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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Justin Stroman

Why Sekai Project Is Entering The Manga Industry

August 25, 2015 by Justin Stroman Leave a Comment

Gate 1 Gate 2

A lot of announcements happened at Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Otakon. Arguably the biggest announcement (not to actually shortchange what WAS announced) was the revelation of a new player in the manga industry. If you’ve heard of Sekai Project, you may be a bit more familiar with them bringing over visual novels, but at Otakon, they announced they will be dipping their toes into the market by licensing GATE, which just so happens to be streaming on Crunchyroll.

So…why is Sekai Project entering the manga industry? What is GATE all about? And when’s it going to come out? Well, I got in touch through email with publishing director Evan Mapoy, and the former Digital Manga marketing manager answers these questions and a few more.

…

Read More

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Alpha Polis, GATE, gate jieitai kanochi nite kaku tatakaeri, It's based off a novel series everybody, Sekai Project, Sekai Project interview, Why Sekai Project Is Entering The Manga Industry

The 10 Boldest Manga Predictions For 2015

January 15, 2015 by Justin Stroman 9 Comments

Manga Predictions 2015

So 2015 has arrived, and the only thing I can think of this:

…What’s gonna happen to manga and the manga industry in 2015?

Like I’m sure somebody has said the past couple of years, this is a crucial year for the manga industry, in Japan and in the US of course. Pretty sure all of you are going to be keeping up with Manga Bookshelf and checking your Twitter feeds for any manga happenings and stuff, but I’m here to tell you that there’s no point. I have already seen the future, and I can tell you 10 things that’s going to happen regarding manga that you won’t have seen coming!

(Well, maybe 2 of my predictions will come true)

Anyways, this predictions list is entirely for fun, but for some of my entries, I’m aiming for seriousness. Please join me in making either true or outlandish predictions in the comments section, and by the end of 2015, we can all look back and laugh first at me, then at ourselves, for being so horribly wrong.

A major scanlation site is gonna shut down

Already starting this list off with a bang, I have no idea what that site will be, but with Japanese publishers “attempting” to derail scanlations and encourage people to support manga, and with manga seemingly achieving an upswing in attention (as sales went up), there will be one site that’s out there that’s gonna go down.

(Then maybe a billion more will pop up, but, small victories I guess.)

A major Japanese publisher will shut down

Not merely just a magazine, a big time publisher, one that’s been in the business before most of us were even born, will finally call it quits due to unstable sales and horrible titles in their magazine. Oh, and also the Bill 156 thing. I think it’s been in the works for a while that a company doesn’t find it viable to publish manga anymore, and we will see that happen this year.

Digital manga

Digital manga will finally establish itself as more valuable than print

Not even bothering to list new digital manga initiatives for 2015; I’m already expecting a few to emerge. And they’ll be much easier to read than in the past. Simply, there’ll be more ways to get digital manga, and with the advent of space being an issue (and money), more people will buy digital manga. And thus, it will make more money than print, as print manga will have an issue of finding bookstores in 2015.

…Maybe.

Older manga will be published in 2015

I mean really old, like 70’s, 80’s old. The power of digital is fierce! And most importantly, companies you wouldn’t expect will be publishing old stuff like hotcakes. And they will somehow sell.

Chihayafuru will be licensed

I swear somebody’s gonna do it. No, I don’t mean the anime, this is a manga predictions list!

US Shonen Jump will bring back Gintama by the time April arrives.

New anime season, Shonen Jump with the grand opportunity of having their property in their magazine with the anime starting (Shokugeki no Soma, Nisekoi, Gintama)… This is the perfect time for them to actually put Gintama back in the limelight.

There will be a controversial manga published by some company in the US

You’d think with Terraformars, Ubel Blatt, and Assassination Classroom that there’d be some unsuspecting being with no knowledge of comics see these works and go, “OMG this is horrible” and sound the alarm. Well, not so much! That’ll end in 2015. There will be a controversy from something. If it’s not Prison School, something will cause a storm, and I’ll be a distance away, laughing smugly as I predicted that this would occur.

Vinland Saga’s never coming back to the US

Get your tissues out Vinland Saga fans — all 10 of you (hey, whenever somebody says low sales, I think small ya know!) — Kodansha’s not bringing back Vinland Saga. It just won’t happen. History tells you that once a title is suspended, or removed, or delayed, you can bet it’s cancelled. So what if it’s nearly caught up with the Japanese editions? It doesn’t matter! It’s just not making money, and thus, because it’s not coming back, I’m gonna screw Kodansha USA and buy the Japanese editions.

…wait what–

A manga series gets discussed on TV — for good reasons!

…This clearly conflicts with the controversial manga part, but hey, there can also be another side to it! And this isn’t going to be on any TV channel — it’ll make its way on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, the works! What that manga series is, who knows, but it will happen…and you heard it here first.

Beet The Vandel Buster’s gonna come back.

beet-the-vandel-buster-517be1fed66b9

…No seriously, stop laughing! It-it’s gonna happen. Well, I think we can at least all agree that we hope this series will come back.


Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, a blog that looks behind the scenes of anime and manga. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him questions he’ll never answer.

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: manga industry help, Manga Predictions for 2015, outlandish manga stuff

Why It’s Worth It To Buy Manga

September 16, 2014 by Justin Stroman 7 Comments

Manga Bookshelf

Why is it worth it to buy manga?

Living in New York City, where there’s Barnes & Nobles everywhere and a Kinokuniya on 41st and 6th, most manga available range from $10-13 dollars (Think Shonen Jump, Seven Seas, Shojo Beat, Kodansha, DMP for the most part), $14-20 dollars (think some Vertical titles, Viz Signature stuff), or you’ll find that rare manga title that’s $20-29 dollars (I think of Fantagraphics). Even if you order online, chances are buying food might be more important, cheaper, and satisfying than shelling out $8-9 bucks for a manga volume that has the issue of:

  1. It’s a volume out of who knows how many volumes of one series.
  2. The average reader can spend 30-45 minutes, depending on the material, on that one volume.
  3. Even if that one volume is perfect, what about the other volumes that come out that might not be so perfect because the storylines change?

And that’s just knowing the basics! If you’re a regular manga reader, then you’ll find other issues that pop up:

  1. Most manga in the states are well behind the Japanese editions. Only a certain few — Attack on Titan, One Piece — are popular enough to not be completely behind the JP editions, and in the history of manga publication in the states, only a few have been simultaneously published — Rin-Ne, Neon Genesis Evangelion are some I can think of — meaning we’re always gonna be behind in every facet unless we read it digitally.
  2. Space, space, space! Just like books, manga requires bookshelves, boxes, and space in your room to keep your manga. In the past, it was mostly ok, but with digital, reading manga physically is a thing of the past!

But ok, reading manga in your hands isn’t convenient for you. But that’s why we can read it online! There’s digital alternatives!…Oh, but there are issues there too:

  1. There’s manga services (Viz Media, Crunchyroll, Renta!) that don’t allow you to download manga since they’re flash based! So what happens if the service goes away? Won’t the manga go away? Didn’t we learn our lesson from JManga?
    (Note: if you have a phone/tablet, you can download and keep any Viz Media titles forever)
  2. And the ones that can allow us to keep pages (eManga, Manga Reborn) have some major site issues that limit potential — Paying $7.95 seems weird eManga! What’s with the design of the site Manga Reborn? I can’t tell what’s really new and cool to read!

All in all, there are logical, physical, and cost reasons regarding the purchase of manga that make me ask:

…Why is it worth it to buy manga again?

When I wrote a post wondering why people who read manga illegally end up informing publishers in multiple ways that they’re reading a manga the publishers licensed illegally, the answers were concise and straightforward. So, in a way, the response regarding price, digital alternatives, etc, reinforced something I’ve become more inclined to believe in since I’ve delved further into the manga industry (and in small ways manga fandom):

Manga is just not valuable.

I’ll say this though: it’s certainly valuable to go buy a $3.99 comic book issue or so that’s only 32 colored pages or a graphic novel that’s around $15-20 dollars, but not really cool to pay $10-20 dollars of 200 or so pages for a manga volume. It’s well worth it to shell out $60 dollars for a physical video game and have that sort of collection, but not as worth it to do so for manga since you’ll more than likely get more entertainment value out of the video game.

