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Author Archive for Lissa Pattillo

PR: Kodansha Comics Announces Summer 2011 Manga Releases

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, December 12, 2010

Kodansha Comics Announces Summer 2011 Manga Releases

New York, NY – December 12, 2010 – Kodansha USA Publishing is pleased to announce their exciting debut list of manga under the Kodansha Comics imprint. Fans have been clamoring to know just what books would be on the list, and the wait is finally over.

The following new titles will make their English-language debut next summer:

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney returns in this new manga series written by Kenji Kuroda and illustrated by Kazuo Maekawa. Volume 1 releases in June followed by Volume 2 in August.

Monster Hunter Orage, by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima, is adapted from the Capcom game and debuts in June, with a second volume in August.

And speaking of Hiro Mashima, his bestselling Rave Master series wraps up with an omnibus collecting the final three volumes of the series in May!

Deltora Quest, adapted by Makoto Niwano from Emily Rodda’s novels, debuts in July. The anime is currently running on TV on The Hub.

The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex adapts the story from the anime, which is inspired by the works of Masamune Shirow. TGITS:SAC is adapted by Yu Kinutani.

Sanami Matoh’s Until the Full Moon makes its triumphant return to the U.S. in July. This story of a boy who becomes a girl under the full moon turns the werewolf legend on its head!

Mardock Scramble is adapted by Yoshitoki Oima from Tow Ubukata’s novel. This exciting sci-fi tale has also been adapted into a stunning anime. The first volume releases in August.

Animal Land, by manga legend and Zatch Bell creator Makoto Raiku, tells the hilarious and heartwarming story of a baby raised by animals. This is set for an August release.

Masashi Tanaka’s Gon returns, giving fans a chance to rediscover the adventures of this ferocious, tiny dinosaur! August release.

Bloody Monday, written by Ryou Ryumon and illustrated by Kouji Megumi, is an exciting thriller about a computer hacker’s attempt to foil a terrorist plot! August release.

Cage of Eden by Yoshinobu Yamada is best described as Battle Royale meets Lost by way of Negima! August release.

And finally, Negima! gets an omnibus release in June, collecting the first three volumes with a new translation!

In addition, several ongoing series will make their return:

Air Gear 18 (June), Air Gear 19 (August)
Arisa 2 (May), Arisa 3 (July)
Fairy Tail 13 (May), Fairy Tail 14 (July)
I am Here! 2 (July)
Negima! 29 (May), Negima! 30 (July)
Negima?! Neo (June)
Ninja Girls 5 (May), Ninja Girls 6 (July)
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei 9 (June), Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei 10 (August)
Shugo Chara! 10 (May), Shugo Chara! 11 (July)
The Wallflower 25 (June)

Stay tuned for more exciting Kodansha Comics announcements to come early next year!

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Categories: Press Releases
Tags: Cage of Eden, Kodansha Comics, Negima

PR: Animate USA New Titles in Kindle Store, Simultaneous Release!

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, December 11, 2010

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ANIMATE USA – NEW RELEASES IN AMAZON KINDLE STORE

TOKYO, JAPAN – DECEMBER 10 Animate U.S.A., Inc. is pleased to bring you the new December release lineup for the Amazon Kindle Store!

Libre presents two new exciting Kindle exclusive titles! Yaoi fans both new and old are sure to enjoy reading the latest releases by beloved mangaka You Higashino and Youka Nitta. Be sure not to miss these two exciting chapters coming to you this December exclusively for the Kindle, brought to you by Libre!

For more information, please visit www.animate-world.com which just relaunched, www.b-boy.jp, and to keep on top of all things about Youka Nitta, nittayouka.com, and Ayano Yamane, yamaneayano.com!!

December 2010:

You Higashino – “Hyper Loving A Maniac Part 1- Fundraising Version” Simultaneous Release!!! & KINDLE EXCLUSIVE!!!

Youka Nitta – “ Sound of My Voice – Boku No Koe – Part 6” KINDLE EXCLUSIVE!!!

“Hyper Loving A Maniac Part 1- Fundraising Version” by You Higashino

This is Libre’s first “simultaneous release”! This means that the book is being released as a paperback book and digital book in Japan, as well as an English digital version on Kindle available all over the world. This may be the first time a simultaneous release has ever been done in Japan! Don’t miss your chance to be a part of it!

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Categories: Press Releases
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi

Review: Gaba Kawa!

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, December 11, 2010

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Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Manga-ka: Rie Takada
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: November 2008

Synopsis: “Demons like Rara are supposed to cause mischief in the mortal world and draw humans to darkness. They’re not supposed to help mortals and they’re definitely not supposed to fall in love with them! But that’s just what happens when Rara enters high school, where a hot guy named Retsu Aku calls her “Gaba Kawa“! While demons gain power by causing mischief, the opposite is also true – if Rara uses any of her powers to help mortals, she’ll immediately lose that very power. If she loses enough power, she’ll disappear!”

