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Random Musings: Tokyo Demons

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Last week I reviewed Tokyo Demons, Book 1: You’re Never Alone by Lianne Sentar. Long story short, I loved it. In the process of writing the review, I quickly discovered that there was a lot more that I wanted to say about Tokyo Demons in general. Serialized online and written in the tradition of Japanese light novels, Tokyo Demons has expanded to include dramatized audio books, comics, short stories, games, and more. Since reading the first volume, I’ve nearly become obsessed with Tokyo Demons in all of its incarnations. Seriously, I haven’t been this excited about a series in a very long time. So please excuse me while I gush about it for a bit.

The Story
Tokyo Demons will be a trilogy although two sequel series, Tokyo Ghosts and Tokyo Angels, are planned as well. To be honest, Tokyo Demons is a little weak in the beginning; I was even a little worried about some of the potential cliches. But after a few chapters, it really takes off and the scope is huge. The story is packed with action, cussing, humor, supernatural abilities, drama, and awkward teenage romance. Overall, I found it to be exciting, engaging, and entertaining. Tokyo Demons can also be rather dark and tragic at times. Terrible things happen to the characters in both the past and the present. The characters’ relationships to and with one another–romantic, platonic, familial…the list could go on–are also extremely important to the story.

The Characters
And speaking of the characters, they are one of the reasons that Tokyo Demons works so well for me. The entire cast has a lot of personality (which happens to come across fabulously in the audio drama.) The characters have layers and they’re not always particularly likeable at first. But as Tokyo Demons progresses more and more is revealed about them and they grow and change over time. The characterizations are complicated and the morality is often grey–the protagonists and antagonists have both good and bad qualities and it’s not always easy to tell who belongs in which group. The characters don’t fit into neat little boxes or stereotypes.

The Goods
The serialized version of the novels and the audio drama are available for free online at the Tokyo Demons website. Other bonus materials are also available for free: character guides, relationship charts, timelines, comics, illustrations, previews of the short stories, and so on. The Tokyo Demons visual novel Get It Together and the card game Your Number’s Up are currently in production. The finalized editions of the materials (both physical and digital) as well as additional content only available for purchase can be found through the Tokyo Demons store. Also available through the store are art prints, posters, bookmarks, key chains, buttons, and other merchandise.

The Creators
Lianne Sentar is Tokyo Demons writer and head administrator. She works very closely with Rebecca Scoble who serves as the head editor in addition to producing and directing the audio dramas. They are supported by multiple illustrators, designers, and an entire cast of voice actors. It’s obvious from wandering around the Tokyo Demons website and listening to the free talks that the creators have a tremendous amount of love for their work. They are all enjoying themselves and have a great sense of humor. Their enthusiasm is persuasive. In addition, Lianne and Rebecca are particularly accessible to fans on the website and through other social media outlets. My personal interactions have all been wonderful. (It’s nice to know that they’re great people.)

The Fans
I’ll readily admit that I tend to be more of a lurker when it comes to online communities but there are plenty of other fans of Tokyo Demons who regularly comment on the the site, interact with each other, and show their support through fan art and fan fiction (which the creators wholeheartedly encourage.) In 2012, a Tokyo Demons Kickstarter project was launched to fund the second novel and better audio equipment. It reached more than double its initial goal. In fact, there has been so much support for Tokyo Demons that the creators were able to quit their jobs to focus on Tokyo Demons and their manga-industry work full time in addition to helping to launch Chromatic Press.

The Publisher
In part, Tokyo Demons served as a test project for the newly formed Chromatic Press as a way to explore publishing formats and distribution models and to determine what sorts of multimedia opportunities would be possible. The first novel is currently being revised for a new Chromatic Press edition and the series will continue to be released by the publisher–Tokyo Demons is one of the flagships for Chromatic Press. I am very excited to see what Chromatic Press has in store, not just for Tokyo Demons but for all of its titles.

Guest Post: The Infernal Devices Vol 1: Clockwork Angel: Manga Review

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Not too long ago I reviewed The Infernal Devices, Volume 1: Clockwork Angel, HyeKyung Baek’s graphic novel adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s novel by the same name. While I am familiar with The Infernal Devices, I haven’t actually read any of the original trilogy. I do, however, know people who have and thought it might be interesting to get another perspective on the work. And so I decided to bribe my good friend Traci with manga in exchange for her thoughts on the adaptation. The video below (a first for Experiments in Manga) is the result. I’m extremely excited that she agreed and am very pleased to welcome Traci to Experiments in Manga!

