There was no On The Shelf article last Wednesday because of a week without any new manga releases on my schedule list – how depressing was that? Well I guess we’ll accept those mini lulls now and again, especially with big release days like today following it up.

It’s Viz Media‘s big shipment of the month with nineteen new volumes of manga, including the first volume of A Devil and Her Love Song. You can read the full list of titles out this week over at Otaku USA’s On The Shelf article this week. Along with a slew of new volumes of shonen and soujo series, there’s also new volume of the well-loved Finder series from Digital Manga and two new of their Project-H books. Hopefully something for everyone – enjoy!

New Wednesday! New comics! The shipment’s a bit light this week but three of the four titles are some of my favourite currently running series – Sailor Moon (Vol.03), Arisa (Vol.06) and Afterschool Charisma (Vol.05). Huzzah! You can see the full list of titles and read a bit about the volumes over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

This week some places also got shipments of Yen Press‘s big batch releases for the month. Diamond Comics is still behind on their shipments from Yen Press but you’ll see their slew of titles on next week’s list including the first volume of their new series, Durarara!. Look forward to it!

Better late then never for me posting about this week’s new manga, right? Otaku USA has my On The Shelf article posted with the list of what new manga made it to bookstore and comic shop shelves this past Wednesday.

The list is short and contains the bittersweet final volume of Kannagi. It’s not the series last volume, just the last we’ll see of it from Bandai Entertainment after last week’s news. That coupled with Media Blasters and now remaining anime companies suing each other, I think the North American anime industry is in desperate need of a hug. Fingers crossed 2012 treats manga companies better. Either way, the best hug you can give either industry is a purchase so get out there and hug, er I mean buy, away!

Diamond Comics is North America’s largest comic book distributor. If you have a local comic store in your area, it’s very likely they get their books from them. Every month Diamond releases a giant magazine, Previews, containing all the products they have – from comics, manga, DVDs and merchandise – that will be released starting in about two months’ time, giving retailers and buyers the chance to put their orders in before shipping dates.

I’ve been picking up the Previews magazines for years, oogling all the different books coming out from publishers and wondering how long until the stacks of Preview magazines I’ve yet to get rid of will crush me in my sleep. Starting now I’ll be writing about the different manga content published in Previews each month here on Kuriousity. This includes all the manga titles listed, the top Manga sellers as tracked by Diamond and mention of other things of interest I spot. With the small two month window, Diamond Previews has rarely been the source of new licenses but it’s a great reminder and showcase of all the books coming our way soon, plus the perfect time to get your orders in, whether through Diamond or at your online retailer of choice.

I’ll also be including with these monthly Preview posts a downloadable PDF that you can print off and check off the manga  you’d like to order. Then it’s as easy as bringing it into your local comic or book store – wherever in your area that orders in through Diamond Comics! Currently the list is just the names and does not include the Diamond order codes. I’ve never come across a store that requires them for ordering but if yours does, let me know and I’ll include them on subsequent files:

January 2012 Manga Previews Checklist (PDF)

You may continue reading at your own discretion for my thoughts, elaborations, random pictures and the Top 10 Selling Manga of November 2011!

With Free Comic Book Day 2012 coming up on May 5th, a handful of pages were dedicated to showcasing the comics created specifically for that day. For manga publishers, Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Viz Media and Yen Press were all present. The only work strictly manga-related (though more specifically, manhwa-related) comes from Yen Press who are publishing a sample of their upcoming adapted book, The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel. Viz Media’s sampler is for their upcoming original comic based on the Voltron franchise – Voltron Force. Both books will be the FCBD standard of 32 pages. You can learn more about Free Comic Book Day (a gloriously annual event!) and the comics they’re offering this year on their website.

Next up is Dark Horse‘s section where the company traditionally has a batch of full-pages promoting their upcoming releases. This month they have a preview page of the second volume of their Avatar The Last Airbender sequel comic, The Promise. Volume one is due out this February and I can’t wait!

It’s been a while since I’ve read Adam Warren’s Empowered series but I was pleased to see it continues with volume seven on the way. The series is hilarious, chock full of pop culture jokes and super hero story spoofs. It follows a try-hard fails-bad super heroine named Empowered and her collection of allies, enemies and weird in-betweens. I was always impressed and extra entertained by the manga in-jokes including a healthy dash of playing around with boys’ love tropes and manga stereotypes to amusing, not offensive, effect. It’s a series I’ve got to get myself caught up on.

Dark Horse’s FLCL omnibus has a preview page and a May 16th release date for $19.99/US. “The complete FLCL manga adaptation – now with bonus color illustrations and remastered story pages!”. Also in their preview section was Bride of the Water God (Vol.11) which they promote as being a “Best-selling series in the United States and Korea!”. I guess that means it’s doing well? The second volume of Blood Blockade Battlefront is promoted a bit more humbly as “Sci-fi insanity from the creator of Trigun and Gungrave!”.

