Manga Xanadu

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.

It looks like Viz really is going to reprint the Tokyopop catalog in digital. This month adds two new titles, Hibiki’s Magic, and a favorite of mine, Hanako and the Terror of Allegory, a series that posits, what if urban legends were real? It’s a short, fun series that I should finish reading sometime. There’s also something about an orange-suited ninja…

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.

With Diamond releasing the shonen titles early last week, this week is a little lighter, but in retrospect, that a good things as some debuts by other publishers would be completely washed over by the final Naruto Vol 72. Seven Seas goes for some representation as they release the first volume of their new series, Merman in My Tub. Instead of monster girls, it’s monster boys, who are just as hot with fish tails and tentacles. I was interested in it when Seven Seas announced it, and while I’m not a fan of fanservice, neither am I opposite to some equal opportunity for the ladies.

Diamond Distributors is getting the Viz Shonen and Shojo titles out a week early. There are plenty of old favorites such as Assassination Classroom Vol 6, Library Wars Vol 14 and My Love Story Vol 6, as well as a new debut. QQ Sweeper is by Kyousuke Motomi, the creator of Dengeki Daisy. It was her first series after Dengeki Daisy ended. It’s a supernatural romance about a new girl transfer student who gets involved with a boy who cleans up the school, but physically and metaphysically. I’ve been looking forward to this series and can’t wait to read it.

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.

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.

Viz Media makes another move to spread its manga to other platforms as Weekly Shonen Jump finally jumps from the Vizmanga app to get on comiXology and Amazon’s Kindle. The jump to just these two platforms and not Nook, Kobo, iOS, or Googleplay is probably due to Amazon’s ownership of comiXology. Hopefully Viz will be able to announce expanding to those other platforms soon as well.

Crunchyroll, the anime and manga streaming service, continues to add manga titles to their all-you-can-eat manga service. This time, they are pulling titles from the Square-Enix library, and are available world-wide. Aizawa-san Multiples is a rom-com harem series. The frail beauty of the school Shino Aizawa confesses her feeling for Souta Mizutani. Soon after another Aizawa appears, and another, and another! Each one is slightly different, but they are all Aizawa. Are they twins? Clones? Dopplegangers? This series sounds like it takes the comedy in romantic comedy very serious. It might be interesting to see how this gag manga handles the harem model with the boy being surrounded by several of the same girl. There are currently 2 volumes of the series out so far. Father and Son is a slice of life shonen comedy. It follows former gangster You-san who has to take care of his wild and unpredictable son Shou and the eventful everyday life of the lively pair. This series sounds like it would not just make a good light comedy, but could also be suitable for younger readers, with slap-stick as part of the otherwise easy-going comedy. It would be a good pick up for Yen…

Viz has raided the old Tokyopop vaults to come up with three new titles to debut under their Select digital imprint. Welcome to the N.H.K. was one of the first light novel manga adaptations to come to the states, and arrived shortly after the anime, giving the title a lot of name recognition. Aion is by Yuna Kagesaki, the creator of Chibi Vampire. This follow-up didn’t do as well as Chibi Vampire, a sentiment I agree with. I didn’t find the first volume all that great. Metamo Kiss is by a mangaka not previously published here, and is a gender/body switching shojo, if you’re into that sort of thing. They’ve got some good bundles this month too. Saint Seiya, Knights of the Zodiac, is an awesome series that didn’t get the love it deserved in print. That can be corrected with one of the two bundles they have available: vol 1-14, or the whole thing, 1-28. Also available is the older teen historical, time travel series Red River, filled with action and romance. A very addictive series. I recommend both!

Viz’s Select line adds 2 former Tokyopop titles that I’m familiar with, but met with two different ends. Grenadier is a five-volume series I picked up because a friend has seen the anime, and told us about the most intriguing element of the story. The lead, a buxom blond, kept her bullets in said bosom and would reload her gun with some jiggling. Not joking. I picked up Red Hot Chili Samurai because it was a historical detective series. In the end, I gave Grenadier to said friend, and chased down the last two volumes of Red Hot Chili Samurai I could find. Tokyopop published 5 of the 8 volumes, but only four were easily found. I guess I’ll be finishing up the series with Viz.

Viz announces lots of new debuts in digital including digital editions of print titles as well as new additions to the Viz Select line, all former Tokyopop titles. They are offering more bundles, mostly starter sets this time featuring classic manga, Signature titles, and mature manga. All have good titles and at $20, they’re a good deal if you looking to sample.