Manga Xanadu

Collecting One Piece can seem like a daunting task when you look at all the individual volumes and see those numbers up in the seventies. Fortunately, Viz Media is making it easier by releasing box sets, and this latest features what I think was the best arc so far; Waters Seven. If there was ever a run from One Piece that was a must, this one is it. VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF ONE PIECE MANGA BOX SET 2  New Box Set Edition Features The Continuing Adventures Of The Straw Hat Pirates With Vols. 24-46 Of The World’s Bestselling Manga Series  San Francisco, CA, October 23, 2014 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, delivers a special treat to fans with the latest Box Set installment for the world’s most popular manga series – ONE PIECE. The ONE PIECE Manga Box Set 2 will be released on November 4th and is rated ‘T’ for Teens. The set contains Volumes 24-46, which comprise the series’ third and fourth story arcs – Skypiea and Water Seven – and will carry an MSRP of $185.99 U.S. / CAN. The Box Set also…

In the news this week; the November/December Manga Movable Feast begins! Critics become critical of the manga blogging community, but not in a constructive way, more digital news from both sides of the Pacific, news from Japan, podcasts, and the Manga Village Roundup. So make with the click-y…

Apparently, I’m in the minority when it comes to crossing over from manga to anime. Whenever I find out that an anime series I like is based on a manga, I want to search out that manga and visa versa. One place you can be sure to find crossover is in Weekly Shonen Jump. So many titles that appear in there get an anime series, where it’s a short thirteen episode series like Letter Bee, or a never-ending series like One Piece. The One Piece anime started in 1999, about 2 years after the manga. It has gone non-stop since then and is at about 478 episodes. A complaint a lot of manga fans have about anime adaptations is that it’s not always faithful, and it has a lot of filler. Filler can’t be helped. Weekly anime takes up a lot more chapters than mangaka can put out, so the anime often catchs up to the manga and has to wait. In general, these are short arcs and the show gets back to the manga storyline as soon as it can. As for being faithful, well, for the One Piece anime, it is, mostly, with a few exceptions. Something I’ve…

Over the last year, One Piece has been burning up the book charts in Japan. Every succeeding volume has not only out sold the previous, they have been breaking sales records, and hitting print runs in millions for the first edition. This is pretty amazing for any book series, but it’s even more amazing since One Piece is a manga written for teenage boys. This means more than just the kids are buying these books. A recent discussion of shonen manga brought up influences, and of course, Dragon Ball was mentioned. First published in 1984, most of the creators working today would have read it, if not been influenced by it. Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto have stated that their popular titles, One Piece and Naruto were inspired by Dragon Ball’s protagonist, Son Goku, as well as series structure. So why is One Piece selling so much more than Naruto now? I think the key to One Piece‘s success can be found in the way Eiichiro Oda utilized his inspiration from Dragon Ball to create a series that similar in feel, but still very much stands on its own. First, look at the protagonists in both titles. Son Goku of…

Manga Movable Feast: Kid’s Table This month’s Manga Movable Feast started this week and doesn’t feature just one title. It’s actually about all all ages titles, with Yotsuba&! as the focus, as well as another all ages title mainly just so the pun “Yotsuba & …” could be used. Thank Ed Sizemore of the Manga Worth Reading blog for that. It’s being hosted this time at the Good Comics For Kids blog, which specializes in news, reviews, articles and interviews about and with the people who make manga and comics for kids 16 and under. The introduction article is here, and the archive is here. Interestingly, a lot of the reviews and articles are about how Yotsuba&! isn’t really a kid’s title. I myself didn’t see it appealing much to a kid, but I think that’s because the appeal I found in it was the way it reminded me of my kids at that age. But if kids are anything, they are surprising. Check out the links for reviews of Yotsuba&! and other all ages manga. Rolling Out Online Manga Deb Aoki of About.Manga.com spoke with Crunchyroll CEO Kun Gao to get the low down on Cruchyroll’s announcement of capital…

[Warning: Contains spoilers for One Piece volume 44] It’s hard to lose a character you love in a series. It’s even harder when you don’t realize how much you’ll miss that character until you see them go. Creators kill off characters all the time, sometimes it’s because they don’t know what to do with them anymore, sometimes it’s just for the shock it creates in readers, and sometimes, though rarely,  it’s even to move the story along. In volume 44 of One Piece, a very important character is lost. A companion and shipmate that has been with the crew since the 3rd volume; the Merry Go. That’s right, the Straw Pirate’s ship is lost forever. You normally wouldn’t think of a ship as a character. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the Merry Go. It was a small ship compared to many of the other pirate and marine ships. Its figurehead looks like a smiling ram. There’s nothing magical about it except that it kept surviving all the punishment the Luffy and his crew put it through. It was just a ship, right? Not in the hands of Eiichiro Oda. At the start of the “Water Seven Arc”,…

