Manga News, Reviews and Commentary
It’s the end of an era at Viz as one of the flagship titles of Shonen Jump finally comes to an end. To celebrate Naruto‘s final volume, Viz is pulling out all the digital stops with manga bundles, a “Jump Back” in the mag, and even its own app. It’s too bad it’s keeping two Kishimoto one-shots only for those with the money to buy the entire series in one bundle. Hopefully Viz will rectify that.
Shueisha’s Ultra Jump magazine announced in their October issue that Natsumo Ono would be premiering a new series in its pages in the November issue titled Lady and Oldman.
To close out the con season, Viz is going all out with the show special and con exclusives. Naruto fans can get pre-street books, a variant cover of the final vol 72, exclusive figures and a special Ukiyo-e print that will set you back a pretty penny. Sailor Moon fans can stock up on DVD season sets, and manga fans can get pre-street copies of One-Punch Man, Tokyo Ghoul and Yokai Watch. If you can’t go, make a friend who is and get them to pick you up something!
Con season is winding down with NYCC being the last hurrah of the year, and Viz is making sure to make it a memorable one. Their superstar guest is Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto who will not only have his own panel and signing events, but will also give the opening remarks at the screening of the Boruto: The Naruto Movie. It’s a rare opportunity fans of Naruto will not want to miss.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Viz picks up several more former Tokyopop titles for their Select line, including CLAMP School Detectives, just about the only one I’m really interested in reading. I wonder how far they will go with these rescues? I’m glad they have discovered the value of bundles as they add some older shonen jump titles.
July was a good month for manga kickstarter campaigns. Digital Manga Publishing and Chromatic Press, publisher of Sparkler Monthly Magazine both had campaigns end successfully.
Using the social media platforms of Twitter and Tumblr, Seven Seas Entertainment has announced 3 new titles to their continually growing stable of titles.
