It’s Black Friday, the big shopping day for some and Buy Nothing Day for others. Me, I’ll be staying home and doing some reading and writing, as well as organizing my books for the end of the year. We all have to shop sometime, though, and to help us, Danielle Orihuela-Gruber is once collecting links for manga gift guides, including these from Deb Aoki and Rob McMonigal.
Lissa Pattillo looks at this week’s new manga in her On the Shelf column at Otaku USA. Meanwhile, Sean Gaffney looks ahead to the new manga hitting the shelves on November 30.
Jason Thompson has an imaginary conversation with Shaenon Garrity about Midori Days, the manga about a teenage boy whose right hand is his girlfriend—literally!—in the latest House of 1000 Manga column at ANN.
Tim Beedle revisits a post he wrote in his Tokyopop days: So you want to be a manga-ka?
At The Fandom Post, Chris Beveridge has the list for Kodansha’s May 2012 lineup, which includes the first volume of their omnibus edition of Genshiken.
Helen McCarthy lists three manga she would like to see brought back into print in English, a la Digital’s Kickstarter campaign for Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth.
News from Japan: Three Steps Over Japan continues its series on Japanese magazines with a look at Weekly Morning. The idol group AKB48 is the subject of a new anime, to be titled AKB0048, and no fewer than four manga series running in four different magazines. The Moonlight Mile manga is going on hiatus, apparently because the creator has a new project in the works. Hekiru Hikawa (Pani Poni) is starting a new series, Candy Pop Nightmare, in the next issue of Square Enix’s Monthly Big Gangan, which is available today. Shinobu Kaitani is back at work on Liar’s Game after a year-and-a-half hiatus; the new chapter appears in this week’s Weekly Young Jump. The next edition of Jump Next! will include a Medaka Box spinoff by NisiOisin and Akira Akatsuki. The manga team Akira Himekawa will draw the newest Legend of Zelda manga, which will be based on the new Zelda game Skyward Sword. And ANN has the latest Japanese comics rankings.
Reviews
TSOTE on vol. 1 of Acony (Three Steps Over Japan)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 4 of Afterschool Charisma (Kuriousity)
TSOTE on Naoki Urasawa’s Billy Bat (Three Steps Over Japan)
Connie on vol. 36 of Bleach (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 8 of Cipher (Slightly Biased Manga)
Thomas Zoth on vol. 1 of Dorohedoro (The Fandom Post)
Connie on vol. 1 of In the Walnut (Slightly Biased Manga)
Kate Dacey on vol. 1 of No Longer Human (The Manga Critic)
Zack Davisson on Oishinbo: Izakaya—Pub Food (Japan Reviewed)
Drew McCabe on vol. 58 of One Piece and vol. 52 of Naruto (Comic Attack)
Sean Gaffney on vol. 2 of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (A Case Suitable for Treatment)
Connie on vol. 1 of Wandering Son (Slightly Biased Manga)