It’s just the girls this time as the Manga Villagers discuss the latest title for the Manga Movable Feast this month, Fruits Basket. This is a shojo title created by Natsuki Takaya and published by Tokyopop. This 23 volume series was among the first big hits in the US, and was Tokyopop’s biggest seller. It’s the story of Tohru Honda, a high school girl who has recently lost her mother, and through some circumstances, comes to live in a tent in the mountains, which also happens to be near the home of classmate Yuki Sohma, who is living with his cousins Shigure and Kyo. The Sohma family has a secret. They are cursed by the thirteen signs of the zodiac. Tohru accidentally learns their secret, but after promising to keep their secret, she is allowed to live with Yuki, Shigure and Kyo. What were your initial impressions of this title? Connie: (as a disclaimer, I re-read the series a few years ago, and read the ending two years ago, but haven’t picked it up since then. I didn’t have the volumes with me to re-read it for the feast. my impressions aren’t terribly fresh.) I couldn’t wait to read it…
While we here at Manga Village love all the new manga coming out each week, there’s over 20 years of manga releases that we love and want to recommend too! So, in each column, we will look at a genre, or creator, or even publisher to come up with the best titles that we want to recommend to you!
Rumiko Takahashi is a talented and prolific manga artist. Her titles have been a gateway for many fans, in both manga and anime. She has written both long titles and short anthologies, hitting several genres such as horror, supernatural, drama, and comedy. Most of her titles have also been released in English in one form or another over the last 15-20 years. Was her work a gateway for you to the world of anime and/or manga? What’s your favorite series? Do you have one you didn’t like? Why or why not?
News broke today that Tokyopop was shutting down it’s publishing division as of May 31, 2011. While the news comes as a shock, no can say it wasn’t a complete surprise. The warning signs were there, with the round of layoff in February, and the bankruptcy of Borders, their biggest outlet. For 14 years they entertained and frustrated fans with new ventures and a catalog that can be called interesting to say the least. But now, we must say goodbye to a long standing pillar in the manga industry, and truly agree that it is an end of an era.
For this month’s Manga Movable Feast, the reviewers of Manga Village got together to for a roundtable discussion of the featured books Aqua and Aria. Aria, and its prequel Aqua, is a science fantasy about a girl Akari Mizunashi, who goes to Aqua (previously Mars before terraforming) to become a Undine, or gondolier tour guide. It’s slow paced, with each chapter being a slice of life of Akari’s adventures in gondoliering, the city of Neo-Venezia, and Aqua itself. What are your first impression of this manga? Justin: I was drawn to check it out because I’d read some good reactions to it from a few bloggers I trust. When I first took a look at it, I remember being impressed. The art is lovely, the pacing subtle and lyrical, and the narrative takes time to linger on small, slice-of-life details. However, I remember after a short time getting easily distracted. It was very easy for my attention to fall elsewhere because there was a static, muted quality to the first volume. I almost felt like, after I’d read a few pages, I knew everything I needed to know. So, initially, I had two conflicting impressions of the work. Lori: I…
On Tuesday, May 18, DC Comics announced that CMX would cease publishing on July 1, 2010. CMX had a turbulent start, with the controversy of editing/censoring of Tenjho Tenge, but with the right staff behind it, it became a company that licensed and released solid titles that appealed to everyone. But DC has pulled the plug, citing the “challenges” in the marketplace right now. So now we must say good-bye, just as CMX was finding its legs and bringing out some really interesting titles. Katherine Farmar: Noooo! Swan! It isn’t finished yet! ARGH! …okay, I’ve calmed down now. This is sad but not exactly unexpected news. CMX was always a Cinderella for DC — the neglected, barely-promoted stepdaughter that the bigwigs didn’t seem to know existed most of the time. And that’s a terrible shame from my point of view, because CMX published some seriously good titles. I have a particular interest in the works of the Year 24 Group — the legendary, groundbreaking shoujo artists all born in 1948 who changed the face of manga in the 1970s — and CMX was one of the few publishers/imprints to give us English-language versions of their works. Swan and From Eroica…