It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about CLAMP’s Gate 7 project hasn’t it? Over at the clamp_now community, news was posted that an ad for a Gate 7 short was spotted in the Japanese magazine, Jump Square, and with an actual street date no less. It will be a one-shot story, the plot of which isn’t known, though it does have another pretty piece of artwork to further whet appetites. The story is set to be published on November 4th. A one-page promo site has been posted for it as well.
Originally announced back in July 2007 (PR via MangaBlog), CLAMP was set to create a series of short manga stories (called ‘mangettes’) which were to released simulatenously in both Japan and North America. We got a glimpse of the plot in December 2008, a peek at the artwork in March 2009 and now perhaps an actual sign of life in September 2010. Dark Horse hasn’t said anything about whether they are or aren’t still in the game for a simultaneous release, or for this new short specifically, but we’ll assume they’re still in the game – they’re just waiting for it to actually start.
It’s too bad it’s taking as long as it has really, almost four years since the original announcement and we’ve yet to see even see a single page. But, I suppose it was hard to predict how their currently running series were going to play out at the time. Originally I believe they’d planned to end XXXHolic and Tsubasa at the same time – now popularity of the first has prompted an entire new ‘season’. Since it’s more XXXHolic, I think some CLAMP fans (or at least I?) can forgive the delays of newer work a while at least.
As a bonus piece of positive CLAMP news, it was announced earlier in the week that the 4-woman manga team would be providing the illustrations for a Japanese-released edition of Peter Pan. That’s two of my absolute favourite things mixed together! I smell a must-have collectible import…
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First off I picked up the book copy of Hinako Takanaga’s Tyrant Who Falls In Love. I originally reviewed a digital copy of the book so was excited to have my order of the full edition come. Like other June books lately (including Love Sickness which I also picked up and is also amazing and has also been reviewed for your convenience), it has a smaller trim size than the imprint’s usual so I’m guessing it’s becoming the norm. It’s not a bad size, about the same as Viz Media or Tokyopop books, but it is a little sad not having them extra-large as they were before – made them extra special, you know?
From Viz I purchased the first print edition volume of House of Five Leaves. Admittedly I wasn’t very fond of Natsume Ono’s previous works (Ristorante Paradiso and not simple) but I was really impressed with House of Five Leaves. It had great pacing and was a nice change of pace from the often over-violent, super-stylized Edo-era samurai stories. Also Natsume Ono’s art has really improved as well.