Rara is a young demoness let lose in the human world. Her mission? To spread mischief and chaos for humans everywhere! Thus, she’s enrolled in high school. After a botched attempt to find her demonic idol, Rara meets Aku Retsu – a mysterious young man in her school. One suedo-suicide save later and Rara quickly takes to stalking Retsu with her powers of invisibility, unaware that Retsu can actually see spirits and thus has been able to at least sense her all this time. But before that oh so shocking reveal, it was still fun watching her spaz around and act like a complete love-sick ninny as she tried to get closer to him while simultaneously losing her demonic powers in doing so.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Manga, Shoujo Beat, Viz Media

PR: PJT kicks off 2011 with the Cold Steel Redux Tour!

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, December 10, 2010

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Pop Japan Travel kicks off 2011 with the Cold Steel Redux Tour!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gardena, CA (December 8, 2010) – After a busy 2010 that saw the company run more tours in a single year than ever before, Pop Japan Travel (PJT), the premier provider of pop culture-themed tours of Japan, is proud to announce their first tour on the 2011 schedule: the Cold Steel Redux Tour.

A variation on the company’s popular “Cold Steel” tour series, the 2011 tour will include a flight to the northern island of Hokkaido for the Sapporo Snow Festival, Japan’s largest and most popular winter festival. While in Hokkaido, guests will also be whisked to the Shikotsu Ice Festival for a fireworks display, shop in the city of Sapporo, and visit a traditional country hot spring. The tour then returns to Tokyo to visit the numerous attractions the big city has to offer, including Harajuku, Akihabara, and Shinjuku. Finally, for guests interested in exploring a different side of winter in Japan, PJT is offering a tour extension that goes to the Kamakura Festival in Yokote, Akita Prefecture, where local residents in giant igloos invite visitors in to visit and partake in traditional food, snacks and drinks. The extension also lets visitors have a crack at some of the finest skiing and snowboarding that Japan has to offer.

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Categories: Misc, Press Releases
Tags: DMP

Swag Bag – Monsters, Monsters and More Monsters

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, December 9, 2010

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It’s Thursday! And that means new comics were out on comic store shelves yesterdat. There weren’t a whole lot of books I wanted out this week but I still left with a few gems I look forward to jumping into tonight. For consistency’s sake, I’m also going to aim to have these Swag Bag editions up consistently on Thursdays, the day after I buy the bulk of my books. Any I buy other days I’ll save up for the next week’s edition. Can I handle this simple schedule? We shall see!

Two of my current Viz Media favourites came out today – Toriko (Vol. 03) and Pokemon Adventures (Vol. 10) – stories of monsters of very different kinds. I really enjoyed the second volume of Toriko, though I do lament the art on the covers that leaves much to be desired. It’s hard to hold it up to people as say ‘Hey, you should read this!’ and get anything but a funny look in return. This new volume of Pokemon Adventures also marks the start of the new artist. I really loved Mato’s stuff though Satoshi Yamamoto’s look pretty nice upon quick flip through – very similar inking style and layout work, just a notably different lead artist. My real concern though is whose this new girl? Where’s Red and Yellow?! Things got some epic in volume nine! Ah well, we shall see how this pans out.

To round off my small but much-loved purchases, I also picked up the new collected edition of Thor: The Mighty Avenger – an incredibly charming mix of wit and hilarious expressions about the most lovable version of this character Marvel’s ever managed to portray (in my opinion of course). I also bought Dragon Sword and Wind Child, a young adult novel that was one of my absolute favourites when I was a kid so I was excited to get the chance to buy a new edition by Viz Media’s Haikasoru novel imprint.

Also with me today was my roommate who purchased a few extra snazzy books I look forward to borrowing. She bought the last two volumes of Shaman Warrior, a really well illustrated manhwa with epic fight scenes – I can’t wait to see how it ends! I’d forgotten about it for such a long while, I’ll likely go back and reread the earlier volumes first. My roommate also bought a new UDON release, the Darkstalkers manga Red Earth which is done by Mami Otou, the artist for the disappointingly-cut-short manga, Pilgrim Jager. Her art style really suits the characters so I expect this will be a fun read!

How about you? Pick up anything shiny today?

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Categories: Features, Misc, Swag Bag
Tags: Dark Horse, Manga, Manhwa, Pokemon, Toriko, Viz Media

PR: Viz Media Ponders Integrity and Honesty In Itsuwaribito

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, December 9, 2010

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HONESTY MAY NOT ALWAYS BE THE BEST POLICY FOR A REFORMED TROUBLEMAKER IN MANGA SERIES ITSUWARIBITO, NEW FROM VIZ MEDIA

A Delinquent Orphan Raised By A Monk Decides To Tell Only “Good” Lies To Help People

San Francisco, CA, December 8, 2010 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will release creator Yuuki Iinuma’s manga (graphic novel) series ITSUWARIBITO on December 14th. The new series will be published under the company’s Shonen Sunday imprint, is rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens, and will carry and MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN.

