SEAN: As I’ve noted before, Diamond Comics and Amazon’s street dates are looking farther apart than ever before. As a result, this list is a fusion of Amazon (the major, book-company publishers) and Midtown Comics (the comics-first publishers).
Dark Horse brings us the 4th volume of Blood Blockade Battlefront, the alliterative series from the Trigun creator.
There’s also a new Evangelion spinoff coming out as well, with the first volume of Shinji Ikari Detective Diary. From the description, it sounds like this is aimed squarely at the BL Evangelion shippers, in much the same way that the Raising Project manga is aimed at harem fans.
Fanfare/Ponent Mon has the 4th volume of mountain climbing manga Summit of the Gods, one of those “blogger popular” titles I keep meaning to catch up on but have never quite done so. It is supposed to be excellent, though.
MICHELLE: Oh, nice! I really like Jiro Taniguchi, but have been waiting for this series to come out in full before reading it. I think there’s one more volume still.
ASH: Oh! I’m one of the reasons this is a “blogger popular” title. Summit of the Gods is easily my favorite Jiro Taniguchi collaboration; I’m very happy to see that Fanfare/Ponent Mon is continuing to release the series. Only one more volume to go after this!
MJ: Count me in for this one as well!
SEAN: Amazon has Wandering Son 5 listed for November 2nd. If Kodansha is the publisher that is consistently always arriving at bookstores first and comic shops later, Fantagraphics is the classic example of the opposite. Here’s Wandering Son 5, hitting comic shops. In this volume, I believe we get to high school and introduce some new supporting players.
MICHELLE: I am lamentably several volumes behind with Wandering Son, but it’s still nice to see new volumes make their appearance!
ASH: We actually have a few years of junior high to get through before reaching high school, but you’re right about the new supporting characters.
ANNA: I really need to catch up on this series!
MJ: I adore this series, and I can’t wait to read volume five, whenever it appears!
SEAN: Seven Seas has the final volume of one of my favorite series from them, Young Miss Holmes by Kaoru Shintani (of Area 88 fame). This omnibus, containing Books 5-7, is even larger than the previous two, and is filled with mysteries, mayhem, and killer maids. There’s a sequel in Japan, featuring 17-year-old Christie continuing to solve crimes. Seven Seas has noted its possible license (Slightly Older Miss Holmes?) depends on sales of the first, so go get it! Also, there’s only one Conan Doyle story in here (the rest are originals based on ‘unseen cases’, so less danger of offending Holmes purists.
ANNA: I somehow missed that this was by the mangaka of Area 88! I still have all my ancient Eclipse Comics/Viz editions of Area 88 stashed in a box somewhere. Now, I might finally pick up Young Miss Holmes. I hope there are scenes of people in flight suits with floppy hair looking incredibly emo in Young Miss Holmes, because Area 88 was awesome at that.
SEAN: There’s also a 2nd omnibus from Seven Seas, with Vols. 3-4 of Zero’s Familiar. I was surprised that the dark shroud of fan opinion surrounding the tsundere heroine turned out to be more of a off-white silk scarf more than anything, and wonder if my opinion will stay the same as we go further into this fantasy harem series.
I presume that those who read Bleach either have done so for years, or are likely never to do so. But if you’ve been catching up via the omnibus, the 3 volumes collected in the 6th one are some of the very best, and remind me of those olden days when Kubo could pace properly.
MJ: Agreed. I have much nostalgia for those early volumes, and this is a particularly strong little set.
SEAN: Demon Love Spell has been one of Shinjo’s best titles at walking that fine line between ‘sexy, forceful guy’ and ‘complete ass’, and I’m hoping that Vol. 4 continues that balance.
ANNA: I have just read this and it was hilarious. This is rapidly becoming my favorite Shinjo series, despite my long-standing fondness for Sensual Phrase.
MJ: I’m absolutely addicted to this series.
SEAN: Dragon Ball has an omnibus as well, and it’s hit Vol. 2. New Dragon Ball readers are born every day! This omnibus is probably for them more than those of us who bought the VIZBig, or the original volumes. Or the digital volumes. And stay tuned for Dragon Ball cranial ports, coming in 2015.
Midnight Secretary has a lot of good buzz. So much good buzz, in fact, that Viz has already licensed another title by the same author before this one has even come out. You know they trust it will do well. And why will it do well, you ask? One word: vampires. That said, the heroine is also apparently an excellent draw, and is not your usual Petit Comic office lady. I’m very intrigued about this one. Can’t wait.
