Posts Tagged “Manga”

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]

A portion of my web surfing last night illustrated how my thought process sometimes progresses through loose connections.

First, a bit of prefacing: Tuesday night, I bought from Play-Asia the Japanese version of Lux-Pain for $15 (previously wrote about the US version) as well as pre-owned copies of two Detective Conan Game Boy Color games for $10 each: Kigantou Hihou Densetsu and Karakuri Jiin Satsujin Jiken. That same night, I came across someone on Nico Douga who is currently playing through the 1998 Playstation game Meitantei Conan: 3-Jin no Meitantei, specifically Haibara’s case. I later found play videos of Conan’s and Heiji’s cases, both of which I just begun to watch. (That group has also played Haibara’s case, albeit with muddled audio from the game.)

While browsing through Play-Asia’s listings last night, I came across a Soul Eater Wii game called Monotone Princess. I searched for a gameplay video on Nico and found one of each lead technician (Maka, Black Star, and Death the Kid) going through a basic tutorial. I then did a Google search for “maka”, I guess looking for who was that character’s voice actress, and the second result was OGT’s post about gender representation in the series. After reading the post, I scrolled down to the comments and someone (Inuhanyou) had brought up the Chrono Crusade manga as another example of a balance between female and male partners rather than the female just playing the support role.

Even though I saw the anime some years ago, I had never read the manga it was “adapted” from. ADV Manga released the manga in the United States and since that division has been effectively dead for the past few years, the volumes have fallen out-of-print. Luckily, most of the eight volumes are available on Amazon so I might gradually make my way through it one volume at a time.

Related: earlier this week, I looked at TRSI’s list of weekly releases and saw that volume 19 of the Excel Saga manga had come out. My first thought was “It’s been going that long?” To my surprise, Rikdo Koshi is still writing it and it’s currently being serialized in Young King Ours, a monthly seinen manga magazine. This is another manga that had an divergent anime adaptation (e.g., Hyatt was a simple applicant to ACROSS in the manga, whereas she was cast as a princess from space in the anime) and another I had not started reading. Unlike ADV Manga, Viz is still going strong so back volumes should be easier to find. Both manga series are now on my back burner but Chrono Crusade has a slighter higher priority than Excel Saga at the moment.

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.

While looking through some photos last night, I came to think about Mayersche, a bookstore chain I visited a few times during an August 2007 study abroad in Germany (and also met an artist there). I also thought about Stern-Verlag but that’s not relevant to this story. I decided to visit Mayersche’s website and I saw the above image on their front page, to my surprise, advertising a “manga weeks” promotion.

It turns out there are three components to this promotion. First, there is a list of recommendations (”Manga-Buchtipps”). Second is a drawing contest with no set theme – they just ask participants to bring their ideas to paper (”bring Deine Idee zu Papier”) and send it in their original drawings by June 13th. Ten winners will receive book vouchers worth 100 Euros (1st place), 75 Euros (2nd), 50 Euros (3rd), or 15 Euros (4th-10th).

The third component is a manga workshop with Alexandra Völker that is taking place over the next few weeks at different locations, all of which appear to be in North Rhine-Westphalia. (Too bad for East and South Germans, I guess.) I haven’t heard of Völker but I did some research and her earning of 2nd place at Connichi 2004’s doujinshi competition with her entry, Tears in Heaven, opened the door to her career as a professional manga artist. She has since done Catwalk, Make a Date (a “Chibi-manga”) & Paris and has a new work called Dark Magic set to come out this September. All of those have been published by Egmont Manga and Anime (EMA), one of the main manga distributors in Germany along with Carlsen Comics and Tokyopop.

Drawn by pixiv user petunia

Over the weekend, I read the first ten chapters of the K-On! manga because I wanted to experience the original characters and flow before reluctantly dipping my toes into the KyoAni adaptation. I was unconsciously recognizing certain things that I read from my followees on Twitter (which I once called the “backchannel” – the moniker still holds) and in my Google Reader feeds, e.g. Yui in awe of Mio’s fingers. I enjoyed what I had read and will continue to keep tabs on it. However, I now feel little to no ambition to watch the anime since I believe it will cover the same bases and I’d rather spend those 25 minutes per episode on something else. I could see how certain people could be head over heels for Mio but I just wasn’t feeling much for her; my favorite characters so far have been Sawako-sensei and Ritsu.

