RIN-NE Volume 1 By Rumiko Takahashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Comedy Price: $9.99/Free online Rating: Ever since a childhood incident Sakura Mamiya has had the power to see ghosts. Now her life has gotten a lot more complicated with the arrival of her mysterious classmate Rinne, who seems to know a thing or two about detecting ghosts himself! Having enjoyed so far Takahashi’s shonen titles since Urusei Yatsura, I was thrilled to hear that we in the US would not only be getting her newest, Rin-ne, at the same time as Japan, but it would available for free online to read. Having now read the first volume’s worth of chapters, I have to say my initial excitement may have been premature.
I’ve been going on a lot about the Twilight/Fanboy debate, mainly because it really irks me. But the reason for that is that I’ve never experienced any real prejudice in my comic shopping, or at cons. Several commentors on the Robot 6 blog article about Girls and Fandom gave anticdotes about their experiences with Fanboys and in comic shops, and quite frankly, it shocked me that they were meeting any kind of resistance from the other patrons and/owners.
Yeah, I should have written this last night, but I didn’t get home until after midnight and was exhausted. Saturday was a struggle to wake up, but we managed it, had another nice breakfast, and checked out. We made it to the convention center just in time for the Women in Manga panel, the only manga panel I was able to make it to all con. That’s just the way it goes. I’m not lamenting. Lots of other people were there to cover the manga panels, and if I’ve got anything to add, I’ll do it in my weekly news post.
Day two started out with a real breakfast. Eggs, pancakes, french toast and toast. This hotel is awesome! It’s a lot better than the fast food sandwiches we usually end up with. Didn’t make it to Stargate Universe, but we weren’t looking forward to the line, and we were tired last night.
Even though this strip is 3 years old, it still describes the experience of SDCC fairly well. The only thing that needs to be added are the lines. Yes, the infamous SDCC lines were back this year and worse than ever. We got to the con at sometime after 10am and walked the Exhibit Hall for most of the morning. My husband took lots of pictures of toys, including a few for me.
July 20, 1969: The day mankind first walked on the moon. Just as with the assassination of JFK, and 9-11, you can ask someone (old enough to remember) what they were doing when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and they could tell you. With the 40th Anniversary of this event coming up, I thought I would look at some manga that takes a more realistic approach to mankind’s reach into space.
It is a sad day in Xanadu. Having only just discovered the over-the-top manli-goodness that is Sengoku Barasra, aka Basara Devil Kings, the anime, I had to search to see if there was a manga for it. And, joy of joys, there was! It was licensed too! Udon Entertainment, the purveyor of Video Game and Capcom comics has licensed it. At least, that’s what everyone thought. I thought it was odd at first, that a google search for the manga didn’t land an Amazon hit in the first 10 links. A search of Amazon did reveal the book , but as unavailable, but with a shipping date of September of 2008. A search of other sites gave another date of April 2008, or available for pre-order. Not even the Udon site had a listing. This confused me, so, since a web search wasn’t doing me any good, I went to the next best place for manga knowledge; Twitter. A query there didn’t get me any answers, but it did get a response from Udon that they would find out. A few days later, I got a response from Stacy King, Marketing Manager for Udon. Here’s what she told me: UDON…
The sudden loss of Shojo Beat has left a real void in my manga reading. Even if I didn’t get to read it as soon as it arrived, I knew it was there, and had it to look forward to. Why Shojo Beat was canceled is still a bit of a mystery, since, for me at least, it did exactly what it was meant to do. Get me to read more Viz titles. While I didn’t love all the titles in Shojo Beat, I enjoyed most of them, and through previews found titles I wanted, or wanted to avoid. It really was a great marketing tool, since I could sample a lot of different titles for a low cost. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to do that electronically (and legally)?
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the new paper Tokyopop is using for their manga. Most of it has been bad. I had a few recent printings of some of their manga and decided to check it out for myself. I pulled out Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo volume 4, NG Life volume 1 and Animal Academy volume 1. I then pulled out Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo volume 3, which was printed on the old paper for comparison. After getting sucked into both Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo volumes, I actually got down to the comparison.
This title has not been solicited in Previews! I’ve been watching! Waiting!! It’s the last volume!!! Aw, come on Tokyopop! You got my hopes up by putting up this late last year, and now…what? Will it come out, or won’t it? Why do you enjoy torturing me like this?! I don’t care what kind of paper it’s printed on. I don’t care if it’s only available to read online. Just tell me the truth! Can you or can’t you? Will you or won’t you? Why do you continue with these teasings? Why are you so cruel?!?!??! WWWWHHHHHHYYYYYYY?????!!!!!!!
Manga based on video games has practically become a genre, with both import and OEL titles, and Tokyopop has been at the head of the pack with releasing and creating new titles. All of the manga included in this post are titles that were video games initially, and were then adapted into manga. Let’s start out with the .hack series. These had been publishing fairly regularly, matching pace with the anime releases. These titles were crafted to enhance both the video games and anime. The stories enrich each other, a novel concept at the time it was introduce, but really makes sense when you think about it. It’s also a great marketing strategy. There are currently 5 separate .hack titles available. Legend of the Twilight, XXXX, G.U.+, AI Buster, and Another Birth.
As a reviewer, I get a lot of titles that are either in the middle of the series, or sometimes I get just the last volume. This came up over on twitter, and the with a comment that a series couldn’t be judged by reading some random volumes. This got me thinking. It’s an issue that reviewers would frequently have to deal with. You can choose not to read any titles that you don’t start from the beginning, or take on all comers. I’m one that chose to take on all comers. I’d rather be able to get a taste of a title, than never know at all what it’s like.