Manga Xanadu

It’s back to the monthly business as usual with August’s Shonen Jump. Since this issue came out before SDCC, it doesn’t have any of the news from the con, and nothing new was added from its month off. Not that really expected there to be any. Anyway, on to the issue! Neuro ended this month on vizanime.com and you can now divine your horoscope with Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds cards, and probably as accurately as Weird Al Yankovic. Now on to the manga! Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds introduces a new character, Akiza Izinski, the “Queen of Queens” of duel racing. We get to see her in action before jumping to Yusei and Sect in a clinic on Satellite. Angry at his loss to Atlus, Yusei is presented with an invitation to the D1 Grand Prix where he has a chance of a rematch with Atlus. And it seems Akiza has a grudge to settle with Atlus as well. Even as the introductions continue, the manga is moving to the heart of the story, racing and dueling. This title was declared a Worst manga at the SDCC Best/Worst of manga panel, which I think is totally undeserved. 5Ds is far from the worst manga, or…

Viz announced it at the party at San Diego Comic Con and on their twitter feed. Their digital manga is no longer held hostage in the i* world. You can now buy and read Viz’s digital manga online! Yes, you heard me! Everything they’ve been announcing that I’ve been ignoring because it’s only been for iOS users is now free to be enjoyed by everyone with access to a browser, so that includes mobile devices as well as PCs. As long as your device can run Adobe Flash Player, you’ve got manga in your pocket! This is the equality and freedom that manga needs to be really be successful in the digital realm. And Viz is doing it right. This month, all number 1 volumes are 40% off, which puts them at $2.99 a piece, and newer volumes are $4.99-$5.99.  This is about half the price of print manga which puts it in just the right range, especially since it can be accessed from anywhere, making it about as portable as you can get. What really makes this appealing though is the space issue. It’s one that’s been seriously on my mind for a while now. I NEED to let…

Say hello to Kain, a shinigami clerk who records human life spans! Rinne’s father, Sabato, owes Kain’s mother a ton of money. As collateral, Kain takes something precious from Rinne. But when Sabato returns home to the scene, Rinne’s in a whole bunch of trouble!

The big but strangly never mentioned news for this issue of Shonen Jump is that it is not long a purely monthly magazine. Subscriptions cards in the mag advertise a yearly subscription as being 10 issues. And you’ll notice this issue covers June and July. Of course, nothing is mentioned in the magazine about this change or why. The obvious reason is cost. Cut out 2 issues (this isn’t any bigger a normal issue) and save printing costs. If there was any other reasons, Viz isn’t saying, since they’ve said nothing about the change. Maybe they were hoping no one would notice? The issue starts out with a video game feature, looks at the Nura anime and vol 3 of the manga, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds trading card and strategy and the Reborn anime which has started streaming on Vizanime.com. The manga starts up with Psyren. Oboro, the famous actor goes on a TV show about Psyren, and nearly feels the wrath of Nemesis Q. He is saved by Elmore Tenjuin, the woman who put up the 500 million to solve the mystery of Psyren. Another player isn’t so lucky. Ageha’s training contiues to surprising results that Sakurako can’t explain, but the…

Two new Shonen Jump Advanced titles are featured in this new Mini Musings, neither of which really float my boat. Keep reading to find out why.

The Drive-Bys are a little late this week do to the blog moving to a new host, the Manga Movable Feast, and most importantly, I didn’t get my subscription again, and had to go out and buy it. This is the 4th time in the last 6 months that I haven’t gotten my subscription. I can’t blame SJ though. I know it’s my local post office and mail carrier that can’t seem to figure out the difference between the streets Alabama and Tennessee, which is where a lot of my mail ends up. Oh well, I’ve got my sub extended to August now. One thing I learned from having to buy this month’s issue it that Yu-Gi-Oh CCG cards are more popular than Naruto. Last issue I had to buy had all the Yu-Gi-Oh cards removed from the magazines at my local Barnes and Noble. This issue has the Naruto card intact. SJ continues its celebration started last month by spotlighting the heroes from all the Shonen Jump manga that didn’t appear in the magazine. It’s quite a list with over 30 titles, both new and ongoing as well as complete. This month’s manga highlight is Blue Exorcist, and I’ll…

Viz finally made their big announcement. The new digital platform that they are making their manga available on that will expand their audience is….iOS for iPhone and iPod/iPod Touch. This is a “new” platform….how? The iPad is nothing more than an overgrown iPod Touch. The first apps for the iPad were iPod apps with a new resolution (mostly). So for Viz, porting over their iPad manga just meant a change of resolution, and maybe some touch up here and there. But that doesn’t make it anything new or exciting. They are still courting the same audience. While this will give them a small boost as people with only iPhone/iPods will now have access to their manga (a large number being teens), it’s not really expanding it like an actual platform jump would. In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Viz vice president Alvin Lu said the reason for going in this direction was: It’s a natural extension obviously, being as that we’re on iOS with our iPad app. It broadens our reach with mobile devices significantly, also obviously. For the fans who graciously requested the app be made available on a more widespread device—this is a step or two in that…

Yuta was a simple fisherman until a fellow fisherman brought some special meat to share. It was the flesh of a mermaid, said to grant eternal youth and longevity. But it can also be a deadly poison. For Yuta, it was the former. Hundreds of years later, Yuta searches for a mermaid that might be able to help him return to normal.

Viz Media has really embraced digital publishing in the last few months. Ever since they announced their iPad only app, they have been releasing new volumes practically every week. They now have over 100 volumes from their Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat and Shonen Jump Advanced lines available for download, mostly from older well-known titles such as Dragon Ball/Z, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Vampire Knight , Otomen, and Ouran High School Host Club. They have also started dabbling releasing digital content before or in the same month as print releases, with Bakuman and Blue Exorcist.

Shonen Jump finally hits its 100th issue and its a party! The issue starts with a look back at all the titles that started and either ended or were “graduated” from the magazine, numbering 12 in all. Yu-Gi-Oh! gets the spotlight in the TCG section, and goes back to the original Yu-Gi-Oh! game. I have to keep my youngest away from this card too. Then there’s the usual features about anime and SJ titles on the iPad.

Recently Viz has announced a new round of releases. A lot of the titles in the announcement aren’t new. They are just release dates for titles previously announced, or running in Shonen Jump, such as Yu-Gi-Oh! 5DS, Psyren and Mameshiba. But there were some new titles announced too. One of them was Pokemon Black and White, which is based on the new Pokemon video game that was just released in the US. This really isn’t a big surprise. Viz has been releasing Pokemon in one form or another since the early 2000’s.

It’s been a long time coming for this, the final volume of Inuyasha. I remember seeing the floppy singles Viz released in the early aughts. I had no idea what it was about then, but with the release of the standard manga sized volumes, I soon discovered what a great series it was. And with the omnibuses, you can too. But if you’ve been following the series to the end, you won’t be able wait for this. More after the break.