Disappearing Blu; Viz app expands to iPhone and iPod

Here’s some big digital news: Viz is expanding its manga app to the iPhone and iPod Touch. I had the opportunity to test-drive the app, and the manga was surprisingly readable on the small screen. They have marked down select volume 1’s to $2.99 to encourage people to check it out.

Sequential Tart’s Margaret O’Connell starts the week with a look at Tokyopop’s role in creating the boys-love readership in the U.S., and how they gained fans with inexpensive manga and then turned them off by raising prices without improving quality. Tokoyopop’s BL-lite titles like Fake and Challengers helped them to get yaoi manga into bookstores that balked at more explicit offerings, which in turn helped create a wide readership for the genre.

And here’s some news about Blu digital manga: Digital’s eManga website has been carrying Blu manga for a while, but today they warned that the titles will be disappearing at 5 p.m. PST on May 20. If you buy them before then, however, you will continue to be able to read them after that time.

This month’s Manga Moveable Feast draws to a close with host Rob McMonigal posting links for day six and day seven as well as Megan Smith’s Rumiko Rummy and a very nice wrapup post.

Help David Welsh decide which yaoi manga to buy this month at The Manga Curmudgeon. David also shares his picks from the May Previews., and he teams up with Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, and Michelle Smith to discuss the Manga Bookshelf Pick of the Week.

Lissa Pattillo shows off this week’s purchases at Kuriousity.

Michelle Smith and Melinda Beasi discuss some manga pages that make them laugh in their latest Let’s Get Visual dialogue at Soliloquy in Blue.

RightStuf has a sale on Udon books right now, and Lissa Pattillo points out some good bets at Kuriousity.

News from Japan: The winners of the 15th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Awards have been announced. Only one is licensed here: Hiromu Arakawa won the New Artist Prize for Fullmetal Alchemist. Khursten Santos gives us a bit more background on all the winners at Otaku Champloo. A manga with an unfortunately timed nuclear-power arc, the yakuza series Hakuryū Legend, which was suspended from the magazine Weekly Manga Goraku, will return with a new storyline. And Michiyo Kikuta (Fairy Navigator Runa, Mamotte! Lollipop) has a new series in the works.

Reviews: Ash Brown shares a week’s worth of manga at Experiments in Manga. At Manga Bookshelf, Melinda Beasi, Kate Dacey, Michelle Smith, and David Welsh have a new round of Bookshelf Briefs.

David Welsh on vol. 1 of Ai Ore (The Manga Curmudgeon)
Connie on vol. 16 of Blade of the Immortal (Slightly Biased Manga)
Katherine Hanson on Claudine (Yuri no Boke)
Connie on vol. 2 of ES: Eternal Sabbath (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 3 of Genkaku Picasso (Slightly Biased Manga)
Dave Ferraro on Hipira (Comics-and-More)
Johanna Draper Carlson on I’ll Give It My All … Tomorrow (Comics Worth Reading)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Tegami Bachi (The Comic Book Bin)
Leroy Douresseaux on vol. 5 of Toriko (The Comic Book Bin)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 12 of V.B. Rose (A Case Suitable for Treatment)