Hello, all. My name is Traci and I am the mastermind behind the alwynuu channel and Traci Reads vlog on YouTube. I am a photographer by passion and trade and a wanderer, philosopher, and reader by desire and happenstance. I enjoy most things geeky and nerdy, odd literary adaptations, and any genre that includes some form of magic or supernatural business. Don’t be shy. Drop in on occasion and see what I’ve gotten up to and where I’ve wandered.

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New Licenses from Dark Horse and Yen Press

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Another week, another con. Two cons, in fact. Sakuracon was the place to be for manga folks, though, as both Dark Horse and Yen had panels with brand new announcements! (Viz had a panel as well, but they already did their big announcements last month, so did not have anything new on the print manga front.)

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New print titles to start. Fans of Lone Wolf and Cub will be pleased to see that Dark Horse has licensed the sequel, New Lone Wolf and Cub. Old-school manga followers may note that they announced this back in 2006, but it got put on the back burner for reasons that have to do with the Japanese licensor, I’m guessing. It has the same writer but a different artist, and ran in the magazine Jin till that folded, whereupon it moved to the online magazine Katana. Expect much samurai action.

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Vocaloid is a fandom that has taken off both here and in Japan to an unprecedented degree, so it’s no surprise that someone was going to pick up a cute comic manga featuring the leads, though Dark Horse being the one may be a bit of a surprise. They’ve tried to shed their grim ‘n’ gritty manga image quite a few times recently, so my guess is this is another opportunity. Maker Hikoushiki Hatsune Mix ran in Comic Rush magazine a few years back, and sounds like it’s cute slice-of-idol life stuff.

The big news from Dark Horse may be on the digital front, though. They’ve already added quite a few of their Kadokawa titles to their online store, including Evangelion spinoffs, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, and Ghost Talker’s Daydream. Trigun and Hellsing are also now on there, as is Appleseed, the classic Shirow title. That said, two of their biggest series were still missing. Well, that’s going to change. Starting next month we’ll be seeing Oh My Goddess! and Blade of the Immortal digitally. Given the length of both series, digital may definitely be the way to go in order to gain new readers.

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Yen, meanwhile, had three new announcements, a couple of which will be quite exciting to fans who’ve seen the anime adaptations of these. Inu x Boku SS is a Gangan Joker series, still ongoing at 8+ volumes (I smell an omnibus release from Yen), and it’s got everything. Yokai schoolgirls, Fox-tailed secret service butler bodyguards, reincarnation, star-crossed love, and boarding houses. It also has quite a plot twist halfway through, which I won’t spoil here.

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Do you love long drawn out manga titles that end in an exclamation point? Japan certainly does, and lately North America has started to as well. So on the heels of Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki ja Nain Dakara ne!! and Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai comes Gangan Online’s Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaete mo Omaera ga Warui!, aka WataMote, aka It’s Not My Fault I’m Not Popular!. This one stars a high schooler who is a master of otome game life, but fails at real life, possibly as she looks like a giant Gloomy Gus. The humor comes when she resolves to try and turn her life around and become sociable. This was a long-awaited title, and does not seem, at first glance, to be filled with incest, so I’m hoping Yen is on to a winner here.

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And for those who enjoyed the Wolf Children movie, Yen has licensed the 3-volume manga adaptation of it, Oukami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki, which ran in Kadokawa’s Young Ace. It’ll come out in a convenient one-volume omnibus, and is the touching story of a young mother trying to bring up her children… who are part-wolf. Judging by the cover art, I think ‘heartwarming’ is the word of the day for this series.

Lastly, they’ve rescued the Kingdom Hearts manga titles, and plan to start releasing those, with both stuff that already came out via Tokyopop and new material.

2013 solicits are almost over, as we’re seeing November release date news now! What’s your top license of the year?

