January 4: Yaoi-Con Takes a Break, Manga Creator Threatened

Posted 1/4/13 10:52 am EST by in Manga


This is usually a slow news time, but the past few weeks have brought a flurry of manga news stories, including the death of "Barefoot Gen" creator Keiji Nakazawa, a change in the Yaoi-Con schedule, and word of a disturbing series of threats against the creator of "Kuroko's Basketball" in Japan. Read on!

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More Alice, Holiday Discounts: A Roundup of Recent Manga News

Posted 12/14/12 10:42 am EST by in Manga


Things are beginning to slow down a bit as the holidays approach, but Viz has just launched a holiday sale, Seven Seas is adding more Alice manga to its lineup, and Mitsukazu Mihara is back at work on her episodic series "The Embalmer."

Viz Redesigns Website, Cuts Prices for the Holidays

Viz Media quietly redesigned its website over the weekend, going from a fairly busy site that put a list of new print releases front and center to a quieter design that puts almost equal emphasis on print and digital manga and anime.

Meanwhile, Viz is offering 20% off every volume in its digital manga service, both the website and the iOS and Android apps, which means that most volumes have been marked down to $3.99. The sale will run through January 8.

And the digital magazine "Shonen Jump Alpha" will run a new, two-chapter "Hunter x Hunter" flashback story, which debuted in the Japanese "Shonen Jump" last week. Read More...

New Manga for the Week of December 5: Shrine Maidens and Broken Promises

Posted 12/6/12 10:50 am EST by in Manga


We have a couple of interesting debuts this week: "Nisekoi," a romantic comedy with a yakuza twist, for shonen fans; "Demon Love Spell," a romantic comedy with a shrine-maiden twist, for shoujo lovers; and "Danza," a collection of short stories by Natsume Ono, for the indy-comics crowd. And there are plenty of fresh volumes in ongoing series as well, enough to keep us all reading right through the end of the year.

The new titles Kodansha announced earlier this year are here at last, and the one I'm looking forward to most is Natsume Ono's "Danza," a collection of short stories about "being a foreigner, sometimes even in your own home." Ono creates thoughtful, subtle stories about interesting people, and this book should be a delight to read.

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Shonen Jump Alpha Goes Day and Date—with Japan

Posted 11/27/12 12:00 pm EST by in Manga


It's official: As of January 21, 2013, "Shonen Jump Alpha" will start releasing new chapters of all its weekly manga simultaneously with Japan.

This doesn't exactly come as a surprise, although it's nice to have the timing locked in. Back when he first announced that "Shonen Jump" was going digital, at New York Comic Con 2011, Viz executive vice president Alvin Lu said it was possible that the magazine would go to simultaneous release with Japan, adding, "We wanted to give ourselves some room for improvement. There are various factors that went into this, and if we can get this right, it leaves room to close the time gap." Read More...

MTV's Holiday Gift Guide: Gifts for the Manga Lover

Posted 11/26/12 1:05 pm EST by in Gift Guides, Manga


With the holidays just around the corner, we at MTV Geek want to help you out with your shopping lists! Here's our Official Manga Gift Guide!

"Sailor Moon" Box Set

The re-release of "Sailor Moon" was the big news of 2011, and each volume that has come out this year has topped the best-seller list. For those who have been waiting in the wings, this box set, released just yesterday, includes the first six volumes plus an exclusive set of stickers. Read More...

This Week's New Manga: Something Old, Something New

Posted 11/16/12 11:30 am EST by in Manga


We have a couple of distinguished debuts this week, as Seven Seas releases the first volume of the high-school comedy "Haganai: I Don't Have Many Friends," Viz brings back the tourtured-bishounen tale "07-Ghost" and a fresh omnibus edition of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," and JManga debuts two quirky-looking new series as well as a trio of BL short stories. Plus we have fresh volumes of Mitsuru Adachi's "Cross Game," "Trigun" creator Yasuhiro Nightow's "Blood Blockade Battlefront," and "Zatch Bell" manga-ka Makoto Raiku's "Animal Land." Read on!

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You Be the Judge in JManga's Translation Battle

Posted 11/15/12 5:27 pm EST by in Manga


Do you like honorifics or hate them? What about slang? Now you have a chance to check out some manga translations and vote for your favorites in the JManga Translation Battle, which is going on until December 2.

Since most of us who read manga don't read Japanese, it's easy to forget that there's someone in between the reader and the manga-ka: The translator, whose work is as much art as science. This is especially true for a language like Japanese, which has a lot of nuance and doesn't map directly to English.

That's why it's so interesting to see how the different translators in the JManga competition handled the same material. The finalists' page features six different translations of an excerpt from Tominori Inoue's "Coppelion" and three translations each of parts of Nana Haruta's "Chocolate Cosmos" and Akira Saso's "Shindo."

Just look at the difference in tone between these translations of a snippet of dialogue from "Coppelion." A group of schoolgirls are walking down the road in what looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape; their leader is urging them on.

And here, from three translations of "Shindo," are three different ways to insult the girl you just met:

Each manga has a different tone, a different "voice," which may be pleasing to some readers and annoying to others.

