A Devil and Her Love Song

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Author Archive for Lissa Pattillo

PR: Animate USA – New Releases in Kindle

TOKYO, JAPAN – August 4 – Animate U.S.A., Inc. is pleased to reveal its August release lineup for the Amazon Kindle Store! Four more Yaoi titles published by Libre Publishing in Japan, including Kindle Exclusive title “Pet in Love – Pet on Duty Bonus Story-,” have been added to the Kindle Store.

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

August 2010:
Nase Yamato – “Pet in Love – Pet on Duty Bonus Story” Kindle Exclusive!!!
Youka Nitta – “Sound of My Voice – Golden Goose Part 2”
Shiuko Kano – “P.B.B. Play Boy Blues – Act 2”
Makoto Tateno – “See You in the School of the Muse Vol.1 (in Japanese)”

Read more…


Review: Taimashin the Red Spider Exorcist (Vol. 02)

Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Author: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Manga-ka: Shin Yong-Gwan
Publisher: DMP
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Release Date: March 2010

Synopsis: “In a serendipitous moment, a young girl meets Akamushi, finds him so beautiful and unforgettable, falls in love with him at first sight. Turns out her grandfather and mother are haunted by a “Waraigao” demon – a demon that attacks living human bodies from inside the body to erode and eventually deteriorate their nerves that kills them. Akamushi senses that her family is in danger, follows her home, only to discover that she is being attacked by her own family member that was fully possessed by “Waraigao.” Can Akamushi eliminate the demon and save her life?”

The story that made up the entire first volume ends fairly swiftly here in the second. It comes as a bit of a surprise since the first volume felt as though it was setting up what would be the continuing plot throughout the series. Turns out to the story’s benefit however that this isn’t the case.

Read more…


Super Savings: RightStuf Offers Stellar Vertical Savings

New sale over at RightStuf.com! It’s so tough when they have manga sales back-to-back to one another – the Viz Media sale likely put a good dent in many manga buyers’ wallets. Hopefully we still have some bookshelf space left as they offer up to 30% from Vertical Inc series for the rest of the week!

Lots of great titles there to suggest. My personal recommendation is definitely Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack – a brilliantly executed episodic manga about an unlicensed surgeon performing medical miracles around the world in a variety of situations ranging from the reality-grounded feats of skill to the unbelievably-out-there (tumour child anyone?). If  you’re looking for something on the darker side, I recommend another Osamu Tezuka title: MW – it’s creepy and fantastic, plus a one-shot.

For the more light-hearted reads, I recommend one of their newest (and already bestselling) series – Chi’s Sweet Home. If you like cats, this one’s for you. If you don’t like cats, it still manages to be pretty cute. There’s also Twin Spica which is a surprisingly gripping but still inherently optimistic story about a girl who wants to be an astronaut.

Sales like this are also a great time to pre-order some upcoming titles such as Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako which with this sale goes from $29.95 to $18.06.

As always I’m curious to know, what Vertical titles would you recommend or are planning to purchase?


Final Manga Notes of SDCC 2010

Continuing with my streak of being very behind with convention news this summer, here’s a quick finishing round-up of manga news at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. Links in the article will direct you to AnimeNewsNetwork where their on-site staff shared all the details from the panels.

The company Top Shelf announced one new manga license: Cigarette Girl by Masahiko Matsumoto and also expressed the hope to license the manga artist’s auto-biography series Gegika Freaks to “complement to Tatsumi’s own autobiographical manga A Drifting Life.” And speaking of which, the ginomrous auto-biography manga A Drifting Life won two Eisner awards at the event  – Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia category and Best Reality-Based Work of the Year. (Note: Though I never wrote a complete review on this book, I did read it and got completely swept away in the story. It’s a very inspiring non-fiction story and makes for a fantastic (plus satisfyingly lengthy) read.)

Viz Media didn’t have any new licenses at SDCC (saving them for NYAF I hope?) but they did announce a re-release of the popular series, Death Note. Titled Death Note: Black Edition, this new edition will be released as omnibus books (multiple volumes in one) with new covers and larger trim sizes than the originals. Viz Media also announced that there will be a new layout for their manga magazine, Shonen Jump, upcoming in their December issue.

Vertical Inc. had a new license, Lychee Light Club by Usamaru Furuya who had another work licensed by Viz Media (Genkaku Picasso). The plot of Lychee Light Club definitely sounds unique (from Robot6): “The students at an all-boys school create a robot to track down beautiful women, a robot that for some reason runs on lychee fruits. Everything gets complicated when the machine develops self-awareness, however, and stops being quite so compliant.” Neat Vertical fact extra: Chi’s Sweet Home, released just a few weeks ago, has already become Vertical Inc’s best selling release. Wow!

