Manga Xanadu

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.

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.

It’s Viz’s big week, and a couple of titles people have been waiting for are being released. Maid-Sama is a former Tokyopop title where only 8 of the 18 volumes were released. This series in one of the rare pick ups from Viz that is getting a print release as well as digital, and is under the Shojo Beat imprint instead of Viz Select. The series fits perfectly in the Shojo Beat imprint with its story of a girl who appears to be tough-as-nails and a boy hater, but also works part-time at a maid cafe where she is found out by the popular boy at school. They are coming out as 2-in-1, so it will be no time before the series is caught up with the previous release, and fans will be getting new material. Also new this week is the first volume of My Hero Academia. This series by the creator of Barrage has seriously caught on with fans on both sides of the Pacific. Here, only the first chapter was released in Weekly Shonen Jump before the title jumped to current serialization, so this is the first chance for readers to see (legally) what happened in the…

It’s a fairly quiet release list for this week, but there are some strong titles to liven it up. If you haven’t read A Silent Voice Vol 1 from Kodansha Comics, go read it, right now. I’ll wait. If you haven’t heard of A Silent Voice, have you been living under a rock? The first volume has had tremendous word of mouth that’s pushed it’s sales up to Fairy Tail levels. The story sneaks up on you and then crushes your with so much emotion. But it’s a story that needs to be told, and read. I put off reading it for a while, for fear of all those emotions, but once I did, I was glad. I can’t wait now to see what happens in vol 2. Seven Seas Entertainment made a score when they picked up Haven’t You Heard I’m Sakamoto. The series was nominated for several awards, including the Manga Taisho. It’s one of the several Seven Seas’ titles I’ve been looking forward to reading. Chi’s Sweet Home is a title I have been reading and loving, even though as the series has gone on, it’s gotten a little darker. But going back to the “good old…

It’s that time of month again when I have to place my Previews order.  But now, besides my usual problems of deciding what to buy, I have to wonder if the books I order will be canceled.  Diamond Distributing has had their red pen going at break-neck speed, what with canceling the entire Yen Press solicitation from last month’s order.  They’re back again and while not the only publisher to get red-lined, they just the most jaw-dropping. So, do I chance another manga order through Previews?  I want to support what titles I can with pre-orders, but is it a losing battle with Diamond who seem happy to slash their catalog back to the stone age of  just DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image? If I want a manga to survive, and I want the publishers to know I enjoy the title by pre-ordering it, will the publisher still get my message even after Diamond cancels my order?  Do the publishers see the numbers before the cancellation order comes down?  Am I wasting time pre-ordering with Diamond and risking my favorite, not so popular manga to an untimely death? I ponder these questions even as I prepare my next order. …