“On the Tenth day of Christmas, Tokyopop gave to me…more avatars!” By popular request it seems, Tokyopop has created two more of their holiday avatars. These two are from Dramacon and Fools Gold. You can grab them know at the Tokyopop website along with the previous avatars. Collect the whole set! Once again, these will be available for the weekend. Check back again Monday, after 5pm PST here or Tokyopop.com to see the next gift. We’re down to the last two days. Let’s hope Tokyopop makes them worth it.
ANN has reported that two new anime series’ for the spring have been announced that are based on manga; Golgo 13 by Takao Saito and To Love-Ru -Trouble- by Saki Hasemi and Kentaro Yabuki. Manly men can rejoice that one of their idols is finally getting his own series. Golgo 13 is about an amoral assassin that takes on assignments from all over the globe. This series started in the 1960’s, and is still published today. It’s 147th volume was published on December 5 in Japan. Duke Togo, code name Golgo 13, is a crack shot and a magnet for the ladies. He can pop off a target in one panel and then score with a beautiful woman in the next. Few men are more manly than Golgo 13. But for all his manliness, Golgo 13 has never had his own series. He’s only had a live action movie and 2 animated movies. Finally, he gets to come into his own. Viz Media has published 12 volumes of Golgo 13’s adventures under their Viz Signature line. To Love-Ru -Trouble- is a sci-fi romance comedy drawn by Kentaro Yabuki, best known here for his Black Cat series, also being published by…
“On the Eighth day of Christmas, Tokyopop gave to me…Pantheon High vol 1!” Yeah! More manga! I read the first chapter of this, and have been wanting to read the whole thing! Now I can! And you can too. But just until 5pm PST. Check it out, and then check out vol 2 which comes out in January. Something to spend your Christmas money on! Check back here or at Tokyopop.com for the next gift.
“On the Fifth day of Christmas, Tokyopop gave to me, Biiiiizenghast Vol 1!” For the whole weekend you can read Bizenghast vol 1. I’d really encourage people to check out this series. It’s very good, involving riddles that must be solved to put spirits to rest. I enjoyed it anyway. And it also goes over the usual 3 volume model of most Tokyopop OEL! Check back here Sunday night/Monday or go to Tokyopop.com for the next gift!
“On the first day of Christmas, Tokyopop gave to me…Fools Gold Vol. 1!” For the holidays and in honors of it 10 year anniversary, Tokyopop is making available full volumes of their original manga through their manga reader. Starting today until 5PM PST, you can read the first volume of Fools Gold by Amy Reeder Haley, a previous RSoM winner. Every weekday after, a new volume will be available to read. This is a good time to check out some of the OEL manga that Tokyopop’s been doing without risking your pocketbook. The manga reader is easy to use, and works in both IE and Firefox. And how can you say no to free manga? I know I can’t! And you never know, you might actually find yourself liking a title! So keep checking here or the Tokyopop website for updates!
