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Brigid Alverson


2011: The Year in Manga

Posted 1/2/12 3:00 pm EST by in Manga


The return of Sailor Moon, the demise of Tokyopop, and a huge move toward digital manga: 2011 was a year of big changes for the manga scene. Let's take a look at some of the main events.

The coming of Kodansha Comics: Kodansha, the largest publisher in Japan, decided to bypass the middleman and publish its manga directly in the U.S. in late 2010, and the line launched this past summer with a mix of old and new titles, including Gon, Until the Full Moon, Mardock Scramble, and Cage of Eden. Previously, Kodansha licensed its manga to Del Rey, which is an imprint of Random House. Del Rey has pretty much closed up shop (they still publish xxxHOLiC and a few OEL manga), but Kodansha has picked up many of their series, including Negima and Fairy Tail, and they are also publishing older series such as Love Hina in omnibus editions.

Sailor Moon returns: Kodansha's first announcement was big news for longtime shoujo manga fans. Sailor Moon was one of the first manga and anime series to catch on outside of Japan, and its success was largely fan-driven. Tokyopop published the original manga series, first in its magazines Mixxzine and Smile and then as small-format paperbacks, with the comic flipped to read from left to right. Tokyopop lost the license for the series sometime in the mid-2000s, and both the manga and the anime were long out of print when Kodansha Comics announced, earlier this year, that it was bringing the series back, in standard manga format and with a new translation. Not only that, but they licensed the two-volume companion series Codename Sailor V as well. Fans responded enthusiastically, and the first volume of Sailor Moon quickly sold through its 50,000 copy first printing—a phenomenal number for any manga not titled "Naruto." Read More...

Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls: New Manga for the Week of December 28

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


It's a slow week for new manga, but there is one standout volume coming out this Wednesday and a couple of others that are worth a look.

Let's start with the good stuff: Volume 2 of Wandering Son, a coming-of-age story about a boy who wants to dress like a girl and a girl who wants to live as a boy. Both protagonists must deal not only with their own conflicted feelings but with the reactions of those around them. This is a quiet story that focuses on the emotional life of the characters—unlike most gender-bender manga, the situation is not played for laughs, although the story does have its lighter moments. I picked volume 1 of this series as one of my best manga of 2011, and I'm really looking forward to volume 2. Read More...

Digital Puts Vampire Hunter D Online—For Free

Posted 12/26/11 10:00 am EST by in Manga


The sixth volume of Vampire Hunter D is due out on December 28, and publisher Digital Manga wants to make sure that we're all up to speed on the story by then, so starting on December 24, they are making the first five volumes available for free on their eManga digital manga site.

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JoJo's Rohan Goes to the Louvre in New Graphic Novel

Posted 12/23/11 12:30 pm EST by in Manga


NBM, which just published its first manga (Stargazing Dog) earlier this year, has a new book in the works, Rohan at the Louvre, by Hirohiko Araki, the creator of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The title character, Rohan, appears in JoJo, but not in the volumes published by Viz Media in the U.S.

The manga is part of a series of books that were commissioned by the Louvre as part of a 2009 exhibit titled "Le Louvre invite la bande dessinée" ("Cartoons - The Louvre Invites Comic-Strip Art"). All five books feature the museum and its artworks, and NBM has already published four volumes, all by French creators. Here's the publisher's summary of Araki's work:

Rohan, a young mangaka, meets a beautiful mysterious young woman with a dramatic story. Seeing him draw, she tells him of a cursed 200 year old painting using the blackest ink ever known from a 1000 year old tree the painter had brought down without approval from the Emperor who had him executed for doing so. The painting meanwhile had been saved from destruction by a curator of the Louvre. Rohan forgets this story as he becomes famous but ten years later, visiting Paris, he takes the occasion to try and locate the painting. Little does he know how violently powerful the curse of it is until he has the museum unearth it from deep within its archival bowels…

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Online Manga Update: New Shonen Jump, GEN Manga

Posted 12/21/11 11:25 am EST by in Manga


The Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump, home to Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, has its own English-language page that features games, updates, and a small amount of online manga—just a few first chapters.

This week they have posted the first chapter of a new comedy series, Nisekoi (Fake Lovers), which debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump last month. The manga is by Double Arts creator Naoshi Komi and here's their summary:

Raku Ichijou may be the heir to a yakuza group, but he's a normal high school kid who dreams of peace and quiet. However, when he meets super-hot but violent transfer student Chitoge Kirisaki, his life takes a sharp turn for the worse!

In order to read the manga, you must download their special manga reader software—which, unfortunately for Mac users like me, only works on computers that run Windows. But hey, if you have a PC, enjoy! And let us know what you think—will this be one of the SJ stories that makes it into English? Read More...

New Manga for the Week of December 21: The Last Battle

Posted 12/20/11 12:30 pm EST by in Manga


There are a lot of interesting manga out this week, but there is one event that commands our attention first: The last volume of Fullmetal Alchemist.