Now, as mentioned, there are legitimate reasons for concern about getting manga…moreso for those outside of the US. There’s digital alternatives that exist but are marked by harrowing issues (Manga Anime Guardians is Exhibit A), are region locked (though not as much as anime is), and are flash based, which apparently is more of an issue than I thought. There’s a lack of publishers, or no publishers, to publish manga outside of places like the US or France, and there are shipping issues that make a manga that’s $10 bucks cost more than it probably should if you’re ordering overseas in certain countries. There’s definite concerns that are worth complaining about, and you should complain about it if it’s something that can help publishers get better.

But you know, the other industries I mentioned, while they suffer from their issues, get criticized, and are for a different market, still sell pretty well. Manga on the other hand…not so much aside from the mainstream stuff.

Is this just a case of years and years of the manga market being inflexible, unflinching, with their model that doesn’t always show itself to be efficient? Past mistakes that are so unforgivable that it’s best to forget the creators actually exist and screw the publishers? Or just the notion that reading is a chore, you don’t want to fill your room with tons of manga that, for some, have no end in sight, etc? Or is this just a case of where you stand personally?

I graduated from school two years ago. At the time of graduation, I had no job, only money that I got from parents and family from graduating, and no real idea of what my future was. Needless to say, I ran out of money thanks to time, and that meant buying manga was unrealistic. The problem? Buying much of anything aside from a brand new Metrocard so I can get to job interviews and job fairs was unrealistic, so for most of 2013 and 2014, the only solace I had was that I could choose to read manga online, in an illegal fashion.

Of course I chose to do that!

…Not in the way you think though. For the most part, I only read stuff that no publisher would really care about. Like this interesting manhwa title called The Breaker: New Waves, or that extremely silly Mangaka-San to Assistant-San (better known somehow here as Comic Artist and his Assistants) by Doujin Work creator Hiroyuki. For anything that would get licensed, unless I liked it a lot, I’d pretty much drop reading it.

Well, I only ended up following two titles like that — Assassination Classroom, which I haven’t read since early in the year, for a few reasons, but once it got licensed, I stopped feeling the drive to read it, and Shokugeki no Soma, better known as Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma here. I did not drop Shokugeki no Soma once it got licensed. More on Soma in a bit. In any case, I followed what I could, and most importantly, any new title that showed up from publishers I didn’t read…in any capacity. After all, I can’t — or don’t want to — read everything in existence.

I finally got a job. I started a few months ago. That means I have money to spend! But…I can’t just spend it on everything, as my paycheck isn’t even that much right now. I’m pretty much drowning in school debt, which I can thankfully delay for one more year. So I’m also in the process of saving money too. What does that mean? That means spending judiciously, targeting continuing stuff I’ll like, and waiting to buy everything.

That means finally buying a physical copy of Food Wars.

Why It's Worth It To Buy Manga

nomnomnom

And I’ll be waiting to buy a copy of Assassination Classroom. Maybe the first few chapters will read better than when I read it online.

The point is, you want to read manga online, fine. I do it too. If there was a efficient way to get copies of something you like, a game or a novel or whatever without having to pay in any fashion, that’s your prerogative, and in the case of manga, especially when legitimate publications that most mainstream people read (coughcoughNew York Timescough) can’t get it right either, how can I blame you? After all, it’s not like it’s being stopped right now.

But is manga really so worthless that you can’t even set a modest limit to buy some manga during the year?

That’s unfortunate, because I find manga to be something of great worth. I find it worth buying, and especially for a certain few, I find it worth having in my hands.

I’m not alone in thinking manga is worth buying.

———-

Sarah Hayes lives in Missouri, and has been collecting manga for 14 years. How did she even know about manga? Well, it started with Pokemon, Toonami, and her nearby comic shop. “When I realized there was a comic version of Gundam Wing–” Sarah emphasizes she was really into the series — “I picked it up. And then I saw comics for Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Oh! My Goddess, and at point, I was hooked.”

Tony Yao lives where I live: New York City! He got interested in manga back in 1998, while still in high school, and, well, back when AOL dominated and most websites looked old and aged. “I learned about what manga was when reading about Ghost in the Shell in an issue of Wizard Magazine back in 1995,” he said. “But in 98’, I discovered that Dragon Ball Z was a manga. I read old-fashioned text summaries of DBZ volumes on a Geocites DBZ fan site and that’s how it started!” He started collecting manga in 2003.

Erica Friedman, who lives in New Jersey, has been into manga since the 1990’s, “with the advent of Sailor Moon,” she said. Of course, she’s also been a part of the manga industry, starting her yuri publishing company ALC Publishing, which exclusively published Yuri content; starting Yuricon, a convention geared towards yuri related manga and anime content; and was part of the creation of MangaNEXT, an exclusive manga only related convention. So she’s been in the manga industry and fandom side of it for a long time.

Why It's Worth It To Buy MangaUnfortunately, with issues with the fandom and the differences between JP and US relations proving to be too much, ALC Publishing effectively is no longer publishing anything new. Has that closed the book on her interest in manga? Nope, as she still buys the Japanese editions.

Ash Brown (I think you know who he is around these parts!) was Ohio bred and born, but then he ended up moving to Michigan when he got older. He works as a librarian — “sadly, my job has nothing to do with manga,” he bemoans — and on the side, he’s a musician, and a martial artist. He is the neophyte when it comes to manga collecting: he started collecting manga in 2009 (same for me) when he got employed and had a decent income, though it did take reading Urasawa’s Pluto and manga criticism from Jason Thompson for him to dive head first into manga.

“I have been collecting manga since 2004,” says Noura, a manga fan in Florida…or was in Florida, until in 2000, she moved back to her home. Her home is in the United Arab Emirates. Yep, the UAE is in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. She’s Emirati. There’s only the Kinokuniya in Dubai that actually sells manga, and even so, due to Islamic culture, there are manga that are banned from even getting published, especially Boys Love. How strict are the restrictions over there? “They were about to ban Attack on Titan Vol 8 because of the cover,” she said. The Kinokuniya staff did negotiate and convince regulators and parents (who she mentioned are conservative on these things) that they could sell it. But certain volumes of Dance in The Vampire Bund were banned. From The New World was in stock, but, whether it was due to sales or the content in the volume, they were slowly removed from the bookstore.

It hasn’t really stopped Noura from continuing to go back to that Kinokuniya, or just ordering the manga online. Considering the restrictions in place, it does make you wonder — why buy manga when you have to go through so many hoops to get it?

“Buying manga is like any other hobby,” said Noura, “so I do not understand why people refrain from spending money on it. If you love something, it feels better when you pay for it and have it, right? Video game fans buy games and I do not think they find it a waste of money, so I do not get why a lot of people feel that buying manga is not worth it.” She also mentioned that for titles she’s not sure of or not interested in owning the books of, she buys it digitally.

Erica reinforces this thought. “The simplest reason to buy manga is that actually putting your money where your interest is, is the easiest and best way to say ‘thank you’ to the manga artist you enjoy, the editors, the translators, the layout, the touchup, and letterers who all worked hard to bring you that book.”

Tony’s view on why it’s worth it to buy manga is the same, though it starts with a personal reason: details. “It’s easier to re-read things from a print book than from reading online. Reading online doesn’t allow for a better recall of details.”

Why It's Worth It To Buy Manga…I actually agree with that statement. But that’s merely a personal reason, and people are different. That’s why Tony’s second reason comes down to simply supporting mangaka. “You ensure someone else who has a dream about making it big as a mangaka can come true. If the industry grows, the money goes back to developing and nurturing future talent.” Tony references Hajime Isayama, and of course, with the big success of Attack on Titan not only in Japan but also in the West, he will be a name to be recognized after his current series ends. “A kid may be inspired to make manga because of him,” he continued. “He/she grows up and decides to pursue that dream and makes it happen. This situation has happened in the case of Akira Toriyama and the countless mangaka he’s inspired because of Dragon Ball. Your indirect support helps everyone.”