Five and a half years ago, Viz put out a sampler at the San Diego Comic Con for a new manga anthology; Shonen Jump. Anchored by Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh!, Shonen Jump introduced us to new titles such as Naruto, Shaman King and One Piece at only $20 for 12 issues. Ah…those were the days. The December Issue featured some important milestones. Besides heralding in the 5th year of the magazine, it had the first Naruto story Masashi Kishimoto wrote. This Naruto and his world was very different from the one we know now. A “Proto-Naruto” is you will. Instead of being a ninja-in-training with the spirit of the 9-Tails Fox Spirit in him, Naruto is the son of the 9-Tails Fox. He has been raised by the last living warrior that fought his father, who is also a Yokai. Naruto has not been able to make any human friends, as he has been a mean-spirited trickster to them. The warrior sends Naruto from the mountain temple where they have been living, and tells him he can not return until he has made a human friend and brings him back to the mountain. The rest of the story is following…
Whatever happened to this old adage? It tells us that looks can be deceiving, and by making a judgment based on what’s on the outside will make us miss what’s on the inside, which is what really counts. ANN has just reported a story from South Carolina about a mother that complained to a Books-a-million store about a manga being the children’s section based solely on the cover. What makes this a story is that the bookstore acquiesced to the parent’s complaint and is now moving the manga section away from it’s core audience. All because ONE parent complained. The book in question, Absolute Boyfriend vol 1 by Yuu Watase, feature a boy in a gift box. The only parts of the boy that can be seen are his chest and knees, with the nudity only implied. What galls me about this story is that it was the mother that was offended. The mother of a boy, that came in to shop for her son. She wasn’t offended after her son picked up the book and she looked at what he picked. No boy would pick up a series called Absolute Boyfriend. And once again a rush to judgment is…
It’s time to play Matchgame! Let’s meet our contestants! Seven Seas Entertainment has teamed up with big publisher Tor books according to this press release. The company will release licensed, and original manga as well as light novels under the Seven Seas imprint beginning in March 2008. Of course, this alliance is nothing new in the manga world. Big “respectable” publishers seems to be looking for ways to get in on the manga revolution. Tokyopop and Harper Collins made a mutually beneficial deal. Del Rey created it’s own division, as did the Hachette Book Group, which created Yen Press. All these pubs license manga of course. But there seems to be more going on here. Both Del Rey and Yen Press will be publishing original manga as well. Tokyopop, of course, led the way for OEL. By teaming up with Seven Seas, which initially started as an original content only publisher, Tor can jump into this market with a ready made imprint. Is this a new trend now? Do publishers see a future in original content manga? Del Rey announced a new series based on the popular novel series “Odd Thomas”. Yen Press has promised to premiere an anthology of…
Michio Yuki has it all: looks, intelligence, a pedigree as the scion of a famous kabuki family, a promising career at a major bank, legions of female admirers. But underneath the sheen of perfection lurks a secret with the power to shake the world to its foundations.
I’ve already gotten the newest issue of Shonen Jump, but I don’t want to read it until I’ve read the intervening Naruto volumes (17-27)! So, Naruto’s next story arc will have to wait. I think I need more doctor’s appointments to catch up.
The Japanese are doing it again. According to ANN, am3, a maker of data cards with anime movies of them for the Gameboy Advanced and DS in Japan, has announced a new system that will allow DS owners to download anime, manga and other content to SD cards and be viewed on the DS. This new system, to be called DSvision will include a starter kit consisting of a micro SD card, micro card adapter for the DS, and USB card reader. There will also be an online store that will start with 300 titles at start up in March of 2008, that will be expanded to 10,000 by 2010. And, unlike other addons for the DS, this one is the first approved by Nintendo, and the first to have an online store tied to it. This is definitely an interesting idea. The DS is already well established as an entertainment machine, and users have been coming up with their own hacks to put their own games and other applications on the DS. I can actually see reading manga on it as being more plausible than on an iphone. The DS has 2 LCD color screens, each 3 inches in…
Some company needs to step up to plate and rescue the City Hunter manga from license hell. This series, written and drawn by Hojo Tsukasa, ran in Shonen Jump from 1985-1992, and has a total of 35 volumes. It’s about Ryo Saeba, a sweeper, or gun for hire, working in Tokyo. He is known as The City Hunter, the best shot in the Underground World, where he worked as an assassin for my years before becoming sweeper. Now, he works with a partner, Kaori Makimura, who is the younger sister of his former partner, Hideyuki Makimura. Hideyuki died, and asked Ryo to take care of Kaori. Together, they take on work to help people as body guards or private detectives. And even though he is wanted by the police, he sometimes helps out Saeko Nogami, a pretty detective wtih Tokyo Metro Police. There is alot of action in this manga, and lots of sharp shooting from Ryo, making nearly impossible shots to save the day. Ryo is a well muscled, good looking man, and the women are all shapely beauties. Sound like a typical shonen series? Well, it isn’t! This series is freaking hysterical!! What makes City Hunter so funny?…