Dragon Drive Volume 5 By Kenichi Sakura Publisher: Viz Media Genre: Fantasy Rating: All Ages Price: $7.99 Rating: Storyline After Kohei brings the Jinryu Stone,his leader pushes it away, as it is fake. Meanwhile, Reiji is traveling on to find the dragon Shinsaber, to save the world. When he meets Koryu, after saving his life, Reiji and the mysterious Hikaru are locked up. Review Nice. It’s very funny in some points, and the cute pictures before the start of a new chapter are hilarious. “Look, time flies!” What I liked about it Three words: Hilarious and cute. What I didn’t like Nothing. It was simply spectacular. What you could do to make it better Nothing. Is this suitable for children? Maybe, but there’s a lot of blood and a dragon’s head gets cut off.
It’s time to check in on another Previews orders, and see how things went. All and all, it went all right. It’s an order of 10 volumes, four of which go to other members in the house hold.
At the recent “State of the Manga Industry” panel at NYCC, representatives from manga publishers from Del Rey, Viz. and Tokyopop talked about the health of manga sales and fielded questions and concerns. As a whole, they agreed that the industry was “strong and healthy”, with titles shaking out into one of three categories; the “definitely will sell” or A list titles, the “probably will sell”or B list titles, and the “must compete to sell” or C list titles, which is where the majority of titles fall. The big issue is of course with the last category; how to get these books into the right hands. Promoting awareness of titles was mentioned as a problem for all publishers. Why? Even if most of the sales of titles come from brick and mortar retail, getting the word out about titles shouldn’t be such an issue in the internet age. If manga publishers would make better use of their online resources, C list titles would have a better chance. Here are some things I think they should consider.
It’s snack time at Manga Village! Our reviewers serve up some tasty titles. Come enjoy a bite, but be careful that something dark and demonic doesn’t get them first! Dan Polley has some fresh from the oven Yakitate Japan Vol. 9 from Viz. For dessert, enjoy some Honey & Clover Vol. 1 from Viz by me. From the shadows though, comes Charles Tan and the graphic novel Dark Wraith of Shannara from Del Rey. John Thomas brings My Dearest Devil Princess Vol. 2 from Broccoli Books to finish it all off. Then come check out our weekly picks from this weeks meager releases. It wasn’t easy, but at least one publisher got a nearly unanimous endorsement from us. Make with the clicky to find out who it is! And if you’re wondering what happened to my Kids Comics releases, I’ve moved them over to Word Balloons, the blog about kids comics and manga. You can catch all my kid comic recommendations there. This weeks list is up now.
Gon Volume 1 by Masahi Tanaka Publisher: CMX Rating: Teen Genre: Action/Adventure Price: 5.99 Rating: What was the story about? It was about Gon and other animals. Gon sees a hyena, coyote, bob cat, lion, bears, fish and beavers. What did you like about the story? I liked the second story when Gon shares with the lion. I also like how Gon made his mansion. What did you dislike about the story? I hate it in the story with the baby eagles, when Gon can’t fly, because he is a dinosaur. I also hate Gon’s violence. Would you recommend this story to kids your age? No. There is too much violence
I loved the anime of Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, and now not only is the manga, but the light novels that started the phenomenon are coming over here! The anime was great, so I expect the source material to be even better! Haruhi is fun and quirky, and Kyon’ sarcastic wit is the best. Don’t pass these up! Press Release after the cut.
Project D.O.A. Volume 1 By Jeffrey Nodelman & Wagner Fukuhara Publisher: Tokyopop Genre: Action Rating: 13+ RRP: $9.99 Rating: Reviewed by Brian Henderson I’ll do this review, even though I don’t really consider Project D.O.A. to be a manga. To me, and some may disagree, it needs to be written and published initially in Japan in order to be a manga. Graphic novels that come from Korea or China or France or the United States, while they may be generally modeled after the manga artform, are not manga, any more than animation that comes from anywhere but Japan is not anime. That said though, Project D.O.A. is from one of the minds that brought you the wonderful Cartoon Network show Venture Bros.and in a lot of ways has that kind of vibe. In other ways, it strikes me as similar in feel to Buckaroo Banzai and maybe a little bit like Crusher Joe although officially, Jeff Nodelman attributes his inspirations to films like Indiana Jones, Flash Gordon and the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. In any case, it’s a not-quite-serious romp around the world, adventure-style. Meet Dr. Dylan Oliver (also the name of Jeff Nodelman’s real life son)…
Things are really shaking at Manga Village. Our reviewers have another great line up of reviews to keep you occupied if the “big one” hits. John Thomas goes parental advisory with volume 4 of MPD-Psycho from Dark Horse. Dan Polley takes it easy with a Nodame Cantabile volume 12 from Del Rey (with a clarinet on the cover. I played that in high school!). Charles Tan find a Chinese Hero: Tales of the Blood Sword volume 5 from DrMaster. I hit the top of the richer scale with Metro Survive volume 1 from DrMaster. We’ve also got our weekly picks up from this sparse week, just days before NYCC. Check out what to buy if you’re not able to go to the con (like me). Charles Tan has an article on the different Manga Formats in the US. Stop by and let us know what you think.
It’s another Shonen Jump edition of my Mini Musings. Expect to see a lot of these, as I read a lot of Viz. I’ll try to mix it up a little with some other pubs and some Shojo. But a look at my shelves will show more SJ than Robofish. Reviews after the cut.
These mini musings are meant to be quick reviews of manga of ongoing series, mostly titles I follow on a regular basis and don’t really need the full analysis I usually give a volume. Enjoy. Reviews after the cut.
New week, new reviews! We’ve got a full compliment this week. Lissa Patillo leads off this week with a return to Nightmares for Sale Volume 2 from Aurora Publishing. Hope she kept the receipt. John Thomas takes a slight detour away from manga to get sucked into Black Hole from Pantheon. Charles Tan takes a look at a shojo omnibus from Tokyopop with Kare Kano Volume 1-3 Collection. Dan Polley gives a good licking to Mamotte! Lollipop Volume 4 from Del Rey. And I close the book on The Guin Saga Manga: The Seven Magi Volume 3 from Vertical Inc. We’ve also got our weekly picks from this week’s new releases, and there were a lot of good books this week, so go check out our recommendations.
Nana From: Viz Pictures Directed by Kentaro Otani Running Time: 114 min Rating: Not Rated/PG suggested Japanese Language/English Subtitles Rating: Based on the popular manga by Ai Yazawa, NANA follows the adventures of two girls both named Nana. While they share the same name, they couldn’t be more different. Nana “Hachi” Komatsu follows her boyfriend to Tokyo in the hopes of making a new start, while Nana Osaki, who arrives in the city at the same time, is a punk rock beauty who has the ambition of making it big in the world of rock and roll. Although these two young women come from different backgrounds, they quickly become best friends while chasing their happiness and dreams. I wasn’t feeling well last Friday, and took a rare day off from work. Fortunately for me, I had received the Nana the Movie DVD just a few days before, so I had something to help while away the time between medicines. Review after the cut.