These are just quick impressions of manga I read during the week. I’ll come up with full reviews some day. The Rating scale for these quickies are as follows: Must buys, Would trade for, or Good way to waste an hour or so. Fairy Tail Volume 5 – Gray’s past is revealed and Ezra, who came to retrieve Natsu, Lucy and Gray instead ends up helping them. There is some awesome battle action as Natsu tries to save the villagers, Gray and Lyon continue their grudge match, and Lucy goes against a giant rat and her goth-loli owner. Must Buy. Rave Master Volume 2 – Haru arrives at Punk Street to find Musica the Blacksmith to fix his sword. Demon Card is there and in control, of course, and he has to not only battle them, but figure out who the real Muscia the Blacksmith is. This second volume seems rather bland as typical shonen fighting. But what really made if hard to get through was the translation. What is up with the constant cry of “Snap!”? This book was painful to read, even though it shouldn’t have been. Would Trade For Translation: Epic Fail
Yes the economy is bad, but tax refunds are going out (got my Fed already), so Bookcloseouts.com is ready with a sale to help you spend it! From now until March 26th (that’s next Thursday), they are selling manga titles for .99! Admittedly, they are all Tokyopop titles, and nothing newer than last summer, but at a buck a piece, who can pass this up? Definitely check this out!
Trinity writes: How can we make a manga online? And is there any deccent free things that teaches you how to draw at your best? Thanks for the question Trinity! It’s not exactly my area of expertise, but I’ll do my best. To get your manga online, you first need to make it digital, so that means that you either drawn it and scan it in, or you draw it on the computer. Let’s assume it’s already in files on your computer. Now, where do you upload it? Well, if you have your own website, you can post it there. But if you don’t, there are plenty of places you can go to get it online. Tokyopop.com is free, and lets its users post their own manga that is easily searched on the site. Drunkduck.com is a webcomic community that provides free hosting as well. Virtual Hosting also has a resource guide for starting a webcomic that includes hosting. These are some good places to start. A google search for manga tutorials brings up tons of sites with tutorials to improve you drawing. Two of the top results come from good resources and are free: Manga Tutorials and Manga Universtiy. …
I was pleasantly surprised when I got this month’s Previews catalog. There are actually books (not just manga) that look interesting enough to get this month! OMG! Marvel, the company that we had just finished dropping ALL our titles for (mainly because they killed the Ultimate Universe) has two titles we’re going to check out this month.
Jay Karlson writes: First, a comment: THANK YOU for adding an “All Ages” section. My 8 year old daughter loves Manga, but they can get really dirty. Would she like “Peach Fuzz”? She already has read Sugar Princess and Cardcaptor Sakura. She LOVED Suihilibe. Keep up the good work! Thanks for the words of encouragement Jay! I found it frustrating trying to find appropriate manga for my girls, so I decided to make the page myself! Though I do have to update it for all the new titles coming out lately. But, that’s a good thing! Peach Fuzz, one of the first OEL manga Tokyopop published, is definitely written for a girl about your daughter’s age. Amanda, the lead character is in the 4th grade. Her new pet, Peach the ferret, thinks she is a princess, royalty among ferrets. Most of the conflicts come from Amanda and Peach learning to get along and live with each other. I think it’s definitely something an 8 year old girl would like, and a parent would have no problem with their daughter reading. If you’re still not sure though, you and she can go here to read the first three chapters of the…
Orange Crows Volume 1 By: James Perry II and Ryo Kawakami Publisher: Tokyopop Age Rating: 13+ Genre: Fantasy Price: $10.99 Rating: Five years ago, a young witch named Cierra broke the one unforgivable law of the witch society: attempting to create her own magic. Her unlawful tampering burned down a research room and injured the Mayor’s daughter, Cierra’s best friend. As punishment, she was exiled to the Wilderness, a barren wasteland crawling with witch-devouring Fairies and the bloodthirsty Forsaken…After surviving for five ruthless years, her exile has now ended, and she has been ushered back to civilization, only to discover that the world around her has changed greatly. Will Cierra be able to adjust back to a society that abandoned her? And if her freakish new ability that links her to the terrifying Fairies is discovered, she may not be let off with mere exile this time… Orange Crows is a new OEL manga from Tokyopop. I really knew nothing about it, and the cover didn’t intrigue me in anyway, but with a link to read the whole volume for free coming in my email, I decided to check it out.
