Crunchyroll has been really been working hard to become the legal streaming site for manga. Their “all you can read” plan puts a lot of titles at readers fingertips for one monthly price, and they are adding new titles all the time. Recently, they added two new titles, The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer and Kippo. Kippo is a new title to western readers. It is by Hiroshi Tanaka and runs in Shonengahosha’s Young King magazine. The story is about some boys whose family life is anything but happy, and the people they meet in their “spot”, who become more family than their own. When disaster strikes, it’s these people who come together to protect what is important to them. The first chapter is available for anyone to read, while the rest of the first and only volume published so far is behind the subscription wall. It’s violent and disturbing at times, but does appear to have potential for some real drama. The Lucifier and Biscuit Hammer is not a new title to western readers. Jmanga started releasing it and got out 5 volumes before they closed up. Crunchyroll has been rescuing a lot of Jmanga’s titles, and hope they continue…
With September having five Tuesdays, most of the big releases will hit next week. That leaves this week open for some of the smaller titles to get the attention. Kodansha’s My Little Monster is a series I’m continuing to enjoy. The unusual relationship between Shizuku and Haru is a lot of fun to watch, and the uncertainty of where it will be at the end of each volume makes it stand out from many of the other shojo titles out there. Volume 4 comes out this week. Vertical’s Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin has proven there is not only a market for Gundam manga, but that premium hardcovers will be coveted too. The series passes the half way point with Volume 7‘s release. This week welcomes back an old publisher to print. Netcomics has been missing from the print releases for a while. They were one of the first publishers to rent chapters online and to put other publisher’s titles online digitally. Finally they release a new print volume of a new series, Give to the Heart. The premise has a bit of a Bride of the Water God feel, with a Water God trying to win a human woman’s…
Just this week, Yen Press released the first volume of Durarara!! The Yellow Scarves Arc. This is an adaptation of the third light novel and continues the outrageous story of Mikado, Shizuo, Izaya, Celty, Anri, Kida and more. However, in the October issue of Square Enix’s Monthy G Fantasy magazin that came out in September, it was announced that the manga will end in the November issue out next month. The final chapter will feature a color page, and it looks like the series will be three volumes total. Seems Yen Press picked the perfect time to pick up this series, as it’s just started. But with their first two volumes coming out in quick succession, there’s no tell when the last volume will be out. I hope it won’t be long. I hope even more that Yen Press will license the Durarara!! light novels soon. This is the last manga adaptation. How will I get my Shizuo fix after this?!
Viz Media must have found an audience for its racier shojo titles since they keep coming out. Of course it has to feature vampires/bloodsucking of some sort. That seems to be where all the action is. I guess it’s appropriate considering the season, but I would like to see more non-supernatural romances, even though I do enjoy them. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Every week, Viz Media and the New York Times posts the top ten bestselling books. For Viz Media, it is the bestsellers on their site, Vizmanga.com. The New York Times gets their numbers of print sales from retailers. 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. Vizmanga.com for the week of September 16, 2014 Chibi Vampire Vol 13 ∗ Lucky☆Star Vol 2 ∗ Trinity Blood Vol 5 ∗ Fate/stay Night Vol 9 ∗ One Piece Vol 72 ↓ 4 Food Wars! Vol 3 ↑ 2 Bokurano Ours Vol 11 ∗ Bleach Vol 61 ↵ Skip•Beat Vol 33 ↓ 4 Time Killers ↓ 6 New VizSelect titles knock down some of the new releases from last week. Chibi Vampire debuts again at the top with its penultimate volume. Newcomer Lucky Star is right behind with its second volume. In fact, the top 4 spots are taken by VizSelect titles, pushing the big Shonen Jump titles back down. Bleach rejoins his fellow SJ titles One Piece and Food Wars! while Bokurano Ours…
This week was Banned Books Week, a yearly reminder of the importance of protecting our right to read what we want. This year focused on comics, graphic novels and yes, manga. You might think with manga not being so well know it would fly under people’s radars, but as manga has grown in popularity over the last decade or so, it has come increasingly under fire. Some of the titles challenged are also among the most popular. Dragon Ball, the first series, wasn’t just challenged, it was straight out removed from Wicomico County Public School libraries in Maryland in October of 2009. Based on a complaint by the mother of a 9-year-old, the series was removed from elementary, middle-school and high school libraries for depicting “nudity, sexual contact between children, and sexual innuendo between adults and children.” If you just looked at some of the panels in Dragon Ball with no context, you might agree. But in context, most of the claims made against the series are for comedic purposes and are closer to what you would see on “America’s Funniest Videos” than you would the Playboy Channel. In May of 2010, Death Note was challenged by the mother a…
