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It’s a week before Christmas, and publisher are making sure there’s a wide selection of books to choose from.
Easter weekend was a busy one for conventions. On the east coast was Anime Boston, and on the west coast, Wondercon was held in Southern California and Sakura-Con up north in Washington State. Manga publishers split up to cover the anime cons, with Yen Press taking Sakura-Con. Yen Press has already been busy this year with the manga and light novel announcements, and their appearance at Sakura-Con was no different. They stuck with just manga licenses this time, announcing a whopping 13 titles to be released in either print of digital. Starting with print manga, one of the biggest announcements and surprise was Yowamushi Pedal. This is not only a sports manga, but also a long running series, currently at 39 volumes, features that tend to make publishers shy away from a title. Yowamushi Pedal though is already fairly well-known among Western readers. The anime was streamed by Crunchyroll, and fujoshi have been obsessing over the manga for a while. The story is about Sakamichi Onoda, an otaku whose passion for figures and anime was so great that he would ride his bicycle 60-miles round trip to Akihabara to shop there. His bicycling skills get him into competitive bike racing. I’ve…
Viz’s SigIkki website isn’t just an experiment in manga for mature readers. Going to the site does more than let you read some great manga. You, the reader, can make a difference in which manga will get published. Your clicks and reviews can make all the difference in the world for a title seeing print. In Japan, the fate of a manga is decided not just by circulation, but also by what the readers say. Survey cards are checked and titles can live or die by what readers say in these. Viz has taken this idea and applied it to the web. The titles at SigIkki are not guaranteed to see a print edition unless enough people show interest through page views and reviews that readers can leave. While this is a good idea for a small market as these Ikki titles will attract, that also means that your favorite title manga get a print edition unless YOU do something. Just like pre-ordering, this is putting your money were your mouth is, just without so much of the risk. Going to the site and reading chapters is easy, but if you really love a title, so much so that you…