There have been some great articles and bits of news posted over the past few days (and I promise they aren’t all Fantagraphics-related). Time to share!

Just to get the Fantagraphics stuff out of the way, here are a few choice links: First of all, The Comics Journal has now published all four parts of Matt Thorn’s 2005 interview with Moto Hagio online (previously only available in print or on Matt Thorn’s blog). Click for parts one, two, three, and four.

While we’re at TCJ, you should also check out Shaenon Garrity’s recent post about Moto Hagio, I also like her creepy vampire kids. Meanwhile, Deb Aoki interviews Fantagraphics’ president Gary Groth at About.com.

One last piece of related info: Regarding all the press floating around about Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son, I was very gently informed by a transgender reader
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As you all know, the manga blogosphere exploded yesterday with the news that Fantagraphics is launching a new manga line, edited and curated by Matt Thorn. Thorn is widely acknowledged as the west’s leading authority on shojo manga, particularly the works of The Year 24 Group/Magnificent ‘49ers, very little of which has ever been translated into English.

For shojo fans (and indeed serious manga fans as a whole) this announcement is beyond exciting, a fact plainly demonstrated by the massive outpouring of joy between manga bloggers and fans yesterday afternoon on Twitter. Many have expressed speechlessness over the news. At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh is keeping a running list of blog reactions and official news.

In the wake of the initial announcement, both Fantagraphics and Matt Thorn have come forward with further details, including a list of stories
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A thousand giddy manga bloggers just raced to their keyboards in rapturous joy. Why? Because Dirk Deppey has announced officially in his blog that “Fantagraphics has signed an agreement with Shogakukan to launch a full manga line edited and curated by Matt Thorn.”

What does this mean? MOTO HAGIO, that is what it means. The first item being listed by Amazon is A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. I, for one, am counting the days until September when I can own this volume for myself. So little of Hagio’s work has been available in English up to this point, exactly none of which remains in print. This is truly a crime.

For more background and further understanding of why this is so significant for fans of shojo manga, take a look at this brilliant 2005 interview with Hagio
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One of this month’s most interesting releases is the first volume of Yuu Watase’s recent shonen series, Arata: The Legend. Arata has been serialized online at Viz’s Shonen Sunday website since July of last year. This is its first print release.

I have mixed feelings about Watase’s classic Fushigi Yugi, though much love for its current spinoff, Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden. A quick glance at Arata proves that Watase’s art style lends itself well to shonen, which comes as no surprise at all. One of Genbu Kaiden’s strengths is its energetic but clear action sequences–a rare virtue in shonen manga.

There are few reviewer reactions to refer to at this point, though Connie at Slightly Biased Manga seems to have enjoyed the first volume. Fortunately, readers can preview the series for free themselves, now up to eight chapters at Shonen Sunday. Here’s the full press release from Viz:
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Time for some quick mid-week linkblogging!

First of all, Rob at Panel Patter has been reading/reviewing Yumi Tamura’s classic shojo series Basara, a favorite series of mine (and quite possibly Michelle Smith’s most-loved manga series of all time). Since Michelle is always right, I feel compelled to share Rob’s reviews with the world. He’s just finished volume two. Click here to check out what he has to say so far.

Over at The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh presses on with his Shojo-Sunjeong Alphabet, now on letter “T“. I went over to express support for CLAMP’s Tokyo Babylon (probably my second-favorite of all their work) and Moto Hagio’s They Were Eleven, both on which I’ve reviewed for my Tokidoki Daylight column at CBR’s Comics Should Be Good. These two series probably couldn’t be more different, but I love them both very much.
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Calling all fans (and future fans) of Akimi Yoshida’s shojo classic Banana Fish! Coming up later this month, I’ll begin hosting an ongoing Banana Fish roundtable, featuring a number of my favorite manga critics. As with The NANA Project at CSBG, we’ll be discussing two volumes at a time, every two months. Why am I telling you this now? So you have time to track down the books for yourselves!

If you’re not certain about Banana Fish, check out this post for (hopefully) persuasive discussion, including a short preview of the series. If I can’t convince you, maybe Shaenon Garrity can. If you were addicted to S.E. Hinton novels as a teen, you may love Banana Fish. If you’re into current manga series like Wild Adapter or manhwa epics like One Thousand and One Nights or Let Dai, you may love Banana Fish.
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Today I’d like to point you to the latest installment of The NANA Project, in which Danielle Leigh, Michelle Smith, and I dig into NANA volumes 9 & 10! I can honestly say I have never had more much fun with this project than I did this time around, and that’s saying a lot. From Danielle’s introduction: “This time around we all discuss the harsh world of fame, Melinda and I then subject the character of Yasu to relentless psychoanalysis, while Michelle awes us all with her new “hair theory” of NANA!”

While participating in this month’s discussion, I was reminded more than ever just how emotionally resonant this series is and how true-to-life its characters are. I think the fact that the conversation gets a bit heated here in installment #5 is a real testament to that. Must performing artists choose between career and love? Is “want” an essential element of happiness? Check out NANA Project #5 for all this and more!
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I have a review offsite this morning in today’s Manga Mini’s column, for the final volume in Koge-Donbo’s Kamichama Karin Chu, published by Del Rey. Though I have found plenty to enjoy in this series during its run, things fell apart a bit over the last few volumes, limiting its appeal for adult readers, in my view.

What this series mainly suffers from, however, is inevitable comparisons between it and Del Rey’s other currently-running magical girl series, Shugo Chara! which unfortunately blows it away on pretty much every front–plot, characterization, art, you name it. Perhaps the most obvious disparity between the two, however, is in its depth of messaging, especially for female readers.

Karin’s focus throughout the series is to grow up to be a wife and mother… and a powerful god, of course, but a wife and mother first.
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I admit I have a thing for cacti lately, thanks to SangEun Lee’s 13th Boy. Though there is no actual cactus in this manga, the title still caught my eye! See Viz’s press release below:

San Francisco, CA, FEBRUARY 9, 2009 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will debut the fun shojo manga CACTUS’S SECRET on March 2nd. The new series, by Nana Haruta, will be published under the Shojo Beat imprint, is rated ‘T’ for Teens, and will carry an MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN.

Miku Yamada has a longtime crush on classmate Kyohei Fujioka. But no matter how many times she tries to show him how she feels, clueless Kyohei just doesn’t get it. Frustrated, Miku gives up on him, only to have him start calling her “Cactus” for being prickly when he’s around.
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Last fall at New York Anime Festival, I was one of a handful of bloggers who cornered Bandai Entertainment’s Marketing Director, Robert Napton, in the press room for an impromptu press conference. It was an inspiring conversation–something I didn’t expect coming from a company that exclusively licenses manga as an accessory to their anime releases–thanks entirely to Napton’s fervent interest in his manga line.

I haven’t had a lot to say about their manga releases so far. Volume one of Lucky Star, one of the titles that most interested me, was a disappointment (though a change in translators makes the prospect of newer volumes more palatable) and I (shamefully) haven’t yet dug into the other titles I have on hand. Still, this press release I received today gave me renewed hope in Bandai’s dedication to its small manga catalogue.
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