Open Thread: Organizing Your Print Manga

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With the demise of JManga throwing our digital manga collections for a loop, many fans are feeling the need to cling more firmly to their old reliable print collections. And, let’s face it: if you’re a collector or completist at heart, there’s very little more satisfying than a collection of manga. It’s epic, content-rich, and looks great on the shelf—assuming you’ve got enough shelves to put it on! Like many collectors with small living quarters and a dearth of shelf space, I’ve found collecting manga to be more and more challenging over the years. But one thing that’s helped me keep things manageable (and also helped me decide what to cull when needed) is the way I’ve chosen to organize what I have.

shelves-authors-smWhen I first began collecting manga, I attempted to organize alphabetically by title, but that soon proved to be not only cumbersome (Oh, the logistical headache when trying to shelve We Were There next to, say, Wandering Son) but not particularly useful for my needs. After all, when looking for the right manga in any particular moment, I’m likely to choose something that fulfills the desire for a specific mood or genre rather than something that begins with the letter “B.” Furthermore, though there are notable exceptions, publishers tend to use similar trim sizes for similar types of manga, so organizing by genre (or some other theme-based system) tends to make practical sense as well.

My current system is this: I have a mid-sized shelf unit for shounen manga, which most publishers tend to offer in the same small, paperback format that TOKYOPOP popularized during their “100% Authentic Manga” campaign back in the day. Here I have titles like Black Cat, Bleach, Claymore (shelved alphabetically by title), and most of the rest of my Shonen Jump collection (with some specific exceptions to be discussed later), along with other shounen favorites like Nabari no Ou, Cross Game, and Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. Though a few titles are smaller than the standard Jump trim, like GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, for example, the sizes are similar enough to make this the easiest category to shelve.

Next, I have a larger unit that begins with a shoujo section, largely arranged by publisher and imprint. VIZ’s classic “shojo” series (Banana Fish, Basara, Please Save My Earth, etc.) start at the top, moving then into titles from their Shojo Beat imprint, and on to other publishers like TOKYOPOP, CMX, and Go! Comi. VIZBIG editions of series like Fushigi Yuugi and Yen Press’ larger books like The Betrayal Knows My Name segue gracefully into the “adult” section, where josei and seinen titles are shelved together (also by publisher). Here, you’ll find titles from VIZ’s Signature collection, Del Rey series like Mushishi and Nodame Cantabile, Yen Press’ Bunny Drop and Yotsuba&!, and nearly everything I’ve got from Vertical’s catalogue, from Chi’s Sweet Home to Peepo Choo.

On my third and largest shelf unit, BL comics have their own section, which trickles into my large collection of manhwa, made up mostly of Yen Press titles like 13th Boy, Very! Very! Sweet, and Raiders, mixed in with a few odd titles from publishers like Dark Horse (Shaman Warrior) and NBM (Mijeong, Run, Bong-Gu, Run!). Titles from Japanese publishers by Korean artists (Black God, March Story) are also shelved near the manhwa section. There are also a few areas (spread out between the top of my desk and my three separate shelf units) that house less easily-classified items like OEL manga, Yen’s graphic novel adaptations of popular American novels, and books waiting for review.

My favorite section of this unit, however, and the one I tend to most diligently, is the “favorite mangaka” section, where I shelve books (regardless of genre/demographic) by favorite artists like Fumi Yoshinaga, Moyoco Anno, Yun Kouga, CLAMP, Natsume Ono, Osamu Tezuka, Hiromu Arakawa, Kazuya Minekura, Takeshi Obata, Ai Yazawa, and the list goes on. In general, the criteria for ending up in this section (besides being a particular favorite) is that I must own more than one title by the artist at hand (the single exception at this point being Takako Shimura, whose series Wandering Son just plain fits best there—and hey, I’m still holding out hope for Aoi Hana). These mangaka are not shelved in any order aside from what fits best in what space, though I’ll admit I’m a bit proud of how I’ve made it all work together with limited options.

So! Readers! Normally, I’d have considered this a great topic for our online forums, but since we were recently forced to shut them down due to (hopefully temporary!) site-killing memory issues (I’m working on it, I promise!), I’ll officially invite everyone reading this to share their organizational schemes in comments! How do you organize your print manga?

Mourning JManga

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doseiai1Any manga fan who has peeked in on Twitter today will know that our community has been a-tweet over the sudden departure of JManga from the digital manga scene. Reactions have ranged from thoughtful analysis to indifference, from contempt to rage, and everything in between. Sean’s recent post, Some Thoughts on the End of JManga I think sums things up the best. My own reaction has been closest to plain ol’ heartbreak. So while others analyze, I’d like to take a moment to simply mourn.

