Inside Scanlation ComiPress, one of the first manga new reporting sites is hanging up it’s news hat and has moved over to a more timely topic: Scanlations. There has been a lot of talk about scanlations, especially since the economy took a dive, but do you really understand what scanlations are or how they came to be? Inside Scanlation seeks to answers these questions and more. The site looks at the history of scanlations, interviews scanlators and publishers for their takes and even explains some of the nuances of the community. I think this is an interesting project. And while people don’t agree with what the scanlators do, I think it’s worth the time to find out why they do it. It’s the anthropologist in me.
The History of the West Wing Written by: Sun Jiayu; Illustrated by Guo Guo Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romance Price: $12.99 Rating: Lavishly illustrated in full color and based on the classic Chinese play Xixiang Ji by Wang Shifu, The History of the West Wings tells of the illicit romance between the daughter of a Chinese Government Official and the roaming scholar who seeks to win her hand. But before he can turn his attentions to his ladylove, the young man must win the heart of her mother! When it seems even heroic deeds in the face of murderous bandits will not please the strict matriarch, the young man goes off to become a civil servant. Will he return in time to marry his true love? With a description like that, you’d expect a story filled with drama and romance. Too bad this book provides doesn’t live up to it. It opens with an introduction that explains the history of XiXiang Ji and its significance to Chinese culture and literature. It is a play written in the 1200’s and is based on an earlier fable that tells of the romantic setbacks of a girl that gives herself to a roaming…
This year, 2009, has been proclaimed the International Year of Astronomy. Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei first put a telescope to the sky and made many discoveries, including four of the moons of Jupiter; Io Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Stars and the planets have held people’s fascination for eons, as they appear in songs, art and books. Even manga has taken notice of the heavenly bodies. Whether it’s the stars and the constellations, the planets, or just observing them, manga covers them all in fun and imaginative ways.
It’s been a year since Yen Press debuted their manga anthology magazine Yen Plus. I picked up the first issue at SDCC and reviewed it in two posts, one for each side. I wasn’t thrilled with the Japanese side, and really enjoyed the Korean/OEL side. A look at the second issue re-enforced those feelings. It’s been a whole year, and at SDCC this year Yen Press had their anniversary issue, so I picked it up again. I wanted to see if the magazine had improved over the year.
Arrrrr. It be the news. Shelf Porn! Found via Twitter. @MagicalEmi shared a picture of her manga collection. Now just think this whole thing is squeezed into a two room apartment. Not two bedroom, two room. All these bookshelves also explains how she can keep up her website Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. I hope she’s got those bookshelves secured to the wall, or isn’t home when the Big One hits. Thanks for sharing! I need to take a pic of the shiny new bookcases my husband built for our books and manga.
Manga’s version of the “Sub vs Dub” debate Found this on Twitter via aicnanime: Helen McCarthy weighs in on the OEL manga label debate, and she puts into words something I’ve always thought but don’t think I’ve ever expressed properly: And that’s the reason. Semantics is the study of meanings, and to writers and historians, meanings matter. Fans and businesses exploiting the power of the word ‘manga’ are tapping in to one of the oldest magics known to man – the belief that real names have real power, and that attaching a name to a thought or act can give it weight, can bring it into being. But to me, attaching the word ‘manga’ to non-Japanese comics doesn’t change anything important about those comics, and may well dilute and weaken the power of the word in its original form.
I’m gonna try and make this a weekly feature, rounding up the stories from the week I found most interesting from the web and twitter. Of course, I’ll be adding my own two cents with some commentary on the news items. Anime Expo – 7/2-7/5/09 Normally associated with anime (obviously), manga pubs usually have a presence at AX, as a booth and/or panel. Though, with the tough economy, smaller pubs seem to be fleeing the crowds and expense of SDCC, in favor of a more targeted audience. Here ae some items I want to highlight.
ANN has reported that the Japanese supernatural mystery manga, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro will end this month. Starting in 2005, it’s racked up 21 volumes. The only thing I want to know, is WHEN ARE WE GONNA GET THIS?! I’m a professed lover of supernatural and mystery manga, so where there’s one that combine these two great tastes, I want to taste them together. I’ve seen some of Nogami. The anime was fansubbed, and being a mystery series, I had to check it out. And I loved it. Neuro is a demon who eats mysteries. The stranger the mystery, the better the taste. He teams up with (enslaves more accurately, he is a demon after all) a high school girl Yako Katsuragi. She loves to eat, and has an unsolved mystery about the death of her father. Neuro will help her solve the mystery if he can eat it. Neuro uses Yako as his “public face”. He solves all the mysteries, and she takes the credit. They are joined by Godai Shinobu, a yakuza who is roped into working for Yako and Neuro after he wins a bet and takes over the Yakuza’s small office, and Akane, a disembodied braid…
I haven’t done this for a while, and last month’s Previews had some tough choices for me, so I thought I’d talk about it a little. There were a lot of titles I collect/want that were up for ordering last month. It’s very hard to keep my numbers down when publishers do this to me. (Yes, I do think they are all out to get me.) It isn’t that publishers had a lot coming out. There were just a lot of publishers that had titles I wanted. Bandai, CMX, Del Rey, Tokyopop, Viz and Yen Press all had an average of 2 books. Well, except Viz who always has at least 5-7 alone that I want. Doing a quick tape of everything (less the Naruto wave I already said I would have to pass on), if I had ordered everything I read, it would have come to over $100, and that with my 30% discount! Even in a good economy, that’s a lot for one month! 15 titles in all!
Even though most of the big Cons are in the summer, Con Season gets its official start now in February with the New York Comic Con, and I’m really getting to hate it. Why? Because of all the license announcements! I am really, REALLY trying hard to cut down on the amount of manga I get. I’ve done a brisk bit of trading at Mangatude (which I still highly endorse), and have caught up on several series, and I’ve got more complete series ready to go up on eBay. I go through Previews, and am happy when I see titles completing. Another couple of titles I don’t have to buy. But then, con season rolls around, and the list of titles I have to get suddenly goes up again!
Just a few comments about this month’s Previews catalog: Marvel/Del Rey collaboration: I have two words for the Wolverine manga; Emo Logan. Does the world REALLY NEED more emo Logan? I mean, honestly… The art looks great, I’m not gonna knock that. The Marvel catalog had some pictures of pages, and they did look nice. But this isn’t going to win anyone over from one side of the manga vs. comics camp, and really hope it was never meant to. If anything, this will probably fan the flames, but that seems to be the way Marvel likes it. Not that they want to come up with anything original…
“I’m going to uncover the mystery of the ‘Blade Children’.”…World-class detective Kiyotaka Narumi’s last words prior to his sudden disappearance continue to haunt his younger brother, Ayumu. The cheeky 10th-grader becomes equally embroiled in the mystery of the doomed “Blade Children” when he is mistaken for the prime suspect in a murder at his school. Led by Ayumu’s sister-in-law, Kiyotaka’s wife and fellow detective, Madoka, the investigation into the murder gives Ayumu a chance to clear his name. But in doing so, he not only uncovers ties to the Blade Children but also more questions than answers about who and what they are. Story by Kyo Shirodaira; Art by Eita Mizuno Publisher: Yen Press Genre: Mystery Rating: Teen Price: $10.99 Rating: Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning is a title that started out as a novel and was then turned into both a manga and an anime series. This first volume introduces us to the main characters and the overarching mystery of the “Blade Children”, with individual mysteries giving us the pieces to the larger one. Ayumu Narumi is a 10th grader at a private high school, and brother to Kiyotaka Narumi, a world-class pianist in his teens and a “Great…