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NYAF 2011: Yen Press

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, October 15, 2011

New York Comic Con/New York Anime Fest is in full swing this weekend and the majority of their manga-related panels were on Friday. Publishers haven’t disappointed with a bunch of new licenses for the last big con of the year. Yen Press’s panel was up first with some new adaptations and new manga licenses, along with some really exciting news for fans of digital manga to top it all off and a good Q&A sesssion.

It was a lengthy panel with lots to share so you can see the complete post under the cut (or below depending on how you’re reading this).

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – October 5, 2011

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 10, 2011

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Better late than never? My On The Shelf article went up last week on Otaku USA so check it out to see what new books you can expect to see on bookstore shelves right now. It’s the beginning of the month so that means lots and lots of Viz Media!

My top picks for the week are My Boyfriend is A Vampire from Seven Seas and Bakuman (Vol. 07) from Viz Media. The first sounds a lot like Until the Full Moon from Kodansha Comics, only with a manhwa and street-gang twist. It’s an omnibus too so ‘yay!’ for more manga for my money.

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Categories: On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: 20th Century Boys, Bakuman, Kodansha Comics, Manga, March Story, Naoki Urasawa, Omnibus, Otaku USA, Seven Seas, Viz Media

AWA: Vertical Inc Announces Flowers of Evil Manga

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Friday, September 30, 2011

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2011 has some convention news in her yet! The convention Anime Weekend Atlanta is taking place this weekend and this evening Vertical Inc. held a panel discussing their current and upcoming titles. This included one new manga license:

Flowers of Evil – Shuzo Oshimi

The series is about a boy who finds himself being blackmailed by a fellow student who saw him steal the gym clothes of another girl in their class. The first volume of Vertical’s edition is due to be released in May 2012. The series is currently four volumes long total and was published in Japan by Kodansha. You can look at a preview of the manga on their site (click the middle white button for the preview window). Flowers of Evils‘ creator, Shuzo Oshimi, also has a series titled Drifting Net Cafe available to read online at the digital manga site, JManga.

Along with this manga announcement, Vertical Inc’s marketing director Ed Chavez said that there would be three new titles announced at the upcoming NYAF/NYCC. These titles will include one josei title (genre targeted at older woman), a new Tezuka title and one other. I’ll be attendance at NYAF so you can bet I’ll be there at Vertical’s panel for all the news!

Other notable mentions included confirmation of the Dororo omnibus (now scheduled for May 2012), Twin Spica‘s final volume count coming in at twelve and that the seventeenth volume of Tezuka’s Black Jack will have a “special die-cut cover” and extras, marking the final volume in the series. Vertical also announced they’d be publishing an edition of Fumi Nakamura’s light novel, Enma the Immortal. A preview and plot synopsis of that book can be read via a pre-existing English Kindle edition.

Credit for all the news above goes to Karen who posted the info live via her Twitter account.

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Categories: Licensing
Tags: Conventions, Manga, Vertical Inc

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 28, 2011

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, September 29, 2011

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It’s that day again! It’s Wed- wait, no, that was yesterday. Well yesterday was that day – new comic day! And finally the day that Sailor Moon and Sailor V was released through the ‘direct’ market (aka, Diamond Comics) meaning those of us who buy at our comic shops finally have them in hand. But really that was the week before last news.

Back to the now and, while a tiny week, there are a couple titles out I’ve been looking forward to. All the week’s releases can be read over at Otaku USA’s On The Shelf.

The most notable book out this week in my opinion is Stargazing Dog from NBM Publishing. It’s the company’s first time releasing manga and it sounds like they chose an interesting piece of work to debut with. There’s a review of it over at MangaWorthReading that makes me even more eager to find a copy. It does sound like my assumption of needing some tissues handy was right on though – dog stories always manage to make me tear up!

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Categories: Release Lists
Tags: Bandai, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Sailor Moon, Seven Seas, Viz Media

Digital Manga Newsletter Licenses and YaoiCon Events

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, September 27, 2011

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Digital Manga’s weekly Newsletter was released tonight and in it were a couple fun tidbits of info for boys’ love fans.

Even though the upcoming YaoiCon is only a month away, Digital Manga is still revealing new licenses utilizing their newsletter. Exciting as the con atmosphere is for new licenses, I love that they’re sprinkling license news online like this. It definitely beats finding it randomly on Amazon. The new two books are:

Depression of the Anti-Romanticist
by Yasuna Saginuma (Author)/Riyu Yamakami (Manga-ka)

Beast & Feast (pictured above)
by Norikazu Akira

Along with the licensing announcements, some Digital Manga Guild reminders and job postings, they also made a few quick notes on the contents of their YaoiCon events:

“DMP Panel(date/time:tba)News
New Releases/New Licenses
More Promotions!
Top-Secret announcement!!

DMG Panel(date/time:tba)News
Up-coming Releases
More Japanese Publishers!
Incentive bonuses for groups!!”

YaoiCon takes place October 21st-23rd down in Burlingame, California. Digital Manga’s sponsored guest this year is Fusanosuke Inariya, creator of (to name an especially popular one), Maiden Rose. Digital Manga doesn’t make too many convention appearances but as a company that primarily publishes boys’ love, they always save up their resources and news for this yearly event.

While I’m always most eager to hear about new licenses, I’m curious about their ‘Top-Secret Announcement’. More publication exclusives such as Yellow 2? Related to DMG or the requests for novel translators this past month? More accessibility to their eManga library (access to it on a smartphone would be a ‘huge’ step in me dipping my toe into digital manga with all their DMG one-shots)? Maybe some yuri licenses?! …I can dream right? I keep telling myself their library of Eiki Eiki and Taishi Zaou means they have a great gateway in place already for fans so it could happen…

News-wise, I’m also curious if they’ll talk at all about their newly, and rather quietly, launched hentai imprint Project-H. Sure it’s not BL but I’m definitely not the only BL reader out there who likes a little senseless, heterosexual porn sometimes.

Convention season is coming to a close for another year (well… a handful of months anyway) but I’m sure we’ll have plenty to ponder, discuss and cheer for after YaoiCon and the upcoming NYAF/NYCC. Any big manga news you’ve got your fingers crossed for?

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Categories: Licensing
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, Conventions, DM Guild, DMP, June, Manga

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 21, 2011

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, September 20, 2011

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It’s Full Metal Alchemist week! Only two volumes left, making tomorrow’s release (Vol. 26) the penultimate installment. With Viz Media‘s trend of stopping series mid-omnibus (which seems rather ridiculous to me!), I’m looking forward to buying the huge boxsetout in November. The whole series, plus some bonuses, all in one go – it’s a beautiful thing.

Back to the here and tomorrow, you can see the list of books released this week over at my Otaku USA: On The Shelf article . My top picks (alongside FMA) are XXXHolic (Vol. 17), Arata the Legend (Vol. 07) and Berserk (Vol.35). Some modern fantasy, overlapping modern/ancient fantasy and then some outright old-fashion, demon-ridden Western-style fantasy – an excellent combination for manga reading this week!

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Categories: News, On The Shelf, Release Lists
Tags: Arata, Arata the Legend, CLAMP, Dark Horse, Del Rey, Manga, Natsume Ono, Otaku USA, Seven Seas, Viz Media

Boys’ Love Beginnings: Fantagraphics Licenses Heart of Thomas

Posted by Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, September 14, 2011

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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

Posted 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

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 7, 2011

Posted 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

Posted 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