Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

announcements

Welcome, Ash!

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Hello, Manga Bookshelf readers! As most of you have probably gleaned already, we’ve added a new blogger to the Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot. I’m shamefully tardy with this official introduction, so I’ll get right to it!

Yesterday, Ash Brown and his blog, Experiments in Manga, officially joined the Manga Bookshelf family, and I’m thrilled to welcome him on board! I’ve long been a fan of his thoughtful, well-crafted commentary and reviews, and I think his voice will be a tremendous asset to the site.

If you’re not familiar with Ash’s writing (and even if you are), please head on over to his introductory post, and then take a moment to explore the rest of his blog. I’d also recommend this recent celebration of his third blogoversary for an overview of some of his best content over the past few years.

Welcome, Ash! We’re so pleased to have you with us!

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.

MJ on Fandomspotting, Sunday 12/2

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Hey all, it’s been a busy week, but I wanted to take just a moment to let you know that I’ll be a guest on tomorrow’s installment of Fandomspotting: The Best Manga/Anime You’re Not Reading/Watching!

For the uninitiated, Fandomspotting is a weekly, live broadcast featuring a rotating roster of regular panelists and special guests, with a much more fandom-oriented focus than what you’ll find in the “mainstream” manga blogosphere. Moderating the episode is Cathy Yan, formerly of Don’t Fear the Adaptation here at Manga Bookshelf! I’m really looking forward to talking with her and the rest this week’s panelists!

Join us live on YouTube at 12:00 noon EST (click here to find out when this is for you). And wish me luck on my first livestream!

Manga Report joins Manga Bookshelf

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Good morning, Manga Bookshelf readers! Today, we’re pleased to announce that Anna Neatrour has officially joined the Battle Robot, bringing her blog Manga Report into the Manga Bookshelf family of blogs.

From her bio: Anna Neatrour is a librarian with too much manga in her house. She started blogging at TangognaT in 2003 about libraries, books, manga, and comics. She created Manga Report to focus only on manga reviews in 2010. Anna is a member of the writing collective known as The Bureau Chiefs, authors of FakeAPStylebook and the book Write More Good.

Anna has been running the roundtable series Bringing the Drama here since February of this year. She joins Sean, Michelle, Brigid, and I in today’s Pick of the Week—her first column as a Manga Bookshelf blogger.

Please join me in welcoming Anna to the fold!

Fall 2012 Call for Contributors!

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Around this time last year, I posted a Call for Contributors here at Manga Bookshelf, which resulted in the creation of a slew of great new columns, some of which are still going strong and some of which have faded away, as these things sometimes do. So here I am, a year later, making a fresh call!

Join us!

Got a great idea for a weekly or monthly column? Send us your pitch! Contact us with the following:

Your name
Your pitch
Links to 2 samples of similar writing you’ve done

Also seeking 1-2 writers interested in accepting regular news/interview assignments. To apply: same as above.

Your pitch should include a theme for your column, a general outline for the column’s inaugural entry, how often you’d write it (weekly or monthly), and how you envision maintaining its theme over time. If your idea is a one-shot or short series of posts, please indicate that as well. We are particularly interested in columns that offer something different than what we do now. Areas of particular interest include Korean manhwa, anime (especially something other than straight-out reviews), fandom, and industry news, but all creative ideas are welcome! We’d also be open to expanding into video or audio features. Please allow at least four weeks for a response.

At this time, we are unable to offer monetary compensation for contributors, but we look forward to doing so in the future.

Department of Excuses: Hurricane edition

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Good [insert your time of day here], Manga Bookshelf readers!

We’ve got some great content planned for you this week, along with the usual weekly columns and whatever passes as “news” in the North American manga industry. Unfortunately, Mother Nature may have other ideas! As nearly all of our primary bloggers* live somewhere in the path of Hurricane Sandy, it’s likely that power outages (hopefully just power outages) may disrupt our ability to geek out on manga, or at least our ability to share that geeking out with you!

In case of abrupt blog silence, please accept our apologies. We promise to make it up to you!

Sincerely,

The Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot

*It’s all up to you, Michelle. Y’know. No pressure.

