Archive for the “Manga” Category

On Thursday, TRSI added the first few volumes of Kodansha Comics’ Ghost in the Shell and Akira to their catalog (listings for vol. 1 of each were found on Amazon Canada last month). Vols. 1 & 2 of Akira and Vol. 1 of Ghost in the Shell are also on Amazon US, which I have linked to below.

It looks like Kodansha’s initial volumes of Akira will have a list price of US$24.99. That’s the same price as what Dark Horse sold volumes 1-3 at, although that rose to $27.95 for the 400-page volume 4 and the 416-page volume 5 and to $29.95 for the 440-page volume 6. I wonder if Kodansha will also raise the prices when it gets to that point – I hope they don’t, though.

Ghost in the Shell will street for a little bit more at $26.99 – Dark Horse’s trade paperbacks were $24.99 (Vol. 1 listings from 1995, 2004 2nd edition). I don’t know if Kodansha also has the rights to publish Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Processor Error, which Dark Horse put out fairly recently in trade paperback in October 2007 for $17.95.

Akira vol. 1 (368 pgs) – Oct. 13, 2009 [TRSI, Amazon]
Ghost in the Shell vol. 1 (352 pgs) – Oct. 13, 2009 [TRSI, Amazon]
Akira vol. 2 (304 pgs) – Jan. 12, 2010 [TRSI, Amazon]
Akira vol. 3 (spec. 288 pgs?) – Apr. 13, 2010 [TRSI]
Ghost in the Shell vol. 2 (spec. 312 pgs?) – Apr. 13, 2010 [TRSI]

Today, Viz debuted a new online manga site based off the IKKI brand, a monthly magazine by Shokukagan (Viz’s co-owner along with Shueisha), and put up the first chapter of Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea (Kaiju no Kodomo). It’s a long one at about 58 pages and if the table of contents is accurate, the 320-page first volume will include the first eight chapters when it comes out on July 21st with a $14.99 price point on their Viz Signature label.

I looked at the bottom of the page and found copyright citations for other titles that will probably make their online debut at a later date:

• Bob to Yukaina Nakamatachi (Bob with His Funky Company) by Puncho Kondoh (1 volume; ongoing)
• Bokurano by Mihiro Kitoh (10 volumes; ongoing)
• Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida (12 volumes; ongoing)
• Dosei Mansion by Hisae Iwaoka (4 volumes; ongoing)
• Houkago no Charisma by Kimiko Suekane (no volumes released yet; ongoing)
• Kameo Doll by Temari Tamura (1 volume; ongoing)
• Kingyoya Koshoten by Seimu Yoshizaki (8 volumes; ongoing)
• Kotae wa Mittsu by Tondabayashi (2 volumes)
• Not Simple by Natsume Ono (1 volume)
• I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow (Orewamada Honkidashienaidake) by Shunju Aono (3 volumes; ongoing)
• Saraiya Goyou (House of Five Leaves) by Natsume Ono (6 volumes; ongoing)
• Tokyo Flow Chart by Eiji Miruno (2 volumes; ongoing)

A Publishers Weekly article confirmed that Dorohedoro and House of Five Leaves will be next in their strategy to test out titles online before deciding whether to publish physical copies. IKKI Senior Editor Leyla Aker says in a blog entry that early August is when they will “roll out the rest of the titles on [their] slate”. Viz previously mentioned Not Simple (which may become Not So Simple) as coming in January 2010 during their 2009 NYCC panel; Chris Butcher of Comics212 described its storytelling as superb and found himself drawn to the art style.

UPDATE (5/22 1:41 AM PDT):
ANN received a “media advisory” that specified Bokurano and I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow among those planned to be serialized along with the previously confirmed Dorohedoro and House of Five Leaves.

I saw this keychain thing recently on Akibablog – it’s apparently going to be a promotional item for the February 26th release of Harumi-nation (はるみねーしょん) vol. 1, a manga recently began running in Manga Time Kirara Carat, the same magazine that serializes Hidamari Sketch, Doujin Work, and K-On!. (Related: K-On! v.1 rebranded with a spring anime reminder – Kill Me, Baby v.1 came out on Jan. 27).

All I know about the manga: it covers the life of high school girls (nothing new), Harumi Hosono is an alien who can fly, and her tsukkomi sometimes drives human girls Yuki Takahashi and Kaori Sakamoto into dementia? (I tried to translate the Japanese Wikipedia entry.) Apparently, the three main characters’ names are similar to the primary members of YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra): Haruomi Hosono, drummer/vocalist Yukihiro Takahashi, and keyboardist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Amazon Japan lists the 120-page volume’s price as 860 yen, which currently converts to about US$9.21. I’ll try to look for it when I visit Japantown SF early next month but I don’t know if they will have imported it of their own volition.