Here’s a fun piece of new Star Wars merchandise – a t-shirt with a coloured interior page from the Star Wars manga. It was released originally back in the late 90s with art by Toshiki Kudo. With the old-school manga take on the characters and the fun giant comic sound effects, I’m tempted to buy it!

Yen Press‘s manga-style adaptation of Soulless made the Previews’ featured section, as did Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Fallen Words being published by Drawn & Quarterly. Both are one-shots and definitely on my to-buy list. Soulless really caught my eye after I read the sampler they had at NYCC 2011. The art is fantastic! Fallen Words also earns the Preview magazines’ “Certified Cool” stamp, meaning books they note as being especially worth checking out.

Just like when Tokyopop shuttered their doors unexpectedly quick, it’s sad seeing ads for upcoming volumes of Bandai Entertainment books. Here they have Kannagi (Vol.04) promoted which would’ve been released in March. We know from Bandai’s PR that this book has been cancelled.

Digital Manga continues to buy full pages to promote select upcoming titles of theirs as well. It’s great to see the worth is there for publishers to advertise their manga to the direct market. In this month’s previews, they have full page ads for Itazura na Kiss (Vol. 08), Replica (Vol. 02), Countdown 7 Days (Vol. 02) and Moon & Blood (Vol. 03). Of the four, I’m most excited for Replica and Countdown 7 Days which are definitely hidden gems I think more would like if they came across copies. These ads may become posters on my wall after I’ve put my orders in.

Onwards Towards Our Noble Death – which was originally released in April 2011 by Drawn & Quarterly – is featured in this Preview edition as a Star of the Month title. It’s another distinction in the magazine for a notable title. Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life (which is going to a new printing) is also a Star of the Month. I really loved A Drifting Life so I’m glad it needs a second edition.  The creator’s four other one-shots are also featured - The Push Man, Abandon The Old in Tokyo, Black Blizzard and Good-Bye – so they should all still be available for you to order into your local store.

Kodansha Comics‘ has eight new volumes listed – Air Gear (Vol.23), Arisa (Vol.07), Bloody Monday (Vol.05), Cage of Eden (Vol.05), Gon (Vol.05), Deltora Quest (Vol.05), Love Hina Omnibus (Vol.03) and Sayonara Zesubou-Sensei (Vol.14). Adding to my frustration with the company, every synopsis is one generic to the whole series, saying nothing specific for the volume itself. Most are those used for volume one. It’s the same thing the company does on retail sites and even their own KodanshaComics.com. Drives me batty! I’ve contacted the company about it but haven’t heard anything back. Gon earned a special Kid-Friendly stamp while Sailor Moon (Vol.01) is re-listed as another Star of the Month.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a listing for One Peace Book‘s Breathe Deeply. The book caught me off guard when it appeared fully published and ready for the market at NYCC when news of the license hadn’t even been promoted. It’s good to see the dark medical one-shot get some wider market advertising, even if it’s description does start with the often groan-worthy “…begs readers to forget what they know about manga.”

Next up in the alphabetical publisher listings is Seven Seas Entertainment. They’ve got listings for Blood Alone (Vol.06) and Toradora! (Vol.04). Both volumes are listed at $11.99 which is a one dollar increase from the original $10.99 that the first two volumes had – I hadn’t even noticed the increase when I bought the third books. Uneven as the singles look next to the omnibus volumes on my shelf (I can’t help it, must be even!), I’m really eager for the new Blood Alone volume as they come out.

UDON Entertainment has a full page promoting the first volume of their upcoming Captain Commando manga. It looks and sounds pretty hilarious, touted as “The Return of Gaming’s Greatest Hero!”. It stars a “fighting force” consisting of Ginzu the Ninja Commando, Mack the Mummy Commando, Baby Head the Baby Commando and their fearless leader, Captain Commando. UDON hasn’t updated their own website in a while with schedule info so places like Diamond and online retailers have been the only real source for release dates.

Next up comes the Viz Media section which is usually a hefty multi-page addition to Previews. This time is no exception but it’s sad to see that almost all the artwork used is really low quality. It looks all grainy and pixelated. This isn’t a norm from them so I can only assume something went wrong between Viz and Previews this month. They’ve got a full page for Pokemon Black & White (Vol.05) and Voltron Force, then two-per-page splits for Blue Excorcist (Vol.07), Bakuman (Vol.10), Bleach (Vol.39), Rosario+Vampire: Season II (Vol.08), Nura Rise of the Youkai Clan (Vol.08), 20th Century Boys (Vol.20), Tenjo Tenge (Vol.06) and X 3-in-1 (Vol.02). It’s nice seeing the Will Eisner stamp next to 20th Century Boys though I do wish Viz Media would mix quotes up a bit – it’s getting old seeing the same Junot Diaz quote in every book and ad. All their other titles due out in March are listed with cover images, info and mini synopsis’s on a single page at the end of the larger preview sections. So many books! You can see the complete list in this month’s Manga Previews PDF.