Utsuho’s truthfulness as a child resulted in an enormous catastrophe, and he decided to lie from that day forward. Raised in a village of orphans by a monk, Utsuho is an unrepentant troublemaker. The monk eventually inspires him to help people, but there’s no way Utsuho’s going to lead an honest life! Instead, he’s going to use his talents for mischief and deception for good!

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Categories: Press Releases
Tags: Shonen Sunday, Viz Media

Review: Black God (Vol. 11)

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, December 6, 2010

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Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Author: Dall-Young Lim
Manhwa-ga: Sung-Woo Park
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: December 2010

Synopsis: “Mikami may have slipped through the Kaionji Group’s fingers once, but they aren’t to let her escape again! Before she can make her getaway, Saishu of the Shishigami Clan takes out Mikami’s beloved Ferrari, forcing her to face him in a battle. Enraged, Miami readily leaps into the fight, but without a contractee even the fierce Mototsumitama is no match for Saishu’s skillful attacks. Excel watches in tears as her only precious friend is bloodied and beaten… which rouses memories of another person she once held very dear.”

This eleventh volume of Black God pens up with suspense as Mikami is driven to confrontation (they destroyed her Ferrari!) with the sinister duo on her doorstep. At the same time has to look out for Excel who is still suffering from memory loss and now stays on the sidelines as a fearful young child. And as marks the bulk of this volume – violence ensues. And lots of it.

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Black God, Manhwa, Yen Press

Review: Legend (Vol. 10)

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, December 5, 2010

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Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Author: Woo SooJung
Manhwa-go: Kara
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: November 2010

Synopsis: “Painfully aware of the fate that lies ahead of Eun-Gyo should either the Shaman or the Bulkirin succeed in their respective goals involving the Seven-Blade-Sword, No-Ah asks Eun-Gyo to run away with him to a place where they can never be found. But Eun-Gyo refuses to allow the world to be destroyed because of her cowardice.”

This final volume of Legend unfortunately compounded all the elements I’ve had issue with for the past few volumes. While in this book many of the recently introduced characters are already gone, or swiftly dealt with, there’s still the leftover resonance of too many characters and most poignantly, too many bad guys. Note: Review contains spoilers for the series

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Categories: Reviews
Tags: Legend, Manhwa, Yen Press

DramaQueen Puts Missing Road Up for Pre-Order

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, December 4, 2010

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DramaQueen is taking one more step forward into looking like a viable publisher again – they’re now taking pre-orders for the second of their books since the return: Missing Road.

“An epic sci-fi adventure of love, loss and redemption. Three men work against time and a corrupt society to re-animate a dead planet. In an elite mercenary force comprised of convicted criminals, Leo Bride struggles to protect his comrades, both from their enemies and the system itself.”

Currently Missing Road is for sale through DramaQueen’s site for $11.00 and is listed as being 200 pages. In an e-mail sent out, the DQ rep stated the books would be shipping around Christmas.

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Categories: Boys-Luv.com

Swag Bag – Freckles, Food and Manga Mysteries

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, December 4, 2010

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It was a fairly big week for titles I really wanted to come out so I was happy to arrive at my local comic shop and find nearly all the books I wanted were on the shelf waiting for me – and then some!

The first book I picked up was Ayako, a new one-volume omnibus from Osamu Tezuka. It’s published by Vertical and the packaging is definitely different from your average manga – a thick, hardcover book, and it’s a hefty one! Also from Vertical I bought the second volume of 7 Billion Needles. I really loved the first one though to this day still find it hard to figure out exactly why, it’s just a really compelling story.

Viz Media books came next and I continued on with several on-going series: Bleach (Vol. 33), Toriko (Vol. 02) and Cactus Secret (Vol. 04). I also bought the second volume of Bakuman (Vol. 02), even though the flat-out dumb character interactions in volume one left me feeling cold towards it. Fingers crossed for more manga industry and less… whatever that attempt at romance was.

Next I picked up some DelRey titles, which did feel a little odd all things considering. But these were two very welcome purchases, volume 28 of Reservoir Chronicles Tsubasa and volume 11 of Ghost Hunt. Both are the final volumes of the series which means they’re both two series I won’t need to fear never seeing the end of. The Tsubasa book also surprised me with how thick it is, looks like a lengthy finish. Hopefully one that makes sense too.

Alas that while it was good to see two series finish up just in time, it wasn’t so lucky for the first volume of Arisa. I picked up this series after reading Carlos Santos’ review of the title and I’m really glad I did (as I never would’ve if not for his review). I’ve already read it and really enjoyed it – definitely a case of not judging a book by its cover. Please, Kodansha Comics, should you ever truly exist, choose this book as one of those you keep going with from DelRey’s library.

And lastly, I picked up the boys’ love one-shot Cafe Latte Rhapsody from June Manga, and Black God (Vol. 11) published by Yen Press. Cafe Latte is by Toko Kawai, whose works I’ve generally enjoyed in the past. The art’s a little bleh but she writes good character stories. Flipping through, this one stars a character with freckles which I thought was cute.

So how about you? What marks your first purchases of December?

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