On Monday, I thought about the comparisons some made to Lucky Star (this one in particular) and saw some credence to that theory. (I personally felt a slightly stronger comparison to Manabi Straight but I’ll humor this route at the moment.) Mio and Ritsu could be roughly mapped, like Kagami and Konata, as a studious tsukkomi and bullheaded boke duo; Yui, like Tsukasa, as an airhead who means well; and Tsugumi, like Miyuki, as a nice girl from a rich family. I’m not saying that these are exactly the same – of course not! Among the differing aspects: Konata took after her father’s perverted tastes, Yui’s parents always seem to be away on trips overseas, and Tsugumi’s vacation home and her busily-booked house.

A tangential thought slowly grew regarding the quartet structure of main characters of slice-in-life comedy series, viz. “why does it appear as often as it does?”. I’ve already mentioned Lucky Star and K-On! but there is also Hidamari Sketch. Scott of Anime Almanac suggested that the artists may be thinking in fours due to the structure of the strips but that would imply the artist being unconsciously influenced by the form, something I’m unlikely to buy into – though I would accept conscious playfulness within such restrictions. When I try to think about “regular order” manga with core casts of four, two come to my mind immediately: Hyakko and Ichigo Mashimaro, though I’m not too familiar with the latter. (For the sake of inclusion in this post, I’m considering Nobue as an “adult” figure.)

I suspect there is much cross-influence in the slice-of-life manga arena and I think four recurs as a number of core characters, constituting a solid square of sorts. Even though I could extend this inquiry into other genres, I would rather not because that would require possible explanations to strain in encompassing a breadth of dissimilar series. Examples include Asu no Yoichi (the Ikaruga sisters), Noir (Mirelle, Kirika, Chloe, and Altena), Yozakura Quartet (the freakin’ title), Burst Angel (the four girls), and Weiß Kreuz (the four guys). I don’t have much to contribute on the already existing concept of relationship squares, or quadrangles, in comedies such as Kannagi and Maburaho so I won’t at this time but may in the future if I do think of something.

While writing this, I also thought of the number five and how that frequently appears in sentai/magical girl series, e.g. Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya, and played upon by comedies like Negima and Bamboo Blade. However, I currently lack enough deep analysis spark to speculate on that. Besides, I’m certain that subject has been written on a fair amount.

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!

When the anime adaptation of Kobato. was announced earlier this month, I thought I would go back to some of the later volumes of Newtype USA, where the manga was serialized in English before the magazine shut down. The first chapter I found, chapter 9, began with Kobato looking around the city for cold beer on a hot summer day as suggested by her stuffed animal guide, Ioryogi-san, who told her that the proliferation of beer gardens would trump “Cool Biz” in its ability to combat global warming. After enjoying that chapter, which marked the end of a prologue of sorts, I found a previous one (ch. 4) where Kobato kept an elderly woman company on New Year’s Day. I liked that one as well so I now find myself catching up on the manga.

The basic plot is that Kobato Hanato, a naive girl, tries to ease the wounded hearts of troubled people in order to fill a bottle with their bad feelings. When she finishes filling the bottle, she will be able to go to someplace where she deeply wants to travel. Where exactly is not revealed at first but one might put two and two together and make an informed guess when they notice she always covers the top of her head with various hats. She begins to helps out at a nursery school and meets two people who have been seen previously in the comic but never directly crossed paths with her.

Thinking about why I am attracted to the manga, I think it is the combination of Kobato’s determination and Ioryogi’s fits of frustration when Kobato screws up. I would like for it to be properly published in the US and I am sure it will garner a certain level of sales as a CLAMP property. It wouldn’t be a 21st-century title from them without some small nods to other franchises and the ones in this manga include a bakery sharing its name with one from Chobits, the daughters of Kobato’s landlady are named Chiho and Chise, and Misaki from Angelic Layer can be seen during Kobato’s search for free beer samples. (I am discovering such references through online research, just like I did when watching Tsubasa Chronicle, since I possess a insufficient familiarity with their catalog of works.)

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.

It seems like nary a few months pass before another one of Scott’s entries into his Anime Almanac weblog spawns a multitude of partisan objection. The latest incident involves an challenge between himself and the Reverse Thieves, whom I don’t regularly read but are apparently well-known, to confront each other’s comfort boundaries. For Scott, it was yaoi manga (specifically, the two-volume Gerard & Jacques) and for the not-quite-Robin Hoods, it was Kodomo no Jikan. (I have read neither work involved in the challenge so I have no opinion subjectively on either.)

The back-and-forth between author and readers (not between the two blogs) mainly focused on Scott’s reaction to a rape scene in the second volume of his assignment – he has since written an addendum on the matter – but there remained something in his original final paragraphs which I still felt the need to formally comment on in writing.
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