Obama manga and the sins of Youka Nitta

Here’s why we love manga so much: Creator Madeleine Rosca spotted a famliar face in the latest chapter of Air Gear: Barack Obama. In Air Gear! An alert commenter translates the text in the balloon as “Why is it that on this night when I’m meeting such a lovely person, I have failed to bring my tuxedo?” and the sidebar text as “The candidate for the next president of the United States!” Well, we all know he’s a charmer. But will he have to battle McCain in an extreme skating fight to win the presidency? (Via Sesho.)

ICv2 has the latest on Tokyopop, in case you were wondering what direction the company is going in: They have an item on the Ghostbusters manga, including a penciled page, and the news that they have licensed Disney’s Camp Rock for their Cine-Manga line.

It’s not unusual for artists to use photos for reference, but Yaoi manga-ka Youka Nitta admits that she crossed the line when she traced advertising photos for her work, using not only the poses but backgrounds and other details. There’s actually an interesting discussion of the boundary issues involved in the comments to the linked post, and here is an unofficial website with side-by-side comparisons—it’s in Japanese, but click on the numbers to see the photos. One of the most interesting things, to me, was to see how Nitta varied from the source material: changing male-female couples to male-male, stretching out the limbs, and changing the gaze so the characters are looking at the viewer. Nitta has apologized for the infringement, and she is not listed as a contributor to the October issue of Be-Boy Gold, the Japanese magazine that publishes her work. However, a commenter on the yaoicon_chat LJ community says she is still scheduled to appear at Yaoicon.

Erica Friedman rounds up the yuri news of the week at Okazu.

This is interesting: ICv2 says the publishing rights for ElfQuest are in play, as Wendy and Richard Pini’s agreement with DC came to an end last year. I’m wondering how this will affect their digital comics project.

Anime Expo followups: At the MangaCast, Ed rounds up covers for the new titles announced at Anime Expo by DMP and Viz. And at Genuine Article, Kai-Ming Cha noticed that the guys seemed to be more interested in Aurora’s LuvLuv line of “ladies’ comics” than the ladies were. At About.com, Deb Aoki picks the top ten manga from the new announcement and posts a photo gallery as well.

Japanator looks at a possible resurgence of shonen sports manga.

Congratulations to Sleep Is For the Weak, the website for thoughtful manga readers, on their sixth anniversary (coming up on July 22)! For an example of why I like them so much, check out Lianne Sentar’s review of Kamichama Karin Chu.

New website alert: Nerd Fellowship is a geek-friendly website that delivers news on a variety of topics—manga, anime, games, movies, etc.—with a nice clean design that makes the content easy to find. Why is that last thing so rare? Anyway, the writing is good as well, so check it out.

ANN reports that it’s now possible to get Japanese manga on your iPhone or DS.

News from Japan: The series Dr. Koto’s Clinic will move to Big Comic Original when its current host magazine, Weekly Young Sunday, ceases publication later this month. Both magazines are published by Shogakukan.

Reviews: People seem to either love the light novel Maid Machinegun or really hate it; put Eva from MangaCast in the latter category. Salimbol has a concise review of vols. 2-3 of My Heavenly Hockey Club at The Chocolate Mud Wyvern Presents. At Anime on DVD, Patricia Beard reviews Pathos, Matthew Alexander looks at vol. 8 of Enchanter, Danielle Van Gorder checks out Tough Love Baby, and Briana Lawrence reads vol. 2 of Don’t Blame Me. Connie reads vol. 11 of Iron Wok Jan, vol. 3 of Variante, vol. 7 of Enchanter, and vol. 12 of Saint Seiya at Slightly Biased Manga. Sesho has posted text reviews of vol. 1 of Sunshine Sketch, vols. 1-2 of Samurai Commando Mission 1549, and vol. 2 of Harukaze Bitter Bop, and podcast reviews of vol. 1 of Koi Cupid, vol. 1 of Gantz, and vol. 1 of Arm of Kannon. Emily checks out Toko no Houmonsha at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. Ferdinand reviews vol. 1 of Tokko: Devil’s Awaken and vol. 1 of Kujibiki Unbalance at Prospero’s Manga. Julie gets her hands on vol. 13 of Skip Beat! at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Fresh reviews up at Manga Life: Park Cooper on vols. 3-4 of Fullmetal Alchemist, Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane on vol. 1 of Sugar Princess, David Rasmussen on Tenchi Muyo: Sasami Stories, and Park Cooper on vol. 1 of Samurai Executioner.

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Comments

  1. I think an italic tag didn’t get closed.

    Also, I’ve posted a few new reviews too since the last one to get linked (Skip Beat! 13). :)

  2. Thanks, Jun! I fixed it.

    I have been behind on reviews and other links all week, because I’m having a busy week and don’t have much time to post. I’ll catch up tomorrow, I hope.

  3. Okies!

  4. Re: Nitta Youka’s attendance at Yaoicon, I received this email from the Ycon staff just yesterday:

    “Yaoi-Con regrets to announce that this year’s Guest of Honor Nitta Youka will not be able to attend the convention. We wish her well and hope that she will be able to attend a future Yaoi-Con.

    We are in the process of researching alternate guests; new information will be posted as it becomes available. “

  5. I am not a reader of yaoi, but this “oops” announcement seems a little typical of the genre. This isn’t the first time I have heard of yaoi artists “borrowing” from other sources, but the moment Nitta Yaoka began tracing from an advertisement (or maybe the 20th or 30th documented time) a bell should have gone off saying “maybe this isn’t right”.

    Things like this hardly help legitimize the genre, which by its nature is already under scrutiny. Announcements like this tend to legitimize non-readers’ impressions that yaoi is glorified “Penthouse Forums” in gay manga form.