Even he acknowledges, however, that it’s not gonna be easy. With books in general, outside of a few best-sellers, they may be available everywhere but it’s not like they sell that much anyways, so why would manga sell the same when there’s not the same output? And scanlations have changed the game and forced publishers to actually pay attention to them, he said. None of that’s gonna change in the near future. But we can do something about that.

Sarah’s view on manga is the same and yet slightly different. Well, she does like having ownership of series she likes. “I love knowing that I can read and re-read and casually flip through my collection and not have to rely on someone else to keep them up on a server somewhere or a scanlation group that could very well shut down the very next day.” But, as a writer, her view of manga continues to change. “I’ve come to really value buying manga over any other course of action because as a writer, I understand how important it is to financially support our artists and writers and manga-ka everywhere. If shelling out so many dollars for a book of manga means keeping my favorite authors and the like in their homes, puts food on their tables, and keeps them from stressing out and focused on their work, then that’s cool by me.”

For Ash, who got into the collecting manga game late compared to everybody else, his reasons for thinking why buying manga is worth it are not complex, but not also simple, since he works as a librarian. Well, specifically, he works with digital content and materials, “so I am all too aware of the many challenges associated with them,” he says. It ends up starting physically, where you might as well spend your money on something that will last and can be shared with others. Then it’s mere exploration. “Personally, I take great enjoyment in the actual act of selecting and gathering material into a collection. I like finding and discovering manga to read and pulling it all together in one place.” He also ends up donating some of his collection — he told me his current collection’s close enough to 2,000 individual volumes of manga — to libraries, since that was how he originally was reading his manga: by borrowing it from them. “Libraries were what made it possible for me to pursue my interest in manga and other comics in the first place. It makes me extremely happy to know that even after leaving my collection, the manga that I bought will go on to be read by many other people.”

Overall though, the reason to actually buy manga is just like everyone else, for Ash: “I love manga and am appreciative of the creators and their work. I want to support them. There are easy ways to do that: I can purchase manga which have been licensed in English. I can purchase the original Japanese editions. I can borrow manga from a library. I can also encourage other people to do the same. By buying or borrowing legal copies of their work I am able to help support them and the industry financially so they can make a living and continue to create.

“In the end,” he added, “that’s what really matters to me. That’s why I buy manga. Because I love it and the people who make it.”

———-

As I briefly mentioned, I started collecting manga back in 2009 for a few reasons, one of which I eventually drifted away from as I lost my passion for art, or for making comics. Despite that, manga was always around for me to get, so I still continued buying. And yes, even despite Borders going away, it didn’t really change that much — I just now order online. Though my collection is extremely modest compared to mostly everyone, I think it’s cool to buy manga. Think of some of the examples given with what you can do with manga! You can re-read it anytime, hold it in your hand, buy it digitally, lend it to a friend or two, or donate it to your library. You could also do what I did and donate to your local anime/manga club (which I did do for some manga a few years ago). There’s a lot of things you can do with manga that I bet you wouldn’t want to do with your video game!…well, except sell it. Well, you can do that with manga too if you wish! Just, it depends how much you’re selling!

But whatever the case, sure, there are complaints that can be had about publisher practices, the current model, etc, and it is well within your right to complain about it, especially if you have a perfect example of a series that has been translated horribly, why should you accept a poor product, or an example of a manga that’s been poorly marketed (According to Twitter Noragami was apparently a victim of this for what it’s worth). And ok, sure, you can go ahead and choose to read some obscure or big time manga for free, since there’s hundreds of places to go do so, and not nearly enough legal services that you may feel that serves your needs — especially so for those who live outside the US. And paying for manga that you might not even want to keep three, four years from now? What kind of concept is that?

But there will always be issues with almost everything we choose to engage ourselves in — is manga thought about so little that we can’t even find a way to buy manga in English? In another language? In Japanese? Then that’s all manga is to you: of little value.

Fine, that’s ok. But I think manga has value. And that it is worth buying. Whether you buy a lot in a month, or choose to buy two manga in a month, or just once in two months, or however you do it, it adds up somehow. It will benefit someone. Whoever that person is! But contributions help. Even just going to your nearby library can help. In the end, it’s up to you really if you want to stuff your small room with manga or choose to buy manga digitally from a system that’s crippled from the get-go.

I’ll just state that I like manga a lot and I’ll continue to buy what looks to good to me…until I feel like manga is no longer an interest to me. Whenever that is!


Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, an anime/manga blog. He continues to fight his laziness, even though its inevitable he can’t defeat it. You can bug him on Twitter (@Kami_nomi)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: buy manga because you actually like it is a novel concept, buying manga, buying manga is weird bro, longish read, manga is cool I swear, too many opinions, why it's worth it to buy manga

Getting Used To The Renting Manga Service Renta!

September 2, 2014 by Justin Stroman 8 Comments

Way back in February this year, I wrote about all the legal manga sites people don’t seem to either know or want to talk about, for a multitude of reasons. Renta! was one of them. The description I gave it then was not very kind of the service.

Then, in my rant about the state of manga some months ago, I did notice that Renta! had undergone a…change:

Old Site

Old site.

New site!

New site!

And I admitted it looked way, way better and actually accessible than before.

Flash forward to now, and I ended up getting contacted about a potential follow up article to the service now that it’s been changed. Not surprisingly, I joined in! I ended up speaking to Jay Hoare, who is the English checker for Renta!, among other things he does for the site. He was hired in April along with another person on the English Renta! site, and they’ve been working with 6 other non-native speakers since. (Just for comparison, the JP Renta site has 50+ people working on it.) He shares a lot of what he knows at this time:

Justin: What would you say Renta! is all about?

Jay Hoare: In a nutshell, we’re a site where you can rent and read manga online. We offer a rental service so people can try out the manga, and give them the option to upgrade to “unlimited” if they want to keep reading it whenever they like. To make the reading experience as smooth as possible, we’ve put a lot of effort into our manga viewer, so people can read everything online without having to download anything. Also, in order to differentiate ourselves from other manga sites, we’re trying as much as possible to provide people with manga that can only be read on our site.

What has been the biggest challenge in marketing Renta!, including the notion that we rent manga instead of purchasing them?

Oh man, where to start!? I guess there’ve been three main challenges:

a) Increasing the awareness of manga.

It still amazes me that despite the abundance of great titles available, and the infiltration of Japanese culture in the West, a lot of people still don’t know what manga is. (When I told my parents that I’d found a job with a manga website, instead of getting the “Congratulations! You’re the best son in the entire world that’s ever existed ever ever” that I was expecting, they simply said, “What’s manga?”) There’s a small but loyal community who are really into manga, which is wonderful, but, in terms of marketing, it’s important to reach as many people as possible, which has been really difficult. We’ve had no choice but to charge forward as best we can in the quest to attract new manga lovers.

b) Getting users to pay for manga.

At present, pirate sites rule the manga seas: they have a lot of content available, including the bigger titles that have been made into anime. As such, a lot of manga readers head that way. To try and differentiate ourselves from those sites, first and foremost we’re trying to provide high-quality content. I’ve been working alongside another native-English speaker to proofread the manga we put on our site; recently, we employed a new team of frankly wonderful, dedicated and talented translators who I work close with. We also offer content that’s exclusive to our site, a cheap rental service, and a customer support service that can’t be found on pirate sites.

c) Getting people used to the idea of renting manga.

A lot of users are used to paying for and downloading content. When you say “ebooks”, people often think “Kindle”. As our site is a rental-based system, the content comes with a rental period (unless people choose to rent unlimited of course), which I think puts some people off. However, the benefit of renting on our site means that people can view their manga on any device, be it PC/laptop, tablet or smartphone, and it’s cheaper than buying manga. However, even though our user base continues to expand, convincing people that there are benefits to renting instead of purchasing continues to be tricky.

I noticed you guys brought over Sakigake Otokojuku, a Shueisha property (and an older title) to your service. Can you explain your relationship with manga publishers and how they are helping you with providing content?

We deal directly with the Japanese publishers. Basically, we tell them which manga we’d like to put on our site and they contact the author. Once we get the OK from them, we go from there.

Will Renta! serve as that service that provides older manga like Otokojuku or is this more exception than the norm?

One of the things we’re really trying to do is get as much content as we can that’s exclusive to Renta!. As well as old classics, we also try to get newer stuff, too. So, summarily speaking, if we think our users will like the content, it doesn’t matter when it’s published.