I loved JManga. I loved the concept, a reasonable amount of the execution, and a whoooole lot of its manga titles. Not only did I name JManga as my “Pick of the Year” in 2012, but quite a number of its titles made their way onto my Best of 2012 lists, including my choices for Best BL and my Top Five Digital-Only Manga.

pride4My greatest mourning is for the titles left unfinished, including my favorite BL manga of last year, Setona Mizushiro’s complex, awesome Dousei Ai, Takako Shimura’s exquisite (and just barely begun) Sweet Blue Flowers, Yukari Ichijo’s josei epic, Pride, and Haruko Kumota’s utterly adorable My Darling Kitten Hair.

Aoi_Hana_manga_volume_1_coverI am genuinely heartbroken to know that I will not be able to finish reading these series. To the credit of JManga’s often-criticized catalogue, I loved each of these just as much as any of my print favorites. Despite their apparent lack of viability in the English-language market, they were far from B-list titles in my book. These titles are a real loss and I will miss them terribly.

I also sincerely mourn JManga as a company. I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with a number of its staff during October’s New York Comic Con, and they were as a whole some of the nicest, most genuine, and most enthusiastic folks I’ve met in the manga industry so far. They cared about user concerns and actively sought out criticism. They genuinely cared about how we used and experienced their product. I wish them all well and hope they will recover quickly from this loss. Losing a company you believe in is even harder than just losing a job, and my heart goes out to them.

I once told JManga’s business manager Robert Newman that if I could read all the manga I wanted to read in high quality on my iPad, I could essentially give up print manga forever. At the time, I thought JManga would be the company to make that happen. I’m earnestly sorry to see it go.

Goodbye, JManga, and thanks for trying so hard. You’ll be greatly missed.

Goodbye JManga

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Well, I’ve been wondering why JManga seemed to be spinning its wheels a bit in terms of new releases, and I got my answer today when the notice was posted on the site that the service was going to be terminated. It is really too bad, because they were a unique outlet for niche manga, but as much as I would like to think that there are thousands upon thousands of North American manga fans wanting to read obscure josei manga and manga about train station bento boxes, maybe there are only about fifty or so people willing to pay for it.

Jmanga gave me review points, which I greatly appreciated. I did sign up and pay for the service at the beginning, but at launch time there wasn’t enough content on there to keep me busy. While I greatly enjoyed the few series from Jmanga I was able to read, it was only in more recent months that they started releasing more titles in the genres I enjoy from publishers like Ohzora and Shueisha. Some people have pointed to a lack of support for iPads as one reason why they didn’t subscribe more to JManga, and the titles I read on JManga I read because I was so interested in them that I was willing to read them in my browser, which isn’t really my preferred viewing methods for digital comics.

Jmanga was an ambitious effort, and it is unfortunate that it is shutting down. I imagine this will have a chilling effect on digital manga distribution in the future. I’ll always be delighted that JManga gave me a chance to read the last volume of a josei series that I thought I’d never get to finish, Walkin’ Butterfly. Jmanga had some fun Harlequin and romance manga, and it enabled me to read Est Em’s manga about Centaur Salarymen. Those were some great reading experiences, and I’ll miss Jmanga for what it was and what it had the potential to be. I’m going to be rereading some of my favorite titles before the site goes dark.

Some Thoughts on the End of JManga

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When I got up this morning and saw the news, I had a pretty emotional reaction. JManga was shutting down and taking its manga with it. I heard my friends who rail against Cloud in my head pointing at me and laughing, and I made a few tweets. You may have seen some of them. Now, of course, I’ve had a whole day to think about it, so let’s discuss what happened.

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This is the sort of thing that everyone knows could happen with content stored on the “cloud” rather than as physical files, but for the most part it hadn’t really happened until today. What’s more, JManga’s digital-only format makes this especially hard for them. If Viz shuts down its digital manga site tomorrow, I’ll lose my digital Excel Sagas, but they’re still in print volumes somewhere, even if they’re out of print. EDIT: Viz has noted that since you have to download the mangas to your tablet/device, you would not lose them in a “cloud”-type way, and can read them till you remove them. Thanks for that correction of my error. Same with most Kindle purchases, or the Yen titles on the Nook. But come the end of May, the JManga titles I purchased will be gone. No print, no digital copies, nada. And that’s hard to take. Despite it being the current business practice for many companies, it’s hard to get shoved in your face.

