Newsarama’s Benjamin Ong Pang Kean continues his series on manga with a look at what the future may hold.
Here’s an interesting paper by an Australian college student on the popularity of manga outside Japan. And hey, we’re included in the footnotes!
Should manga reviewers stick to specific genres? Tiamat’s Disciple says no, and I’m inclined to agree.
At Rocket Bomber, Matt Blind summarizes online manga sales and looks at the top 500 manga for the past week, then turns the spotlight on Dark Horse and looks at their manga sales.
Japanese computer engineer Sindharta Tanuwijaya writes about about a manga he discovered on the topic of refugees.
Chloe Ferguson and Lissa Pattillo weigh in on Tokyopop’s beta website. General consensus is that it’s better than the current one but still could stand some improvement, and Chloe was startled to see Amazon links to buy books from other publishers (although presumably Tokyopop is getting a cut).
Comic-Con is almost upon us, and Deb Aoki helpfully provides ten survival tips and provides a sneak peek at Fanfare/Ponent Mon’s offerings at About.com. At Same Hat! Same Hat!!, Ryan and Evan outline their SDCC plans, which include lots of time at the Last Gasp booth promoting Tokyo Zombie. At Okazu, Erica Friedman is already thinking ahead to Otakon and MangaNEXT, where she hopes to get a yuri circle together in Artists Alley.
At The Star of Malaysia, Makoto Fukuda looks at the friction between Zatch Bell creator Makoto Raiku and his editors.
Japanator’s Dick McVengeance has some tips for learning Japanese.
Reviews: Mangamaniac Julie reviews A Love Song for the Miserable and Ed Chavez has a video and audio review of vol. 2 of Dororo at the MangaCast. Over at the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie check out vol. 2 of Two Flowers for the Dragon. Lissa Pattillo reviews vol. 1 of Fairy Cube at Kuriousity. At Slightly Biased Manga, Connie reads vol. 4 of One Thousand and One Nights, vol. 10 of Pastel, vol. 5 of Bastard, vol. 20 of Fruits Basket, and vol. 21 of Astro Boy. Kazu Kibuishi not only liked Tekkonkinkreet, he found it inspiring (via Comics212). Tiamat’s Disciple reviews the light novel vol. 4 of Vampire Hunter D: Tale of the Dead Town. Kransom posts some brief manga reviews, including Me and the Devil Blues, at welcome datacomp.