ANNA: I think this will be a must get for paranormal romance manga fans. I am also looking forward to this. I mean, the title alone is fantastic.
MJ: Agreed on all counts!
SEAN: The 6th Naruto omnibus is out. I still need to catch up on this title. So… ninjas?
ASH: Yes. Ninja. Lots and lots of ninja.
SEAN: One Piece has reached Vol. 68. There is an awful lot of fighting happening here, and several of our heroes continue to be in the wrong bodies, leading to humorous situations. Recommended as top-drawer entertainment.
MICHELLE: I continue to love One Piece.
SEAN: Last time, Psyren turned its attention to our villains, and did a damn good job of fleshing them out. I expect it will go back to the heroes this time, as we’re getting near a climax (I think we’ve only 5 volumes to go).
MICHELLE: I need to catch up on Psyren. So many books (and responsibilities), so little time.
SEAN: And Strobe Edge hits its second half with Vol. 6. We may have resolved one of the obstacles standing between our two lovebirds last time, but the course of true love definitely doesn’t run smooth in this title. Something bad’s going to happen, I can feel it. Be there to read it when it does.
MICHELLE: I really love Strobe Edge, and I admit I kinda wouldn’t mind seeing something bad happen.
ANNA: This is one of those shoujo series that just seems to get better as it goes along.
MJ: This is a strong week for addictive shoujo, I see. Lovely, lovely.
SEAN: Any manga jump out at you this week?
AshLynx says
August 29, 2013 at 7:48 pmI need the second omnibus for Dragon Ball! I’m overall familiar with it, watching DBZ every weekday on Tonami is a fond memory (I started in the Buu arc, which is funny because that was the point a lot of other people went “screw this, I’m going home”, but it was my first arc for me), but I’ve never really read the Dragon Ball manga. the first 3 volumes were certainly more similar to Dr. Slump than to DBZ (and certainly explains the random animal people carry over, they were everywhere in Dr. Slump, had some roles in DB, and were just leftovers by the time DBZ happened). I think I’ve seen some random eps of Dragon Ball as well. And I love Akira Toriyama’s artwork, so yay! But yes, despite my umpteen times to jump on this, I’m only doing it now. And yet it’s still not being milked as much as the DBZ anime is by Funimation. VHS, DVD, boxests with like 10 singles, season sets, bunching those together to sell at Walmart, dragon boxes, DBZ Kai (DVD and blu ray), movies, movie collections, movie collections in metal tins, and now….. the Rock the Dragon set. Which only has like 53 episodes from before when Funimation took over the dubbing and thus also has some hilarious edits, yet an inferior version of a show you, statistically speaking, already own twice, somehow still retails for $100. I’m just waiting for them to release the Big Green dub at this point (which I might actually buy on the basis of being freakin’ hilarious) So yeah, releasing a manga in like 5 different formats? I’m ok with that, comparatively.
Young Miss Holmes didn’t quite appeal to me, a shame as I liked the Area 88 OVA. Then again, I never see much re-read value in mysteries, I already know the solution. So… library?
I am behind on Wandering Son! Damn! I still haven’t read volume 4! As a transgender though, I especially do enjoy this. Usually, gender bending in anime and manga is used solely for comedy, to see it not is nice (even if it seems most everyone is cool with Shuichi instantly, that didn’t seem too realistic)
AshLynx says
August 29, 2013 at 8:05 pmWait, Rock the Dragon is the Big Green dub! Ha! I’ll wait for it to not sell very well and plummet in price.
Aaron says
August 30, 2013 at 9:54 amI pre ordered the next Bleach omnibus, so after this I only have eleven volumes to go as far as getting caught up I started reading it around the middle of the hueco mundo arc and than had to back peddle. As far as Zero’s Familiar goes it’s not so much Louise that kills it for me but the fact that it’s absolutely unoriginal and formulaic. At least the second omnibus series got licensed where it got a little better but having watched all four seasons of the Anime it didn’t get really good until season three (although there was a ton of pointless fan service) but I don’t think that there was a manga adaptation for that arc or season though.
Olivia says
August 30, 2013 at 7:40 pmI’m happy to see so many shoujo titles this week! I’ll definitely be buying Midnight Secretary for some fun, simple romance, and Young Miss Holmes for the killer maids, but they comes second to Wandering Son.