We’re not really sure yet why this happened – the immediate gut feeling is to say “money”, but who knows? While I suspect scanlation had an effect on some of the more specific titles on the site – The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, Sun-Ken Rock – I’d argue it did have an effect on the general feeling about online manga, which is “why should I pay for it?” And I do think that some tweets today may have been from folks saying “I knew this would happen, glad I never bought anything”, are from that scan crowd. But really, I do think that my enthusiasm for JManga – the plugging of their site, reviewing of their titles, and money I paid for the volumes – is part of why my reaction was so fierce this morning. It can be hard seeing something you love die so fast.

And so now I’m left with disappointment, and wondering what comes next. JManga always seemed to have an issue or two. They were web-only for the longest time, and never did hit Apple. Their mobile app continued to be a work in progress. There was the infamous launch that included dozens of “theoretical titles” – mostly from Kadokawa Shoten – none of which ever appeared. The points system – especially given that 1 point was clearly one cent – seemed highly confusing to most users. And they never did get that knockout title that would bring users to the site – there was no Naruto, or Soul Eater, or even a cute Evangelion 4-koma. The big draw for NYCC was the creator of SoreMachi, a slice-of-life manga few had heard of before the con. And, of course, everyone at NYCC seemed to sense this in the wind – not just for JManga. Everyone asked “How do we own this content?” at DC and Marvel panels as well.

And yet I loved so much about them as well. They were committed to showing North America – and lately other countries, a process that always seemed like pulling teeth with the Japanese licensors – titles that you’d never think to see over here. Not just obvious things but josei soap opera manga like Wonder!, seinen salaryman manga such as Ninja Papa, retranslated “rescue” titles such as High School Girls. There was manga with cats solving mysteries. There was erotic horror manga. There was dog training manga. There was fighting maid manga. There was educational science manga. There was… I’m not even sure WHAT Young-kun was. These creators now have a fanbase, however small, that they may never have had before.

I am saddened at JManga’s passing, and this is why. I will miss it. I had lots of stuff queued up to read that I likely will never get the chance to, which is depressing. And, of course, there’s the real-life fallout – a bunch of people just lost their jobs. They all did the best job they could, and I hope they bounce back as quickly as possible. And now I wonder what’s next. As Deb Aoki noted, is this going to scare people away? I sense if everyone waits for companies to give them downloadable PDF files, they’re going to be waiting a long time. Cloud is here to stay, whether we like it or not. That said, what’s the next company going to do? Because there will be others. Some smaller companies are already putting out their own titles, and Japan will likely try to find a way to do this again. Can they learn lessons from JManga, both the good and bad?

I have to admit, if a new JManga pops up, I’ll probably get stuff from it as well. I like supporting creators and their content, given the option. JManga gave it a good try at doing that. I can’t thank them enough for it.

Even More Vertical Licenses

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Yes, they just won’t stop announcing things! Well, they may stop for a couple of months at least, as they’ve now filled their 2013 calendar. (Except they say ACen will have 2014 licenses. Can anyone stop Vertical, those mad licensing fools?) So, what do we have this time?

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Shin Sekai Yori, aka From the New World, is an adaptation of a 2003 novel that’s been running in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, which these days is getting far more licenses over here than its parent weekly magazine. Seems to be a future utopia that may not be as utopian as the lead characters would like to think, and also has BL and yuri elements. It’s 2+ volumes, though I imagine that Vertical got an assurance from Kodansha that it wouldn’t go over 10 volumes before they picked it up.

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Meanwhile, for those who saw Vertical’s license of Helter Skelter and wondered if that meant they might get more Kyoko Okazaki josei titles, wonder no more! Pink is a late 80s title from the publisher Magazine House, and is a heartwarming, touching story about a girl and her pet. Sort of. Anyone who says there’s not enough josei out there should love this complete-in-one title.

Feb Giveaway Winner

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And the winner according to random.org for the Blu bundle is commenter #8, AnnaMarie who picked Stepping on Roses as her favorite romance!

There were lots of great romance manga listed on the comments thread, ranging from classics like Maison Ikkoku to more modern series like Kimi Ni Todoke.

Congrats to the winner and stay tuned as I’m sure there will be more giveaways coming up soon :)

More New Licenses from Seven Seas and Vertical

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OK, lesson learned. I will never go on vacation again. Sheesh.