In the Monster Soul world, a war was waged between humans and monsters, with the monsters falling on the losing end of a treaty. The peace between the monsters and humans is tenuous and monsters are frequently persecuted by humans. As a result, monsters tend to stay away from humans and keep a low profile. One group of monsters, known as the Black Airs, lives boldly with a purpose: to have fun and take care of each other. They get into all kinds of trouble with reckless abandon, but as long as they stick together, they’ll be all right…probably. Monster Soul Volume 1-2 By Hiro Mashima Publisher: Kodansha Comics Age Rating: Teen Genre: Action/Fantasy Price: $10.99 Rating: Monster Soul is a two-volume series created by Hiro Mashima before starting on his latest title, Fairy Tail. In the world of Monster Soul, humans and monsters share the land of Elvenland. Since losing the war, monsters have retreated underground, living in dungeon cities. There is still a lot of anger and mistrust between humans and monsters, especially with humans coming down to steal from the monsters’ dungeons. Enter the Black Airs, Mummy, James, Toorah and Aki, four monsters commandos who fought in…
Manga makes its triumphant return this week, and it’s all thanks to Yen Press. While Seven Seas Entertainment does have some titles coming out, it’s Yen that getting a cut of my paycheck. After far, far too long, we finally get the next Durarara!! series. Yellow Scarves Arc is the third manga series and is based on the third light novel. So why hasn’t Yen licensed the light novel series again? It’s gonna be hard to read this first volume, because I will then have to wait for the rest! Spice and Wolf is another series I’ve come to love, so getting a new volume is always exciting. This week’s it’s volume 9, and even though the light novels are further ahead in volumes, I’m happy to wait for the manga. I love the art, and the interactions between Holo and Lawrence. I will read the light novels someday, but for now the manga has my full attention. I’m also curious about Void’s Enigmatic Mansion volume 1. I get a comeuppance vibe from it, with a tag live about granting one’s greatest wish and it not what you expected. I do enjoy those kinds of stories and it’s getting to be that season again…
Like sports manga, we don’t get a lot of sci-fi manga, so it’s a big deal when a series launches. World Trigger isn’t that new, having been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump since February of 2013 here in the US. But finally Viz is releasing the manga for everyone to read! Keep reading for more details. VIZ MEDIA LAUNCHES SCI-FI MANGA SERIES WORLD TRIGGER IN GRAPHIC NOVEL FORMAT Two Unlikely Heroes Are Earth’s Last Hope Against Alien Invaders In New Manga Action Series Straight From The Pages Of WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP; Series To Debut In Print And Digitally San Francisco, CA, September 16, 2014 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, announces the print and digital launch of creator Daisuke Ashihara’s thrilling sci-fi action manga series – WORLD TRIGGER – in a dedicated graphic novel format on October 7th. The series is currently being serialized chapter-by-chapter SIMULTANEOUS to Japan in the pages of the digital anthology WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP. WORLD TRIGGER will be published under the Shonen Jump imprint with the first two volumes releasing simultaneously on October7th. Volumes 1 and 2 are rated ‘T’ for Teens and will…
Every week, Viz Media and the New York Times posts the top ten bestselling books. For Viz Media, it is the bestsellers on their site, Vizmanga.com. The New York Times gets their numbers of print sales from retailers. 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. Vizmanga.com for the week of September 9, 2014 One Piece Vol 72 ∗ Seraph of the End Vol 2 ∗ JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1 Vol 1 ∗ Time Killers ∗ Skip•Beat Vol 33 ∗ Library Wars Vol 12 ∗ Dawn of the Arcana Vol 13 ∗ Food Wars! Vol 3 ↓ 7 Seraph of the End Vol 1 ↵ One-Punch Man Vol 4 ↓ 2 Well, what a surprise. New shonen releases take over the list, and they are all at top. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1 debuts respectably at #3 as does Time Killers, Kazue Kato’s short story collection. The three shojo titles on the list bunch together in the middle with what is third-to-last volume of Library Wars, and the final volume of…
This news item seems rather timely. I’ve been catching up on my backlog of Library Wars: Love and War over the last few days. Banned Books Week is next week and I wanted to try to review them for it. I have a love/hate relationship with this title. The story is well written and I love the characters, but I can’t handle the dystopian future it portrays. The censorship, hardball tactics by the Media Betterment Committee, the push to destroy books that some disagree with for the “betterment of society” just leaves an empty pit in my stomach, and makes it a difficult series for me to enjoy all the time and re-read. It seems it won’t be a struggle for me for much longer. The November issue of Hakusensha’s LaLa Magazine announced that Library Wars: Love and War would be ending in the next three chapters. This would put the series finale in the February issue due out in December. There are currently 13 volumes out in Japan, and Viz Media, the US licensor of the title, just released volume 12 in print and digital. The series is based on a light novel series that went 4 volumes, and resulted…
In the year 2022, gamers rejoice as Sword Art Online–a VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) like no other–debuts, allowing players to take full advantage of the ultimate in gaming technology: NerveGear, a system that allows users to completely immerse themselves in a wholly realistic gaming experience. But when the games goes live, the elation of the players quickly turns to horror as they discover that, for all its amazing features, SAO is missing on of the most basic functions of any MMORPG–a log-out button. Now trapped in the virtual world Aincrad, their bodies held captive by NerveGear in the real world, users are issued a chilling ultimatum: conquer all one hundred floors of Aincrad to regain your freedom. But in the warped world of SAO, “Game Over” means certain death–both virtual and real… Sword Art Online: Aincrad Art by Tamako Nakamura; Original story: Reki Kawahara Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Teen Genre: Drama/Game Price: $20.00 USD Rating: Sword Art Online: Aincrad manga is based on the first two light novels from a series of the same name, and belongs to a genre that become popular lately; players of an MMORPG become trapped in the game world and…