I’m a total girl geek. I read comics and manga, watch sci-fi and anime, and I love technology. One of the things I love about technology is the freedom it gives. It’s the great equalizer. With the advent of better and cheaper hardware and software, anyone can have their own radio and/or TV show. You don’t need to be in broadcasting or work at a radio or TV station to be seen and hear by millions of people. ...
I sometimes wonder where my obsession for collecting manga, for in many respects that is what I do, came from. It’s easy to assume that it started with comic collecting, but I wasn’t that big of a comic collector when I was growing up. There were a few series I followed, but it was nothing like the “gotta catch ’em all”, feeling I sometimes get with manga. It finally hit me, as I was driving home from...
Last night, on my way home from work, I was listening to the ANNcast podcast, episode 28, the one with the interview with Kurt Hassler of Yen Press. Near the end of the episode, they read off some questions take from fans on Twitter. One of the questions was about license rescues. Kurt’s response to it really bugged me. He started going off about why fans think they (Yen Press) would go “trolling” for titles fr...
One of the fun things about writing this blog is the little surprises that pop up unexpectedly. I stumbled onto this title while researching Yuu Watase for my Noted Women of Manga post. Appare Jipangu! is a short series, only 3 volumes long. It was published straight to tankoban form instead of being serialized in a magazine. It ran from 1998-2003, at about the same time as Watase’s more popular series Ayashi no Ceres (Cer...
Hollywood, Here Comes Netcomics! Netcomics, the Korean publisher that puts all their titles online for a per-chapter fee, is producing a film of their manhwa X Diary. There’s not much news out yet, other than Variety’s report which includes the names of the writer of the script, one cast member and the producer from Netcomics. But the news itself isn’t too surprising. Ever since Hollywood started coming to SDCC, ...
I’ve never been much of a romance fan, and have never read a Harlequin romance novel in my life. So, when I was given the opportunity to read some of the Harlequin manga released by DMP on their online manga site eManga, I decided to check some of the titles out. I read 7 titles in total, that seemed to run the gambit from historical to modern settings, and from chaste fade-to-black love scenes to those slightly more explicit,...
St. Patrick’s Day is a decidedly American holiday that really isn’t celebrated or even mentioned outside of the US. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any good manga you can enjoy with your green beer and corn beef and cabbage. Now, admittedly, some of these titles are a stretch, but in the spirit of good fun, here are some titles you might find in a pot of manga gold....
Women creators in manga isn’t as an unusual thing as they are here in the US. Over here, publishers have special events to show that women can create comics, while in Japan no one even bats an eye at the idea. With March being Women’s History month, I thought I would highlight some of the women manga creators who have been influential in the medium in Japan and the US....
One Piece Exceeds 3 Million The print run for the newest volume of One Piece has been reported to be 3 MILLION copies. That’s right, 3 million. As the post points out, that’s even more copies than the Japanese edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which previous held the record for largest print run of a first edition. That’s quite an accomplishment, especially for a comic. American publishers c...
This set of chapters starts out stumbling under the weight of more “been there, done that”, but manages to shake some of it off by the end, leaving a volume of work that is at least palatable. By Rumiko Takahashi Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Supernatural/Comedy Price: $9.99/Free Online (Chapters 19-28) Rating: Buy This Book Chapter 19 starts out with another typical shtick of Takahashi’s; the rival love...
I was reading the comments on this post at Anime Vice. Most of the debate over justification for scanlations didn’t interest me, as I’ve seen them all before, but one comment did sort of bother me. Fellow Manga Village reviewer and blogger John Thomas had joined the conversation and made a simple statement. “Why not just learn to read Japanese?” It was the response to this that made me go “Huh?̶...
Many of my manga wish list titles come from anime. Since so many anime are based on a manga, this can be a quick and easy way to find the good titles, assuming the anime stays close to the manga. And that’s exactly what I hope for this title....