Daily Chatter

It was just this morning that I was feeling grouchy and envious that the French have the first volume of Saint Young Men in their spoiled little hands. Who would have thought that ill will would be washed away a few hours later? What is the cause of this renewal of my normally sunny disposition, you ask?

Yup. She’s coming back, courtesy of Kodansha Comics. I love it when I can type “Fulfilled” onto the license request roster.

Updates: Deb (About.Com) Aoki delivers a terrific round-up of coverage and reactions. So many exclamation points! And the Manga Bookshelfers form our battle robot to discuss this joyous news.

Here’s the press release, which I’m sure you’ll also see in full seventy other places:

KODANSHA USA ANNOUNCES THE RETURN OF SAILOR MOON

Never-before-published Enhanced Editions of the Groundbreaking Manga SeriesShare Long-Awaited US Publishing Debut with CODENAME SAILOR V

NEW YORK, New York – March 18, 2011 – Kodansha USA Publishing, a subsidiary of Kodansha, announced today the exciting return of Naoko Takeuchi’s SAILOR MOON, one of the most significant names in comics and manga, to US publishing. Brand new deluxe editions of the acclaimed series will be released by Kodansha USA’s Kodansha Comics imprint in September 2011. Out of print for six years, SAILOR MOON re-launches along with Takeuchi’s two-volume prequel series CODENAME: SAILOR V, in print in the US for the first time—making this one of the most highly anticipated manga releases in years.

The SAILOR MOON manga, which originated in Japan in 1992 and debuted in the US in 1997, follows Usagi Tsukino, a young girl who transforms into super heroine Sailor Moon to combat evil and fight for love and justice in the name of the Moon and the mysterious Moon Princess. The first successful shôjo (girls’) manga release in the US, SAILOR MOON changed the book landscape and helped establish the foundation for the manga craze; in particular drawing attention to the popularity of comics among female readers.

Prequel series CODENAME: SAILOR V, the first of Takeuchi’s “magical girl” manga, will make its highly anticipated debut in the US alongside the SAILOR MOON re-launch. In CODENAME: SAILOR V, teenager Minako Aino fights as Sailor V against the villains of the Dark Agency before she discovers Sailor Moon.

The Kodansha USA editions of SAILOR MOON will be published on a bi-monthly schedule and follow the 2003 Japanese re-release format of the classic series. The original 18 volumes have been condensed into 12 volumes covering the main storyline, and two volumes dedicated to short stories. Each volume has gorgeous new cover art, retouched interior art and dialogue along with extensive bonus material from Takeuchi, and detailed translation notes.

One of the most recognized manga and anime properties in the world, SAILOR MOON took American pop culture by storm, with mentions in music (“One Week” by Barenaked Ladies), bestselling books (The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot) and more. In Japan, over 15 million copies have been sold and the series has generated everything from animated features to live action musicals, a live action television series and countless merchandise.

“I’m very excited to reintroduce Ms. Takeuchi’s work to her American fans,” said Yoshio Irie, president and CEO of Kodansha USA Publishing. Irie is also the former chief editor of Nakayosi magazine in which the SAILOR MOON manga was serialized. “As we continue to build the Kodansha Comics manga list, a title like SAILOR MOON is the jewel in our crown. As the former chief editor of the work in Japan, I’m especially thrilled to finally release the prequel, CODENAME: SAILOR V, to the many fans who have been asking for it at long last.”

About Kodansha USA Publishing

Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC, a subsidiary of Kodansha Ltd. aims to bring the best names in manga to the North American market, and partners with Random House Publisher Services for distribution. www.kodanshacomics.com

About Kodansha Ltd.