You were brought over to Renta! in order to smooth out the English, among other things. There has been a trend where JP companies start up a site but have poor English (Manga Anime Guardians as a recent example). Do you know why this seems to be the case, especially if they’re trying to appeal to the English market?

A lot of the more famous Japanese companies set up a company in the region they want to sell to; as such, they’re able to employ people directly from that region. Before internetland existed, it was a given that any company wanting to do business abroad would set up a branch over there. However, with the introduction of the internet, companies have been able to reach the rest of the world from the comfort of their own office space. This means that it’s overall a lot cheaper to conduct business, which is great news for Japan, as a lot of its companies don’t have a lot of spare cash. Unfortunately, this lack of cash means that they tend to use their Japanese staff to do a lot of their English translation to reduce costs. As a result, you get some really weird and difficult-to-understand sites. (As you know, Renta! has been guilty of the same thing in the past, but we’ve finally started to get on top of that now!)

I had included in my write up of Renta! a pic which showed the type of content Renta! seemed to be providing. It doesn’t look like that’s changed. Would you say the site caters more to those 18+ and over, or is this just a case where publishers allow you to publish this type of content?

If you look at our home page, we’re making an effort to include more manga besides just pure adult stuff. We’re adding more to our Romance, Seinen, Shounen and Shoujo manga sections every week. Because there was a lot of adult content on the site to begin with, it’s going to take a while to balance everything out, but we’ve gotten the ball rolling in a positive direction, so over the next few months you’ll start to see the change more.

Will Renta! be looking to publish Josei manga, or at least if it’s there, have the genre listed in the near future?

Genre-naming has proven to be a tricky thing. On the one hand you’ve got avid manga readers who understand what “shounen”, “shojo”, etc. mean; on the other hand, you’ve got people who think “Dragon Ball” is a medical condition and don’t know what manga is. As a result we’re still in the process of figuring out what to call certain genres.

Regarding Josei manga, we have romance, yaoi and love manga, so there’s a lot on the site for people wanting that sort of content. They’ve all proven popular, which is why we’ve expanded them into separate genres.

As a side note, we’re aware that to a Japanese person “comics for males” and “comics for females” is inherently implied by words like “shounen” (“boys”), “seinen” (“men”), “shoujo” (“girls”), etc.. However, we’re trying to avoid explicitly labelling content on our site as “for boys” or “for girls”. We did in the past, but dropped the idea, simply because we feel it unnecessarily limits the choice of our users.

Can you recommend some manga people should consider reading on Renta!’s service?

You ready? Deep breath! Eleven Soul has a lot of depth to it as well as skillfully-drawn action sequences. Jeanne D’Arc is a really well-told and beautifully illustrated manga. If you like gritty stories, Mad Bull is engrossing, and often surprisingly funny. Of course, if you want a laugh though, I have to recommend Sakigake Otokojuku. If you like motion comics, there’s Karasuma Kyoko no Jikenbo, which has been slicky presented. For romance fans, we have the crazily popular His Wedding Ring of Revenge, The Italian Prince’s Proposal and The Billionaire’s Bride of Convenience. For shojo-lovers, there’s the emotional A Second Love Is Full of Tears. If you’re a yaoi fan, I’d say give Peach-Colored Taxi — 801 Yen to Ride a read; it’s proving to be a hit with our users.

What shall we be expecting from Renta in the next few months or so?

More manga! Also, we’re working our asses off to try and make the site more user-friendly, as well as investing in making it display more quickly. On top of all that, we’re trying to improve our tablet and smartphone versions of the site too. We’re a small team, but we’re all putting a lot of effort in (and a lot of late nights!), so I personally am looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labor in the coming months. We’re by no means a perfect site, but we’re trying our best to improve, so, if anyone has any suggestions, we’d love to hear them! Yoroshiku!


Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. He’s desperately attempting to defeat his laziness every day. You can follow him on Twitter (@Kami_nomi)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Legal Manga, Renta!, Renting manga?!?

Should Bookstores Categorize Manga By Genre/Demographic?

May 23, 2014 by Justin Stroman 19 Comments

Something tells me this image fits this post perfectly. Don't know what it is though...

Something tells me this image fits this post perfectly. Don’t know what it is though…

The basis of this post is much, much thanks to Deb Aoki of Manga Comics Manga & The Comixverse’s Zedric Dimalanta. It’s a simple question to ask: should bookstores start categorizing manga by genre/demographic?

…

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Buying from bookstores, buying manga, manga bookstores

Manga Publishers on Fan Interest in Manga Online

April 18, 2014 by Justin Stroman 5 Comments

Welp, thanks Google! Credit to AnimeKon for that.

Um, I guess this is the best image I could find? Credit to AnimeKon.

It started this week, when Ash had posted a link to Kodansha’s Tumblr that weighed in on piracy. Interested in reading what they said, I checked it out, and after sitting on this idea for a day, I decided to get in contact with all the manga publishers in the US and basically asked them for a response to that query. So a shout-out to he or she who decided to ask the question, and to Ash for linking to it.

I should already preface this by saying that, after reading the responses by the publishers, feel free to discuss your overall position on the situation, because discussion is good, and especially for those who live on the side where you do read manga that has no chance of being published in English for a multitude of reasons, it may be something you want to know. Or maybe not know about!

Note: as a heads up, this post may be updated with publisher thoughts as the day goes on. It’s their choice whether to respond or not.

Anyways, here they are (let’s start with the one who started this chain off):

Kodansha’s Editor Ben Applegate:

Today, here’s how our process works. We read series as they begin serialization in Kodansha’s magazines, and we keep an eye on the promising ones. If it’s by an author or from a franchise we’ve had success with, that’s a major bonus. Kodansha Japan will come to us to with the series they want to push in the future. We also consider which series may get an anime presence. All of these factors are more important than fan requests online. Though there was a time when most publishers referred to scanlations during licensing, and maybe some still do, we don’t. The other manga publishers I’m familiar with don’t either.

This is not because we don’t pay attention to our fans. It’s because we’ve learned from experience that highly-requested series usually produce sales that come in under expectations. The biggest reason is that, unfortunately, heavy social media users are just not representative of a majority of English-language manga fans. But it can’t help that most of the target audience has already read the series online, and thus isn’t very motivated to buy.

When series, usually seinen series, that are frequently requested on social media as a result of scans do get licensed, sales might be okay for Vol. 1 and sometimes 2, but they drop far below expectations on Vol. 3+. My personal hypothesis here is that people who’ve read the scanlations maybe remember to buy Vol. 1 or 2 because they want to support the artist, but by Vol. 3 and later they either forget or feel they’ve done their part. But the publisher is still on the hook for five, ten, fifteen more potentially money-losing volumes.

So, given the choice (and we usually aren’t), I would rather start from zero with a series I strongly believed in and try to build an audience for the legal release than be forced to compete with illegal scanlations that people have already been reading for months or years.

It doesn’t mean we’ve given up on “fan favorite” series. Vinland Saga was highly-requested and highly-scanlated for years. We took lots of extraordinary measures to try to break the “seinen curse,” producing premium hardcover editions with a bonus story, exclusive author Q&A, and other extra content. We also made them 2-in-1 editions to reduce the number of volumes we’d have to release. Whether that has worked or not is still an open question. Though Vol. 1 is doing well, it is discouraging to see basically no change in the popularity of the scanlations since we licensed the series.

Finally, consider: We’ve received some asks about whether having a manga available in English on a legal manga site makes a print version less likely because people have already read it. Well, illegal scanlations have an impact that’s many times bigger than any legal manga site. Something to think about.

So, what can you do? Well, you can stop reading scanlations, and encourage friends to do the same. I have never read more than a single chapter of a series in scanlation, and I have read a lot of manga (not all of it in Japanese). There is enough excellent manga out legally in English to fill all of your leisure time. ALL of it. And it’s increasingly available digitally at an affordable price.

If you still need a little piracy in your life, the least you can do is stop reading series that have been licensed. If you want to see what happens next, wait for the official release to catch up. You’ll survive the wait, I promise. And please spread the word about licensed releases! It can be hard for publishers to get scan readers informed about the legal version.

