Undertown is the latest Tokyopop global manga to be morphed into a newspaper strip. ICv2, which mistakenly calls it “Uglytown” (Freudian slip?) notes that it was also picked up by Scholastic.
It’s an Overlooked Manga Festival Special Event: Shaenon Garrity lists the best out-of-print manga.
Lyle Masaki has an interesting essay on the women of Death Note.
Tom Baker covers Comiket for the Daily Yomiuri.
Beyond the Beyond is winding up in Japan, while Violinist of Hameln is restarting and Saki Okuse, creator of Twilight of the Dark Master, is launching a new manga.
John Jakala discovers a Sgt. Frog cosplay contest with some tempting prizes.
They are sequential art, and they are still funny after all these years, but the Choju Giga scrolls really aren’t the first manga, says the Daily Yomiuri.
The Same Hat guys post some pictures of stripe-loving horror manga-ka Kazuo Umezu on the set of his movie Orochi.
David Welsh talks about publishers whose books are hard to find in chain bookstores.
The Yaoi Review looks forward to some new releases for January.
Reviews: Chris Mautner reviews a stack of manga, from MW to Gakuen Alice. Dan Grendell has more brief reviews at Comic Pants. And Melanie files the Monday Manga Reviews a bit late at About Heroes. Tiamat’s Disciple finds vol. 1 of Phantom quite forgettable. John T delves into the fanservice-fest that is vol. 1 of My Dearest Devil Princess at Mecha Mecha Media. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reviews vol. 19 of Cheeky Angel, vol. 1 of Offered, vol. 3 of My Heavenly Hockey Club, vol. 5 of After School Nightmare, RIP: Requiem in Phonybrian, and vol. 1 of Warriors of Tao. Nick gives Socrates in Love an A+ at Hobotaku. At the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie checks out vol. 1 of Magical JxR and vol. 2 of D. Gray-Man. At Active Anime, Rommel Salandanan reviews vol. 1 of Megami Deluxe, Sandra Scholes reads vol. 1 of Gerard & Jacques, and Christopher Seaman thumbs through The Manga Bible. Miranda reviews the ultimate edition of The Demon Ororon at Prospero’s Manga. Lianne Sentar posts a thoroughly enjoyable review of vol. 1 of Suppli at Sleep is for the Weak. Tom Baker reviews Parasyte for The Daily Yomiuri. Sean Kleefeld weighs in on vol. 4 of Bizenghast. (Via Journalista.) Jarrett Keene reviews MW for Las Vegas City Life.
re: Lianne’s Suppli review
The opening comment here about josei/seinen and shojo/shounen manga is a symptom of the growing division between manga readers since we’ve become self-conscious of such classifications. I think the real issue is closer to how readers perceive violent and non-violent storytelling. Manga with gory violence is often accepted as being more mature and sophisticated than manga with no violence or cartoony violence. You probably don’t need to look much further than the recent year-end top ten lists to see evidence of this.
A friend of mine with a long history of indy and superhero comics recently got into manga, and he complained that I was “labeling him too much” when I told him he wasn’t getting a good overview of manga because he was only reading seinen. The genre issue in manga is indeed something that divides us as manga fans, but I don’t think it’s inherently a bad thing that manga’s four major categories (shounen, shoujo, seinen, and josei) are separated as much as they are. By having four distinct audiences, more viewpoints are represented, and more audiences are catered to. Why do you think the shoujo boom hit so hard over here? American/Canadian girls between the ages of 15 and 25 suddenly had something specifically aimed at THEM, when before that they had to choose either dumbed-down tweeny crap or self-centered housewife/career woman chick lit and romantic comedies they couldn’t relate to. And yaoi! Non-threatening stealth porn (“hey mom, just buying some pretty comic books”) for girls between 15 and 25! It’s no wonder a bazillion dollars have been made—shoujo and yaoi have filled some severe Western media vacuums.
When we don’t have as specific genre labeling, we tend to fall into the scant two “for kids” or “for adults” categories, and most media tends to slant, arguably, toward adolescent male. Genre labeling, at least, lets girls have something that’s for them and them alone, and it also spares boys the frantic grabbing of their media to get a more female audience (cramming a love story into an action movie, for example). Of course, the best manga (and media) goes beyond its genre and appeals to everyone, and in Japan at least, those manga tend to do very well commercially (see Rurouni Kenshin, Basara, Banana Fish, One Piece, etc.). I think if the Western manga audience grows up a bit and people stop being so afraid of trying other genres (critics included), those fabulous cross-over titles will start selling better, and then the labeling won’t be as much of a divider as it is now. This why I force myself to read moe, for example. You can’t critique properly if you don’t try a little of everything.
Was this too ranty and unfocused? Sorry.
Oh, also:
Violinist of Hameln is restarting…
Best news I’ve heard in a while! Michiaki Watanabe is absolutely brilliant, and Hameln is a fantastic series (although you’d never guess it). Here’s to maybe the new series getting licensed! No one will ever buy the original series, since it’s 37 volumes long and starts with really dated, ugly art, but the new series may be pretty enough for a Western licensor to give it a chance.
I’m done now.
Hi Brigid,
Not sure if you got any of my emails that I sent last week. Maybe your spam filter ate them. Let me know if you got it?
Thanks!
\scott\