Vertical Inc has three books listed - Drops of God (Vol.03), GTO: 14 Days in Shonan (Vol.02) and Twin Spica (Vol.12). This volume of Twin Spica is the last of the series and clocks in at a whopping 400 pages! The eleventh volume out this month also has 400 pages and while I’ll be sad to see the series end, it looks like it’ll be an experience to savour with two extra large books seeing it out.

Yen Press is the last-up with eight new books scheduled for March – Soulless, Bamboo Blade (Vol.12), A Bride’s Story (Vol.03), Bunny Drop (Vol.05), The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-chan (Vol.05), Pandora Hearts (Vol.09), Spice and Wolf (Vol.06) and the newly begun, Is This A Zombie? (Vol.01). Is This A Zombie is listed as their Spotlight On title. Seeing the cover of Bunny Drop (Vol.05) with Rin now a teenager makes me fearful for that ending everyone is often complaining about. I’ve been assured it still sticks to its quality coming-of-age and family drama right up until the end though so I’ll be with it until the end! The synopsis for A Bride’s Story (Vol.03) also shows that the story will be shifting onto Mr. Smith for a while and his journeys away from the village we’ve be in so far.

Listed in the back of the Diamond Previews are the top selling titles from a variety of categories based on several months of sales tracking. This month they have the results for November 2011.

Top 10 Manga of November 2011:

1. Sailor Moon (Vol.02)
2. Codename Sailor V (Vo.02)
3. Negima! (Vol. 32)
4. Mega Manga Gigamiz (Vol.03)
5. MPD Psycho (Vol.10)
6. Claymore (Vol.19)
7. D. Gray Man (Vol.21)
8. Princess Knight (Vol.01)
9. Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Vol.10)
10. Fairy Tail (Vol.16)

Sailor Moon (Vol.02) also made spot 8/10 on the overall Top 10 Graphic Novels & Trade Paperbacks list. Nostalgic shoujo manga up there with the superheroes and zombies, and in the direct market as well. Great to see!

That’s it for the manga-content of Previews January 2012. If you’re interested in browsing through all the comics, anime, toys and games scheduled for March(-ish), I recommend going to your local comic store and picking up a copy. Until next month! Well… for a new Previews post anyway.

It’s the first manga shipment of 2012! Fantagraphics, Kodansha Comics, Seven Seas and Viz Media all have some goodies out this week. You can read all the titles over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

My top pick of the week is the long-awaited second volume of Wandering Son. I really enjoyed the first and it’s got great publishing quality too. A big hardcover book isn’t how I’d like all my books but for a special few it works beautifully. You can read Shannon’s thoughts on the first book in her review – Wandering Son (Vol. 01).

Get your holiday gift cards ready, it’s back to business for manga releases! It’s a pretty slow week as far as quantity goes but who can blame them when it’s right in the middle of the holidays? Still more than I honestly expected though so huzzah! The list of titles out can be read over at Otaku USA.

My top buys of the week are Air Gear (Vol.21) and Tokyo Mew Mew (Vol.02) – ironically both series I’m not entirely sure I like that much but I apparently like them both enough to buy. Air Gear is just really visually awesome and Tokyo Mew Mew is… well, it’s magical shoujo girls and I always give a series at least two volumes. In this case it’s an omnibus so that’s technically four volumes now I guess? Ah well, it gets bonus patience for having Kish as the villain.

It’s the last comic shipping day before Christmas! The next couple of weeks are typically a little wonky in regards to shipping. While the manga load is light this week it sports some especially ‘NEED NOW!’ titles to make the trip to your local comic or book store just as worthwhile. You can see the list over at my On The Shelf article at OtakuUSA.

Fullmetal Alchemist (Vol. 27) is the big one – the final volume of the series! I’ve had the book for about a month now thanks to Viz Media’s FMA boxset released in November. I’m so eager for manga fans to get a hold of this book and to hear their thoughts of the end. It’s one of my favourite manga titles and I think it ended near-perfectly. Faith Erin Hicks – awesome artist, friend and the woman responsible for introducing me to the glories of Fullmetal Alchemist – wrote a great post about the importance of stories ending after she read volume twenty-seven.

I’m also really eager to buy the newest volume of XXXHolic – still one of my favourite CLAMP titles. The last couple of volumes in particular have been chockful of so much extra eye-candy that it’ll be hard to not just stand there at Strange Adventures and oogle every page.