The series winds up with the final attack against "Father," and the possibilities are teased pretty heavily in the promotional text: "But to claim victory, some may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. And when the dust clears, will a happy ending await our favorite characters in the final volume of Fullmetal Alchemist?" I'm inclined to think the answer is "yes, after all they have been through, Edward and Al deserve to get their bodies back," but I guess I'll have to read the book to find out if that's right. Read More...

Digital Manga Bargains: One-Piece, Naruto, Sherlock Holmes

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


With the holidays coming up, manga publishers are offering some good deals to help you spend your gift money and iTunes cards—and even some free comics.

Last week I noted that Viz was offering 20% off on all volume 1's in their digital store; this week they announced they have expanded the sale to all volumes and extended it through midnight (PST) on January 8, 2012. The sale includes new volumes of Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece that aren't available in print yet, as well as full runs of older series like Death Note, Absolute Boyfriend, and Dragon Ball. Since most volumes are regularly priced at $4.99, the sale price is now $3.99, which is about as cheap as it gets (that's what shipping alone costs to buy physical secondhand copies on Amazon).

The digital manga service JManga is offering a special deal: Sign up for a new paid subscription (either $10 or $25) and they will throw in a digital copy of vol. 1 of Sherlock Holmes for free. This is, of course, not the familiar Sherlock Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories but a new manga version, in which Holmes and his sidekick, Dr. Watson, fight supernatural shadow-creatures in a London that is wracked by crime. Just be aware that you are signing up for a subscription, so you will be billed monthly until you cancel. Whether or not you bite on that deal, JManga has another free offer with no strings at all: Downloadable manga wallpapers featuring selected JManga titles. Both offers last until December 27.

Ken Akamatsu launched the Japanese manga site J-Comi a while ago with the idea of putting old, out-of-print manga online for free. The ads that run on the site provide income for the creators, who have all given their permission for the manga to be used—and he launched it with his own series, Love Hina. This week, he announced an English beta, although it's not the most user-friendly site. There's a list of titles with English subtitles on the J-Comi Facebook page, but be aware that the English is machine translated (so it's one step up from complete gibberish) and isn't placed in the word balloons but is in a separate window that overlays the bottom of the page. This site is probably most useful to people who know a little Japanese, but hopefully it will evolve into something wonderful that we all can use.

Related Posts:
It's a Wrap: Manga that Ended in 2011
New Manga for the Week of December 14: All Good Things Must Come to an End

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It's a Wrap: Manga that Ended in 2011

Posted 12/14/11 1:30 pm EST by in Manga


December is a month of endings, and this month sees the end of two long-running manga series, Fullmetal Alchemist and Black Jack. That got us to thinking about what other series reached their final volume this year, and the list was surprisingly long. Here's a look at some of the series we won't be scanning the bookshelves for in 2012.

Fullmetal Alchemist

Yes, you read that right: Next week Viz will release vol. 27 of Fullmetal Alchemist, and the saga of the Elric brothers will come to an end. There's a climactic final battle, of course, and there will be sacrifices—maybe even the ultimate sacrifice. Will Edward and Alphonse get their bodies back? After 27 volumes, I certainly hope so, but you'll have to wait until next week to find out for sure. Read More...

New Manga for the Week of December 14: All Good Things Must Come to an End

Posted 12/13/11 12:00 pm EST by in Manga


This week's list is a mix, with no new series or standout titles but a number of interesting new volumes, including the ending of two Yen Press series.

This week is the big week for Yen Press, and it includes a bittersweet note: Volume 4 of K-ON!, the last volume (at least for now) of the charming gag manga about four high school girls who start their own band, undeterred by their lack of experience. Read More...

News from Japan: New Work From GTO, Cross Game, and Bobobo Creators

Posted 12/12/11 11:00 am EST by in Manga


Remember Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo? It mocked the cliches of shonen manga with a story about people fighting over hair, and although the anime ran on Cartoon Network for a while, it was never a chart-topper in the U.S. In Japan, on the other hand, it was popular enough to earn a sequel, and now it is getting a new spinoff, Fuwari! Don Patch, which will launch in the January issue of Saikyou Jump. Saikyou Jump is a sort of companion magazine to Shonen Jump that is going from quarterly to monthly with this issue; it also features the Naruto spinoff Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden. Read More...

Manga Nominated for Awards at Angouleme Comics Festival

Posted 12/9/11 5:00 pm EST by in Comic Book Conventions, Manga


The manga wave hit France about the same time it arrived in the U.S., and manga has been well represented in recent years at the biggest comics event of the year there, the Festival International de la Bande Dessinee in Angoulême. This year is no exception, with a healthy handful of manga among the 58 nominees for four different awards: Best Comic (Sélection Officielle), Best Heritage Comic (Sélection Patrimoine), Best Youth Comic (Sélection Jeunesse), and Best Crime Comic (Sélection Polar). Some of the manga are already available in English, but others aren't, and that suggests an opportunity for readers who might find French an easier language to learn than Japanese; the French editions are available via online booksellers, although the prices are a bit high.