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Seven Seas snuck out a 4th license right after I made my post the other day. Aoi Sekai no Chūshin de is being released over here as World War Blue, and is nine volumes long. It runs in Micro Magazine, which is owned by… well, Micro Magazine, and is about a war between Sega and Nintendo with the serial numbers filed off, featuring various anthropomorphic consoles. Honestly, compared with the other three titles Seven Seas talked about the other day, I find this the most intriguing.

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Vertical, meanwhile, has two new releases that are quite interesting. Satoshi Kon is better known for his anime productions, but in 1990 he did a short manga for Kodansha’s Young Magazine called Kaikisen, about a young man and the legend of a mermaid. It’s been re-released every few years or so in Japan, and Vertical will now be bringing it out over here, in one complete volume, as Tropic of the Sea.

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The other announcement is, surprisingly (to me, at least), from Hakusensha, who seem to finally be getting back into licensing titles to North America after a long Tokyopop hangover. Shi ni Itaru Yamai is a two-volume series from Hikari Asada and Takahiro Seguchi. The author only has one other title (a short ecchi school series), but the artist is well known for his saucy series, including maid series Enmusu, which ADV briefly published before dying, and a very popular series in scanlation, Oretama, which I refuse to discuss. (And no, don’t discuss it in comments, either.) This series, Sickness Unto Death (as Vertical will release it), is about a clinical psychologist who lives at a boarding house while he gets his degree, and a girl who also lives there who has the worst case of despair this side of Zetsubou-sensei. It looks to be a psychological drama, and is probably the title of the three of these that I’m looking forward to the most, despite the reputation of the artist and the fact that it ran in Young Animal.

New Licenses from Viz and Seven Seas

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Well, I’m off on a few days vacation, so naturally everyone decides to pile on licenses the moment I leave. Taunting me with their interestingness. But this will not stop me from breaking everything down, and keeping you, the reader, informed.

magiI’ve spent quite a few posts discussing Shonen Sunday, and Viz’s lack of enthusiasm about the titles as opposed to Shonen Jump. Of course, this is a vicious circle, as SS series tend not to be among the best-sellers or ‘fan-obsessive’ series. That may change with this new license, however. If ever there was a series running in Sunday that cried out to be licensed, Magi was it. The author has been seen on these shores before with Yen Press’s Sumomomo Momomo, but Magi is a better, more mature work with a manga take on Aladdin and the Arabian Nights. This has the potential to be the first really big Sunday title over here since Inu Yasha, and comes highly recommended.

Viz’s Shojo Beat line also announced four new titles, two of which are actually Josei Beat. Yoroshiku Master is a Hakusensha series from the author of Penguin Revolution, one of the old CMX shoujo favorites. This ran in LaLa’s sister magazine DX, and at 3 volumes is a decent investment (and the third volume apparently has a Penguin Revolution short chapter to boot.) As for the plot, if you like bishie demons, bishie vampires, and bishie catboys, you’ll love bishie reindeer boys! Viz is releasing the series as Sweet Rein.

seiyuu-academyI was always a big fan of S.A. and its dense as lead heroine, so I’m quite happy to hear that they’ve licensed Maki Minami’s next series that ran in Hana to Yume, Seiyuu Kaa!, which will come out here as Voice Over! – Seiyuu Academy. The title describes the series – our heroine is enrolled in a voice actor’s high school, and not only has to deal with her less than stellar voice qualities, but also the usual high school shenanigans. This being a Hakusensha shoujo series, I’m certain that there will be a few pretty guys to help her out. The series should be 11 or 12 volumes.

Then there’s the two josei series. Viz must have been at least somewhat pleased with the performance of Butterflies, Flowers, as we have not one but two new titles from the pages of Petit Comic, Shogakukan’s josei romance manga for women who have outgrown the already saucy Shoujo Comic. Maki Enjouji’s Happy Marriage?! is 10 volumes, and has ‘Shogakukan’ written all over it: an office lady, trying desperately to pay off her parent’s debt, finds herself engaged to her company president – who she’s never met before! I have a feeling that this title will be just as compelling *and* frustrating as Butterflies, Flowers proved to be, but at least can be assured that it will be quite spicy.

midnight-secretaryThe last, and possibly biggest license from Shojo Beat is Midnight Secretary, Tomu Ohmi’s 7-volume story of a secretary who becomes the personal assistant – and so much more – of her company’s president. Unlike Happy Marriage?!, however, this president is a vampire as well! Despite not having the word Vampire actually in the title, I predict this is going to sell like hotcakes, if hotcakes that have to be shrinkwrapped due to content – this, like Happy Marriage?!, will definitely be an M for Mature title. That said, there’s more here than just put-upon heroine and abusive-yet-oh-so-hot boss, and I am very pleased we’ll get to see this.