I haven’t done this for a while, and last month’s Previews had some tough choices for me, so I thought I’d talk about it a little. There were a lot of titles I collect/want that were up for ordering last month. It’s very hard to keep my numbers down when publishers do this to me. (Yes, I do think they are all out to get me.) It isn’t that publishers had a lot coming out. There were just a lot of publishers that had titles I wanted. Bandai, CMX, Del Rey, Tokyopop, Viz and Yen Press all had an average of 2 books. Well, except Viz who always has at least 5-7 alone that I want. Doing a quick tape of everything (less the Naruto wave I already said I would have to pass on), if I had ordered everything I read, it would have come to over $100, and that with my 30% discount! Even in a good economy, that’s a lot for one month! 15 titles in all!
Being a reviewer isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sure, anyone can write “That manga sucks”, or “This manga totally rules!”. But to thoughtfully read a book and then put down into words not just your feelings about the book, but do it in an interesting and intelligent way that people will want to read is a lot harder than it sounds. Being too subjective: Yes, I am writing a review and giving my personal opinion about the title. But at the same time, I don’t want to go all “fan girl” either, and just go on and on about how much I like the title. I want to give enough information for readers to have a basic idea what the title is about, while at the same time expressing my likes and dislikes. If I really like a title, I will go on more about what I consider it’s good points, but it’s hard some times not to become a cheerleader for a title. That’s appropriate for a blog post, not a review. On the other side of the coin…
An announcement arrived in my inbox today saying that Viz was going to have a booth at Wondercon this weekend (2/27-3/1/09). They will be pushing their Viz Signature and Vizkids line. Now, I’m glad Viz is putting some time and effort behind these two lines. They certainly can use them, being the newest and smallest of the Viz books. Among titles mentioned for the Vizkids line were Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, and their new line of Chapter books for Naruto and Dragonball DEvolution. I can’t be there, so if some one who reads this is, can you ask them something for me? What happened to all the Pokemon manga? There are like, only 6 or so volumes you can buy (we have them all). But back in the early 2000’s, Viz had two floppies of Pokemon; Pokemon Adventure and Pokemon: Magical Journey. Why haven’t we gotten volume releases of these? Pokemon is still a hot property, at least if my kids are any indication! They would both love to read more Pokemon! My youngest would just devour the Pokemon Magical Journey! We were able to find two floppies around the cover price, and she loved them. What is wrong with…
I really enjoy Matsuri Akino’s manga. Pet Shop of Horrors is what hooked me. Then I checked out the other titles by her available from Tokyopop, and I got a wonderful surprise when I read Genju no Seiza. In volume 4, Count D from Petshop of Horrors made a cameo appearance! I loved the cross over. It worked perfectly with Count D being friends with Sohki, the mythical Kirin. I really enjoy stories with shared/extended universes, as long as I can read ALL of the stories. So now, I’m reading Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo, and I get to volume 3. The last story in the volume, Dalsegno, features a cat named Femto who comes to stay at Count D’s Pet Shop for a few days. While there, he meets another cat, a Sphynx named Amon. Count D explains to Amon who Femto is, and in that frame is the charactiture of Akino, a kappa, holding a sign saying “Please read the details in the Reisha manga series.” AHHH! There’s another Akino series in the PSoH universe?! The full title of the series is Reikan Shouhou Kabushikigaisha, or Psychic Business Corporation. It’s about Kanenari Tokiwa, a man that deals with…
Anime News Network has an article about Viz Media having to restructure and layoff some employees in this difficult economy. In the comments to that story, of course, someone has to drag out the dead horse of piracy. Every economic problem that a manga or anime company has is not always related back to piracy. Can we get over this please? This is a tough economy right now, and things aren’t going to be getting any better any time soon. Don’t fool yourself. If Google, the giant of the online world has to lay off people, then you know this is a widespread problem. And Viz, despite it’s hugely popular properties is not immune to it. In fact, it may be hit harder than other companies. Look at Viz’s releases and schedule. They are about the only company that has several titles that come out every other month. When money gets tight, you start looking for places to cut corners, and let’s be honest, manga is a luxury item. If you have to cut down your manga order, you’re going to go for the titles you like most, and that’s not always going to fall in Viz’s favor. This economy…
While looking around for links to add to my e-reading section, I stumbled upon these posts about putting manga on the Sony E-Reader. They feature the PR-500, but the current, less expensive version, the PR-505, is essentially the same. These include an extensive comparison of color comics, scanalated manga, and Tokyopop manga available through Sony’s store. There are also links to a conversion guide to convert scans to a format optimal for reading, and Manga2Ebook, and RasterFarian, programs used in the conversion guide. Here are some videos as well, showing manga on the E-Reader: You won’t have to turn your head sideways for this one: