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Boys’ Love Beginnings: Fantagraphics Licenses Heart of Thomas

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Great news today for fans of boys’ love, shoujo and classic manga (and definitely if fans of all) – Fantagraphics has licensed Moto Hagio’s Heart of Thomas!

Created by Moto Hagio in the early 70s, Heart of Thomas has been cited as one of the earliest examples of boys’ love. It’s the story of a boy named Juli who comes to realize feelings he had for his friend Thomas, who commits suicide at the story’s beginning. A transfer student who bears a striking resemblance to Thomas acts as catalyst for Juli’s reflection.

Heart of Thomas is being released all in one go in a 480 page, hardcover edition. It’s scheduled for release in August 2012. Fantagraphics previously released a collection of short stories by Moto Hagio with Drunken Dreams & Other Stories. As a bonus to this news, it was great reading on their website that Drunken Dreams was “wildly successful” – congrats!

Admittedly it was my fault this news broke a bit prematurely. The retail link popped up when following a recommendation from Amazon via e-mail and a brief search from my phone to About:Manga‘s Heart of Thomas page (which linked to Fantagraphics) had me thinking I missed the license announcement. Inquiring on Twitter opened the floodgate to lots of happy cheers and the news was officially out! Fantagraphics were really on the ball and addressed my wondering almost immediately and then confirmed the license on their website shortly after. Go, go social media! I was very impressed with how they handled it.

I’m really looking forward to reading Heart of Thomas. It piqued my interest after coming up a number of times during conversations re: Moto Hagio and Drunken Dream. We’ve got a year to wait but for almost 500+ pages, hardcover, and a classic manga we’d only dream of any other publisher releasing, it’ll be well worth it!

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Categories: Licensing
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, Fantagraphics, Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 14, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, September 13, 2011

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It’s Sailor Moon week!! Well… for lots of people anyway. Alas not me and many others relying on Diamond Comics and/or overseas shipping. Still, knowing it’s out there this week and coming our way soon is really exciting.

There are a lot of new manga releases this week alongside Sailor Moon however so I’ll have plenty of fantastic books to distract me from the woes of a Moon-less release date. For all the titles out to bookstore shelves this week, my newest On The Shelf article is posted over at Otaku USA.

New volumes of Bunny Drop, Twin Spica, With The Light, Arisa and a handful of new series starting (among others) – plenty for everyone!

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Categories: News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Bunny Drop, Dark Horse, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA, Sailor Moon, Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Yen Press

Swag Bag: Until The Full Moon in the Belly of the Beast

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, September 12, 2011

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Books, books and more books! Digital manga may be picking up speed but I’m so thankful we still have bookshelves, upon bookshelves of manga to buy. This past week I got a bunch of new titles along with scattered older titles that I missed.

I also secured remaining plans for my trip to New York next month for NYAF/NYCC. Going to the con again is going to fun, meeting new and old acquaintances amazing and then there’s the opportunity to step foot into Kinokuniya again. A place of manga beauty… Anyway! Any other Kuriousity readers going this year?

In terms of goodies bought here at home recently, I was pleasantly surprised to find an early copy of Osamu Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects. It’s published by Vertical Inc. and is a nice hardcover edition. I wasn’t expecting it to be flipped, since I’m so accustomed to reading their Black Jack books, but at least it doesn’t take long getting used to reading it the other way around.

Adding some new boys’ love to my shelves, I bought the one-shot Midnight Bloom from Digital Manga and two volumes of the Takumi-kun series: Tales Out of Season and Barefoot Waltz. I also bought The Betrayal Knows My Name (Vol. 01) which though not undeniably boys’ love yet, is definitely leaning the way. This one’s an omnibus release which is a format I’m becoming more and more fond of – so much manga in one affordable go!

To my sadness, I bought the last volume of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (Vol. 07). It’s not actually the last volume of the series itself but looks like (based on retailer listings) that it’ll be the last one Viz Media is going to release. It’s unfortunate, but I suppose not very surprising as it doesn’t look to have sold very well. Starting something new to try and off-set the abrupt end, I bought my much anticipated Drifters (Vol. 01) from Dark Horse.

Another new series I bought (this one on a total whim because it was there) was Mardock Scramble (Vol. 01) from Kodansha Comics. From them I also bought Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Vol. 02) and Until the Full Moon (Vol. 01). There was a huge quality contrast between these two titles – Until the Full Moon looked beautiful with a really nice paper stock for the cover. Phoenix Wright however had really low resolution artwork on the cover that was pixelated and fuzzy – it looked like a bootleg product. Not good, Kodansha!

From Viz Media I continued a handful of on-going series with Pokemon: Black & White (Vol. 03), Bleach (Vol. 36) and Toriko (Vol. 06). I’ve already read Bleach and it was really good – a great flashback volume into the pasts of all the Shinigami. Toriko was just really, really, really weird still (they’re fighting a battle inside a giant mammoth’s intestines!) and I can’t help but love it because of that. I then purchased Fall in Love Like a Comic (Vol. 01 – 02), having just recently read and enjoyed the first volume from the library.

