Interviews, reviews, and a Gakuen Alice widget

The Tokyopop folks seem to be pretty psyched about Gakuen Alice, which is due out in December. If you go to this page, you can download a widget that will display a page a day between now and December 21 (and conveniently counts down the seconds until the release).

The latest Ninjaconsultant podcast is not to be missed: an interview with Jason Thompson, author (in case you have been living in a cave for the past six months) of Manga: The Complete Guide.

TheoFantastique interviews anime and manga expert Andrea Levi about the werewolf tradition and, actually, lots of other things.

Manga magazines haven’t been doing too well in Japan lately, but the Daily Yomiuri picks up on a couple of new launches. Jump SQ is billed as the replacement for Monthly Shonen Jump, although it is pitched toward an broader audience, both younger readers and those in the 15-25 range. Editor-in-chief Masahiko Ibaraki says, “[To launch the magazine,] we’ve done all things we could do, with any eye toward making the stories [to be carried in the magazine] into anime shows.” Meanwhile, Kerokero A is poised to compete with the popular Corocoro, which carries Pokemon and Doraemon and appeals to the grade-school crowd. Kerokero A EIC Hideaki Kobayashi says, “Unlike Corocoro, our magazine will be characterized by robots or heroic characters. In collaboration with Bandai, we want to develop new [salable] characters like Pokemon.” So it looks like both magazines will be about more than just the manga, which may be what it takes to survive these days.

Roland Kelts writes about old-fogey otaku grumbling that the tourists have ruined the neighborhood—and points out how inevitable that is.

Manga Zombie continues on ComiPress with an article about manga-ka George Akiyama. Also up on ComiPress: Japanese serialization updates, including the end of Penguin Revolution.

At Comic Book Resources, Dave Richards interviews Poison Candy writer David Hine.

How we read: LJ’er Cerusee links to an article about eye movements of comics readers and jumps off into a discussion of manga versus American comics and sundry other topics. It’s a good read, and check out the comments, too.

Both the Central Park Media and the BeBeautiful websites are down at the moment, but Yaoi Suki does a little detective work and finds at least one employee still there.

Samurai basketball—no, samurai wheelchair basketball. Could that work? ANN is reporting that Slam Dunk creator Takehiko Inoue has a preview website up for a new project to be announced on November 29, a project that apparently combines elements of his samurai manga Vagabond and his wheelchair basketball manga Real. The site is all in Japanese but you can click around a bit and find video trailers for two of his books, and ANN has direct links to a video of the manga-ka at work. Inoue’s professional site has an English section, but it hasn’t been updated in about a month.

Reviews: At MangaCast, Ed podcasts his thoughts on Walkin’ Butterfly and 10, 20, 30. It must be Dan Polley week at Manga Life, because all the new reviews are by him: vol. 1 of Psycho Busters, vol. 5 of Omukae Desu, vol. 6 of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, vol. 10 of xxxHoLic, vol. 2 of Trigun, and vol. 11 of Nodame Cantabile. Dave Ferraro is seriously unimpressed by Portus at Comics-and-More. Charles Tan reviews vol. 16 of Eyeshield 21 at Bibliophile Stalker. Tiamat’s Disciple posts an overview of Bride of the Water God and a review of vol. 1 of Fruits Basket. In her Comics Unlimited column, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews a quartet of graphic novels, including the Azumanga Daioh omnibus. At Anime on DVD, Sakura Eries reviews vol. 1 of With the Light. Julie reviews vol. 1 of Venus in Love, vol. 3 of Canon, vol. 27 of Boys Over Flowers, and Pet On Duty at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Noted North American Manga Expert Kethylia reviews vol. 1 of Mugen Spiral and vol. 2 of Le Chevalier d’Eon as well as the novel Chain Mail. At Otaku Champloo, Khursten takes a long look at One Piece. Miranda checks out vol. 1 of Gyo at Prospero’s Manga, and co-blogger Billy (Ferdinand) Aguiar reviews vol. 1 of Street Fighter II at CBGXtra. At About Heroes, EvilOmar celebrates Manga Monday with a flurry of reviews. Connie reviews MW, vols. 5, 6, and 7 of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, vol. 2 of Parasyte, vol. 5 of Enchanter, and vol. 8 of Dragon Head at Slightly Biased Manga. At Active Anime, Scott Campbell checks out vol. 3 of My Heavenly Hockey Club, Holly Ellingwood reviews vol. 7 of ES: Eternal Sabbath, vol. 1 of Vanilla, and vol. 1 of Camera Camera Camera, Davey C. Jones critiques vol. 9 of Genshiken, and Rachel Bentham looks at vol. 7 of Sugar Sugar Rune. Katie McNeill reviews vol. 1 of Suppli and vols. 3 and 4 of The Tarot Cafe at Blogcritics. Mary Lee includes Sonia Leong’s manga adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in A Year of Reading. At The Star of Malaysia, Tokiko Oba reviews Tekkonkinkreet and Pauline Wong looks at vol. 1 of Zombie-Loan. Claire Martin of The Denver Post enjoys With the Light, and sees her disorientation when trying to read it as a reflection of the subject matter. At Soliloquy in Blue, Michelle gives her take on vols. 14, 15, 16, and 17 of Bleach. John T reviews Apollo’s Song at Mecha Mecha Media. Jog posts a lengthy essay on Black Jack at The Savage Critics. Hung checks out MW on the BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog.