The April direct market sales figures are in! At Precocious Curmudgeon, David Welsh gives the top-selling manga and adds some commentary. The bottom line: It was a good month for manga, with 32 books making the top 100 graphic novels list (about 10 more than usual, as David observes) and plenty of variety, too. ICv2 presents their usual excellent analysis, observing that graphic novel sales are up 44% over last April. They also have the full top 100 GN list.
Elsewhere, David devotes this week’s Flipped column to an appreciation of Fumi Yoshinaga.
Comicsnob has the new comics list for this week, and it’s even lighter than last week.
ChunHyang72 posts another Tokyopop Round-Up for your delectation.
Voting has begun in the Friends of Lulu Awards, and several of the nominees are manga creators. Anyone can vote, so go check it out.
The Yaoi Review links to a 2006 interview with BeBeautiful’s Masumi Homma O’Donnell on Akiba Angels, which I somehow missed last year.
Rozen Maiden fan (and Japanese Foreign Minister) Taro Aso has established an “International Manga Award” for global manga creators.
“We want to make this award the ‘Nobel Prize’ of Manga,” said Asō, who also mentioned that one purpose of the award is to “increase the popularity of Japanese Pop Culture and subcultures.”
Reviews: At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 5 of Loveless and The Paradise on the Hill. At Comics-and-More, Dave Ferraro checks out two very different books, vol. 1 of Hana-Kimi and vol. 2 of Mail. Johanna Draper Carlson reviews vols. 1 and 2 of Kitchen Princess. At the Mangamaniaccafe, Julie checks out vol. 4 of Real/Fake Princess. Anime on DVD’s Sakura Eries reads Train Man: The Novel. At Q-ko-kin, Cameron reviews vol. 2 of Yotsuba&! The BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog posts a review, with a couple of scans, of vol. 1 of Galaxy Angel Beta.
It could sound as an usual event about the popular and be in fashion view of manga and animation production by Japan. We can list several Manga Awards that from Japan had become very populars with teenagers and manga’s fans over the world. Infact, this time, about the last Manga award news that’re bouncing today on the japanese press ,unlike the common competitions, is promoted by the Foreign Affair Minister, Taro Aso, the most popular manga reader on the japanese political view. For the first time foreigners too will be able to take part in the competition and try to win the award. For the winner, It’ll rapresent a real opportunity to be introduced in the japanese manga’s market.
You can read all the informations on the my article at the following link. Sorry It’s in Italian but English and Japanese versions are available on request.
http://www.corriereasia.com/_var/news/DVHZUPS-ESWLWJB-BTPO.shtml
日本語を勉強することを決めた時は日本の漫画とアニメに興味がいっぱいあったけどイタリアには漫画の事はあのごろより今のほうが人気を博したと思う。大学で日本について色々研究していた後で僕の関心も変わって今日本の社会とか日本の経済に興味があるものから最近出た漫画全然分からないんだけど。
然し外務省が開発した漫画のコンペチションは僕によって外国にもよく漫画の内容とか特別な意味を説明するために絶対に良い経験だと思います。
Taro Aso the next Prime Minister of Japan (1)
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=3Amd7M1LJ0U
Taro Aso the next Prime Minister of Japan (2)
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=lDYzS6LVeSQ