Unshelved

I swear companies check my blog to make sure I’ve posted, then do announcements.

So yes, 2 new titles from Kodansha today (well, technically 3, they’re putting out Attack on Titan 1-5 in a giant 1000-page omnibus). Let’s investigate.

First, we have another Ema Toyama title. Despite hitting high above its supposed age bracket, Missions of Love has been doing pretty well for the company, and they already did an omnibus of I Am Here!. Now we get a series that cries out for a translated title, GDGD-DOGS (Kodansha will release it as Manga Dogs). Running for 3 volumes in Aria magazine, this series about a teenage manga artist and her pretty boy wannabe students seems to be light and fluffy, and I wonder if Kodansha will do it as one big omnibus or 3 separate volumes.

As for Noragami, that’s 10 volumes and counting, and may be the next big thing to come over here from Monthly Shonen Magazine. This one has an anime currently airing, which is likely a big reason they’re taking a chance on the series. The author is best known over here for Alive, the post-apocalyptic manga that Del Rey put out 8 volumes of before it became part of the Giant Del Rey Title Purge. The plot sounds oddly a bit like Kamisama Kiss. Looking forward to see where it goes.

Also, although I’m not sure Yen has officially announced this, but the 3rd Durarara!! arc, subtitled Yellow Flag Orchestra (that sound you hear is Baccano! light novel fans crying), will be beginning this fall. Like Umineko, Durarara!! seems to be a series that Yen enjoys, but is only licensing in chunks. Makes sense, given it’s pretty much caught up with Japan. This arc focuses more on Kida’s troubled past and wavering loyalties.

I’ve been away the last few days, as you can tell by the lack of content. Naturally, whenever I go away, tons of news and announcements happen. Yen and Vertical are our culprits this time, so let’s see what’s new with them.

Yen had already announced the Accel World light novels last August, so it’s no big surprise that the manga will be coming to our shores as well. It runs in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko, and is 4+ volumes. In case you missed the novel license, think ‘protagonist falls into RPG world’ plot.

The biggest license of the week in terms of total volumes is Übel Blatt, a 14+ volume fantasy title from Square Enix’s Big Gangan. It seems to be a dark fantasy sword-and-sorcery type story, and has some fanservice judging from that cover. The author, Etorouji Shiono, is best known over here for Brocken Blood, a JManga license that got 3 volumes out.

And from SE’s Gangan Online site we have Barakamon, a slice-of-life comedy by Yoshino Satsuki. This seems to be a fish-out-of-water type plot, as a city boy has to move to an island and finds life is totally different around these parts. It’s 8+ volumes so far, and has an anime coming soon.

As for Vertical, I’ll start with Witch Craft Works, which Random House sort of spoiled by throwing it on their site a couple of weeks ago. This is a Kodansha title from good! Afternoon, a spinoff of the main Afternoon magazine, and is 7+ volumes. The description seems to indicate ‘average boy, exceptional girl’, and as you’d guess from the title, also has a fantasy aspect to it. The anime is currently running.

Also from good! Afternoon is Ajin, which seems to be a horror/thriller title, 3+ volumes. The co-author, Tsuina Miura, is currently writing High-Rise Invasion from Mangabox. Hopefully this series will have a bit less survival game to it.

Lastly, from regular old Afternoon comes The Garden of Words, an adaptation of the anime film which is complete in one volume. The author also wrote 5 Centimeters Per Second, which did better for Vertical than they expected, I believe, so this new license makes sense. I hope for a happy ending, but given the author’s prior works (he also did Voices of a Distant Star), suspect ‘deeply bittersweet’ will be what I get.

Which of these are you most looking forward to?

We have another entry into the ‘release manga on an online platform’ sweepstakes this week with Mangabox, a project put together by Dena, with assistance from a few manga publishers in Japan, primarily Kodansha. The goal is to release daily manga chapters of various series, some of which may be familiar to English-speaking readers, either because they know the anime, they know the series it’s spun off from, or they’re familiar with the author. It launched last week with about 22 titles available in English, and it’s also available on the Japanese side as well (with a few more titles – more on that below).

All the titles have now had at least one chapter, so we’ve gotten a basic look at the fare we’ll be seeing. It reads very much like a young men’s magazine, with some dumb comedy, some romance, some horror, and some adventure. The daily feed of 2-3 new chapters means that no one series overwhelms the other (again, with one irritating exception), and the app itself is easy to use and very readable (it was initially incredibly bright, but they seem to have toned that down a bit in an update).

