Manga Xanadu

I’ve been an anime and manga fan for long time, and there have been some titles that were thought to be more far off dreams than actual candidates for licensing. One of those dreams was getting anything from Leiji Matsumoto, co-creator of Space Battleship Yamato, and creator of Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999, and Queen Emeraldas among many others. At best, all we had were 5 volumes of the second Galaxy Express 999 manga series published by Viz back in the late 90s-2000s. But now, it seems the flood gates have opened as new licenses are being announced left and right.

This year SDCC was held earlier than usual. It is usually in the last two weeks of July. This year, it was the second week in July, one week after Anime Expo. Manga publishers were at SDCC too, with only a two-day break before the five days of geeky madness began down south. While they had more announcements, they weren’t quite as numerous or as ground breaking as AX. Mostly.   Viz started the con again with their panel on Thursday. The only new announcement they had was that they would be releasing a print edition of Gakkyu Hotei: School Judgment. The series originally ran simultaneously with Weekly Shonen Jump and sadly ended with it as well. Written by Nobuaki Enoki and drawn by Takeshi Obata, the series followed Abaku Inugami, a defense attorney at his elementary school. Under the new School Judgement system, students accused of crimes are now tried by their peers, and Inugami is the best for the defense, but when the prosecutor is the cute and rich Hanazuki, things might get tough. I enjoyed the few chapters I’ve read in WSJ, so I will be looking forward to the first volume set to come out in February,…