Manga Xanadu

I’ve made no bones about my support for Sparkler Monthly, the online monthly female-gaze magazine that started two years ago. I loved the idea of getting books, comics and audio dramas that were marketed directly for me, and I’ve been a subscriber since the 4th issue. Sparkler Monthly is a subscriber supported magazine, and for Year Two, they did a subscription drive to try to up membership to increase material in the magazine as well as advances to the creators. The drive is currently at 231 members, having made it past the first two tiers. But for the magazine to really be self-sustaining, a minimum of 1000 subscribers were needed for Year Three to go forward. While the move to 231 was quite an improvement, it wasn’t really enough. But instead of throwing in the towel or downsizing, the resourceful women at Chromatic Press, the publisher of Sparkler Monthly, have put together a Kickstarter campaign to help fund Year Three. Over 40 days, Chromatic Press is looking to raise $15,000 to put out 12 issues of the magazine as well as new surprises in bonus content, as well as experimenting with different formats and distribution. There are plenty of reward…

It was one year ago that I first spoke about Sparkler Magazine, mentioning it as one of the stories on my podcast. It was just one of the news stories, but I used the cover of the premiere issue as my featured image and got the attention of the editors, which got me a  review copy, and the issue an in-depth look on my next podcast. I really enjoyed that first issue. Back then, the issue was broken down into 6 features; two manga, Dire Hearts and Off Beat, two prose novels Gauntlet and Tokyo Demons Book 2, an audio, Awake, and a subscriber only feature. Dire Hearts was very intriguing. Gauntlet was heart-pounding. Awake set up a great sci-fi thriller. I enjoyed the magazine and digital format so much that I dropped my subscription to Yen Plus, and picked up Sparkler, even though Sparkler cost more. But I was getting more of what I wanted and enjoyed with it. Twelve months of updates later, a lot has changed. Dire Hearts sadly has to go on hiatus due to health issue for its creator Christy Lijewski. Off Beat, then Gauntlet and Tokyo Demons Book 2 ended. Plenty of new titles have…

It’s been a year since Yen Plus went digital and things don’t seem to have changed much, at least not for the Japanese side of the magazine. It’s still meager at best, and is losing another title this month with the final chapter of The Innocent appearing. We can hope Yen Press will be able to announce something soon, otherwise having the two sides of the magazine is going to be pretty pointless.

This month’s Shonen Jump starts out with a Feature on Pokemon: Black and White, the newest incarnation of the game and spans the trading card game, the video games, the anime and the manga. The fan art section also has a neat piece by guest artist Mr. Warburton, the creator of Cartoon Network’s Codename: Kids Next Door. But where’s Nami?

This month’s Yen Plus features a lot of changes. The most obvious, as it’s features on the cover is the debut of Soulless, another novel adaptation, but not by James Patterson. This one is by Gail Carriger with art by Rem. But with this addition, two other titles are saying farewell. Gossip Girl ends this issue as does the color edition of High School of the Dead. I’m not going to miss Gossip Girl, as I wasn’t even reading it. But High School of the Dead…well, I’ll give my feelings about that later. And you might notice  something missing from this issue. No Daniel X. And no word why. Strange… Soulless – This first chapter starts with some very nice color pages, as we are introduced to Alexia Tarabotti. She is at a party when she is attacked by a vampire, that doesn’t appear to be part of a coven, and has a run in with Lord Maccon, the head of Bureau of Unnatural Registry as well as Alpha of the local werewolf pack, and Professor Lyall. Her encounter seems to have attracted the attention of Countess Nadasdy, the leader of a vampire coven, so she goes to see Lord…

It’s back to the monthly business as usual with August’s Shonen Jump. Since this issue came out before SDCC, it doesn’t have any of the news from the con, and nothing new was added from its month off. Not that really expected there to be any. Anyway, on to the issue! Neuro ended this month on vizanime.com and you can now divine your horoscope with Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds cards, and probably as accurately as Weird Al Yankovic. Now on to the manga! Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds introduces a new character, Akiza Izinski, the “Queen of Queens” of duel racing. We get to see her in action before jumping to Yusei and Sect in a clinic on Satellite. Angry at his loss to Atlus, Yusei is presented with an invitation to the D1 Grand Prix where he has a chance of a rematch with Atlus. And it seems Akiza has a grudge to settle with Atlus as well. Even as the introductions continue, the manga is moving to the heart of the story, racing and dueling. This title was declared a Worst manga at the SDCC Best/Worst of manga panel, which I think is totally undeserved. 5Ds is far from the worst manga, or…

I’m a loyal reader of Shonen Jump, and every once in a while I like to give my opinion of the current titles running.  I don’t really care for the articles in the magazine.  They are all aimed at teen boys, of which I am certainly not one.  The Bleach anime, Naruto video and card games, the Yu-gi-oh card game, not my thing.  But I still enjoy many of the SJ titles.  So I’m going to do this for Shonen Jump like every 3 months or so, or if anything major happens, such as a title getting switched out, or an exciting preview.

Yen Plus Publisher: Yen Press Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Anthology Price: $8.99 I was excited to hear last year at the Yen Press inaugural panel as SDCC that they would be publishing an anthology.  I really like by Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, as they give me an opportunity to sample lots of different manga at an affordable price.  At that panel, Kurt Hassler promised the anthology would be ready by the next SDCC.  And, low and behold, it was there, Friday, for free!  Needless to say, as soon as we got back to the hotel, and for the rest of the weekend, I read it. First, a few general observations about the anthology.  It’s big.  If you combined one issue of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat, you would get the approx. size.  And it’s almost all manga.  There aren’t a lot of filler articles (that I tend to ignore in the other anthologies anyway).  There are ads, but they are well done, and put mostly on the OEL/Korean Manhwa side of the anthology.  They are mostly for other Yen Press titles, with a few others thrown in (Dark Horse, Right Stuf etc.).  This anthology also reads from both…