A new volume of "Wandering Son," the Midwest's biggest anime con, and the return of "One Piece": It's a good week and it's going to be a better weekend. Plus a manga-ka gives her fans free rein to translate, scanlate, or remix some of her work.
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Manga Tipsheet: Mix And Match With 'Wandering Son,' 'One Piece' And More
Posted 5/17/13 5:43 pm EST by Brigid Alverson in Anime, Manga
'Naruto' Creator Pens Gangster Short Story for Shonen Jump
Posted 5/17/13 12:04 pm EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
Manga creator Masashi Kishimoto is well known in the English-speaking world as the creator of "Naruto," the ninja-school story that is a best-seller not only in Japan but also in the U.S., where it has dominated the graphic novel charts for years. This week, though, readers get to see a completely different side of Kishimoto with the one-shot story "Mario," which appears in the latest issue of "Shonen Jump"; you can get just this issue for 99 cents if you don't feel like springing for a subscription, and that 40-page story alone makes it a good deal, especially compared to American comics. (You can even get it for free via the Viz Android app if you're willing to download a free game.)
Exclusive: Cover Reveal For Manga 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' Vol. 3, Plus 5 Things You Need To Know!
Posted 5/14/13 2:59 pm EST by Brigid Alverson in Archie Comics, Comic Books, Manga
Last month I talked to Tania Del Rio about her manga-style reinvention of the Archie character Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Those comics came out in the mid-2000s, but they have been so popular in Archie's digital service that they have brought them back in a new format—a black-and-white, manga-size digest.
Here's an exclusive look at the cover to volume 3, which is due out in September:
Manga Tipsheet: One Series Ends, Two More Begin
Posted 5/8/13 11:42 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
A new Ken Akamatsu series launches, a much-beloved shoujo series ends—such is the circle of manga life. This week's highlights also include another magical-school comedy, this one starring a bumbling witch, and a fresh volume of "Sailor Moon."
This Year's Eisner Judges Pick a Few Good Manga
Posted 4/23/13 10:47 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
The Eisner Award nominations are always a good reading list, especially if you're looking for something a little bit different. The manga that get nominated each year tend to be more literary than popular, especially in the traditional manga category, Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia. The Eisner judges have yet to nominate "Naruto" or "Sailor Moon" for the award; as a judge myself last year, I advocated for The Story of Saiunkoku to be included in the Young Adult category, but there were so many other good teen books that it didn't make the final cut. Read More...
American Manga-Ka Tania del Rio Talks Sabrina
Posted 4/15/13 4:58 pm EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
The mid-2000s were the heyday of the Original English Language (OEL) manga movement. Viz, Tokyopop, and ADV Manga (remember them?) were churning out new titles, and American fans were making comics of their own. Tokyopop provided a road to publication via their Rising Stars of Manga competition, and Tania del Rio was one of the early winners. But del Rio took a very different path from her peers—rather than creating a short series for Tokyopop or going it alone with a webcomic, she took manga right to the heart of mainstream comics, redesigning "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" in manga style for Archie Comics. Read More...
News from SakuraCon: 'Hatsune Miku,' 'Kingdom Hearts' Manga Announced
Posted 4/2/13 10:30 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
The anime/manga con season kicked off this past weekend with SakuraCon, and both Yen Press and Dark Horse showed up with some new manga titles to announce.
This Week's New Manga: Mechs and Magical Girls
Posted 3/29/13 10:45 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
We have a deluge of new titles this week, with some classics—"Sailor Moon" and "Mobile Suit Gundam: Origins"—sharing shelf space with some cheeky newcomers, including a new "Durarara!!" series.
Let's kick it off with Volume 10 of "Sailor Moon," which sounds as action-packed as, well, every other volume of "Sailor Moon": Read More...
The Manga Life: A Chat with Masakazu Ishiguro and Masahiro Ohno
Posted 3/27/13 12:00 pm EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
Young King Ours may not be as well known as Shonen Jump, but as manga magazines go, it has spawned some popular series, including "Hellsing," "Trigun Maximum," and "Excel Saga." Its tagline is "The Most Eccentric Manga Magazine," and while critic Erica Friedman thinks that's a bit of an overstatement, it is true that Young King Ours is the home of some wacky stories.
One of those stories is the delightful "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru," often abbreviated to "SoreMachi," the story of a high school girl, Hatori, who works in a seaside cafe with a collection of goofy characters. It's a cafe comedy with a bit of story to it, drawn in a clear-lined, expressive style by manga-ka Masakazu Ishiguro, and it has been adapted into an anime released by Sentai, "And Yet the Town Moves."
Unfortunately for English-speaking readers, "SoreMachi" is currently published only by the digital manga service JManga, which will shut down on May 30. However, we have a preview of the manga below, which will stay up, and before it disappears altogether I wanted to post the lively interview I had at New York Comic Con with Ishiguro and his editor, Masahiro Ohno. Interviews with manga creators and editors tend to be frustratingly shallow (my favorite color is yellow, I collect interesting fabrics) but Ishiguro and Ohno really cut loose in this interview and talked frankly about their lives in the business. Read More...
This Week's New Manga: From The End Of The World To Your Anime Club
Posted 3/22/13 10:41 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
It's a very slow week for new manga releases, but we have two very different titles that are worth a look. This might be a good week to catch up on some long-running series—or save your money for next week's onslaught of new titles from Yen, Vertical, and Kodansha Comics.
One of the great experiments in digital manga came to an end yesterday when JManga announced that they are shutting down its online manga site. They stopped selling points yesterday; readers who have points in their accounts can still buy manga until March 26, but no one will be able to access their manga after May 30. JManga is refunding unused points in the form of Amazon gift cards. Its sister site JManga7 has already shut down.
New Manga For The Week Of March 13: It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Posted 3/13/13 10:42 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
This week we get a fresh look at three series that have been around for a while, with new volumes of Ai Yazawa's "Paradise Kiss," CLAMP's "Tokyo Babylon," and the classic mecha story "Neon Genesis Evangelion."
This week brings a lot of new manga: A new series in the Blood world from Dark Horse, some fresh volumes of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat stalwarts, more Alice, and the third volume of Heroman, a manga created by Stan Lee and brought to life by BONES.
This Week's New Manga: 'Kitchen Princess,' 'Lizzie Newton,' And Fun With 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'
Posted 2/22/13 10:00 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
There's not much on the shelves for newcomers to manga this week—every new release is either halfway through a series or a riff on a classic. Still, there's plenty of good reading here, and it comes in generous servings, too, as most of this week's new releases are omnibus editions.
Monster Girls, Game Wars, And Satoshi Kon: More New Manga Announcements
Posted 2/19/13 10:00 am EST by Brigid Alverson in Manga
The new manga license announcements keep on coming, and it's looking like this will be a good year.
The big announcement came at last weekend's Katsucon, where Vertical marketing director Ed Chavez announced that Vertical has licensed "Tropic of the Sea (Kaikisen)," by the late Satoshi Kon, who is best known as the director of "Paprika," "Tokyo Godfathers," and other well-regarded anime. Kon began his career as a manga artist, and "Tropic of the Sea" ran in Kodansha's "Young Magazine" in 1990. It's a fairly classic sort of story about a seaside town where the locals have a sort of understanding with the mythic people of the sea, until developers come in and turn everything upside down. Watch for it in September; it looks like Vertical will publish it as a single volume, which is how it appeared in Japan.
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