And lastly in this SDCC round-up comes from the Canadian company Drawn & Quarterly who had a couple new titles to share at the event: Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and NonNonBâ both by Shigeru Mizuki. Both are older titles by a manga artist known best for their work GeGeGe no Kitarō (which hasn’t yet been released in English).


ANN Review: Dengeki Daisy (Vol. 01)

New review over at AnimeNewsNetwork for yet another new Viz Media shoujo (is it just me or are there more than usual coming out lately?), Dengeki Daisy. Long story short – buy this book, shoujo-fans!

I’ll admit I  didn’t think much of the book on first impressions – meaning I read the synopsis and went ‘eh’. But I purchased it anyway (via Strange Adventures) because I love trying new things and I adored it. It starts off feeling a little stereotypical but really surprised me with how much I came to love the two leads in such a short period time, especially ‘Daisy’. Volume two can’t come soon enough!


PR: Viz Media Announces New Summer Manga

VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES NEW SUMMER MANGA SERIES TO DELIGHT FANS OF ALL INTERESTS

San Francisco, CA, July 29, 2010 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has provided details regarding the launch of brand new manga series set for release this summer. The series will tantalize the most discriminating manga tastes and features romantic dramas, fantasy driven action, the trials of aspiring manga creators, and a tasty slice of life story set in a romantic bistro in Rome.

Read more…


SDCC: Mr. Clean! Mr. Clean! Tokyopop Adds New Titles

Apologies to any who now have a four word jingle stuck in their head and want to clean things with the aid of a brawny bald man. Here we are on Monday, meaning San Diego Comic Con is behind us for another year. Not as many announcements as people were hoping but still some fun new titles to look forward to. As I’m all behind on posting on them, we can look at it as a sort of extended SDCC 2010… right?

Tokyopop had its panel mid-weekend and offered up few new series for the masses:


Mr. Clean: Fully Equipped
Tōya Tobina


Pavane for a Dead Girl
Koge Donbo


Sakura no Ichiban
Yuna Kagesaki

The staff also went over the list of upcoming releases which you can read in its entirety over at AnimeNewsNetwork. After noticing an absence of a number of titles I was really looking forward (such as the newest volumes of Matsuri Akino’s series), I asked over Twitter and was promptly responded to by Tokyopop who assured me they were coming soon (with picture proof!). Now that’s service :)

Other tidbits of news included confirmation of the new Gakuen Heaven titles discovered on Amazon a few months ago ( Endo ~ Calling you & Shichijo ~ Sweet Sweet Darling) along with schedule updates for a few other BLU titles as well – “Baseball Heaven, due out 10/12/10, Stray Cat by Halco (11/9/10), Secretary’s Love by tohko Akiba (12/7/10), and You and Me, Etc. by Kyuugou (2/8/11)” (from ANN)

Tokyopop will also be releasing some jigsaw puzzles for their original properties (yay?), will be releasing more manga via digital means at $5.99 a book and shared some more details on a How To Draw Shoujo Manga book which will include material from Japanese company Hakusensha’s line-up including fan-favourites Ouran Host Club and Fruits Basket.


A Certain Toradora Labyrinth – Seven Seas Reveals New Titles

First I was without internet for a few days and then SDCC popped up to distract me but that’s no reason to let a string of manga releases go unappreciated here on Kuriousity! Seven Seas spent some time dropping fun hints over Twitter for three new manga licenses while the eager and informed deciphered them. A press release then confirmed the titles which are all due for release in 2011:

Amnesia Labyrinth – Nagaru Tanigawa
“When high school student Souji Kushiki, an academic achiever and talented athlete from a well-to-do family, returns home from boarding school, he finds that his sisters Harumi, Youko, and Saki have changed. However, when Souji arrives at school the next day, he learns that, during the summer, one of the students in his class was pushed to his death in front of a subway train. And what’s more, two other students were stabbed by an unknown culprit. Are the victims linked, and could Souji’s sisters have anything to do with the murders?” (Vol. 01 coming February 2011)

Tora Dora – Yuyuko Takemiya/Yasu
“It’s Ryuji’s first day in junior high school and it seems as if things are looking up. He gets to sit in between his only friend, Yusaku, and more importantly, the girl he’s secretly crushing on, Minori Kushieda. But just when he thinks the stars are aligned in his favor, he unwittingly crosses the most feared girl in school, Taiga Aisaku, making her into his arch enemy. To top it off, Taiga has moved in right next door to Ryuji and happens to be Minori’s best friend! Can this school year possibly get any worse?!” (Vol. 01 coming March 2011)

