I’m gonna try and make this a weekly feature, rounding up the stories from the week I found most interesting from the web and twitter. Of course, I’ll be adding my own two cents with some commentary on the news items. Anime Expo – 7/2-7/5/09 Normally associated with anime (obviously), manga pubs usually have a presence at AX, as a booth and/or panel. Though, with the tough economy, smaller pubs seem to be fleeing the crowds and expense of SDCC, in favor of a more targeted audience. Here ae some items I want to highlight.
I’m sure everyone’s heard by now about Viz’s insane idea to catch up One Piece with the Japanese releases. They announced at Anime Expo that they will release 30 volumes in six months starting in January 2010. That’s 5 volumes a month! Back in May, when it was first announced that current One Piece chapters would start showing up in Shonen Jump, I wrote what I thought of that decision. Viz was nuts. I thought they would try to do it in the span before the chapters came out. I was wrong about that. But their response is no better.
With the manga market getting tighter, we as readers will start to see some of our favorite titles get longer times between volume releases, if at all. Slow seller are always the first to go. Despite the cries of protest from it’s small but loyal fan base, companies need to stay in the black, or else we’ll have no manga to buy at all. But, we’re not helpless in this situation. Fans can show companies what titles they want to keep coming out. The easiest way is of course through pre-orders. Whether it’s through Amazon, Rightstuf or Diamond Distributor’s Previews, ordering a title ahead of time gives publishers a good idea on the demand they can expect for a title. The lives of titles can be saved or extended through pre-orders better than all the ranting and raving on blogs and forums. We as fans have to put our money where our mouths are.
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?????!!!!!!!
I talk a lot about buying manga on this blog. Living on a budget means that I have to make every manga dollar count, and get the best deals I can to keep up on the series’ I enjoy. This is why I subscribe to Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, watch for sales at Bookcloseouts.com, Deepdiscount.com, very occasionally search eBay, wait for 4-for-3 deals on Amazon.com, and trade. So it’s no surprise, that the bulk of my collection is from Viz, because they have provided the best deals with tiered pricing that let me get more than the other publishers. This fall, that’s all changing.
A lot has been going on at Viz Media recently. First, back in April, Viz started running Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga, Rin-Ne, concurrent with it’s Japanese release online for American fans to read. A first for legal simultaneous manga releases. Next, Viz quietly announced that they would be releasing up-to-date One Piece chapters in Shonen Jump. Then they confirmed that they were discontinuing it’s manga magazine for girls, Shojo Beat. This was a major disappointment to many people (myself included). But, right on the heels of that, as if to try to make amends, Viz then announces the start of a new manga magazine. Online. Ikki is a Japanese manga magazine that specializes in seinen, or young men’s manga.
There’s been a lot of talk in the media lately about Twitter, especially with Ashton Kutcher reaching 1 million followers and Oprah joining and getting 220,000 in one day. And, while it might be nice to follow celebrities like them, it might get real boring real fast. I know when a technology has reached a saturation point when my Mother asks me about something. She’s not very techie (she’s just started using a cellphone), and prefers running her old Mac with OS7 than a PC. She asked me, “What is Twitter?” The more complicated answer is to say, it’s a microblogging platform that can be used for marketing and networking. With the addition of celebrities, it’s become a sort of voyeuristic way to watch what the rich and famous are doing, if, in fact, it’s the rich and famous doing the actual tweeting, and not some assistant. But if this is all you do with your twitter, you will probably become one of the “Twitter Quitters”, who give up after a month.
The rumors started yesterday, but David Welsh of Comics Reporter confirmed it today with Viz’s Evelyn Dubocq via Twitter that the rumors were true. Shojo Beat is being cancelled. The manga magazine that started in 2005, about 2 years after it’s older brother Shonen Jump, took over from another Viz publication, Animerica. I know this very well, since I had just subscribed to Animerica after taking a hard look at the anime/manga magazines at the time. One month after my first issue, I got the news that it was switching to Shojo Beat. At the time, I wasn’t reading any shojo. I think the only shojo series I had read any of was Ceres Celestial Legend. I’m not into too many chick things, and being told my magazine of choice was going to be replaced with one about “fashion, cooking and beauty” didn’t make me too happy. I thought I would hate the magazine. But I decided to get the first issue and check it out. Much to my surprise, I actually liked the titles that premiered. Godchild and Nana sucked me in. Kaze Hikaru and Baby and Me entertained, while Crimson Hero and Absolute Boyfriend passed the time. Over…
Along with the announcement that Funimation would begin streaming the One Piece anime simultaneously with the Japanese showing, waaaaayyyy down at the bottom of the announcement, tucked in the About One Piece section, it was also announced that the US edition of Shonen Jump would start running the manga in line with the Japanese releases. Just like Naruto. Huh? How are they going to do that? Naruto‘s catching up seems to be doing well for Viz and Shueisha, if the Japanese publisher has agreed to this. But, Naruto took two years and a mass release of 22 volumes in order to get caught up with the Japanese releases. One Piece, which missed it’s bus thanks to 4Kids raping it and it taking a few years for Funimation to do a proper anime release of it, has a lot further to go. Volume 53 was just published in Japan, and volume 21 will be released here in June. That’s a 32 volume jump. And Viz plans to have the new chapters start in Shonen Jump in the fall of this year! There is no way they will be able to publish and sell 32 One Piece volumes! Not unless they plan…
Amazon.com isn’t resting on it’s laurels with the Kindle. The Kindle 2.0 was only just releases in February, but less than 3 months later, they already have a new model out, the Kindle DX. It features a larger screen, 9.75 in, integrated PDF support and auto rotating from portrait to landscape.
I’ll jump on the band wagon and give some of my reactions to Rin-ne, Rumiko Takahashi’s new manga. I’m not completely sold on this one yet. It was a good introduction to the two main characters, but it didn’t really grab me. I like supernatural stories, so I’m hoping she’ll take the Shinigami concept into a different direction, though that is how it appears with her emphasis on reincarnation. It seems to have more of a Buddhist take on the afterlife, which is more interesting to me than Bleach‘s. I did like the ghost Chuhuahua. The buggy eyed dog. LOL. Takahashi really likes red-headed protagonists too, doesn’t she? I’m going to keep reading, and see how things go. It fits perfectly into my lunch 1/2 hour. On the Inuyasha VIZBIG new: YES! THEY GOT IT!! THEY FIGURED IT OUT!!! Okay, I feel better now, and little vindicated. I am so glad that Inuyasha is coming out unflipped finally. What I have to figure out is how to justify buying 32 volumes all over again… Now, all we have to work on is getting Ranma 1/2 and Urusei to get the same treatment.