Lastly I bought a whole stack of old Tokyopop titles thanks to Strange Adventures‘ great discounted manga section. First I bought Soul Rescue (Vol. 01 – 02) since it’s by the same creator as Otomen, which Viz Media currently publishes. Because the cover looked really pretty, I then bought Million Tears (Vol. 01 – 02). Forget About Love (Vol. 01) was the last of my TP titles and unfortunately never had anything further than that published (so here’s hoping I don’t like it too much?).

Alas it looks like no Sailor Moon for me this week (why, Diamond Comics, why?!) but I’ve still lots and lots to read. Time to get started! So what’s in your Swag Bag this week?

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Categories: Features, Swag Bag
Tags: Black Jack, Bleach, BLU, Dark Horse, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Omnibus, Osamu Tezuka, Sailor Moon, Tokyopop, Toriko, Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Yen Press

Review: Ikigami – The Ultimate Limit (Vol. 05)

By Victoria K Martin on Thursday, September 8, 2011

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Manga-ka: Motoro Mase
Publisher: Viz Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: May 2010

Synopsis: “Beginning today, we will randomly select a different citizen who will be killed within 24 hours of notification. We believe this will help remind all people how precious life is and how important it is to be a productive, active member of society. Thank you for your continued attention and your cooperation and participation… Congratulations! You have been randomly selected by the government… to die in 24 hours! Featuring Episode 9: The Writing on the Wall, Episode 10: Honor and Duty. …where does a death messenger go on a date?”

What would you do if you knew you only had 24 hours to live? This question is one that has been asked over and over again, both in fiction and otherwise. Because of this, it would seem to be an unoriginal concept; however, in Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, Motoro Mase proves that it’s an idea that can still be taken in diverse and thought-provoking ways.

Manga Out Loud Podcast Discusses Manga Digitally

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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Manga Out Loud isn’t plugged nearly enough on my website – it’s definitely top of my giddy list when a new episode comes out. Ed Sizemore and Johanna bring on a whole bunch of fun and super-knowledgeable guests to discuss different manga titles and topics on the show, plus the two are a great podcast duo on their own. So go! Listen! Enjoy!

Ed and Johanna are also now the second ~~crazy~~ generous people to have me on-board for a podcast with this week’s Going Digital – a podcast where we all discussed different elements of digital manga: what’s out there, what we think of it and the pros and cons, among lots of other things. It was lots of fun and my thanks again to everyone there for having me. It’s a big bummer that my computer/internet wasn’t agreeing with me so unfortunately my sound quality is nearly inaudible at times. Witness listening however the power of a very patient group of podcasters! Once you’ve finished listening, Ed’s podcast post is worth visiting for the extensive show notes alone if you’d like to read more about digital manga and see lots of legal links to access it.

During the podcast I definitely took the pro-book over digital side (not that there were really sides, per say) and it was great hearing others thoughts on the benefits of digital access for them. It was also a big reminder how lucky I am to live in a city with a store like Strange Adventures and a dozen libraries. I’m sure I’ll embrace reading manga digitally more when/if I ever indulge in an iPad but I can’t see it ever taking the place of buying books. Would be neat for one-shots and longer test chapters though to determine buying new series less blindly. Time shall tell! If there’s one thing you can definitely say for digital manga, it’s that it still has lots of changes yet to come.

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Categories: Editorials, Misc
Tags: Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 7, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, September 6, 2011

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Students, students, students – they’re everywhere! Here in Halifax we have a large amount of universities and colleges considering the size of our humble city so when September hits, the population seems to spike! I hope they’re lucky enough to find the awesome places we have here to buy comics and manga, just in time for this week’s new stuff.

My On The Shelf article is up over at Otaku USA which includes a whole bunch of Viz Media titles and four new series starting from Kodansha Comics. There’s just so darn much! A gift for the shelves and a curse for the wallet. Perfect moment to be thankful that so many independent Canadian retailers charge based on the strength of the dollar and not those prices on the back of books though… yikes.

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Categories: On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Dark Horse, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA, Vertical Inc, Viz Media

Dark Horse Tweets An Omnibus Future for FLCL

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, September 5, 2011

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We’ve still got some convention season left for 2011 and Kumoricon was location for some manga news this past weekend. Yesterday Dark Horse made note on its Twitter account while at the convention that the company would be releasing an omnibus edition of FLCL.

“Naota”s life isn”t simple. He lives with his eccentric father and grandfather in a city marked by a gigantic hand-iron shaped factory perched on a hill. So the last thing he needs is for his brother”s ex-girlfriend to make passes at him or for an impish, playful alien to smack him in the head with a bass guitar and then insinuate herself into his family.” – FLCL Tokyopop Edition

The Twitter post only states 2012 for the release date and Dark Horse’s website doesn’t have a listing for it yet. Based on past editions of the series, we can expect the omnibus will be around 400 pages. Dark Horse’s high quality omnibus – such as their growing collection of CLAMP titles – suggests the book will probably have some nice full colour pages as well, if not a few other extras and at least a new translation. We shall see!