Kodansha Ltd. is Japan’s largest publisher, with its headquarters in Tokyo.  Originally established in 1909 by Seiji Noma, the company is still a family-run business.  Under the leadership of Sawako Noma, company president since 1987, Kodansha continues to play a dominant role in the media world, producing books and magazines in a wide variety of genres including literature, fiction, nonfiction, children’s, business, lifestyle, art, manga, fashion, and journalism.  Recently, the company has ventured into digital distribution of content as well.

www.kodansha.co.jp/english

 

Deb (About.Com) Aoki has announced the winners of the 2011 Manga Readers’ Choice Awards, with top honors going to the intermittently (possibly accidentally) fascinating Bakuman (Viz). I personally think Mitsuru Adachi’s Cross Game (Viz) is better in every meaningful particular, which just means that not enough people are reading Cross Game. Bakuman also beat Cross Game in the shônen category.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with the first volume of Dengeki Daisy (Viz), but its win in the shôjo category makes me wonder if I should give it a second chance. The second– and third-place nominees are spectacular, so maybe I judged Daisy too quickly. It just didn’t grab my attention and seemed like a less ambitious version of The Name of the Flower (CMX) with more text messages.

Much as I love House of Five Leaves (Viz), I actually voted for All My Darling Daughters (Viz) in the best new drama/action category. I happen to think that asking a person to choose between Natsume Ono and Fumi Yoshinaga is kind of cruel.

On the new comedy/slice of life front, my horse (Bunny Drop from Yen Press) won. Strong as the field was, I love Bunny Drop a whole lot. (Only two weeks until the third volume is out!)

I also voted with the majority in the all-ages tourney. I would have been perfectly happy if the second-place finisher had won, though.

What matters most about the results in the international manga category is that the James Patterson Literary Sweatshop came in last. Okay, that’s not true. I’m a big fan of both There’s Something About Sunyool (Netcomics) and Nina (Yôkaiden) Matsumoto, so I’m pleased that they shared the top spot, but I voted for Felipe Smith’s excellent Peepo Choo (Vertical).

I’ve read so little yaoi of recent vintage that I didn’t even vote in that contest. It does give me a start on a to-read list, though.

The winner of the one-shot category is exactly what it should have been.

I’m not a big consumer of supplemental collections or art books, so I cast my vote for AX (Top Shelf) in the anthology or art book category. It didn’t win, but it’s an acquired taste (and a mixed bag), so its loss doesn’t come as a complete surprise.

What are your reactions to the winners?

 

With the pick of the week presenting more of a challenge than usual, and with tumbleweeds blowing through the current ComicList, it’s a perfect opportunity to find some other use for the money you might have spent on comics.

To that end, I point you to Daniella (All About Manga) Orihuela-Gruber’s efforts to raise money for disaster relief in Japan:

There are still thousands of people missing, hundreds of thousands displaced and more debris to be cleared that can even be estimated at the present time. Roads leading to the most affected areas are severely damaged, which means aid cannot easily reach these people. Food is in short supply and so are basic necessities and medical supplies because the roads are so badly damaged.

She’s chosen to focus on two very worthy organizations, so go see if you’re able to help.

 

It should come as no surprise to anyone following the voting in this month’s Previews poll that the young ladies of A Certain Scientific Railgun (Seven Seas), written by Kazuma Kamachi and illustrated by Motoi Fuyukawa, used their psychic powers to manipulate you all into voting for them, thus crushing the competition. On the whole, I think you were pretty generous to give this one a landslide, as it sounds perfectly tolerable. I’m still not looking forward to reading the word “esper” over and over again, so I hope that’s confined to the expository bits at the beginning.

Branching outwards, Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey offers a bushel of links to items that are worth your reading time. The only one I’d add to that roster is this piece by Shaenon K. Garrity at comiXology, which looks at the sidebars that are often included in various shôjo manga:

Read enough of these notes, however, and you get the impression that shojo manga artists are both incredibly boring and completely insane.

She speaks the truth.

 

Pick of the Week: done! ComicList rundown: go!

Viz sent out a dedicated press release on the debut of Izumi Tsubaki’s Oresama Teacher, and I’m never quite sure how they pick which titles get this treatment. There isn’t a readily evident pattern, as near as I can tell. I’m not sure how Tsubaki’s other Viz title, The Magic Touch, sold, because I couldn’t be bothered to read any of it beyond the first volume.

I’m happy to report that I liked Oresama Teacher more than The Magic Touch. That wouldn’t have in difficult, but Tsubaki seems to have improved measurably over the course of her earlier title. Oresama is about a fight-prone girl who gets sent to a private school with a lenient admissions policy regarding problem kids. Mafuyu wants to change her ways, but circumstances keep intervening, and she doesn’t really know how to behave like her image of an average schoolgirl. When she sees someone being bullied or ganged up on, she has to intervene.

Unfortunately, her first blow for justice is struck on behalf of her creepy, conniving homeroom teacher, Saeki. Saeki seems to take an unseemly delight in messing with Mafuyu’s head, which isn’t any more difficult than me liking Oresama Teacher more than The Magic Touch. When she isn’t trying to evade her teacher’s random acts of weirdness, Mafuyu is trying to win the friendship of a classmate, Hayasaka. No stranger to combat, Hayasaka reads Mafuyu’s intensity as aggression, which results in some genuinely funny bits.

It’s not immediately evident where all this is going, but it doesn’t seem like Tsubaki is making it up as she goes along. Oresama Teacher is a much more assured bit of shôjo than I expected. It’s not exceptional by any means, but it seems like it could turn into something very good.

(Comments based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

Of course, if your budget only allows you the purchase of one volume of Viz shôjo this week, I’d have to recommend you pick the second volume of Julietta Suzuki’s Kamisama Kiss. The relationship between inadvertent shrine priestess Nanami and grumpy demon boy Tomoe inches along in the face of adversity, and it’s clear that Suzuki likes to develop these things carefully. While she throws some fairly conventional obstacles in the pair’s path, the pacing is always interesting, and the protagonists’ responses are always interesting and specific. Basically, all the strengths of the first volume are in place, and some new supporting characters add spice and humor to the proceedings. It’s a charmer.

On the “I haven’t read these yet, but I certainly will” front is the sixth volume of Kou Yaginuma’s excellent coming-of-age tale of student astronauts, Twin Spica (Vertical), and the sixth volume of Yuki Yoshihara’s gleefully tasteless, shouldn’t-really-work-but-does Butterflies Flowers (Viz).

What looks good to you?

 

The March 2011 edition of the Previews catalog is packed with noteworthy items, so let’s get right down to it.

My pick of the month would be Kaoru (Emma, Shirley) Mori’s A Bride’s Story (Yen Press), page 355:

The newest series from the critically acclaimed creator of Emma, A Bride’s Story tells the tale of a beautiful young bride in nineteenth-century Asia. At the age of twenty, Amir is sent to a neighboring town to be wed. But her surprise at learning her new husband, Karluk, is eight years younger than her is quickly replaced by a deep affection for the boy and his family. Though she hails from just beyond the mountains, Amir’s clan had very different customs, foods, and clothes from what Karluk is used to. As the two of them learn more about each other through their day-to-day lives, the bond of respect and love grows stronger.

Yen Press is proudly publishing Kaori Mori’s beautifully-illustrated tale in a deluxe hardcover edition.

If you’re like me, you would have been sold at “Kaoru Mori.” The series is ongoing in Enterbrain’s fellows!

CLAMP fans will be pleased with the arrival of another handsome omnibus treatment of one of their series, Magic Knight Rayearth, from Dark Horse (page 56). It originally ran in Kodansha’s Nakayoshi and was originally published in English by Tokyopop. Dark Horse’s version will be done-in-one, collecting all three volumes.

DC’s Vertigo imprint offers a new paperback printing of Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby, a semi-autobiographical tale of a young gay man coming of age in the turbulent American south of the 1960s (page 130). Monkey See’s Glen Weldon provided a lovely overview of the book.