I was browsing around online to see how the covers from the first Haruhi novel and the manga’s first volume differed visually (they’re similar but not close enough to cause confusion) and saw that Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon all currently list Volume 1 of the Lucky Star manga with a release date of May 15th, a price point of $9.99, and a page count of 150. Both its standard ISBN of 1604961120 and ISBN-13 of 9781604961126 checked out when I cross-checked them on ISBNdb.com.

Granted, Bandai has not officially announced anything nor have they sent solicitations to specialty retailers like TRSI or yet but the date looks right since it would be two months after the sixth and final DVD volume comes out on March 17th. I would expect them to announce this date along some more details at NYCC next month during either their general panel (Saturday Feb. 7th 12:30 PM-1:30 PM) or their Lucky Star panel (Sat. 1:45PM-2:45PM).

Here’s the product description that may show up on the back cover:

From the studio that brought you The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya! When eating a chocolate cornet which end do you begin with, the top or the bottom? Which side is the top and which is the bottom? For that matter, what is a chocolate cornet? The proper way to eat pastries is only one of the many every day occurrences explored by the girls of Ms. Kuroi’s class. Meet Konata, an athletic and intelligent girl too dedicated to her favorite primetime animes to excel in anything but otaku culture; Miyuki, the cute, bespectacled living example of Moe with an encyclopedic knowledge of all subjects; Kagami, the bitter-sweet, tough but shy sister; Tsukasa, a kind but air-headed klutz. Witness this study in the human condition as our heroines explore the unexplored in questioning the ordinary!

This morning, I received the following e-mail message from Manganovel:

Manganovel Service Information Bulletin
—————————————

Manganovel
December 12, 2008

Termination of Manganovel Services

Dear Manganovel Users:

Please be advised that we will terminate all Manganovel services on February 27, 2009. Towards this, we will discontinue the following services as of today:
?User Registration
?Point Sales
?Posting of translation by Manganovel Users

Users who currently hold “points” will receive an e-mail from us around January 15th, 2009, detailing how to use those points.

For the meantime, Manga will be available for purchase if you have points, and you can also enjoy free manga.

We would like to extend our thanks to you for using Manganovel services.

Contact
For further information, please contact usercontact@manganovel.com.

I signed up for an account in October 2007 soon after its launch, downloaded the viewing software, and didn’t do much after that. The concept was that users would buy packages of points in order to purchase raw digital chapters or volumes (some of which were free) and different language translations uploaded by other users. Those users whose translations were bought received points in their account if they decide to charge for them (they could also offer gratis translations), which they could use to buy more digital manga. That’s a rough explanation from memory – I hope it sufficed.

I thought it was an interesting system when it came out but I quickly realized that the points currency was stuck within it (no cashing out) and that I didn’t really feel like trying to translate Japanese into English or German just to use that revenue to buy more chapters or translations of digital manga. I’m sure some dedicated users will miss the site and its weekly addition of chapters and/or user translations and it may have allowed budding translators an opportunity to practice their skills. It was an experiment in digital manga distribution using low-profile titles and though it may not have caught on in a large way, it did launch 10 months before DMP put up its eManga rental site and that must be worth something.

After seeing Baka-Raptor’s comparison of Soul Eater and Bleach and viewing an out-of-order-for-me episode during a club Halloween party, I began to think of how this emerging shonen franchise would differentiate itself in its foray into a broader North American consciousness. But I was surprised that the first manga volume is scheduled to come out a FULL YEAR from now in October next year! (The first light novel volume of Spice and Wolf is slated for a December 2009 release with a six-month schedule so that may be more painful for restless readers.)

Out of the five manga that debuted in issue 1 of Yen Plus — Soul Eater, Sumomomo Momomo, Nabari no Ou, Higurashi, Bamboo Blade — only Higurashi will have its first volume come out this year with the others making their individually bound debuts in May 2009 or October ‘09, the latter being the case for Soul Eater. While I initially thought that the long delays were part of a “syndicate first, bind later” strategy and still do, I believe Yen Press is purposely holding back Soul Eater’s initial volume release in order to promote it using Atsushi Ookubo’s (the artist’s) prior work, B.ICHI – the same type of cross-promotion appeared at the end of the Japanese 1st volume. The desire to gain more subscribers to its monthly magazine contributes to the delay of all the serialized titles by having readers to consume individual slices from different types of figurative bread rather than eat whole loafs at a time. (Not sure if that food analogy worked…) The monthly meting out of individual chapters should provide an consistent and slightly less intensive workload for those assigned to such projects, which is a good thing for a relatively small operation compared to the more established industry names.
Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE 10/10: I received a response from someone at the Times to my comment but didn’t check the email until today. I have added the reply at the end of the post and I feel satisfied with the explanation they provided.

