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The Manga Review: Back in the Saddle

After almost two years of planning and procrastinating, my husband and I finally got around to putting in a garden last Friday. It was cold, grey, and raining, but I’m pleased to say we got the job done. By the time we finished, though, I didn’t have a lot of energy for manga blogging—we got soaked to the skin in the final stages of planting—so I skipped last week and hoped my Feedly folders wouldn’t be too full when I sat down to write this post. Boy, was I wrong…

NEWS ROUND-UP

Brigid Alverson breaks down the Circana Bookscan numbers for May 2023. “Webtoons and manhwa continue to dominate the Author chart,” she notes, while Blue Lock and Oshi no Ko are making headway on the Manga chart… For the first time in fifteen years, VIZ will be raising the price of its manga from $9.99 to $11.99 per volume… and speaking of VIZ, the publisher announced nineteen new licenses, including manga by Taiyo Matsumoto and Kazuo Umezz, as well as a Food Wars/One Piece mash-up and a One Piece novel. For more insight into VIZ’s spring 2024 line-up, check out the latest Manga Mavericks episode.

In other news, Azuki added a new sci-fi series to its library: Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms. Look for chapters one and two in July… Ize Press just acquired Finding Camellia… GKIDS will bring Blue Giant to North American theaters for a limited run this year… Tezuka Productions is using ChatGPT to create a new Black Jack story for publication this fall… Netflix has unveiled a new One Piece trailer… and  Matthew Levay interviews Tony Davis, owner of The Million-Year Picnic, the oldest comic shop in New England (and a cool place to browse, I might add). 

AROUND THE WEB

Anita Mowete explains how Blue Lock gave her a new respect for soccer. “As I read through this series, for the first time I understood how people can get so excited over football,” she observes. “I now understand how it gets people pumped up to maximum excitement or brings them to tears. You get a glimpse of the culture that surrounds football, the stories of each participant and the years of dedication that led up to the critical points in make-or-break matches.” [How to Love Comics]

In honor of Pride Month, Women Write About Comics convened a roundtable on the current state of LBGTQ+ manga. [WWAC]

Camil V. Ristè explores Keiko Takemiya’s early career, from Pharaoh no haka (1974-1985) to Toward the Terra (1977-1980). [Anime Feminist]

The Manga Machinations crew weigh in on the live-action adaptation of What Did You Eat Yesterday? [Manga Machinations]

The Reverse Thieves name Skull-Faced Bookseller Honda-san their manga of the month. [Reverse Thieves]

Kory, Helen, and Apryll discuss Until I Meet My Husband and She Loves to Cook, And She Loves to Eat. [Manga in Your Ears]

Did the Shonen Flop crew give Ginka & Glüna a frosty reception, or did they warm to this adventure series about a magical snowman? Tune in and find out! [Shonen Flop]

The Mangang dedicate their latest show to JH’s The Boxer, a Korean drama about a boxing prodigy. [Mangasplaining]

In a letter to readers, Beneath the Tangles’ editor-in-chief explains why the site won’t be covering the new Rurouni Kenshin anime. [Beneath the Tangles]

William Schwartz offers an in-depth look at Joseon Attorney, a Korean webtoon that’s equal parts historical drama and legal procedural. [The Comics Journal]

Jocelyne Allen sings the praises of Ryo Ikeumi’s Kiyouko Iwaka, a series that “has everything I want from shojo: reasons to cry, interior monologues questioning all emotions everywhere, secret handholding, and dramatic vengeance being exacted with the throwing of a whole tub of paint on a person.” [Brain vs. Book]

REVIEWS

Andy Oliver reviews Gengaroh Tagame’s Our Colors, “a tenderly told tale of two gay men from different generations”… Adam Symchuk praises All-Rounder Meguru for its “dedication to authenticity and ability to break down a fight with technical precision”… SKJAM! tackles Deserter, an anthology of early Junji Ito stories… Helen pronounces Osamu Tezuka’s Apollo’s Song “bloated” and pointlessly transgressive… and Kara Dennison has an early look at Susumu Higa’s Okinawa.

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Comments

  1. Love this Bumper Edition – and many thanks from us at Anime UK News for being included again. And after all your back-breaking work, I hope you and your husband will soon be able to sit back and enjoy the fruits (and flowers!) of your labours creating your new garden!

    Reply

    • Thanks for the kind words, Sarah! Glad to know the link posts are useful.

      As for the garden, our biggest challenge will be keeping the woodchucks at bay; we’ve been locked in a battle with them since last summer, when they ate all the flowers on our deck. They’re tenacious (and voracious)!

      Reply

      • My sympathies re. the woodchucks – so disappointing when they eat everything that you’ve planted! (We had a similar problem in our garden but with the occasional deer or two which ate all our tulips this year and in past years have had a good chomp at our roses.) Here’s hoping we – and you – stay free from unwanted visitors of the flower-eating variety this summer!

        Reply

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