A new release from Fanfare/Ponent Mon is always worth noting, even if you’ve never heard of the book before. This month, they solicit Farm 54, written by Galit Seliktar and illustrated by Gilad Sliktar:

Farm 54 is a collection of semi-autobiographical stories that address three important periods in the life of the protagonist, Naga, growing up in Israel’s rural periphery… While these Israeli childhood stories take place in the shadow of war an occupation, they also reflect universal feelings, passions, and experiences.

Kodansha Comics lists new volumes of several of the series it picked up from Del Rey (pages 296 and 297):

• Fairy Tail vol. 13, written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima
• Rave Master volumes 33-35, written and illustrated by Hiro Mashima
• Shugo Charai vol. 10, written and illustrated by Peach-Pit
• Arisa vol. 2, written and illustrated by Natsumi Ando
• Negima! vol. 29, written and illustrated by Ken Akamatsu
• Ninja Girls vol. 5, written and illustrated by Hosana Tanaka

Speaking of comebacks, if the recent Manga Moveable Feast piqued your interest in Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, Last Gasp rolls out new printings of the first two volumes (page 297).

If you’re interested in seeing people do amazing things with the form of comics (and don’t care much about story or character), Picturebox unleashes more work by Yuichi (Travel, New Engineering) Yokoyama in the form of Garden (page 308). Being of somewhat more conventional tastes, I think I’ll hold off on this one.

Update: Over at Robot 6, Sean T. Collins interviews Yokoyama and shares several preview pages of Garden.

I may not be able to show suck restraint with Gajo Sakamoto’s Tank Tankuro from Presspop, Inc. (page 308):

The roots of Astro Boy – Tank Tankuro pioneered robot manga during the pre-World War II period in Japan. First published in 1934, Tank Tankuro was one of the most famous manga characters of the era. Tankuro is said to be the first robot ever to appear in Japanese comics. He and his villain, Kuro Kabuto, famous among Japanese SF fans for his resemblance to Darth Vader, laid the foundations for such manga greats as Tezuka, Sugiura, and Fujiko.

Christopher (Comics212) Butcher is very excited about this, which is almost always a good sign.

And, because someone who is not me but clearly has every right for their dreams to come true demanded it, Viz releases a new edition of Oh!great’s Tenjo Tenge which, they promise, is “Finally UNCENSORED!” It’s about dorks who like to fight, with plenty of fan service to help keep your interest (page 333). I wish I could find a copy of the cover image, because it positively screams “Not for me.”

 

I’ve pretty much given up on manga industry analysis as a pastime. I found it had started to taint the hobby for me. But I always enjoy sinking my teeth into a great piece of writing from this category. Today’s comes from Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson over at Robot 6, in which she reacts to the recent round of layoffs at Tokyopop:

It’s just sad to see people who took their work seriously being treated so badly by a company that seems to put more value on a direct-to-Hulu reality series than on their core product, a solid line of manga that really did change the graphic novel market and the reading habits of millions of readers—myself included.

I would only add that, in my admittedly limited experience talking to industry figures, I can think of few professionals who were better equipped and more willing to be passionate advocates for good manga than Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl and Asako Suzuki. Any publisher possessing any sense at all would hire them at their absolute earliest convenience.

(Okay, I would also add that, in addition to being a passionate advocate for manga, Brigid is also one of its must astute, clear-eyed observers.)

Moving to a much more benign subject, another astute advocate, Erica (Okazu) Friedman, succumbs to my pestering and writes about what describes as “the fifth genre” of manga magazines in her latest column for The Hooded Utilitarian:

The pressure to conform to the four basic categories is industry-wide. The Japanese Magazine Publishers Association puts out circulation data for top selling manga magazines every year. These ratings are listed by; For girls, For boys, For men and For women. And yet, there is some leaking around the edges, as more alternative magazines seek out both male and female artists,  and male and female readers. These magazines focus less on who is buying and more on telling stories to people who want to read them.