This afternoon I was reading a so-so article penned by the New York Times’ Motoko Rich about how publishers and libraries trying to use video games to spur youth reading. Rich has written numerous pieces in the past for the Times about the publishing industry so one would imagine she is able to properly describe origins of printed works. Unfortunately, she slipped up in the closing paragraphs of the piece that ran in today’s paper when mentioning two particular manga titles (emphasis added):

Noah Tropp, 14, who participated in Ms. Steinkuehler’s program [that explored whether the reading gamers do through guides and forums might serve as a 'gateway drug for literacy'] for several months this year, regularly reads sites like gamewinners.com and supercheat.com. While looking for hints online, he read about “Death Note,” a novel based on a Japanese video game. Over the summer, he read it.

Noah also wrote about the games and other pastimes on a group Internet forum. “I was so surprised because he does not like writing,” said William Tropp, Noah’s father. “I said, ‘Why aren’t you like this in school?’ ”

In one posting, Noah recommended “xxxHOLIC,” a graphic novel based on Japanese manga cartoons.

“You should check it out if you get the chance,” Noah concluded, “and it is a good book!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, ANN reported that numerous Kodansha and Bbmf manga such as Hataraki Man and Keroro Gunsou have been or will be added to the Japanese iTunes App Store to be read on iTouchs and iPhones. The chapters are mostly priced at 115 yen (a few are free in the case of Keroro and many BBmf offerings) and are in both English and Japanese, which I guess is why these are apps for that functionality alone.

An slightly different offering under the “Books” category is a 3-volume, 53-page Yoshitoshi ABe doujinshi called Pochiyama at the Pharmacy for 600 yen, which I would like read except I don’t currently own an iPod touch – a condition I hope to rectify in the near future as there is a rumored price drop/update happening next month. It would be my first Apple hardware product ever even though I have previously used Macs in campus computer labs and played with an iPhone inside an AT&T store. All those free games [text ad]… (Just after posting this, I found out ANN wrote a story about Pochiyama a hour before. Whatever.)

I guess I should also talk about DMP’s initiative to also provide digital manga to the masses. Their method involves renting a volume for 72 hours for $4 that can be upgraded to unlimited use by re-renting for a total of $8, but the starting 3-day limit shouldn’t be a detraction for many people. The current offerings are BL and how-to drawing books, neither of which particularly pique my interest – Gia had some recommendations of non-yaoi titles they could add such as Enchanter. The interface was not perfect for me because while Panel Focus zooms in on each panel so you can read the text, I read manga while surveying the whole page. Luckily, I was able to switch to actual size at medium scaling and just drag around to see the rest.

The chapter drop-down menu, keyboard shortcuts and bookmarking features are nice touches that compete with Tokyopop’s online “player”, which allows you to view opposite pages simultaneously with readable text but at a lower resolution that what DMP is offering. (How do you play manga, anyway?) The eManga site is easier to remember and to navigate than Tokyopop’s site so I might use it in the future to preview titles or even rent one. The points system has a logical ratio of 100 pts to $1 but the option to actually add points 1,000 at a time isn’t available at the moment.

I was flipping through a recent issue of Time Magazine (July 14th) that was lying around the house and saw a feature called “Famous Authors’ Guilty Pleasures”. What struck me was that Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz chose the Monster manga as his, although I probably shouldn’t have been surprised after reading the front flap of his immigrant-family novel, The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao:

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien, and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú — the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim — until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.

Diaz described Monster’s Johan as “one of the weirdest, most attractive psychotic masterminds in literature” and mentioned other characters like Nina, Inspector Runge and Eva as components of Tenma’s “epic quest”. I am idly interested to see how US sales of the manga are affected by this mention in a mainstream magazine and I might have to take a peek at Oscar Wao because it seems interesting…and because it won an award, like Monster won the 2001 General Shogakukan Manga Award. (I also want to check out The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps for a different reason.)

And yes, I did discover that ANN wrote about this two weeks ago during this post’s composition but it was news to me so I’m posting about it anyway.

I got the pulp copy of RightStuf’s Spring 2008 catalog in the mail today and found an odd coincidence: two different manga with homophonic names: Gacha Gacha and Gatcha Gacha. The former is a shonen title dealing with a girl’s multiple personalities with an ecchi bent (the story arc shown above, “Next Revolution”, involves a boy who swaps gender whenever he sneezes due to a VR game malfunction!) while the latter is a shoujo romantic comedy with a love square and hints of shoujo-ai. Thankfully the Wikipedia pages for both series offer links to the other (shonen to shoujo and vice-versa) in case you were off by a letter. Still hard to discern between the two if you only hear the titles, though.