A Certain Scientific Railgun – Kazuma Kamach/Kiyotaka Haimura
“Welcome to a world where mysticism and science collide, and supernatural powers are derived from either science or religion. At the heart of this world is Academy City, an advanced metropolis whose population is comprised mostly of students. Meet Mikoto Misaka, the third most powerful Level 5 esper in Academy City. Together with her best friend Kuroko Shirai and the other members of Judgment, a student-run law enforcement agency, Mikoto delves deep into the dark heart of the scientific sprawl she calls home, and uncovers secrets she wishes she hadn’t!” (Vol. 01 coming June 2011).

Personally I’m pretty indifferent to the titles themselves, all being new to me aside from in passing mention (though Toradora sounds cute), but it is promising seeing Seven Seas releasing some new titles and apparently very fandom-supported titles at that. Hope the fans enjoy!


SDCC: YP Licenses New Titles, Offers Free Preview of YenPlus

San Diego Comic Con is upon us! As one of the largest (the largest?) convention of its kind, it tends to be a safe bet we’ll hear some snazzy manga news from the packed convention panel rooms over the weekend. So far the biggest list goes to Yen Press who had their panel today. The folks on Twitter and ANN were there to share the news –

New licenses:

Aron’s Absurd Armada – Misun Kim
Highschool of the Dead – Shoji Sato/Daisuke Sato
Higurashi: When They Cry Demon Exposing Arc – En Kitou
Otoyome-Gatari (The Bride’s Stories) – Kaoru Mori
Uraboku (The Betrayal Knows My Name) – Hotaru Odagiri *Missed one!

The title here that really excites me is Kaoru Mori’s The Bride’s Stories. Granted, I was rather bored by Emma and couldn’t finish but I really like her artwork and after watching some digital art-processes with some of the cover art from The Bride’s Stories, I was in love. I look forward to giving another of her series a go and Yen Press should give it fantastic treatment, which according to Deb Aoki “will be a hardcover edition w/ a larger trim size”. Extra shiny!

In other news:

After announcing back in April that Yen Plus would be moving to digital, Yen Press staff announced at their panel that today is the day. Starting today a free preview of the format and content is available up on their new Yen Plus website. All it takes is signing up for an account and you’re ready to go.

I must say, the cost of $2.99 a month is a really good price and includes access to the current and past months’ edition of Yen Plus. New content, serialized chapters and each issue is available to the purchaser for two months after its released. I also like that they chose not to make it Flash based – it loads really smoothly and can be viewed on mobile devices such as iPads. More info is available via their site’s FAQ page – though the link most will likely be curious about (“What series are in the magazine?”) is currently not working.

My only real issue with Yen Plus digital as it stands now is the difficulty much of their target audience will have paying for the subscription. It’s only available via PayPal (which works through credit cards or bank accounts) and this isn’t something the younger audience really has access to. I hope they have some sort of at-convention registration process as well in the future. Not being able to buy subscriptions in multiple month installments also seems like something people won’t like but this policy could change as the process evolves. All a learning experience!

During their panel’s Q&A, YP staff also stated they’re not currently looking into license-rescuing any of the titles previously held by the recently expunged CMX, and they don’t at this time have any new light novel announcements to make.


Review: The Last Airbender – Zuko’s Story

Reviewer: Lissa Pattillo

Authors: Dave Roman, Alison Wilgus
Artist: Nina Matsumoto
Publisher: DelRey
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: May 2010

Synopsis: “When Prince Zuko dared to question authority, his father Fire Lord Ozai, banished him from the Fire Nation. Horribly scarred and stripped of everything he held dear, Zuko has wandered the earth for almost three years in search of his only chance of redemption: the Avatar, a mystical being who once kept the four nations in balance. Everyone he encounters believes that this is an impossible task, as the Avatar disappearance a century ago. But Zuko stubbornly continues the search. He must regain his honor, so his question is all he has left.”

Scarred by his Father and scorned by his people, Prince Zuko embarks on a quest to capture the now near-mythicized Avatar to regain his honour and be once again allowed home. Little here will trend new ground for those well-versed in Nickelodeon’s original animated series but superb writing and classy artwork combine to make this book a short but sweet one-shot that any fan of the series should keep an eye out for. Zuko’s Story takes a huge leap forward from the Avatar movie-verse (from where it garnered its inception) by taking a step back to Zuko’s past and doing so with more reminiscent style.

Read more…


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