Of course, Viz was not the only one to drop new licenses on us, as we have three new titles from Seven Seas. Centaur no Nayami (out over here as A Centaur’s Life), is sort of like Seiyuu Kaa!, only instead of voice actresses it’s monsters and other mythological creatures. The juxtaposition of ordinary high-school comedy with girls with centaur bodies and angel wings is what drives this title.

loveinhellJigokuren – Love in Hell is from Futabasha’s Web Comic High, and features a guy who dies one day and finds himself in hell. But he has the chance to repent. Judging by the art and descriptions I’ve seen, however, this title seems to aim at the reader who enjoys seeing young-looking girls torturing guys in various ways. I’d put it in the I Don’t Like You At All Big Brother/Mayo Chiki category.

Lastly, we have another title from Tokuma Shoten’s Comic Ryu (where A Centaur’s Life also appears). Monster Musume is another harem title, regarding the integrations of mythological monsters (in the form of cute girls) into society. They all glom onto our hero, who I suspect is a nice yet unlucky guy, as these types usually are. Of course, the law prevents interspecies nookie, so the entire reason for this title’s existence would appear to be teasing but not delivering. Luckily, there’s a nice harem audience that this would appeal to. I also note that between Love in Hell‘s heroine and this series, we’re covering ‘breast fetishes’ at both ends – small and large.

As we get further into the year, more of the Fall 2013 licenses will become apparent, but this is already a great number of titles for all sorts of fans. Which of these excites you most?

Midnight Secretary!!!!!

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I am often excited when Viz announces new series, but I am extra excited to see that they are going to be bringing out Midnight Secretary and also Happy Marriage. More mature shojo/josei manga is a category that I wish more US manga publishers would pursue because as much as I do enjoy high school romance, it is very nice to have titles featuring main characters who are not teenagers. I think these acquisitions would appeal to fans of more mature manga like Butterflies, Flowers.

Here’s the scoop from the Viz Press release about these titles:

HAPPY MARRIAGE?! • Rated “M” for Mature •
MSRP: $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN • Available August 6, 2013
In order to help her father, Chiwa Takanashi agrees to an arranged marriage with the company president Hokuto Mamiya – a man she doesn’t know – at the request of Hokuto’s grandfather. Chiwa believes the arrangement isn’t binding, but her new partner seems to think otherwise. Can two strangers living together find their way to a happy marriage?!

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MIDNIGHT SECRETARY • Rated “M” for Mature •
MSRP: $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN • Available September 3, 2013
Kaya Satozuka is a brilliant secretary who excels at her job, which is why she doesn’t bat an eye when she’s assigned to be personal secretary to Kyohei Touma, the very difficult managing director of Touma Foods. It doesn’t faze her when her new boss seems determined to make her fail, and she even manages to take it in stride when she discovers the secret behind his prickly behavior…he’s a vampire! But while Kaya easily adapts to late nights and keeping a schedule of his “dinner dates,” will her ultra-competence help when Kyohei’s smoldering gaze starts turning her way?!

Feb Giveaway: A bundle from Blu

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I thought for February I would give away a bundle of yaoi manga from Tokyopop’s Blu Imprint. Up for grabs are three manga volumes:

Blood Honey
Crimson Snow
Isle of Forbidden Snow

Just leave a comment here with your favorite romantic manga (yaoi or otherwise) to be entered in the contest.

Contest will be open until next Tuesday night. US residents only, please.

Introducing Drama Bookshelf

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drama-bookshelfI’ve talked about this a bit on Twitter, but I think it’s time to officially point you all to our new drama-specific landing page, featuring all our regular columns in East Asian TV dramas, including It Came from the Sinosphere, Bringing the Drama, and the new Drama Diary.

For regular readers of the site, nothing is changing. These columns will show up on the main front page as always. But if you’ve got a special interest in Korean, Taiwanese, and other East Asian TV dramas, our new landing page will make it easy to see what’s new in dramas with just a glance. We’ll have more drama content to come!

If this new page seems to work well for people, I may be creating topic-specific landing pages for other things as well, so be sure to let me know what you think!

Check it out: Drama Bookshelf.