Tokyopop originally released the two volume manga mid-2000, as well as several FLCL light novels. They’ve since been out of print for a long while so hopefully that means there’s a buying audience out there eager for another go at owning it. Funimation also released a special edition set of the anime series on Blu-Ray and DVD earlier this year so there may be a new audience to target as well.

Credit to AnimeNewsNetwork for posting the news.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: CLAMP, Dark Horse, Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – August 31, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, August 31, 2011

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Is it really the last day of August already? Yikes… summer just flew by. I can’t believe people will be returning to school in just a few days. I may’ve graduated years ago, but I still love hitting the books – just a different kind of course (not that I didn’t read a heck of a lot of manga in my school years as well!). Otaku USA has my newest edition of On The Shelf posted for this week’s manga releases.

My top pick is definitely Kohta Hirano’s Drifters. Elves, magic, distorted and exaggerated historical figures and the creator’s snazzy art style = a must read! Fingers crossed we don’t have to wait as long for volume two of Drifters as we did for volume thirteen of Eden… Better than never though, Dark Horse, so my thanks for both this week!

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Categories: On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Dark Horse, DMP, June, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA, Viz Media

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – August 24, 2011

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, August 25, 2011

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New manga day! Well… yesterday was anyway. Not much out this week but still some goodies. You can read the whopping list of four over at this week’s edition of Otaku USA’s On The Shelf.

My top pick this week is the new volume of Oh!Great’s Air Gear. Having just finished the new omnibus book of Tenjo Tenge, I’m ready for another similar dose of action! It’s also a relief knowing Air Gear isn’t as violent, sexual and over-dramatized. Sure it is all of those things too, but the years between the two series has made the art much more polished and the story tighter.

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Categories: On The Shelf
Tags: DMP, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Otaku USA

Swag Bag: Samurai, Incubus, Rabbits and Tyrants

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, August 21, 2011

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My bedroom is finally under control! A week of vacation as I transition to a new job plus a very release-heavy month, not to mention a few trips to my local library, have ensured every inch of my desk, floor and shelves were littered with material waiting to be read and watched. Upside to cleaning your room at least is there’s almost always something you’ll discover you haven’t read yet, or perhaps just want to revisit. Naturally among the now organized chaos are a bunch of the things I bought this past week:

For my birthday I received a gift card to Chapters. While I avoid buying from there in-store (too expensive!), their online prices are still pretty good, especially for the more niche material and some harder to find titles. Thus, it was just that I filled my digital shopping cart with.

Boys’ love made up the bulk of my online purchase with my most eagerly awaited purchase being the hardcopy edition of Digital Manga‘s Rabbit Man, Tiger Man (Vol. 01). Second to that fun and charming tale of yakuza/doctor love, was Tyrant Who Falls In Love (Vol. 03). Never enough Hinako Takanaga on the bookshelves! Even Yen Press had some boys’ love to offer me with Tale of the Waning Moon (Vol. 02) and I picked up an older title I missed from Deux Press called Mister Mistress (Vol. 01). It’s almost unfortunate I enjoyed it so much since volume two is looking very tricky to find.

Using up the last pennies of my credit, I bought One Pound Gospel (Vol. 04) which is the end of the series. On the other end of series collection, I bought Descendants of Darkness (Vol. 01) which finishes off my collection of that series as well.

Next up it was into my local comic store, Strange Adventures, where I picked up the new releases (which if you’re curious about the complete recent lists for, check out my Otaku USA articles, On The Shelf). Viz Media dominated my purchasing stack, which I suppose by now should stop seeming like an anomaly.

I was really excited to get my hands on Kaze Hikaru (Vol. 19) – it’s one of my favourite series but there’s a long wait between books. It’s a really long series too so I’m always worried Viz Media will drop it. Everyone buy the series so this doesn’t happen! It’s really charming and wonderfully drawn.

Also in the pile of awesome swag was 20th Century Boys (Vol. 16), Otomen (Vol. 11), Tenjo Tenge (Vol. 02) and Natsume’s Book of Friends (Vol. 08). A pleasant surprise was the size of Pokemon Adventures (Vol. 14). It’s notably thicker than past volumes and works really well with the content considering it’s the huge climax of all the plot lines coming together since volume one. Pokemon and trainers everywhere!

And lastly, to make my shopping bags all the heavier, a got a few volumes of manga from the library. Looking for something lighthearted and fluff-heavy, I borrowed Fall In Love Like A Comic (Vol. 01). A really fun discovery though was Saint Young Men (Vol. 01-03). I can’t read Japanese but that didn’t stop me from borrowing the books so I can oogle the amusing pictures and hope all the more someone licenses it. Buddha and Jesus living together in an apartment – how could you not be curious?

That was my Swag Bag this week – what about you?

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