Manga Xanadu

Ayu still can’t give up on her love for Mayama, even though his relationship with Rika seems to be deepening.  Nomiya’s growing interest in Ayu might be a balm to her broken heart, but he’s moving to Tottori for six months! Is Ayu cursed to suffer hopeless love affairs forever? By Chica Umino Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Romance Price: $9.99 Rating: This volume is all about the love polygon of Mayama, Ayu, Rika and Nomiya.  Ayu seems to be deliberately torturing herself by working with Mayama and Rika, and seeing their relationship grow.  Rika is preparing for the Valencia Art Museum Annex, a project she and her late husband submitted for and won, and seems prepared to also make it her last, something Mayama’s not prepared to let Rika do.  And Nomiya, the player, finds himself doing something he never thought he would, falling for Ayu. There’s a lot of drama going on in this volume, especially with Rika.  She still haven’t been able to get over her husband’s death, no matter what kind of face she puts on.  A flashback from Hanamoto shows what a difficult time she had after the accident, and how she…

There are a lot more changes coming to Shonen Jump, according to this latest issue.  The issue starts with the first of a three part preview of the new manga Toriko.  It’s a food manga done shonen style, so everything is exaggerated to the extreme.  It is the Gourmet Age, with man is constantly striving to find best ingredients to make the ultimate menu.  Toriko is one such man.  He is a gourmet hunter.  He travels the world catching the most delicious and dangerous foods, since, of course, the best tasting food is in the form of giant monster-like animals.  And in best shonen tradition, he is also the best at it.  In the first chapter he is hired to catch a Garara Gator.  It’s very over the top, with Tokiro looking like a character out of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.  He’s all upper body muscle.  He also eats.  A lot.  I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve read the other two parts before rating it.  But for now, it feels kind of average.

Walk Down Memory Lane With most of the Year-in-Reviews done, it’s time to move on to the Decade-in-Review.  The first of these comes from a conversation that started on Twitter about the most important moments in manga over the decade.  Deb Aoki of Manga.about.com collects the suggestions and posts them as 25 Manga Milestones. I jump on this bandwagon to, looking back at the past decade of manga through my eyes and experiences.  It’s interesting to look back at something of these things and think it’s only been 10 years for things that seem like they’ve been around forever.

Even though the decade isn’t technically over, the years that we call the “aughts” are, so this review is my look back at the aught years, 2000-2009.  And if you had to say anything about manga in these years is that it found itself on the rise. When the new millennium began, manga was in the same place it had been in the last century.  It was a niche of a niche.  Trying to appeal to comics fans, most titles were published as floppies, their content flipped.  Titles such as Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z, Ceres: Celestial Legend, and Pokemon started this way, and then were collected into trade paperback sized books and priced around $15.  Comics fans treated manga as the red-headed step child and manga fans  didn’t like the price or format.  I know I didn’t.  As much as I wanted to read the Galaxy Express 999 volumes Viz had brought out, the $16.99 price tag was too much for me.  But that all changed in 2002, when Tokyopop literally started off a revolution.

Black God, Volume 2 Story by Dall-Young Lim, art by Sung-Woo Park Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Action Price: $10.99 Rating: Balancing a normal existence and an unbreakable pact with a divine being is anything but easy. Much to his chagrin, Keita is discovering this the hard way. Try as he might to distance himself from recent events, Keita can’t shake Kuro, the mototsumitama who saved his life. But when the stakes get higher and another human-mototsumitama pair comes looking for a fight-one with Keita’s childhood friend, Akane, as the prize-Keita is forced to reevaluate his attitude and stand by both his old and new friends. Who will emerge victorious? Several different plot lines pick up in this volume.  Keita and Kuro starting training, beginning with Kuro, and growing to include Keita working with her.  Keita’s game coding start to take off with a company showing an interest in both the game and Keita’s skills, and the group that is searching for the doppeliners continues to reduce the thirds down to the root.  I get the feeling that these three plot lines are related, but it’s hard to tell how.

After my Christmas Haul, it’s time to make more space on my manga shelves, and that’s a boon for you!  Here are the titles I have up for sale this week on eBay: Buso Renkin vol 5-8 Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President vol 1-5 (Complete) Inuyasha vol 6-10 Princess Resurrection vol 1-3 Good luck, and happy bidding!

Having a wireless connection on an e-reader has been touted as the make-or-break deal for devices coming out.  Amazon’s Kindle, which started it all, has been favored because of the ease of purchasing books from Amazon and downloading to the device.  But, what are you really giving up for that privilege?  A lot of your privacy it seems.  As reported on BoingBoing, the EFF, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, took a look at e-reader terms of service  for some of the most popular devices, and has made a chart showing who wants what, and what you’re giving up for that digital books online. Google seems to be the worst of the privacy invaders, requiring users to have a google account so they can be tracked though Web History, and requires “opt-ing in” for sharing personal information with Google.  Amazon the next one down, doesn’t sell you books as much as it licenses them to you.  And they give themselves a lot of room for keeping track of users use of the Kindle, including their interaction with the device and service as well as conent. Devices such as the Sony e-Reader, which doesn’t connect wirelessly (yet), has no such use agreements, leaving…

Honey Hunt goes on Hiatus Honey Hunt, one of the last manga to be added to Shojo Beat before Viz canceled it, is going on hiatus in Japan.  Mangaka Aihara has decided to take a break from Honey Hunt and is debuting a new manga in the same magazine.  This is both good and bad for fans of Honey Hunt.  It’s good, because it will make catching up with the manga easier.  The 6th volume just came out in Japan, and the 4th volume won’t come out in the US until March.  Viz apparently is keeping the long time between release days which means it may be another year before we get to the 6th volume.  But it’s bad since there no indication as how long the hiatus will be.  It could be a long stretch before Aihara picks it up again, and then a while after that before another volume comes out.  Ask Hunter x Hunter and D.N. Angel fans about that.

I’ve never written a “Best of ” list since I never thought I knew enough to make such choices, but I’ve decided to make the attempt this year.  All of the titles on the list are books I’ve read at least one volume of, and most started this year.  The few exceptions should be obvious.