Manga Xanadu

It’s not much of a week for print manga from Diamond. Kodansha and Seven Seas Entertainment are the only ones releasing anything, and none of them are anything I’m reading. Thank goodness for the growth of digital manga!

It’s a week before Christmas, and publisher are making sure there’s a wide selection of books to choose from.

It’s a small but varied selection in print this week. Dark Horse releases the long-awaited first omnibus of Planetes, the sci-fi series by Makoto Yukimura, who also created Vinland Saga. The series has been out of print for almost 10 years now. Tokyopop originally printed it in a small print run, so copies have been scarce. It’s great that Dark Horse has picked it up, and it’s a good fit for their line. I still have the original Tokyopop run, but it might be interesting to check out this one to see what Dark Horse has done differently.

Every week, the New York Times and Amazon posts the top ten bestselling books. The New York Times gets their numbers from print sales from retailers, while Amazon and Vizmanga.com calculates their own numbers. Once a month the Nielsen Bookscan posts their top twenty graphic novels of which manga is included. 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.

There’s a good selection of titles for this week. Kodansha Comics releases Noragami Stray Stories, a collection of short stories set in the Noragami universe. I really like the main Noragami series, so this is a volume I’ll be picking up. Seven Seas has the third volume of their popular shojo Ancient Magus’ Bride. I swear I am going to check this series out at some point. I keep hearing nothing but good things about it. I also want to check out Udon Entertainment’s Stein’s Gate. Being a Doctor Who fan, I’m of course interested in stories about time travel. Volume 2 is out this week.

Kodansha releases the mother lode as 5 of their titles are all volumes I need in my collection. My Little Monster, Noragami, Seven Deadly Sins, Silent Voice and Yamada-Kun and the Seven Witches all have volumes out this week, but want makes this so hard is that there isn’t one I want more than the other. I want them all! Over on the digital side, Kodansha releases another round of the collections of their Crunchyroll titles, but I think their pricing is off. Looking at Viz Media and Yen Press, who are bringing out new titles as well as re-releasing older ones, Kodansha is nearly double. I would think it would be hard to justify $11 for an e-book vs a $5.99 subscription where I could read them all. I can see this backfiring on them.

Wow, this week digital releases outnumber print ones. Only four publishers have print titles. Drawn and Quarterly continues their releases of Shigeru Mizuki’s catalog, with the biography Hitler out this week. Kodansha releases the Master’s Edition of Fairy Tail, that collects the first 5 volumes in one massive tome which is good for new readers wanting to get in or die-hard completests.

It’s a subdued selection of titles this week. While most publishers have something coming out, there are only a few titles for each. Kodansha starts out on top with a title I’m seriously interested in. Fairy Girls is a spin-off manga from the series Fairy Tail, and features, you guessed it, the girls from Fairy Tail! The series is by another manga artist, Boku, but remains consistent with the main series. The women wizards of Fairy Tail are great, so it’s awesome that they get their book to kick butt in!

Viz is the top dog this week, as it has been for the last month on the New York Times and Amazon Bestseller lists. All of their shonen and shojo titles come out this week, including the final volume of Yukarism by Chika Shiomi, and new volumes of superhero titles One-Punch Man and My Hero Academia.

 Last week of the month, and publishers have quite an impressive haul. Dark Horse Comics finally completes Gantz with final volume 37. Gantz is well known for its graphic content and outrageous fights. This volume will surely be no different. On the other side of this coin is the debut of the new series from Seven Seas Entertainment, Golden Time. This rom-com is from the creator of Toradora, and features college students looking for a fresh start, but just can’t seem to escape the past.

 There’s a whole of manga out this week. Digital Manga Publishing makes a surprise return with two BL titles in print. Netcomics also releases some new volumes from their recent titles, such as Chiro Vol 3, Core Scramble Vol 2, and Give to the Heart Vol 5. Kodansha debuts a new shojo, LDK, that is getting mixed reviews, just judging from my twitter feed. Either way, it is making an impression.

With New York Comic Con in the distance, releases this week are meager. Kodansha Comics debuts a new title in print, Kiss Him Not Me Vol 1. This series has been running on Crunchyroll Manga for a while now. Fujoshi girl keeps shipping the hot boys around her with each other, even through they all want to be with her. It don’t sound like my kind of series, but I though that about Yamada and the Seven Witches and I was wrong about that, so may be I’ll be wrong about this one too.