So, I fell behind on Shonen Jump.  It’s been an eventful month or so.  But, I’m caught up now, and ready to share by insights on the last two issues.  The magazine has some new features, but no new permanent series to replace Yu Yu Hakusho.  I really hope they don’t keep this trend going.  One Piece, Naruto, Bleach and Ultimo are not enough to hold my attention for an extended length of time.  I’d rather go to waiting for GNs for the few titles I want than to continue to sludge through some of these chapters month after month.  One thing of interest I noticed as I was tossing the insert subscription cards.  Shonen Jump is now offering 6 month subscriptions, just like Yen Plus.  SJ‘s are less expensive, obviously, but with the current SJ line up, the Yen Plus subscription definitely feels like the better deal right now.

Hollywood, Here Comes Netcomics! Netcomics, the Korean publisher that puts all their titles online for a per-chapter fee, is producing a film of their manhwa X Diary.  There’s not much news out yet, other than Variety’s report which includes the names of the writer of the script, one cast member and the producer from Netcomics.  But the news itself isn’t too surprising.  Ever since Hollywood started coming to SDCC, and they’ve found that there’s an audience for comics based books, practically every comic company has been looking to get a title into production.  Though, the premise of X Diary does make it a good candidate.  It’s about a cartoonist and musician who break up as a couple, but try to make it as friends.  It’s a topic that surpasses culture and could very well appeal to non-comic/manhwa readers.  We’ll have to wait and see how production goes.  Lots of titles get started only to stall not far into the process.

One Piece Exceeds 3 Million The print run for the newest volume of One Piece has been reported to be 3 MILLION copies.  That’s right, 3 million.  As the post points out, that’s even more copies than the Japanese edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which previous held the record for largest print run of a first edition.  That’s quite an accomplishment, especially for a comic.  American publishers can only dream of print runs like this.  What’s really sad though, is how under appreciated One Piece is in the US.  It should on the NYT list ever week with Naruto and Bleach!  Viz is doing a good job of making the manga available with their 3-in-1 for the early volumes and the catch-up to the Japanese releases.

This issue of Shonen Jump is the preparation issue for the One Piece speed up.  Just like with the Naruto jumps, there is a dedicated section the gives short descriptions of the arcs to be covered in the volume releases.  That’s right.  I said arcs.  Unlike with Naruto, which could give summary of each of the volumes, One Piece has too many volumes coming out to cover them all, so they just described the arcs, what volumes they cover and what villains the Straw Hat Pirates would be facing.  There are 4 arcs to be covered, with the next arc, “Skypieda”, being 10 volumes long!  This is a whole lot to take in.  I really hope Viz knows what they’re doing and aren’t dooming One Piece.  This property, which should have been as big or even bigger than Naruto has been mishandled by so many, I really don’t want to see it happen any more.

Tokyopop Webinar staring Domo! (‘s creator) Tokyopop’s Webinar was actually on 10/29/09, but posts about it didn’t go up until after 11/1/09.  Lissa at Kuri-osity has a quick rundown of the webinar and questions for Tsuneo Goda.  Deb Aoki of the About.Manga Blog has a full transcript.  If you want to know more about Domo, this is a must read.  I’m kind of disappointed that Domo isn’t interested in Global Domination.  He certainly couldn’t do worse than the leaders we’ve had lately.  And as my daughter would say, “He’s Domo!”

One Piece in BIG Bites? Found via Twitter.  @swanjun found these entries for One Piece at Simon and Schuster.  At 600 pgs each, and combining three volumes a piece, they sure do sound like VizBIG editions, even if the solicitations don’t actually say so.  With the speed up of One Piece coming in January, this is the perfect time for Viz to put out BIG editions of the series.  Catching up is a lot easier with the BIG editions than trying to hunt down individual volumes, especially for a series that has been going since 2003.  One Piece premiered with Shonen Jump.  However, a look at the Previews solicitations makes these appear to be bundles rather than BIG editions.  Previews calls them “GN sets” and advertise “get three volumes for the price of two.”  Either way, it’s a good deal.  The first two scheduled for Dec and Jan releases, with 7-9 scheduled for March 2010, and 10-12 for May 2010.