A synonym for “fifth genre” might be “magazines with which David is unhealthily obsessed.”

 

This week’s ComicList isn’t as loaded as the Midtown Comics version, the source of my current Pick of the Week. Thankfully, Vertical finds a way to make the trip to the comic shop worthwhile.

Redemption comes in the form of the fifth volume of Konami Kanata’s excellent Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical). In this volume, Chi discovers that she doesn’t need to leave the house to have an adventure. Along the way, she also grasps the importance of being able to feign innocence. Anyone who’s ever lived with a cat will nod in rueful recognition at this development.

Of course, Chi also manages to spend some time in the great, suburban outdoors, making a new friend and relying on some old ones when she wanders well beyond her familiar boundaries. Fun as Chi’s adventures are, and lovely as it is to think about a protective community keeping her safe, I’m very much a partisan of the indoor-only feline experience. It makes me reflexively uncomfortable to see a kitten given that much liberty, no matter how charming the fictional results. Of course, this is why I would be a terrible parent to a human child; they’d never know a moment’s unsupervised peace.

As is usual, Kanata sneaks in some extremely moving moments where hints of Chi’s past life intrude on the way she lives now. These interludes really balance out the sweet charm of the more antic, observational sequences, and they make the book work better than it might have without them. In slice-of-life storytelling like this, a variety of experiences and emotions are always welcome, even for a kitten.

(Remarks are based on a review copy provided by the publisher.)

What looks good to you?

 

Here are some of the week’s links that focus on the business end of manga:

At Robot 6, Brigid (MangaBlog) Alverson speaks to Vertical‘s Ed Chavez about their new investors, Kodansha and Dai Nippon, and Ed reassures Vertical fans that the publisher will be better able to do the things it loves to do:

If there will be any changes, I think it’s that Vertical will hopefully eventually be the Vertical that everybody is familiar with. It wasn’t until last year that Vertical started producing more manga than anything else, and I’d like to bring us back to being the source of Japanese content in English, because as much as you know I obsess over manga, maybe too much sometimes, I enjoy their novels, I enjoy their nonfiction, I’m a huge fan of Kentaro’s cookbooks. I love the versatility, I love being able to present and be a curator to a catalog like that, and I want to get back to that.

At its blog, Tokyopop talks about some of the realities of the market, particularly as they relate to unfinished titles:

This probably comes as a surprise to a lot of manga fans, since you tend to be a very ’net-friendly bunch, but the percentage of our sales that come through Amazon.com and other online retailers is a fraction of that of the brick-and-mortar stores. There are some notable exceptions (BLU titles, mature titles, and some of our back list), but the vast majority of sales come through physical retail stores, and if something disappears from the shelves, it becomes exponentially more difficult to hit our sales targets.

One of those brick-an-mortar retailers, Christopher (Comics212) Butcher, appreciated Tokyopop’s frankness but questioned the tone:

Some of the finer points are disagreeable to me personally (particularly the enthusiasm for print-on-demand, though that at least is somewhat tempered by describing it as an ‘emerging’ technology) but at the core of the article is a very real problem; the combatative attitude between this Tokyopop employee–and really Tokyopop in general–and their fans. You don’t start off an answer to a frequently asked question on your website by complaining about your customers.

Speaking of publisher-consumer interaction, Fantagraphics shared the cover design of the first volume of Shimura Takako’s eagerly anticipated Wandering Son via their Twitter feed and said that their planned release schedule for the series was two volumes a year. This led to some discussion of the format (hardcover) and price ($19.99), which may be a barrier to entry for people used to paying around $10 for an individual volume. I’m irresistibly reminded of the time that Fantagraphics decided to package Love and Rockets reprints like manga (inexpensively and in paperback) to attract its audience to… you know… good comics.