Manga Xanadu

Finally there is some news this week. It’s not a lot again, but it’s pretty juicy! We have license announcements from a surprising source, an online manga store opening, and some publishers throwing their weight around. And then there are the regular features of the NYTBSL, podcasts, and a roundup of what happening at Manga Village.

It’s been awfully slow in the news department lately. Maybe everyone is busy with holiday preparations. But fear not! All is not lost as the news this week features unexpected licenses as well as confirmations of some found in the wild. Half confirmations of rumors, and trying to reach out to the casual manga fan join regular features of best sellers, podcasts and roundups.

In the news this week: manga print on demand, more details on DMP’s Digital Manga Guild and the changes in Shonen Jump, a possible manga portal for English readers, news stories from Japan, and all the rest of the usual features.

In this week’s post: News from Kumoricon, free manga online, manga by subsciption online, manga in libraries, respect for shojo, or the lack thereof, New York Times Best Seller list, second opinions, podcasts, and the Manga Village weekly roundup.

Too Much Good Stuff! Deb Aoki of Manga.About.com continues posting her coverage of panels from SDCC. This week she adds an entry for the Best and Worst Manga panel including comments from the panelists. There are more Best and Worst and a whole page dedicated to Most Anticipated. It’s interesting that Twilight made the Best list, but Maximum Ride got put in the Worst. Both make tons of money for Yen Press, so yah there. And the cat manga Chi’s Sweet Home and Cat Paradise both definitely deserve to be in the Best list. I don’t know what I would add to this list. I have hard time saying something is the Best or Worst. Except One Piece. That’s definitely a Best! Also added to her coverage is a complete transcript of the Online Piracy Panel. It’s NINE PAGES. The front page to it give the topics covered in the discussion, but getting the full transcript is almost the same as being there! Definitely thank Deb for her hard work in getting this up for everyone to read. This is a very relevant topic right now as fans and publishers bash heads over the best way to get comics and…

Twitter This The week started out with a bang, and just kept on going! Seven Seas started it off with license announcements on Twitter in anagram form with one clue. All three were guessed correctly by ANN and confirmed by Tuesday, the day of the last announcement. The three titles are ToraDora, Amnesia Labyrinth, and A Certain Scientific Railgun. Two of these titles have anime tie-ins, with ToraDora having already released its first disc earlier this month, and Funimation just announcing the license of A Certain Scientific Railgun at this past Anime Expo. Amnesia Labyrinth also has ties to a previously published work. Nagaru Tanigawa, who is the author of the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi light novels, is also the author of this series. Most of these titles came from ASCII Media Works, which Seven Seas seems to be mining. I’m definitely interested in Amnesia Labyrinth, and not just because it’s by the author of the Haruhi books, which I’ve enjoyed the manga of, but it’s also a mystery. And we can’t get enough of those! One Manga Down, 1000 Manga To Go Wednesday, One Manga, the top scanlation aggregator site on the web announced it would be taking down…

Manga Factory Direct Anime News Network was able to talk to company representative Mika Ogata and get some more details about Manga Factory and their prior relationship with Aurora. Despite having been former employees and having volumes of the defunct publishers books for sale, there is no connection between Manga Factory and Aurora. They are completely new company. The books are just a way to get some funds in. They won’t be making any announcements for licenses for the summer, but considering they’ve just started, that’s understandable. And I think it makes total sense for former employees to band together like this and create their own company. They no doubt have the contacts and the knowledge of the US manga market, that executives back in Japan that were calling the shots didn’t. This is like a manga fan’s dream come true, and I hope they succeed, just to prove that dreams like this can still come true. Manga at the Harveys The Harveys are awards nominated by and chosen for people in the comics industry. Since this is for the US comics industry, manga doesn’t make a big splash except in the “American Edition of Foreign Material” category. Two manga…

About Freakin’ Time! The big news of the week was announced on Tuesday. Manga publishers in both the US and Japan have banded together to create a coalition to fight online piracy. They are starting with manga aggregator sites  with make it easy  for scanlators to put their titles up in one place and for readers to find and read them easily. 30 sites have been targeted, though no names have been mentioned. Though you can be sure Onemanga will be one of them, as they got a lot of press last week about making Google’s top 1000 websites. The Mangasphere had a lot to say about this, and you can find a lot of the reactions rounded up here. Bloggers have been going on about this for a while, and it’s about time publishers did something. For all we know, this might have been in the works for a while, to first get the Japanese publisher to band together, and then bring in the US publishers. While this initiative won’t complete wipe out piracy online, as long as gets the aggregator sites off as the first result in Google when searching for some titles, I’ll be happy. Looking for…