Viz’s Vice President of Publishing, Leyla Acker:

— On whether it’s a bad thing to read manga that won’t be published in English online when they’ve been fan translated?

I don’t think it’s a “bad thing,” mainly because I don’t think that value judgments like “good” and “bad” are useful to the conversation. The assumption implicit in this question is that the legitimacy of scanlations should be measured primarily by their potential impact on sales. While that’s no small issue, it’s not the main one, which is this: with a few notable exceptions, every mangaka and doujinshika I have ever spoken to about their work being scanlated hates it. From the creator’s perspective, the point is not whether the work is officially released in English or any other language, but that their work has been appropriated by people they don’t know and then used in ways they never consented to, even if it’s being done with good intentions.

— If fan interest online ever compelled them to go back and take a second look at a title?

You can basically copy and paste Kodansha’s Tumblr post on scanlations here. In other words, no. As fans ourselves, we’re definitely aware of what people are talking about online, but in our market there’s not necessarily a direct correlation between what’s popular online and what people actually buy. In fact, sometimes there’s an inverse correlation, not only with seinen and josei, as the Kodansha post indicated, but also markedly with shoujo. Also, if a midlist or potentially more modest-selling title has been heavily scanlated that can act as a disincentive for us to publish it since we know we’ll be faced with diminished sales out the gate.

Digital Manga Publishing’s Sales Manager Yoko Tanigaki:

— On whether it’s a bad thing to read manga that won’t be published in English online when they’ve been fan translated?

When was it ever a good thing? This is not a good or bad thing. This is an issue of right or wrong. It is wrong to take un-consented or unlicensed materials, scan them, translate them and distribute them. This is stealing- YES, stealing. This is never OK. This is WRONG. Knowing this and you still want a “scanlation-like” action in your life? Come work for me at Digital Manga Guild, and we’ll pay you a portion of the sale. I could always use more translators and letterers.

— On whether it’s a bad thing to read manga that won’t be published in English online when they’ve been fan translated?

Not really. There is no magical publishing formula that says “this book will sell well because it has a huge fan interest on line.”


Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, an anime and manga blog. Currently is on an anime backlog adventure. You can follow him on Twitter @Kami_nomi.

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: digital manga publishing, fan interest online, Kodansha Comics, kodansha usa, Manga Publishers, viz media

Do You Know What a Manga Adapter Is? You Do Now!

April 11, 2014 by Justin Stroman 15 Comments

Alice in The Country of HeartsRosario + Vampire Strobe Edge

For a month and a week or so now, I’ve been working on a project intended to highlight people working in the manga industry and how hard they’re working to bring forth quality manga (well, that’s one of the things). When the project started, I intended to highlight three of more known positions in manga. I did:

  • Advice on Manga Lettering, From Manga Letterers
  • Advice on Manga Translation, From Manga Translators
  • Advice on Manga Editing, From Manga Editors

But, in all honestly, those were the three I had actually known about. But very early on in the project, I learned about another position that I had no clue what it was. That would be an adapter:

…I know a few others in the industry and can ask them if they’d be interested in chatting/emailing with you for your project. Are you focusing on just letterers for now, or looking for translators/adapters too?

So, after asking Lys Blakeslee, Yen Press’s letterer who participated in the project and the one who sent the quoted text above, about what a manga adapter is, her response back implied that it was essentially just like editing. That was what I thought for two weeks or so. Then I finally started getting in contact with as many industry folk as I possibly could for editors, and I went back to the first person Lys gave me contact info for.

This was the response:

…And I’d be delighted to contribute, but I’m actually an adapter/rewriter, not an editor, so I can’t answer this specific set of questions. If you have a similar set of questions about adaptation, I hope you’ll send them my way!

So yeah, I had no idea what a manga adapter/rewriter was. Now, I had seen something like “adaptation” in certain manga series. If you check the credits page of most Seven Seas and Viz Media works, I’d see “adaptation” listed there. I didn’t find much information on it. I decided I wasn’t going to worry about it then.

But flash forward back to a few weeks ago, and now I’ve run into a dilemma. It’s not something I planned to do. I could just turn down doing the last project on manga adapters and call it a day.

Well, that was until I did a search on Google just to find information on what a manga adapter was.

Thanks based Google!

Gooogggleeeee

Hi MJ

Oh hai MJ

Thanks based Google! So with Google being relatively useless, and my curiosity of finding out what an adapter actually does to a manga series tempting me, I took the plunge. I now plan on asking manga adapters advice on manga adapting, which will be up in two weeks, potentially.

But after I got this response back when I decided to ask what a manga adapter is:

What the hell? A manga adapter? I never heard of this. That sounds like something an anime studio would use.

-Manga blogger I keep in touch with

It became clear that it needed some explanation, so now I’ll talk about manga adapters. So, I guess the basic question is:

What is a Manga Adapter?

Well, from what I gathered from asking around, the job of a manga adapter is to take the translated Japanese script done by a translator into English, and make it sound like words you commonly see on a day to day basis. They normally receive the Japanese manga and English translation in a Word Document, and would adjust the text so it fits the bubbles and reads well in English. “Sometimes a rewriter does very little other than restructure sentences so they sound clear in English,” Lianne Sentar, who happened to be an adapter/rewriter for TOKYOPOP for years before they shut down the manga division in 2011 and is the adapter for Seven Seas’s Alice of The Country of series, said via email. “But rewriters can also do a more deluxe adaptation–adding lines to help clear up ambiguous sections, making connections in dialogue to stitch together ideas that were vague in the Japanese, replicating Japanese speech patterns with distinct English speech patterns.”

Even with this description, I was still mostly confused. Actually, it wasn’t her explanation that was wrong. It’s more or less my line of thinking. My thought was that the translator would already be writing it in proper English form. And if there are any glaring errors or in need of some things that needed smoothing out, the editor would take care of it. So what’s the need for an adapter? Ysabet MacFarlane, who happens to be adapting/rewriting manga such as Haganai, Mayo Chiki, A Devil and Her Love Song, and Strobe Edge, gave me a reason why to think that with this comment: “If someone can translate accurately, for example, but isn’t necessarily a great writer, we can compensate for that.” What this reminded me was that, hey, not everyone can write. And some of the people translating manga might not even be native English speakers. Of course, even some English speakers can have trouble writing, but whatever the case, there can always be a third eye looking it over. I now reflect back to the Manga Editing advice piece, where Daniella Orihuela-Gruber’s had answered my question on what her biggest challenge is when it comes to editing manga. Her answer involved the tone of a manga series, and this particular line implies a few things:

It’s easier if there’s a rewriter on the manga, though. That way there’s three of us trying to get the language right. However, I don’t always get that privilege!

  1. It would be great to make sure we make this manga good, so having an extra set of eyes would be nice.
  2. As you can also tell, it depends whether or not an adapter/re-writer will be assigned to the project for an editor, probably by publisher.

Clearly, the tone of a character, story, and how it’s shown is important. So…what happens when it goes wrong? Well, I finally understood it by reading Sensei’s Ramblings on this very subject. This is actually a post done by translator William Flaganan, who explains what they do, and explains it simply: “The most vital domain of the rewriter is characterization. If the characters sound like the characters, then the rewriter is doing a good job. If all the characters sound the same, then there’s a problem.” Here’s the example he gives which finally made me understand the role of an adapter:

Let’s take the line:

I’m going out with friends. Do you want to come along?

Tough Guy:

Me and the guys are goin’ out. Comin’?

Child:

I gonna meet up with some friends! You coming too?

Young man:

Some of the guys and I are hitting the bars. You coming with?

Young woman:

A few of us are getting together. Do you think you can come along?

Elderly:

Several of us are going to paint the town. Do you feel like joining in?

Polite:

A few of us had plans to go out. I do hope you can accompany us.

Affected:

Plans are afoot for a group outing. Your presence is requested.