The judges for this contest include two experienced translators, William Flanagan ("A Bride's Story," "Fairy Tail") and Jonathan Tarbox ("Fist of the North Star," "Slam Dunk"), as well as blogger Deb Aoki and MIT professor Ian Condry. And you: Readers are invited to vote for their favorite translation of all three manga. One winner will be chosen for each series, and one of those three will be the grand prize winner and will get a trip to Japan next February and will be invited to a symposium at the Japan Media Arts Festival. (The two runners-up will get iPads.)

So make your preferences known! Tell JManga which translation you like best, and then stay tuned—the winners will be announced later in December.

Related Posts:
Manga: Download The Viz App, Get A Free Volume 1
This Week's New Manga: Shoujo Romance, Box Sets, and Giant Robots

Follow @MTVGeek on Twitter and be sure to "like" us on Facebook for the best geek news about comics, toys, gaming and more! And don't forget to also follow our manga expert @BrigidAlverson!

This Week's New Manga: Shoujo Romance, Box Sets, and Giant Robots

Posted 11/9/12 11:19 am EST by in Manga


It's a great week for manga readers, with two deluxe boxed sets, a new volume (finally!) of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," two new shoujo series, another new series that was created by Stan Lee, and a heap of old favorites. With the holidays coming up, we might even have some time to read these! Here's a look at what's new this week.

Viz kicks off the holiday gift-giving season with two nice box sets, their oversized, deluxe edition of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and a collection of the 18-volume "Ouran High School Host Club," which includes a special notebook. Read More...

Review: 'Polterguys' Packs the House with Cute Ghost Guys

Posted 10/31/12 11:00 am EST by in Manga, Reviews


Laurianne Uy's Polterguys is not quite manga—it's an American graphic novel done in a manga style, a reverse harem story with some nice Japanese-style flourishes but a definitely American sensibility.

The setup is pure manga: A pleasant but nerdy girl gets an apartment in a house that turns out to be haunted—by the ghosts of five cute guys. Four are teenage hotties, while the youngest one, Simon, adds a cuddly note to the group and gives everyone someone to be protective of. The guys don't remember how they died, and they aren't sure why they all ended up in the same house, but they don't get out much, so they are happy to see their new neighbor. So happy that they clean the house, fix her pancakes, and accompany her to classes. This part reminded me a bit of dating-sim manga like "Ugly Duckling's Love Revolution," where the guys exist mainly to please the girl. (Well, we can dream, can't we?) A sinister note enters the story, however, when a bounty hunter shows up to claim his prey, and Bree risks her own life to keep the guys on this side of the Rubicon. Read More...

Manga Interview: Moyoco Anno

Posted 10/25/12 1:46 pm EST by in Manga, New York Comic Con


Moyoco Anno was one of the special guests at New York Comic Con, and MTV Geek was fortunate to get a few minutes to sit down and talk to her about her characters, her readers, and her sources of inspiration.

Only a handful of Anno's works have been published in English, but each one is a standout: The romantic comedy "Happy Mania"; "Flowers and Bees," the story of a man who goes to ridiculous lengths in his pursuit of beauty; "Sugar Sugar Rune," a children's manga about two young witches in search of magic jewels; and "Sakuran," a stunning story of life in an Edo-era brothel (and the source for the movie of the same name). Her Hataraki Man, the story of a workaholic woman, has also made waves in Japan because of its biting commentary on Japanese work life.

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A Manga Lover's Guide to San Diego Comic-Con

Posted 7/10/12 3:00 pm EST by in Comic Book Conventions, Manga, SDCC


With Anime Expo in the rear view mirror, we're barreling toward the big event of the comics year: San Diego Comic Con, which begins Thursday. Unlike AX, which has an obvious focus, Comic-Con is about everything: Superheroes, indy graphic novels, kids' comics, TV, movies, collectible figurines, you name it. And manga.
Despite the wide range of events at this show, manga publishers bring their A game every year, and we can expect to hear some significant announcements as well as some interesting panels. Here's a guide to help manga lovers filter out the noise; if you're going to the con, it will help you plan, and if you're not, it's a good heads-up on when to pay attention to the news. Read More...

New Manga for the Week of June 27: All the Young Girls Love Alice

Posted 6/27/12 2:00 pm EST by in Manga


This week brings a bumper crop of eye-catching manga, with the return of Alice in the Country of Hearts, the finale of CLAMP's Kobato, and the premiere of two lovely one-shots, Olympos and 5 Centimeters per Second.

Let's start with 5 Centimeters per Second, a manga adaptation of Makoto Shinkai's anime of the same name. It has a bit of an anime feel to it, with lots of reaction shots and wordless panels, but the art is well done, and it doesn't look derivative at all. When I interviewed him at New York Comic-Con, Shinkai called 5 Centimeters per Second "a real life story," but of course it's not really—it's not science fiction, but it is a romantic, wistful tale of childhood love. Vertical has chosen to publish it complete in a single volume, so you can read the story uninterrupted.

On a less serene note, at long last, readers will get the complete story of Alice in the Country of Hearts, as Yen Press releases the whole six-volume series in three double-sized omnibus volumes this week. Read More...

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