Belated Introductions

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Hello readers! I’m terribly overdue with this, but I just wanted to take a moment to introduce a couple of recent additions to our roster of regular contributors here at Manga Bookshelf.

First, long-time reader and occasional guest contributor Sara K. has just come on board as a regular columnist! Her weekly column, It Came From the Sinosphere, will cover “comics, novels, TV shows, films, and who knows what else from the Chinese-speaking world.” Living in Taiwan, Sara has access to a lot of creative content we rarely see over here, as you may recall from her previous posts such as The Geeky Heart of Taipei and her recent series on The Condor Trilogy.

Sara begins her new column with a look at the Taiwanese idol drama The Outsiders.

Secondly, please welcome Megan Purdy, who has joined Manga Bookshelf specifically to provide us coverage of western comics! Elsewhere, Megan runs the Women Write About Comics blog carnival and reviews Toronto’s comic book stores at the Toronto Comics Review. Here, she has revived Manga Bookshelf’s ailing monthly column, Not By Manga Alone, and is plotting out her own individual column as well. Recently, she also provided us with this delightful coverage of TCAF 2012.

Be sure to check out this month’s installment of Not By Manga Alone, in which Megan looks at The Strain, Channel Zero: The Complete Collection (both from Dark Horse) and Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?

Welcome, Sara and Megan!

Manga Bookshelf looks to the screen

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You may have noticed that we’re branching out here at Manga Bookshelf, including new columns about East Asian television dramas and (as of yesterday) film!

First, a belated introduction to Bringing the Drama, a new, ongoing roundtable featuring bloggers Anna Neatrour and Emily Snodgrass, super-librarian/writer Eva Volin, and manga editor Nancy Thistlethwaite. They started off strong last week, with a discussion of Korean drama You’re Beautiful (one of my personal faves). Though I expect Korean drama will dominate the roundtable overall, discussion is open to Japanese and Taiwanese dramas legally available in English as well. They’ve already got their next topic lined up, and I can’t wait to see what they have to say!

And yesterday evening saw the debut of our new East Asian film column, Subtitles & Sensibility from my favorite film blogger, Jaci Dahlvang. When I asked Jaci if she’d be interested in writing for Manga Bookshelf, I did not believe she’d actually say “yes,” and I’m so thrilled to be able to introduce her to all of you. Her first column, Three with Ken’ichi Matsuyama should please film buffs and manga fans alike. Jaci blogs regularly at My Sock Are On Fire, and she can be found on Twitter as letterboxed.

Please take a moment to check out our new columns, and join me in welcoming all these brilliant ladies to the Manga Bookshelf family!

Welcome, Derek & Phillip!

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As you may have noticed, we have two new columnists debuting this week at Manga Bookshelf!

First, Derek Bown (Burning Lizard Studios) joins us with his new weekly column, Combat Commentary, in which he will be discussing fights in manga, pulling from a variety of genres and demographic categories. He gets things started with a look at one of his favorite shounen battles, from chapters 12-15 of Naruto.

And Phillip Anthony comes to us from Eeeper’s Choice to give us a “blokey” perspective (as he described it in his pitch to me) of well-known shoujo series, in his new monthly column, Shoujo I’m Scared Of. He begins with the first volume of Sailor Moon, and he plans to make his way through the entire series (along with Codename: Sailor V) as well as other classic titles like Princess Knight. Check out his introductory post for more.

Please welcome Derek and Phillip on board!

We’ve got at least two more new columns in the works for you all, and I’ve very excited share them as well. Stay tuned!

Manga Bookshelf Strikes Against SOPA & PIPA

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Tomorrow, we will join thousands of websites, including sites like Reddit, Wikipedia, and WordPress.org, in a 12-hour protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These pieces of proposed legislation claim to target online piracy, but instead threaten free speech, paving the way for corporations and our government to effectively control what we read and publish online.

These sites will be on strike tomorrow, January 18th, from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time:

A few words from our bloggers:

“The internet has forever changed the way human beings share and discuss information. The free flow of information and opinion that was once easily controlled by corporate-owned media is now available, unfiltered, to anyone with access to a wireless connection. While it’s not surprising that corporations would want their power back, we absolutely can’t allow them to use our legislature to make that happen. As manga fans, we’re probably more aware than most of just how complex the issue of online piracy is, both for publishers and fans. It’s part of our regular discourse, and many of us have fought bitterly on one side or another—sometimes even both. We know there’s no simple solution, but even if there was, bypassing due process is not an acceptable means of achieving it.” – MJ, Manga Bookshelf

“Like millions of Americans, I support the basic goals of SOPA and PIPA: to end intellectual property theft, and prevent the distribution of counterfeit products here in the United States. As currently written, however, the bill gives the Department of Justice, businesses, and copyright holders sweeping powers to block or remove content from the Internet without allowing the offending website owner to respond to the charges. Due process is a fundamental part of the American legal system, and should be reflected in the wording of this act!” – Katherine Dacey, The Manga Critic

“The most aggravating thing about these proposed bills is not even the draconian threats of the entire internet being subject to the whims of multinational corporations with a grudge to settle – it’s that it would not even work, not one iota, in stopping the piracy that it is alleged to be protecting against. There are many, far more sensible ways to combat piracy on the Internet. SOPA and PIPA, however, are there to let politicians say “Look, we tried, see?” and allow Universal Music Group and others of its ilk to shut down anyone they like, regardless of proof of guilt. Big Business is trying to control your internet. Don’t let them.” – Sean Gaffney, A Case Suitable for Treatment

Learn More: Watch the video · American Censorship page · View the Infographic · Read SOPA on OpenCongress · Read PIPA on OpenCongress

Welcome, Brigid!

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Exactly one year ago today, Kate, David, and I launched the new multi-blog incarnation of Manga Bookshelf. It’s been a wonderful year, during which we also welcomed Michelle and Sean into our little blogging family. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Brigid Alverson and Mangablog into our circle as well! Brigid has been both a good friend and a valuable mentor to me over the past few years, and I’m thrilled to have her here with us.

You can find Brigid’s first post in her new home here, and her most recent entry will always be displayed on Manga Bookshelf’s front page in a new, dedicated spot on the right-hand side.

Welcome, Brigid! It’s going to be another great year!

Welcome new columnists!

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Not long ago, we posted a call for contributors here at Manga Bookshelf. We got a lot of terrific submissions, and a number of new columnists have come on board, including two that debuted this week!

In her new monthly column, Comic Conversion, Angela Eastman will be comparing prose novels to their sequential art adaptations. She began this week with James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet’s Witch & Wizard, adapted by Svetlana Chmakova for Yen Press.

And moving away from (strictly) manga, Paul will be reviewing both Japanese games and non-Japanese games with a Japanese theme in his new column, Bits & Blips: Manga Bookshelf Edition. He launched his column this week with a review of the maid-centric deck building game Tanto Cuore.

Finally, I’d like to thank guest blogger Sara K. for her recent write-up of Sooyeon Won’s Mary Stayed Out All Night. This is Sara’s second contribution to the site, and we’re happy to have her back!

We have more new contributors joining us soon, so stay tuned!

Welcome Matt!

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Today, I’m pleased to welcome Rocket Bomber‘s Matt Blind to Manga Bookshelf’s roster of contributors!

Matt is especially known for his wonderfully meticulous Manga Bestsellers charts, and happily he’s agreed to have them hosted here. He’ll also be contributing other manga-related musings as he sees fit, and since we love Matt’s perspective, we hope that will be often.

You can check out this week’s charts here (always available in their new, dedicated space on Manga Bookshelf’s front page). And if you’re wondering how this statistical magic happens, I recommend reading Matt’s “About the Charts.”

Please give Matt a warm welcome! We’re thrilled to have him on board!

Manga Bookshelf News

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We have a lot going on here at Manga Bookshelf these days, thanks to an expanding list of regular contributors, new features, and quite a number of upcoming special events. So here on this dreary Tuesday, I’d like to take a moment just to highlight some of what’s in store!

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First off, please welcome our newest contributor, Jia Li, who recently reviewed Émile Bravo’s Beauty and the Squat Bears for her column, “A Kid’s View.” With her first book review now under her belt, Jia’s ready for more! Look for her seven-year-old’s take on Yotsuba&!, due out tomorrow morning!