So, what’s the issue you ask? Well, they all sound the same. For a manga series, it’s possible they can use the first, neutral sentence. The problem? “The experience,” says William, “wouldn’t be as rich as is could be, and worse, wouldn’t be as rich as it was for Japanese readers when they read the original book.” And that’s a big no-no. As expressed by the adapters themselves and William’s article, nobody will ever notice the rewriter made a mistake, which means they’ve done a great job. They will notice when they make a big one like that, and that would be an issue. Now, here’s the full answer from Daniella on tone in a manga series:

Trying to catch the right tone for the series is probably the hardest for me. The copy-editing, the formatting, and the quality control aspects of the job are all pretty easy, but finding language that fits the book the best is always a challenge.

You have to find the right balance of language befitting a character and the overall tone of the manga. This is less about localization or writing the character like they’re speaking in an accent, and more about making sure a trendy teenager in the 21st Century isn’t speaking like they’re a Victorian aristocrat. Unless the manga tells us that’s their thing.

It’s easier if there’s a re-writer on the manga, though. That way there’s three of us trying to get the language right. However, I don’t always get that privilege!

So look back at those lines again, and you should get the point. It’s obviously something we don’t keep in mind when we’re reading a manga series, but that’s what the industry people have to deal with. If we do notice an issue like that, then that means the Adapter has failed. And…apparently we need to bring pitchforks and stuff.

But ok, I think I’ve explained what an adapter is. I sincerely hope you’ve got it.

…So why adapter/re-writer? Why are there two names of these? Who coined the term?

“I don’t know.” That was the answer from Lianne. She then explained that they are used differently:

  1. Within the industry, it’s referred to as a rewriter.
  2. But in manga books, it’s “adaptation” or “adapted by”.

And yes, Ysabet was not sure either.

I don’t know, but I think that should get figured out. Or explained. It’d be nice to know who coined the names in the first place actually…

Rewriter mixed in with xxx

Yeah, searching for Manga rewriters is not any better actually

Rewriter mixed in with more xxx

Who knew searching for manga rewriter would lead to this though???

So what happened to Manga Adapting?

“it’s a dying art–” Lianne said.

But um…well–

“the job itself is disappearing”

…Well then.

As you probably figured out from the start, manga adapting is…not exactly popular, it seems. Back in the early days of manga, a lot of people could be adapters.

“My impression,” Ysabet said, “is that adapters were more common back when manga was becoming a big thing in North America, especially because the early licensed titles tended to get more heavily localized than most things do now. I’m pretty sure that most or all of the VIZ series that I was familiar with back in the late ’90s or so had adapters.” So for a good chunk of time, there was definitely more of a usage for them.

“When manga first started to be published, all of my friends who loved manga but didn’t know Japanese wanted to be rewriters,” mentioned William in his article. He added that you didn’t have to take the years of Japanese to actually become a part of the manga industry.

Of course, back then you can consider that a problem. In anime (especially 4kids, poor them), there was a lot of changes that as a kid you wouldn’t know or care about, but you then realize that they effectively changed the original intention of the work itself, and that, with only a handful of exceptions (think of Dragonball Z of course. Then think of Ghost Stories!), is bad.

That’s how manga was back then too.

“There used to be WAY more of a push to ‘Westernize’ scripts before the manga was released to North American bookstores,” Lianne said. “Names were changes to Western equivalents–Yamato became “Matt,” for example–and references to Japanese places, foods, and culture were removed or replaced with Western equivalents (onigiri became donuts). This was really ethnocentric, obviously! And bizarre at times.” But it was thanks to having the manga kept in its original form (right to left) that eventually this type of thinking slowed down. And has remained so for the most part nowadays.

But, as that change occurred, well, so did the number of adapters in the manga industry.

Needless to say, having the manga in its original form was not the reason adapters started to die down. There were a lot of factors. Of course, the manga industry going downward when the economy went south in 2008-2009 is a big factor. But mostly, translators and editors assumed the role of re-writing. As I explained at the start, only Viz and Seven Seas currently use adapters. With tighter budgets and a more targeted approach to what manga is licensed, as opposed to licensing just about everything, other companies might not need an adapter.

Another thing that I think contributes to a lack of adapters in the industry is learning Japanese. In doing the manga advice series, it’s become extremely clear — though not a surprise — you need to know some Japanese, whether it’s Hiragana/Katakana, to actual words, etc. As already mentioned, you didn’t have to know Japanese to be an adapter. But with more of a focus on maintaining the original work as seen in Japan as best as possible, knowing the language is important.

So…what’s next for adapters?

Hard to say definitively, though it is bleak from what I can tell. Viz and Seven Seas it seems will continue to rely on adapters for their manga, so for current adapters, things should be good. It’s just you can probably expect to be doing other things.

“It’s really a part-time freelance position, and most rewriters do other jobs in the industry as well (editing, proofing) to supplement their income and get more work,” Lianne said. “Rewriters are generally hired by the series, so you have to constantly apply for new series to add to your current ones or take the place of series that end.”

But as for anybody who would want to get into adapting…it…looks impossible right now. That said, it doesn’t mean there’s no chance. You’ll just have to be incredibly fortunate. That and if I can get in touch with any other manga adapters, we’ll see their take on the industry in some time. So there may be a way to break in. We just don’t know how.

So did any of you know about manga adapters/rewriters before reading this article? Do you understand what they do now? If you have any thoughts, feel free to reply in the comments below.


Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, a Japanese Pop Culture blog. Even with all the time in the world, he’s almost certain to still be behind in anime and manga. You can follow him on Twitter (@Kami_nomi)

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: adaptation, Manga Adapter, Manga Rewriter, manga series

MangaBox: What Is It & What’s Good to Read

February 26, 2014 by Justin Stroman 4 Comments

Manga BoxA few weeks ago, I finally did what a rational manga consumer and someone who attempts to write about manga would do: consume everything that MangaBox has to offer and try and talk to people behind MangaBox. Let’s just say the last part was mostly a pipe dream. But I worked with what I got. In the end though, you probably want to know one thing: is MangaBox worth your time?

YES!

…

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Android, Araidoki, Billion Dogs, Digital Manga, First Love Suicide Pact, Free Manga, GREEN WORLDZ, High-Rise Invasion, In a Heartbeat, iPhone, Kindachi Case Files: Takato's Side, kodansha, Logick, Man's Best Friend, Manga Box, NadeNadeShikoShiko, Peephole, Schoolgirl Landlord Honoka, Spoof on Titan, The Knight in The Area Side Story

The Legal Manga Reading Sites You Don’t Know About

February 11, 2014 by Justin Stroman 19 Comments

You don’t really see it at ANN. You don’t really see it at Manga Bookshelf. You don’t really see these discussed amongst forums and various social media sites. I did list some of them though, because they proved they’re legit somehow. Needless to say though, it feels that’s the only type of exposure they’ve gotten. I’m guessing it’s not true, but it’s just a feeling. And it’s weird. Well, maybe not as weird as expected, since the online manga sites themselves might be the ones with some issues.

…Oh right, I guess I should explain a bit more what I’m talking about.

…

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Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: Amimaru, Balloons and Chapters, Manga Reborn, Manga Samurai Style, Reading Manga Sites You Probably Don't Know About, Renta!

What’s Your Favorite Weekly Shonen Jump Title?

May 7, 2013 by Justin Stroman 17 Comments

Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha Weekly Shonen Jump

So what do you know? It’s been over a year since Viz’s Weekly Shonen Jump has been around. With it out of the “Alpha” phase and now moving forward with simultaneous releases, it’s doing what I don’t think many would have thought years ago—and it’s pretty impressive. And while maybe the content is not like Japan’s Weekly Shonen Jump, the lineup that’s appeared since the magazine began is nothing to sneeze at. So I’ll ask you all to share what’s been your favorite Weekly Shonen Jump title serialized since January 30, 2012. Here’s a reminder of the works that have appeared in WSJ so far:

Bakuman

Bakuman

Created By: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Publisher’s summary: “Average student Moritaka Mashiro enjoys drawing for fun. When his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. Can these two boys turn their dreams into reality with all the challenges they must face in the manga-publishing world?”

Run: January 30 to May 7, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Barrage

Barrage

Created By: Kouhei Horikoshi

Publisher’s summary: “Spunky slum kid Astro gets the chance of a lifetime to end the chaos ripping apart his alien-invaded home planet when the playboy prince switches places with him. Now Astro has become Prince Barrage, a boy charged with the duty of restoring peace to the planet…and given an all-powerful magical spear to do it!”