So, what are we seeing over here? Let’s do a bullet point list:

The Knight In The Area is actually a spinoff of the ACTUAL Knight in the Area, a popular soccer manga that runs in Weekly Shonen Magazine and is almost 40 volumes and still going (i.e. unlicensable). This is actually a prequel, though, examining the life of one of the coaches from the main series when he was in middle school. It’s quite well done if you like sports manga.

Can’t Ride A Bicycle! is a comedic school life manga about a club composed of young men who all love the idea of riding bikes but have very poor bike riding skillsets. If you like K-On! or Free, this should interest you, though it’s even fluffier than both of those so far.

High-Rise Invasion is a survival game manga starring a young girl who finds herself in a deserted school being pursued by a chainsaw killer. it turns out her brother is around there as well, and she is in a world of high-rises with bridges between them. It hasn’t grabbed me so far, but I am weary of survival game manga.

High School Ninja Girl, Otonashi-san is a 4-koma school comedy about a ninja trying to fit in at high school. It’s slight, but cute. I smiled.

The Great Phrases Women Fall For. Sigh. Every Japanese magazine seems to have an out-of-left-field short gag manga that runs at the end of their magazines, and this is Mangaboxes. It’s composed of definitions of words given by smug men. Not particularly funny, its biggest fault is that it is the only serial here that runs daily. There’s only 2 definitions per day, but that’s 4 pages of my life I will never get back.

Kindaichi Case Files: Takato’s Side is a spinoff of the very popular everywhere but here (where it tanked) mystery series. This side story features Kindaichi’s adversary in school, dealing with his own grisly murder. I suspect it may get rather dark. Well done so far, though.

Billion Dogs shows why I hate judging series with only one chapter. The first chapter of this series made itsound a bit Medaka Box-ish, with the adventures of a proud student council president looking to improve things. The second chapter shows us a darker side, though, and I suspect this may get even more twisted before we’re done. Who are the good guys here? I’m really enjoying this.

Spoof on Titan is what you’d expect, a 4-koma gag manga based on the breakout hit series Attack on Titan. It’s cute and fun, playing on the character’s broad stereotypes. Note that this is not the same as the high-school AU comedy that’s coming out over here in March.

District Hakkenshi (code:T-8] seems to be a retelling of The Hakkendan in a modern setting, starring a lazy yet intelligent high school student. It’s by the creators of Getbackers, so is definitely worth checking out, though I want to read more before committing.

NadeNade ShikoShiko is a comedy about a guy who dreamed of a magical caveman girlfriend, only to find that she’s actually there at his house one day. Could get funnier, but I’m not optimistic.

Schoolgirl Landlord Honoka, from the author of Pastel, is about fanservice. And also a young girl who arrives at her late grandfather’s boarding house and meets the eccentric tenants, yes, but mostly fanservice. Get ready to see a lot of underwear.

Peephole is possibly the most explicit title we’ve seen on here (it really needs a warning), and is equal parts creepy and horrific. Featuring a suicidal young man who finds new life by peeping on his next-door neighbor pleasuring herself, it takes a much darker turn near the end. Needs another chapter for me to get a handle on it. Again, slightly wary.

Girl and Car on the Beat is a police comedy about a new officer and her relationship with the old, beat up police car the station has. The car narrates, and is not all that happy to be saddled with a young woman. No, it’s not a magical car – only the readers hear the narration. Needs more chapters to get a feel for it.

The Chronicles of Akoya is an action-adventure series set in Ancient Times, and starring a young sword-wielding woman who I suspect may be orphaned soon. Some very jarring fanservice at the start, but otherwise a decent opening.

My Grandpa’s Stories Can’t Be This Weird! is a gag comedy that pretty much is what it sounds like, and is in no way related to any Little Sister series, despite the title. If you recall the old Jump gag comedy Bobobobo-Bobobo, this is along the same lines.

GREEN WORLDZ is another action-adventure horror story about a world where plants seem to be killing everyone. And I mean suddenly – it just starts to happen. It’s just gotten started, so we’ll see what happens, but there’s some striking imagery in the first chapter.

Araidoki is another school comedy with supernatural elements, that suffers from mediocre art more than anything else. Some of the gags were vaguely funny, but overall I wasn’t impressed.

Man’s Bestest Friend features a leading man you want to beat to death with a bat, and a heroine who is a dog turned into a human. She’s even called Wanko. I have no desire to read any more of this.

Horizon was the best to date of the action-adventure manga, detailing the life of Genghis Khan as a young man. A lot of gore, as you might expect given the hero, but it’s well handled and I’d like to see more. Fans of Berserk or Vinland Saga will like this.

