Manga Xanadu

Otakon is the last big convention for manga publishers before New York Comic Con in October. It’s not usually a place frequented by publishers, especially not from the west coast, but this year saw some exciting license announcements, and appearances by west coast publishers Dark Horse Manga and Viz Media with Shojo Beat.

Viz Media does a pretty decent job of spreading out its license announcements. They aren’t always big or mind-blowing, but at all three conventions in July they made sure they had something to for fans to look forward to, and I think that in itself is pretty cool.

This week I check out This Week’s Manga, some stories In the News, the Top Ten Department, and the new licenses out of Otakon last week. http://archive.org/download/MangaDomeEpisode70/MangaDomeEpisode70.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Manga at Otakon! This week I check out some news stories from Japan, the goings-ons at Vizmanga, the latest Bookscan numbers and finally the manga license announcements from Otakon. http://archive.org/download/MangaDomeEpisode19/MangaDomeEpisode19.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

And the Con Goes On It’s been two weeks since Comic-Con, but reports are still coming out with video and transcripts from the manga panels that were held that. While that might be bad (and stressful) for the writing and transcribing them, it a bonus for those us of who couldn’t go! Deb Aoki posts about the manga events on Friday and takes a closer look at the Yen Press announced titles. Comics Journal has video of the Manga for Grown-Up panel and Carlo Santos from Anime News Network talked with guest Moto Hagio. And yes, there will be more links coming. But if you couldn’t make it to the con, they will be worth it. Stuck in SDCC’s Shadow One week after SDCC was Otakon over on the East Coast, in Baltimore, MD.  There wasn’t a huge manga presence there in either publishers or journalists. Ed Sizemore of the Manga Worth Reading blog not only held his own panel on Anime Journalism, but he also did writes up on Manhwa at the con for Manhwa Bookshelf, and days Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Audio from his panel can be found here, a transcript from Anime Diet here, and a report…

I know this is late, but SDCC threw everything off schedule.  Everything will back by this week.  I hope. Between a Rock and a Hard Place Otakon ran this weekend.  Did you notice?  There were no announcements from manga publishers, and really not a lot of announcements in general.  Whoever planned for this years Otakon really blew it.  Placing it between the biggest industry cons was a serious mistake.  Attendance was barely changed from last years numbers.  Even with this economy, AX showed a reasonable rise, and SDCC sold out at least two months sooner than last year.  So it’s not that people aren’t going to the cons, they just need more time in between to replenish cash reserves.  Otakon, stay in August.