Run: June 4 to September 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Bleach

Bleach

Created By: Tite Kubo

Publisher’s summary: “Ichigo Kurosaki never asked for the ability to see ghosts — he was born with the gift. When his family is attacked by a Hollow — a malevolent lost soul — Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, dedicating his life to protecting the innocent and helping the tortured spirits themselves find peace.”

Run: January 30, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Blue Exorcist

Blue Exorcist

Created By: Kazue Kato

Publisher’s summary: “Raised by Father Fujimoto, a famous exorcist, Rin Okumura never knew his real father. One day a fateful argument with Father Fujimoto forces Rin to face a terrible truth — the blood of the demon lord Satan runs in Rin’s veins! Rin swears to defeat Satan, but doing that means entering the mysterious True Cross Academy and becoming an exorcist himself. Can Rin fight demons and keep his infernal bloodline a secret? It won’t be easy, especially when drawing his father’s sword releases the demonic power within him!”

Run: July 30, 2012

Serialized: Monthly

Cross Manage

Cross Manage

Created By: KAITO

Publisher’s summary: “Talented but aimless Sakurai just can’t find a place to belong. After trying (and failing at) one extracurricular activity after another, his life changes thanks to a chance encounter with lacrosse fanatic Toyoguchi, who thinks Sakurai has just what it takes to propel her girls’ lacrosse team to victory!”

Run: October 1, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Dragonball

Dragon Ball (full color)

Created By: Akira Toriyama

Publisher’s summary: “The legendary classic manga series Dragon Ball is back…in full color! Relive the incredible Saiyan Saga with this special re-release.”

Run: February 4, 2013

Serialized: Weekly

 

Hunter X Hunter Special

Hunter X Hunter Kurapika’s Memories

Created By: Yoshihiro Togashi

Publisher’s summary: “Hunters are a select group of people who track down rare and priceless items. Many people have tried to become one, but most give up or are killed during the exam. This special one-shot is the story of one such Hunter, named Kurapika. His people were wiped out because their eyes turn a fiery red color and are sought by collectors. This is the story of Kurapika before he lost his clan…”

Run: December 17 to Decemeber 24, 2012

Kintoki

Kintoki

Created By: Akira Toriyama

Publisher’s summary: “Once upon a time, the Kinme Clan were an extraordinary tribe best known for their incredible physical strength and golden eyes. Because of that they were revered as gods of war, but now the clan is slowly dying out due to a short lifespan. And just when most everyone has forgotten about the clan, a mysterious golden-eyed boy enters the scene…”

Run: January 28, 2013 (one-shot)

 

Naruto

Naruto

Created By: Masashi Kishimoto

Publisher’s summary: “Naruto is a young shinobi with an incorrigible knack for mischief. He’s got a wild sense of humor, but Naruto is completely serious about his mission to be the world’s greatest ninja!”

Run: January 30, 2013

Serialized: Weekly

Nisekoi

Nisekoi

Created By: Naoshi Komi

Publisher’s summary: “It’s hate at first sight…rather a knee-to-the-head at first sight when Raku meets Chitoge! Unfortunately, his gangster father arranges a false love match with their rival gang leader’s daughter, Chitoge! However, Raku’s searching for his childhood sweetheart, with a pendant around his neck as a memento, and is surprised to discover three candidates with keys: Chitoge, Onodera (his current crush) and Tachibana (the police chief’s daughter)!”

Run: November 26, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Nura

Nura: Rise of The Yokai Clan

Created By: Hiroshi Shiibashi

Publisher’s summary: “At first, no one thought that Rikuo, who is only one-quarter yokai and three-quarters human, could handle following in his grandfather Nurarihyon’s footsteps as the leader of the most powerful yokai clan. But now Rikuo has proven he can unite both humans and demons. He’s building the ultimate Night Parade of a Hundred Demons to ward off the legendary onmyoji, Abe no Seimei, and his descendants, the Gokadoin clan, who plan to take over the world with a master strike called The Purification.”

Run: January 30, 2012 to January 14, 2013

Serialized: Weekly

Nura Special

Nura: Aoi Spiral Castle Specials

Created By: Hiroshi Shiibashi

Publisher’s summary: “While the day belongs to humans, the night belongs to Yokai, supernatural creatures that thrive on human fear. Caught between these worlds is Rikuo Nura. He’s three-quarters human, but his grandfather is none other than Nurarihyon, the supreme commander of the Nura clan, a powerful yokai consortium. Now Rikuo’s on his way to taking over that command!”

Run: August 27, 2012 (Part 1), October 29, 2012 (Part 2)

One Piece

One Piece

Created By: Eichiro Oda

Publisher’s summary: “When Monkey D. Luffy accidentally ate the cursed Gum-Gum Fruit, he gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Despite this, he’s vowed to someday become King of the Pirates and find the legendary treasure known as “One Piece” With his large crew of powerful and unique characters and his advanced pirate ship, the Thousand Sunny, Luff’s out to become the greatest pirate that’s ever lived!”

Run: January 30, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

One Piece X Toriko

One Piece X Toriko: Taste of the Devil Fruit

Created By: Eiichiro Oda and Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro

Summary: Crossover one-shot between One Piece and Toriko.

Run: Available to subscribers who signed up before April 30, 2012

 

 

One-Man Punch

One-Punch Man

Created By: ONE and Yusuke Murata

Publisher’s summary: “From illustrious illustrator Yusuke Murata of Eyeshield 21 fame and the maniacal mind of up-and-coming mangaka ONE comes a manga series that packs quite the punch! Follow our hero Saitama through his hilarious romps as he searches for the baddest guys to challenge. Let’s get ready to rumble!”

Run: January 21, 2013

Serialized: Weekly

Bakuman Otter #11

Otter #11

Created by: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Summary: A gag manga series created by Kazuya Hiramaru in Bakuman.

Run: Published in the SJ Alpha Yearbook 2013

 

 

 

 

Road To Ninja Naruto The Movie

Road To Naruto The Movie

Created By: Masashi Kishimoto

Publisher’s summary: “To commemorate the latest Naruto Shippuden movie hitting Japanese thaters, Shonen Jump Alpha presents a special chapter that chronicles the events right before Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie. See the Naruto characters in an all-new light as they deal with Tobi’s dark trap!”

Run: August 6, 2012 (One-shot)

Rurouni Kenshin Restoration

Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration

Created By: Nohiburo Watsuki

Publisher’s summary: “Action, romance, and historical intrigue help make Nobuhiro Watsuki’s Rurouni Kenshin, the tale of a wandering swordsman set against the backdrop of the Meiji Restoration, one of the most popular Shonen Jump titles among fans to date. Himura Kenshin, once an assassin (or hitokiri) of ferocious power, now fights to protect the honor of those in need.”

Run: May 21, 2012

Serialized: Monthly

Sachie Chan Good!!

Sachie-Chan Good!!

Created By: Akira Toriyama and Masakazu Katsura

Summary: A collaboration between Akira Toriyama and Masakazu Katsura.

Run: Published in the SJ Alpha Yearbook 2013

 

 

 

 

Sakuran

Sakuran

Created By: Toshiaki Iwashiro

Publisher’s summary: “A special one-shot from the creator of Psyren.”

Run: April 1, 2013 (One-shot)

 

 

 

Takama-ga-hara

Takama-ga-hara

Created By: Jyuuzouu Kawai

Publisher’s summary: “Yamato Yamada’s family is famous for their physical strength, but Yamato doesn’t want to follow in his four brothers’ footsteps — all he wants to do is draw manga and win the Tezuka Award! Life for Yamato taks an unexpected turn, however, when his right hand becomes even stronger than usual…Does Yamato actually have godlike powers?!”

Run: July 23, 2012 to November 19, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

Toriko

Toriko

Created By: Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro

Publisher’s summary: “In a savage world ruled by the pursuit of the most delicious foods, it’s either eat or be eaten! While searching for the tastiest foods imaginable, Gourmet Hunter Toriko and his bottomless stomach travel around the world facing every beast in his way.”