Some Advice for Bloggers and Reviewers Brigid of Mangablog first lists some good tips on how to make you blog more user friendly and possibly improve your Google ranking! Many of them are the same that I’ve heard on the tech podcasts I listen to, so you can be sure the advice is sound.  And then found via Twitter, Deb Aoki of About.Manga blog has some sound tips for manga reviewers: manga reviewing tip #1: “Did you like it or not? I should have some idea whether it’s worth buying or not after reading your review” manga reviewing tip #2: “grab my attention in the first 1-2 paragraphs & give me a reason to keep reading, or I’ll just click away.” manga reviewing tip #3: “write like you’re having fun, not writing a term paper.” manga reviewing tip #4: “yes, by all means tell me what the story is about — but can you skip the rehash of the entire book?” Solicitations made the next day has brought the count from 4 to 19.  You can check Deb’s twitter feed for them all.  There are a lot of good suggestions, though not all are practical for a short review of…

It’s a new week, and a new round of reviews from the Manga Village.  Charles Tan starts things with a big dose of reality with Real Volume 1 from Viz.  Alex Hoffman balances the reality with some fantasy with Stray Little Devil Volume 1 from DR Masters.  John Thomas brings a Samurai Classic back with Lone Wolf and Cub Volume 1 from Dark Horse.  Katherine Farmar wants to Close the Last Door Volume 1from DMP/June.  I check out Record of a Fallen Vampire Volume 2 from Viz. We’ve got our weekly picks up for last minute shopping (only a week and a half left until Christmas…) and our Manga of the Month for November.  Over at Good Comics for Kids, I have my weekly All ages comics and manga list, and Esther Keller has a review of Yen Press’ only all ages title, World of Quest. <A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmangxana-20%2F8003%2F8f773d56-bcc8-46d0-a5a1-f3b32c89a600&Operation=NoScript” mce_HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmangxana-20%2F8003%2F8f773d56-bcc8-46d0-a5a1-f3b32c89a600&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>

Had enough of turkey leftovers and Black Friday news?  Need to shop for that manga fan in your live?  Let the Manga Villagers help you make that shopping list!  The first week features the reviews debut of our newest reviews Justin Colussy-Estes and Alex Hoffman.  But Dan Polley starts the week with Pastel Volume 12 from Del Rey Manga.  Charles Tan shows off Puri Puri Volume 6 from DR Masters.  John Thomas cuts into Black Jack Volume 2 from Vertical.  Justin Colussy-Estes isn’t bugged by Mushishi Volume 3 from Del Rey Manga.  Alex Hoffman starts the holiday weekend with Ral Ω Grad Volume 1 from Viz Media. December starts with my review of Nightmares For Sale Volume 1 from Aurora.  Dan Polley reviews a rare science fiction title Gankutsuou: The Count of Monty Cristo Volume 1 from Del Rey Manga.  Alex Hoffman brings us a Yen Press title, Kieli Volume 1.  Katherine Farmar makes a Manga Village first with the lowest score for the BL title World’s End from DMP/June.  Justin Colussy-Estes has a different kind of horror with Hansel & Gretel from Viz Media. We make our weekly picks for 11/26/08 and 12/04/08.  Over at Good Comics for Kids…

Well, it’s been quite a week at Manga Village.  You might see some new faces as you look around, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.  Let’s start with our reviews for this week.  Charles Tan starts things off with another season-appropriate sports title, Eyeshield 21 Volume 22 from Viz.  Dan Polley has quite a tale with Fairy Tail Volume 4 from Del Rey.  Katherine Famar gets aquainted with You and Harujion from Deux.  I take a new Viz title for a walk with Nora: The Last Chonicle of Devildom Volume 1.   John Thomas gets his learn on with Style School Volume 3 from Dark Horse. We make our weekly picks this week as usual, with just one minor change.  We have a new villager!  Yes, Alex Hoffman from the blog Manga Widget has joined the crew and starts out with giving a pick with the rest of us.  Hopefully we’ll have reviews going up from him real soon!  Good Comics for Kids has been pretty busy this week too.  Not only do I have my weekly all ages list up, but I also have a review of the first new Naruto Chapter book, Naruto, The Boy Ninja…