Coming up later this month, new contributor Cathy Yan will discuss the anime adaptation of Fumi Yoshinaga’s Antique Bakery (released just this week by Nozomi Entertainment), in her regular monthly feature, “Don’t Fear the Adaptation.” Be sure to check out her previous installments, covering adaptations of Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku and Natsume Ono’s House of Five Leaves.

Speaking of Rumiko Takahashi, look for a week-long tribute to her work from our own Kate Dacey as part of April’s Manga Moveable Feast. Planned features include reviews of her short story collections as well as an appreciation piece on shounen epic InuYasha.

Also in April, Michelle and I will be taking Off the Shelf on the road, with an extended discussion of Saki Hiwatari’s shoujo sci-fi series, Please Save My Earth, hosted at The Hooded Utilitarian.

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May opens with the release of the final volume of Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata’s Hikaru no Go. And since this series has a very special place in my heart and in the hearts of several of our contributors, we’ll be celebrating its completion in English with a joyous group roundtable and more! Come spend May 5th with Manga Bookshelf and Hikago!

Roundtables are the stuff of May, it seems, with the final installment of Breaking Down Banana Fish hitting the blog sometime before month’s end. Join guests Michelle Smith, Robin Brenner, Connie C., Eva Volin, Khursten Santos, and me as we discuss the final three volumes of this classic 80s series!

In June, Michelle and I will play host to the Manga Moveable Feast, with a week-long focus on Kazuya Minekura’s delicious BL action series, Wild Adapter, including a special roundtable-style installment of BL Bookrack featuring guest David Welsh.

Elsewhere in June, also look for a roundtable discussion on Takako Shimura’s Wandering Son coming out from Fantagraphics, featuring all the Manga Bookshelf bloggers and Michelle too!

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Finally, I’d just like to draw your attention to the new donation button at the bottom of the blog. Manga Bookshelf has expenses (as of course we all do). If you enjoy the blog and you’d like to help us pay our bills, please feel free to click that button and toss us a dollar or two.

And while every bit surely helps, let it be known that we value support of all kinds, so if you’re reading, thank you.

Changes at Manga Bookshelf

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Happy New Year, everyone!

If you’re surfing by, you’ll probably notice that I’m no longer alone here at Manga Bookshelf. Two of my favorite bloggers, Manga Critic Katherine Dacey and Manga Curmudgeon David Welsh, have brought their blogs over to the Manga Bookshelf domain, via WordPress multisite capability. Their blogs will continue to stand on their own (David’s even got a shiny new domain name!), while also feeding content into the main page at Manga Bookshelf. The result? More reading for everyone! Also, we’ll likely be undertaking some collaborative projects now and then, so keep an eye out!

To take you through a bit of the updated front page, you’ll find several new features on the left-hand side, including David’s “License Requests” column and Kate’s feature, “The Best Manga You’re Not Reading.” In the center of the page, reviews and features will feed in from all the site’s blogs–same with the news and blog posts on the right-hand side. A list of the latest posts from all blogs on the network can be found on the right as well. If you’ve arrived at the main page with a clear destination in mind, the banners on the top right will take you directly to the blog you’re looking for. These links are also available in the top navigation menu for easy access from any internal page. We’ve also got a lovely new header image, thanks to Kuriousity‘s Lissa Pattillo!

Here are a few links to help you change your bookmarks & RSS feed settings. Keep in mind that if you follow the Manga Bookshelf RSS feed, you’ll see content from all the network’s blogs.

Manga Bookshelf Blog | RSS

The Manga Critic Blog | RSS

The Manga Curmudgeon Blog | RSS

Manhwa Bookshelf Blog | RSS

To receive RSS feeds via e-mail, sign up using the form in the footer of this page or in the sidebar of the Contact Us page.

We also have a new Facebook page for the whole site. Please “like” us!

I’m thrilled by the possibilities offered by this new team effort and incredibly grateful to Kate and David for being willing to join me. Manga Bookshelf will, of course, continue to host regular collaborative content with Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith, as well as continuing group features, such as Breaking Down Banana Fish.

Here’s to an exciting 2011 for all!