Run: January 30, 2012

Serialized: Weekly

World Trigger

World Trigger

Created By: Daisuke Ashihara

Publisher’s summary: “A gate to another dimension has burst open, and invincible monsters called Neighbors invade Earth. Only a group of elite warriors who co-opt other-dimensional technology can defend life on Earth as we know it.”

Run: February 11, 2013

Serialized: Weekly

 

Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal

Created By: Shin Yoshida and Naoto Miyashi

Publisher’s summary: “In a futuristic city, augmented reality Duels are all the rage. Duelists, using devices called D-Gazers, can interact with the environment and their opponents as never before. With more awesome monsters and unbelievable cards, the future of Yu-Gi-Oh! starts right here!”

Run: July 9, 2012

Serialized: Monthly


Justin Stroman is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, a Japanese Pop Culture Blog that covers anime, manga, games, and more. You can follow him on Twitter and like the Facebook page to get updates and links to Japanese Pop Culture Related content.

Filed Under: FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: bakuman, barrage, bleach, blue exorcist, Cross Manage, Dragon Ball, Hunter X Hunter, Kintoki, manga, naruto, nisekoi, nura: rise of the yokai clan, One Piece, one punch man, Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration, Takama-ga-hara, toriko, Weekly Shonen Jump

Guest Post: What Manga Got You To Read More?

February 6, 2013 by Justin Stroman 43 Comments

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So tell me, how did you all get into manga? Because let me tell you something: I didn’t exactly get hooked immediately. During my middle school years I mostly settled on watching anime and anything that aired on Toonami and Adult Swim. It wasn’t until around 8th grade when I finally bought manga, and those manga happened to be Psychic Academy, One Piece, and D.N Angel. I can’t remember how I had come to know what manga was—I may have learned about it in a magazine most likely—but thanks to some silly reasons (for example, I mixed up a character from a fighting game, and that’s why I brought Psychic Academy), I bought these three manga.

I only kept up with Psychic Academy and maybe mistakenly gave up on the others—even throwing them away because they were starting to take up space in my room and I wasn’t reading them. After that, though, I wasn’t all that connected with manga, and stayed in the realm of anime and video games. However, I suddenly had a desire to write and draw around my high school years. Don’t worry, these are stories I’ll be inclined to keep to myself! Anyway, when I attended college, I decided it was time to learn my craft. At the time, purchasing books or anything related to what I did was not an option, so I didn’t know what was a trend or what was really all that popular. So during my sophomore year of school, I believe, I decided to return to the manga world and start reading in general—just to get a sense of what I’d like and what was popular. I wasn’t convinced, though. I had only picked up manga I had heard of like Rosario + Vampire and Negima, and aside from the usual shounen stuff (Rurouni Kenshin, Bleach), nothing really compelled me to read more and take manga seriously.

Then the best thing happened to me when it came to manga: I watched the first episode of Monster on SYFY. That episode made such a great impression on me that I had to find out more on what it was and what it was all about. That was how I found out Monster was a manga series created by some artist named Naoki Urasawa. I brought the first volume at the bookstore, got home, and started turning the pages. And turning. And turning! Needless to say, I was captivated. The story was suspenseful and full of seemingly implausible yet true twists, the art blew me away (as at the time I didn’t believe manga could be like that), and it made me understand a lot of things about manga that I might have glossed over before. Needless to say, this was the time I wanted more.

So you could also approach this as a question of how you got into manga, but let’s try and dig a bit deeper. What was that one manga you read that really hit you and told you to go read more manga? Were you in a position where you read a manga, did not like it, but was convinced by someone or something to check out a different manga? Whatever the case is, feel free to share in the comments the manga that got you hooked onto more manga.


Justin Stroman is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, a Japanese Pop Culture Blog that covers anime, manga, games, and more. You can follow him on Twitter and like the Facebook page to get updates and links to Japanese Pop Culture Related content.

Filed Under: FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: manga, Reading More Manga

Guest Feature: 10 Things We Should Know About Manga

November 9, 2012 by Justin Stroman 6 Comments

There are many things to know about manga — after all, it’s existed for a pretty long time — but while there are a lot of things to learn about manga, I say there are 10 you should know already. Let’s get this list going!
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Filed Under: FEATURES, FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: manga, manga list, Things We Should Know About Manga

Manga, and the Olympic Inspiration

August 3, 2012 by Justin Stroman 4 Comments

I’m always kind of waiting for the good news. I’m tired of hearing about athletes getting in trouble and seeing scandals that ultimately question the actual humanity inside of a person. In the case of athletes, there’s always someone at fault and it usually involves the athlete themselves, and I can’t stand it since those who do get in trouble are pretty fortunate: they have a far more secure standing than most, and have made tons of money that they earned due to their talent and day and night training so they can make their living. Now, when the Olympics roll around every four years, I don’t pay attention to all of the sporting events; I especially don’t pay attention to it when NBC decides to tape delay it. However, I’m always up for hearing some great stories involving a participant in the games, and usually, while the Olympics does hold some controversy, there are moments that take place that can make a person and a community smile, just a little bit. And with Kouhei Uchimura’s story, this is one that manages to involve the manga community in its own little way.

While growing up, you’re most likely to have read a work that tells you to shoot for your dreams, and you’re most likely to have watched a cartoon or show with the theme inspiring you to never give up. Then you become an adult, and suddenly realize it’s not feasible to accomplish what you wanted to do as a child. Only a few out of the billions of people on Earth grow up to eventually accomplish what they want to do; Kouhei is part of that few, or more specifically, one of that few to have read a work and let that guide him throughout the 2012 Olympics. Kouhei began taking Gymnastics at his parents’ sports club in Nagasaki Prefecture at the age of 3. In 1994, Shogakukan launched Ganba! Fly High, a manga illustrated by Hiroyuki Kikuta and written by Shinji Morisue in Weekly Shounen Sunday. Ganba! Fly High tells the story of high school gymnast Shun Fujimaki who wants to compete in the 2000 Olympic Games. He eventually is able to rise through the competition and win a gold medal.

What is the correlation you ask? Shinji Morisue happened to be a participant in the Olympic Games—in fact, in the 1984 Summer Olympics, he left Los Angeles with three medals: a bronze in team combined exercises, a silver in vault, and a gold medal in horizontal bar. Uchimura will leave London with the gold in all-around competition. When I saw the original ANN link to the news, I was pretty touched, as it seemed to be right down my alley: an athlete saying how a manga he either read as a child or as a teen was one of his inspirations in making it to the Olympics, and it just so happened the author of the said manga he had read was the last to have won the gold in the same sport’s all-around event. As it turns out (clarified in the news link), Morisue did not win all around gold in 1984—that was a different Japanese gymnast, Koji Gushiken—but it doesn’t really diminish the real story.

The real story involves a manga created and based on what Morisue knew about Gymnastics, and how it managed to inspire an athlete to shoot for gold. Yes it’s kind of cheesy and Uchimura didn’t have to mention it, but he did. In case we might have forgotten inspiration can come from entertainment or literature, this can serve as a reminder. It’s still probably a rare occurrence, but it is certainly possible. The Olympic Games can mean a lot of things, but if there’s one thing people can take from it is that it’s an athlete-driven event that not only has highly paid superstars representing their respective countries, but also high school and college students who love to play their sport and get salaries comparable to a regular day job. It means the stories these athletes have are actually genuine, and worthy of great admiration.

Kouhei Uchimura has won events before, securing wins at numerous competitions prior to the London Olympics, so he has received good money for his accomplishments. I still find it cool to see that there was a manga that inspired him to keep on pushing, as attempting to be an athlete means pushing through all the good times and the bad times. As for Ganba! Fly High, to know of a work that did inspire someone to make a mention of it reminds me of how we always hear manga artists tell us who inspired them to create their works. It also makes me want to see more athletes share their stories in manga form, whether it’s a success story, one that doesn’t end as it should, or another athlete inspired by a manga. We all get inspiration from something, though, so it’s not exclusive to sports. So do you guys have something that inspired you, or have a story that you thought was pretty cool? Do you know of other manga works that athletes have written and shared aside from Ganba! Fly High? And what do you think of Uchimura’s story?

You may check out more of Justin’s work at Organization Anti-Social Geniuses.

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: ganba! fly high, inspiration, manga, olympics

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