Manga Xanadu

This week I take a look some news items; Square Enix shutting down their manga service site, New licenses from Yen Press and Seven Seas Entertainment, some new digital manga coming to the Vizmanga site, and the top-selling manga in March and April according to Nielson’s Bookscan service. Shownotes: Square Enix E-manga Service Shutdown Yen Press License: Bloody Cross Thermae Romae on Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle New Manga on Vizmanga.com Seven Seas Entertainment Licenses: Mad Hatter’s Late Night Tea Party & Alice Love Fables Nielson Bookscan Top Selling manga for March and April Music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech http://archive.org/download/MangaDomeEpisode04/MangaDomeEpisode04.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Vertical just doesn’t seem to know when to quit! At their panel at Genericon in Troy, NY they announced two more titles to come out at the end of this year. Pink is a one-volume title that follows Vertical’s determination to be different. It is about Yumi, a girl who balances her time between work, love, her pet crocodile and her night life as a prostitute to feed said crocodile. Like so many of Vertical titles, this one sounds quirky, but I don’t know if it’s for me. I’ll have to give it a “wait and see” for now. Also announced was From the New World, an adaptation of a novel by the same name. It is 100 years in the future and 5 kids have been raised in a town described as a utopia. But when they learn the truth of the world outside, they throw themselves into danger to save their friends and the world itself. Readers have been asking Vertical to license the novel, but maybe this will tide them over. I’m kind of interested in this, especially since there’s been a lot of talk about the anime which is streaming on Crunchyroll currently. I’ll give it…

New York Comic Con, or NYCC, was this weekend, with all the manga publishers making appearances and announcements. Vertical, Viz, Yen Press, even Kodansha and Jmanga had panels to announce their new titles and new alliances.

Here’s some really good news. Millennium Snow, a manga series by Bisco Hatori of Ouran High School Host Club fame, is returning to the pages of Hakusensha’s LaLa magazine. Hatori last worked on this series back in 2002, and the 9 existing chapters were collected into two volumes. Viz Media was smart enough to bring it over back in 2007. I really enjoyed those two volumes with the only problem being that it was too short! I had hoped that there would be more chapters. I felt there was so much more to learn about these characters. And now it looks like my wish might be coming true! I sure hope Viz Media still has the license to this so we can get these new volumes when they come out collected. Of course, getting them digitally would be just as good.  

I’ve been a fan of Shonen Jump ever since it came out in 2002 (technically), and still have every single issue. I admit I have mixed feelings about this move to digital. The good: don’t have to store all those magazines anymore. The bad: can’t just pick it up and read it anywhere. But, I’ll stick with this first year of digital and see if I can keep up.

One hundred issues that is. Man, that’s a lot of issues. I should know. I have EVERY SINGLE ONE! I even have some duplicates. They take up 3 long boxes so far. But there are some great bonuses in this issue, so even if you aren’t a regular reader of SJ, pick up this issue. You won’t regret it!

Vertical is a publisher that never fails to surprise, or deliver. Whenever licensing time comes up, Marketing Director Ed Chavez would get on Twitter and ask for license requests. In variably, there would be several people who would pipe up with Princess Knight, Osamu Tezuka’s first shojo, and invaribly, Ed would shoot the request down. Now we know why. On Anime News Network’s AnnCast, Ed was a guest where he announced not one, but two licenses, one of which was the oft-requested Princess Knight. The other was Drops of God, a wine manga that has been getting some press in the media for the affect it can have on a wine’s price that is featured in the title. It was hinted at last April by the creators that the manga had been licensed in the US, but no publisher had stepped up. Now we know why. I have to give Ed a lot of credit. He has quite the poker face/text. From his tweets in the last wrong, I got the distinct impression that Princess Knight was off the table as a request. He had said they were working on a Tezuka license, but with his catalog, that could mean…

Back in 2009, I wrote a post expressing my desire to see the manga series Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro licensed after its end was announced in Japan, based on the anime series from 2007.  It’s been a long 4 years, hoping and waiting for that announcement that said I would finally get to read the adventures of my favorite demon detective, and now I believe we are half way to that point. Viz Media has confirmed that the anime will begin streaming on the Vizanime.com website in February. Why does this give me hope of a manga license? Look at the last time Viz started streaming an anime; Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. They streamed nearly the whole series before they announced the license of the manga, officially. What did Viz say when asked about Neuro? It’s “not on the schedule through September”. That doesn’t mean it won’t be announced though. Con season is starting to gear up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Neuro isn’t one of the licenses announced at San Diego Comic Con, assuming a listing for it isn’t found for it before then. Anime licenses have been a good gauge of manga licenses for the last…

It’s been a long time coming for this, the final volume of Inuyasha. I remember seeing the floppy singles Viz released in the early aughts. I had no idea what it was about then, but with the release of the standard manga sized volumes, I soon discovered what a great series it was. And with the omnibuses, you can too. But if you’ve been following the series to the end, you won’t be able wait for this. More after the break.

Finally there is some news this week. It’s not a lot again, but it’s pretty juicy! We have license announcements from a surprising source, an online manga store opening, and some publishers throwing their weight around. And then there are the regular features of the NYTBSL, podcasts, and a roundup of what happening at Manga Village.

Good Idea: Putting manga on the Barnes and Noble Nook. Digital Manga Publishing has announced that titles from their catalog will start appearing on the Nook and B&N’s newest e-reader the Nook Color. They already have titles on the iphone/itouch and Kindle. Just as they had with those other devices, they are starting with their adaptation of Vampire Hunter D volume 1. The book will be available in black and white or color (for the Nook color) and will be split in half, each half going for $3.99. I don’t know about the splitting the book in half, but getting their manga on as many of the digital platforms as possible is making them the most versatile manga publisher. Bad Idea: Selling Subscriptions to Scanlated Manga Two years ago I wrote an article about hacking the Kindle to view images, which could be used for digital manga as well. This article has attracted a lot of views and some comments about other programs people have created to make image viewing easier. I let a lot of these side since the technology can be used for legal images, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and the latest comment I…

It’s been another quiet week, with just a few stories, all being digital related. I almost think I should have just done a Digital Friday post with these stories. Of course, I almost didn’t get this posted at all. I just want to say, that migraine headaches SUCK! But, please do still enjoy stories on digital guilds, advice, revamps, and some Japan news, and of course, all the regulars you’ve come to expect; podcasts and the Manga Village roundup. More after the break.