Manga News, Reviews and Commentary
No matter what the culture, knowledge has been equated with power. For centuries, this knowledge has been stored as words in books. Whether it’s a list of names or a wizard’s tome, books have been regarded as being magical. It’s no different in manga. There are several titles that feature books and the power of words with the ability to create, transport its readers to other worlds, and even kill. Fushigi Yugi and it�...
Vertical Comics is a publisher that likes to appeal to the more adult manga reader, and their newest license, announced at Genericon a few weeks ago, will do not just that, but will also appeal to the alt comics/manga reader. A Girl On the Shore is by alt manga creator Inio Asano. Previous works by him have been released by Viz Media (Solanin, What A Wonderful World) and Fantagraphics (Nijigahara Holograph). This two-volume series look...
Every week, the New York Times and Amazon posts the top ten bestselling books. The New York Times gets their numbers from print sales from retailers, while Amazon and Vizmanga.com calculates their own numbers. Once a month the Nielsen Bookscan posts their top twenty graphic novels of which manga is included. Offered here is a listing of these books with their status this week compared with the previous week, and some way-off analysis of...
Viz Media has been expanding its line of titles recently, reaching into the superhero genre that is usually reserved for American comics. While much of shonen manga features characters that could be seen as super-heroes, they aren’t quite like the superheroes Americans grew up with. With the growing popularity of superheroes in American mainstream media, it’s not too surprising that we’re seeing more superhero manga co...
Look at all this manga this week, and it’s no April Fool’s joke! Kodansha has a bunch of their heavy hitters with two Attack on Titan volumes and the latest Fairy Tail. But the series that’s gotten quite a bit of talk-up is Yamada-Kun and the Seven Witches. It is available on Crunchyroll digitally with the newest chapters, but Kodansha is also releasing it in print. It’s a shonen harem comedy, so that’s not...
Over the years, a lot of titles have been licensed and started, but never finished due to various circumstances, mostly because the company that released them went out of business. One of these companies was CMX, an imprint of DC Comics. The imprint was dropped suddenly after a leadership change at DC. One of the titles cut off midstream was Stolen Hearts, a very cute rom-com. Stolen Hearts is about high school student Shinobu Okuma, a ...
I’ve enjoyed the manga adaptations of video games that have been released so far: Legend of Zelda and Pokémon most notably. What makes these adaptations so fun is the deviations they can take from the original work, making them more interesting or filling in the story better. I’m happy to hear this volume will be no different....
Every week, the New York Times and Amazon posts the top ten bestselling books. The New York Times gets their numbers from print sales from retailers, while Amazon and Vizmanga.com calculates their own numbers. Once a month the Nielsen Bookscan posts their top twenty graphic novels of which manga is included. Offered here is a listing of these books with their status this week compared with the previous week, and some way-off analysis of...
On their Twitter account this week, Seven Seas Entertainment announced a new manga license after dropping some hints for followers to try to guess. A Certain Scientific Accelerator is another spin-off manga of the light novel series A Certain Magical Index. It follows Accelerator, the most power esper in Academy City. He starts out as an antagonist in both the main series and the spin-off manga A Certain Scientific Railgun, until he is ...
As I was pulling together titles for my post update on crafting manga, I remembered I had a couple of volumes of V.B. Rose. I won volume 7 from a blog a few years ago. I remember there being a lot of hype for the series back in the day, and being ever curious, wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Then found volume 1 on Paperback Swap and snatched it up. V.B. Rose is about high school student Ageha Shiroi. Her older sister Hibari...
Kodansha and Seven Seas Entertainment are back this week, but their selections just aren’t speaking to me. Kodansha is top-loaded with titles I have no interest in. I gave up on Vampire Cheerleaders a while ago, even though that interest was mild at best, and I lost track of the Alice In the Country Of… awhile ago. So, I leave it to Yen Press again to spark my interest and they do a pretty good job this week. Second volumes ...
March is National Craft Month (among other things). So being a crafty person, I thought I would do some features about crafts in manga. I already did one post back in 2009 about some handicrafts, but it was focused more on knitting. This time, I’m expanding to sewing and fashion. V.B. Rose is about Ageha, a girl with a serious big sister complex. When her older sister announces she is getting married, Ageha is against it at first...
