Manga Xanadu

Diamond Distributors is getting the Viz Shonen and Shojo titles out a week early. There are plenty of old favorites such as Assassination Classroom Vol 6, Library Wars Vol 14 and My Love Story Vol 6, as well as a new debut. QQ Sweeper is by Kyousuke Motomi, the creator of Dengeki Daisy. It was her first series after Dengeki Daisy ended. It’s a supernatural romance about a new girl transfer student who gets involved with a boy who cleans up the school, but physically and metaphysically. I’ve been looking forward to this series and can’t wait to read it.

It was recently announced in Shueisha’s Bessatsu Margaret magazine that the series, Aozora Yell by Kaume Kawahara, will end in the issue out October 13.

Kadokawa has been trying to penetrate the US manga market on its own for a while now. Back in 2014, they released their Comic Walker app that was supposed to update with chapters of manga to read for free, but never went anywhere after a while. Now, it seems they are set to try again, with their new commerce site, Book Walker. They seem to be making interesting promises. The one that sticks out most to me is epub downloads. Most of the titles in English are already available, mostly from Viz Select. We’ll have to wait and see if they branch out into any new titles.

Every week, the New York Times and Amazon posts the top ten bestselling books. The New York Times gets their numbers from print sales from retailers, while Amazon and Vizmanga.com calculates their own numbers. Once a month the Nielsen Bookscan posts their top twenty graphic novels of which manga is included. Offered here is a listing of these books with their status this week compared with the previous week, and some way-off analysis of the activity.

Kenji and Shiro continue on their journey of discovery and acceptance as Shiro leans  why Kenji fell for him, Kenji finally meets Shiro’s parents, they take a vacation to Kyoto together, and the pains of parents and themselves growing old sneak up on them. And through it all, Shiro continues to cook inventive yet simple-to-make dishes as well as adding new ones to his repertoire.

There’s a lot of manga coming out this week. Kodansha releases the first volume of Devil Survivor, the adaptation of Shin Megami Tensei, the game that the Persona is a spin-off of.  I’ve been interested in Shin Megami Tensei, as well as Persona, thanks to my older daughter’s obsession, so I’ll be checking this title out. Vertical Comics does the seemingly impossible as it releases the final volume of Mobile Suit Gundam Origin, the series that not even the publisher believed would sell. But Vertical and Western fans proved them wrong, and now the series comes to an end with Vol 11.

I love mysteries and detective stories, so whenever I hear about a new one, I have to talk about it! Shuiesha’s Cocohana magazine has announced that Akiko Higashimura, the creator of Princess Jellyfish and the award-winning Kakukaku Shikajika, will be starting a new detective series in the November issue due on in September.

Shojo Beat has had a few debuts lately, but this is one I’ve been really looking forward to. QQ Sweeper has two things that makes me want to read it; first, it’s a supernatural title, and I have quite the proclivity for those, and two, it’s by Kyousuke Motomi. I’ve enjoyed the two titles of hers that have come out in English, Beast Master and Dengeki Daisy, and really wish we could get Handsome! Beads Club. I need craft manga just like I need cat manga. Maybe if this series does well too, we can get it.

Every week, the New York Times and Amazon posts the top ten bestselling books. The New York Times gets their numbers from print sales from retailers, while Amazon and Vizmanga.com calculates their own numbers. Once a month the Nielsen Bookscan posts their top twenty graphic novels of which manga is included. Offered here is a listing of these books with their status this week compared with the previous week, and some way-off analysis of the activity.

Viz’s Weekly Shonen Jump makes the news with something for US readers to read while WSJ in Japan teases fans with something they will want to read.

Things are slowly down as we hit the middle of the month. Dark Horse releases their first omnibus of Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka, a title they seemed to have kept from DMP. It collects the first three volumes into one massive 700 page book and includes the original story “Greatest Robot on Earth,” which was the basis for Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto. Fans of either series should definitely pick this up. Seven Seas has the 12th volume of Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, where it’s school festival time. Hit Seven Seas’ Tumblr to find out more.

On their Twitter feed last week, Yen Press made two quick announcements that if you weren’t watching carefully, you might have missed. One was the announced license of a new series, and the print release of a previously announced digital only series.