First Love Suicide Pact is another “this has barely gotten started, needs more chapters” story, but its view of what mindset leads a person to the point of suicide is interesting, and I want to see how it resolves everything. It looks like a teacher-student romance here, though, be warned.

Stra the Warlock is a fantasy series taking place in a world where humans re enslaved by demons. The story so far is meh, but the art is sort of interesting – it has a Masamune Shirow feel to it.

In a Heartbeat is about a young man who has come to the realization that he’s gay, but is generally too shy and nervous to do anything about it. Then he runs into his old childhood friend and first love. Again, only one chapter is far too early to judge this, but BL fans should take a look.

Mangabox is also available in Japan, and has a few extra series there. The untranslated series all seem to have one thing in common: they’re out in Japan in other formats, such as in Young Magazine or Futabasha’s Manga Action. Whereas all the titles we’re seeing translated here are web-only so far. Helps to avoid scanlations. For the curious, Japan also has two Ghost in the Shell: SAC titles (one of which is out over here already); Slave District, which seems to combine gambling and rape, and I would think is VERY unlikely to come out over here; Gainax’s Sudden Death, from the artist who gave us the borderline H harem series Love Junkies, which is all about tea ceremonies; Shoot!, a very old soccer manga, though I’m uncertain if this is reprinting the 1990 series or a spinoff of that; and King’s Game, a survival game manga that seems to trend a bit darker than High-Rise Invasion.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with Mangabox so far. The daily dribbling out of chapters is a good way to keep people coming to the site, and also helps you to not get bored with a specific title. Well, except the Great Phrases Women Fall For manga. That’s boring. But skippable. Definitely recommended so far, and I’ll be interested to see if they bring in new content in a month or two.

Seven Seas has put out so many press releases lately that I kept waiting for it to stop before I could do a post summing it all up. Luckily, we seem to be in a lull, so let’s see what they have in the way of 2014 manga for us.

D-Frag! is a Comic Alive title from Media Factory, and seems to combine several popular otaku elements. Young man gets shanghaied into a club with four very strange women and has to deal with their wacky antics. Clearly there will be some harem stuff going on, and with the hero being a delinquent type it’s hard not to think of Haganai when seeing this one, especially as this also involves playing a lot of games.

Speaking of Haganai, after having been on Amazon for several months as a preorder, Seven Seas finally admits they have licensed the Shobon side-story volume, which is going out under the title “Now With 50% More Fail!” because, y’know, translating is good. (I think Shobon is an emoji or something? Totally untranslatable, I suspect…)

Yes, of course there’s a one-shot sequel to the one-shot, with more side-story madness. Given Haganai doesn’t have much of a plot to begin with besides the harem antics, side stories seem a bit odd, but hey, I still enjoy the series. This is called Haganai Hiyori in Japan, and comes over here as Club Minutes.

This title may have been seen before by a few people back in the JManga days, and I’ve always been a huge fan of it. The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer is a rather twisted Japanese take on superheroes, and at 10 volumes (which Seven Seas will be publishing as 5 omnibuses), is just the right length. The hero, in particular, has a certain horrible mindset that makes me smile (and occasionally wince). Of all Seven Seas’ new licenses, this is the one I most recommend. (It’s also a Young King Ours title. We need more YKO over here.)

Looking at that picture, and the fact that this is called “I Am Alice – Bodyswap in Wonderland”, you might be forgiven for thinking this is the latest QuinRose spinoff series in the Country of Hearts. But no, Alice in Wonderland is to 2014 what Survival Games were to 2013. Ore Alice runs in Media Factory’s Comic Gene, meaning it’s appealing to shoujo readers. Given that Alice is in reality a young boy, and that the Wonderland Inhabitants look to be just as bishey as Country of Hearts, I expect there may be BL content in here somewhere, but who knows? I’ll admit this is the title I know the least about.

Lastly, we have three more Strike Witches manga spinoffs, with the cover above being for the story “One-Winged Witches”. We also get “1937 Fuso Sea Incident” and “The Sky That Surrounds Us”. They’re all Kadokawa series, from either Nyantype or Comp Ace, which is to say they are marketed solely to young men with lots of money who want cute girls. None of the Strike Witches manga have come out over here yet, so I can’t really say for sure if this will be another Haganai or another Monster Musume for me. Time will tell. In the meantime, fans of the series have to be happy at seeing all of these.

And that about covers it, at least until next week when they may announce nine more series. Seven Seas has come a long way in just one or two years. Is this all thanks to Country of Clover and Vampire Bund? Well, more licensed manga is always a good thing.