Here's a look at the manga that were nominated in the four different categories; click the link for a short preview of each one (en Francais, bien sur!)

Best Comic (Sélection Officielle)

Saint Young Men (Les Vacances de Jesus et Bouddha), by Hikaru Nakamura

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Viz Speeds Up Digital One Piece

Posted 12/7/11 10:11 am EST by in Manga


Viz continues their Shonen Jump Digital Warp by publishing the next four volumes of One Piece digitally this week and next: Volumes 59 and 60 came out this week, and volumes 61 and 62 are due out next week, bringing the American releases to within two volumes of the Japanese edition. The reason: Next month brings the debut of Shonen Jump Alpha, the weekly digital magazine that will publish six Shonen Jump series within two weeks of their Japanese counterparts. Since the American editions have lagged the Japanese releases by a lot more than that, Viz is shifting into high gear, releasing digital translations ahead of print.

Viz is also running a sale on their digital manga for the next five days, offering 20% off all volume 1's in their digital store. The sale ends at midnight PST on December 12. Read More...

Spirited Princesses and Cute Animals: New Manga for the Week of December 7

Posted 12/6/11 2:00 pm EST by in Manga


Last week was a slow week for manga, but this week we have a rich variety of new manga releases, with a big stack from Viz, two outstanding volumes from Vertical, and a couple of cute manga from Kodansha.

Let's start with Vertical, which has two very different Osamu Tekuza manga, both of which are well worth picking up. Volume 17 of Black Jack (which actually came out last week) is the last volume of the series, which may explain the test pattern on the cover. Besides the usual assortment of crazy-imaginative stories about the rogue surgeon (Black Jack actually operates on himself in this volume) and his childlike sidekick Pinoko, this final volume includes an appendix that lists every Black Jack story Tezuka ever wrote, in order of release, so if you have all Vertical's volumes (which were not arranged in chronological order) and you're crazy obsessive, you could sit down and read the whole series from start to finish (except a few stories that were held back from collected editions both here and in Japan). They also have vol. 2 of Princess Knight, which wraps up this edition of Tezuka's children's adventure tale. If you like cute, Disney-eseque animals, fairy tales, and girls who dress as boys, this charming series is for you, and Vertical makes it easy to read by putting it into two elegant omnibus-sized volumes. Read More...

Manga Review: Saturn Apartments, Vols. 1-4

Posted 12/5/11 1:30 pm EST by in Manga, Reviews


Hisae Iwaoka's Saturn Apartments takes place in a ring-shaped apartment complex orbits the earth, 35 kilometers above the surface—high enough that the air is thin and the earth is a distant ball, but not quite in outer space. Inside, the building is divided into levels that correspond with the levels of society: Wealthy people live in airy, naturally lit apartments in the top level; the middle level is dedicated to commerce and agriculture; and the working classes live a dark, cramped existence on the lower level. The difference is not just aesthetic: The lack of natural light causes immune system deficiencies in the lower level, making the inhabitants weak and shortening their lives. This seems to be the only place where people live; the planet earth has been declared a nature preserve and is off limits to humans.

The main characters in this manga are the people who maintain the outer shell of the apartment complex. Most are window washers, who stare down into the spacious apartments of the rich, and one is an inspector, who tramps about, with her dog, looking for flaws in the outer skin of the structure.

Mitsu, the main character, is a second-generation window washer. His father, Aki, disappeared while washing windows on the lower side of the structure, an area where the windows are seldom washed—partly because it is more dangerous there (gravity still exerts its pull this close to the earth) and partly because the lower-level denizens can't afford luxuries like clean windows. Everyone assumes that Aki fell to his death, but Mitsu is not so sure, and the tantalizing possibility remains that he might be still alive on the earth's surface. Read More...

Viz News: First SJ Alpha Cover, D.Gray-Man Art Book, and Benefit Anthology

Posted 12/1/11 4:00 pm EST by in Manga


Viz Media unveiled the cover of their new Shonen Jump Alpha online magazine yesterday, and they are continuing to speed up releases of new volumes of Naruto and Bleach so the digital magazine can be synced with the Japanese releases when it launches in January.

Shonen Jump Alpha, a weekly digital magazine that will replace the monthly print magazine Shonen Jump, will carry six series: Bakuman, Bleach, Naruto, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, One Piece, and Toriko. Chapters of each will be published two weeks after they appear in Japan.

Since Viz's print volumes lag the Japanese releases by a considerable margin, Viz is speeding up the digital releases of two series, Naruto and Bleach, publishing new volumes digitally far ahead of their print releases and, in the case of Bleach, skipping ahead to the current story arc.

Read More...

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