It’s like Christmas come early with release weeks like this – a whole bunch of must-have manga titles! My top pick goes to Princess Knight (Vol. 02) but Blood Alone (Vol. 05) and a slew of Viz Media titles aren’t far behind it.

You can read the full list of titles shipping out this week, along with my usual random synopsis and price-noting, over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

It’s Wednesday! And the fifth Wednesday in the month too, that’s an extra week of new comics. You can see the list of new manga out over at my On The Shelf article for Otaku USA.

The big titles out today are the long-awaited new volume of MPD Psycho from Dark Horse, and the seventeenth and final volume of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack from Vertical Inc. I may very well cry when I finish that one – it’s never easy when one of your favourites comes to an end!

Halifax is having its first snow of the year today and it’s hitting hard! Stores are closed and transit is slowed or stopped – not very good conditions for getting out to buy new manga. It is a great day to sit at home in a cozy pair of PJs and enjoy a stack of manga you already have though (you know, even more so than usual!).

Sailor Moon (Vol. 02) and Codename: Sailor V (Vol. 02) are the two big titles out this week, the latter of which comes to an end as the storyline merges with Sailor Moon. If you’re reading them both, be sure to read Sailor V first! I’m also really eager to pick up a copy of Saturn Apartments (Vol. 04) and see if I can finally find a copy of Project H’s first title, Shocking Pink! now that it’s on the open market.

You can read the complete list of titles out on the shelf this week at my (aptly named) On The Shelf article over at Otaku USA.

A rather small list of titles out this week but the book count remains about the same (if not more) if you account for two more big box sets out from Viz Media. This week’s releases are posted in my On The Shelf article over at Otaku USA.

After doing this article for a few months, it’s been interesting seeing the patterns that emerge when it comes to how and when books come out. The two biggest descrepencies in information, meaning those that vary the most between what the  sites says and my bookshelf indicates, are from Digital Manga and Kodansha, while Viz Media is often the most reliable (if you don’t include back orders anyway!).

Digital Manga lists release dates that only their own in-house supplier, Akadot, gets books for so they’re usually off by a month or two for anyone else (including Amazon and bookstores). Kodansha Comics predomiantly gets its books out to bookstores and online retailers on the days they indicate but Diamond Comics notoriously ships them from 2-3 weeks late from the release date. This differs a lot from Viz Media and Dark Horse titles, which always seem to be consistent between sources (excluding publisher push-backs).

Yen Press and Vertical Inc sit on the fence – usually on time but random titles arrive 1-2 weeks late from Diamond Comics. Oddly there rarely seems to be rhyme or reason to which titles arrive (or don’t) to individual stores despite ordering manifests and regardless of what titles are on the main Diamond Comics shipping list that week. Their titles do however have a tendency above others to arrive early sometimes.

Seven Seas hasn’t had enough physical releases in the past few months for me to notice a trend but that could change in 2012 based on the increase in titles we’re seeing.

Alas that at the end of the day noticing these trends doesn’t make coming up with a list that’s right for everyone any less difficult. Take this week for example, where online and chain store retailers have Sailor Moon (Vol.02) but Diamond Comics doesn’t yet have it listed as available. Frustrating both as a reader and an article writer. Patience, patience, patience…

Wednesday! New comics day! You can read the list of new manga volumes out this week over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

There’s a bunch of new Digital Manga titles shipping this week, and Viz Media has released their new original-orientation, newly translated and highly spiffy looking omnibus edition of X. CLAMP really owns the omnibus market here don’t they? Their works are definitely setting a standard!

It’s a week of especially amazing works coming out! Don’t waste a manga-buying moment and stop by this week’s On The Shelf article to see the titles being released tomorrow.

A Bride’s Story (Vol.02), Yotsuba&! (Vol.10), Drops of God (Vol.01)… and then you have the fangirl button pressing Black Butler (Vol. 07) and a guilty pleasure like Air Gear (Vol.20) sprinkled on top. But those are just my absolute must-haves – still lots more on the list where those came from.

Writing On The Shelf for Otaku USA, I continue to be impressed week after week about just how much manga is released in North America. Stacks of new books every week. And by stand nearly every book at 150+ pages and all this ‘after’ the manga bubble ‘burst’. Sure we can always want more and more but you know what? We’re so darn lucky and I love it! Thank you, publishers :)

Back from New York with a suitcase full of swag and I was still excited to get home and see what new goodies are out this week! If you’re curious about what new manga titles are out, you can pop over to Otaku USA to read my On The Shelf article for the week.

A big chunk of my excitement for this week’s releases is because the first volume of Gate 7 is finally out. CLAMP are some of my favourite creators and to have a new title from them to read for the first time is really exciting. How many years has it been since that happened? Plus the book looks gorgeous! Dark Horse has a preview of the manga’s first chapter over on their website that you can read to get an early glimpse.

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.