You may remember that we ran a preview of Tokyopop’s upcoming manhua Orange a few days ago; now I have an interview with the editor of their world graphic novel series, Bryce Coleman, up at Good Comics for Kids.
The MangaCast team pick the best of this week’s new manga, and the Manga Villagers do the same at Comics Village.
Over at The Savage Critic, Jeff Lester asks “Is manga dying?” The discussion continues in comments but veers off into OEL vs. Japanese manga territory. Alex Hoffman has a more optimistic take at Manga Widget.
Meanwhile, Danielle Leigh is taking names of the best manga of 2008 in the comments section of her Manga Before Flowers column at Comic Book Resources. Go, nominate!
Here’s some evidence that the industry is alive and well: Tokyopop UK just confirmed 35 titles for release in July and August.
Gia Manry, who consistently unearthed scoops and kept us laughing at Giapet.net, is taking her act to Anime Vice, a new website that (despite the name) does cover manga. Reset your RSS feeds and go take a look. Already she spots some confused librarians and some quick manga bits in their Daily Shin Buun column.
News from Japan: ANN gets word that Eri Takenashi has put Kannagi on hiatus due to health problems. Kanta Ishida of the Daily Yomiuri takes a look at Beatitude, a manga based on the building where Osamu Tezuka and other budding manga-ka lived in the 1950s.
Reviews: Ed Chavez posts an audio review of vol. 1 of Vagabond (the VizBig edition) at MangaCast. Lissa Pattillo takes a look at Love Quest at Kuriousity. Julie enjoys vol. 1 of Black Sun, Silver Moon at the Manga Maniac Cafe. Ferdinand succumbs to the cuteness of vol. 1 of Mao-Chan at Prospero’s Manga. Emily reads Boku no Sekai Kimi no Real at Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Page. James Fleenor is impressed by All Colour But the Black: The Art of Bleach at Anime Sentinel. Alex Hoffman expands on an earlier review of vol. 1 of Ral Ω Grad at Manga Widget. Kris checks out vol. 1 of Captive Hearts and vol. 1 of Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom at Manic About Manga. At Comics Village, Justin Colussy-Estes enjoys Junko Mizuno’s Hansel and Gretel and Katherine Farmar has exactly the opposite reaction to World’s End at Comics Village. At Active Anime, Holly Ellingwood checks out vol. 2 of Mixed Vegetables, Gaba Kawa, and vol. 5 of Wild Ones, and Rachel Bentham reviews vol. 1 of St. Dragon Girl.
I read Lester’s post and was surprised by the fact that he was surprised at the scaling back of manga titles. This has been going on for months, if not years. He must not read that much manga. I remember when DMP used to publish titles that weren’t yaoi (they still do publish a couple), and I won’t even start about ADV (even though they are a continuing insult to manga readers living and yet to be born), and Tokyopop just put out too many titles. What all this comes down to is bad management of companies, much as is the case with the entire economy right now. Manga isn’t dead, and its not dying. For that to happen, Barnes and Noble and Border’s would have to go out of business (Actually, Borders is a possibility), just as a failure of Best Buy would ruin the anime industry. I will say this, I do not think the manga industry is growing. And the responsibity for that lies quite squarely on the fans. Or more accurately, a lack of fans. I think that manga, in terms of popularity, is at the peak, actually, below its 2004 peak, and is probably never going to reach a stratosphere of pop culture relevance like Harry Potter or Twilight or even the long-running Simpsons. I do what I can, I let my neice read Azumanga Daioh and she really liked it. I let a girl that loves the Twilight series borrow my copies of Vampire Knight and she really enjoyed them. It’s just little things like that any fan of manga can do to spread the word about manga. To me, that’s how you grow the audience, you have to cross over to people that have no idea what manga is.
Thanks for the kind words, and I hope you likethe new site! (And re: the name— it’s really hard to find a good name that specifically points to anime and manga without picking one or the other, unfortunately…let alone one that isn’t taken already! @.o)
Thanks for the good news bits. :o
I think the industry is just normalizing and coming to grips with unrealistic expectations — in Japan things are slowing down, too, and it doesn’t help that there’s a global recession on. I’d rather have these companies take a more pragmatic approach than overspeculate and get soured on manga permanently, and I’d also like to see editors be a bit more selective about what makes it over. When I tell non-fans (mundanes? Muggles? gaijin?) that manga can be about things like Jesus and Buddha living together, they re-consider the medium as a whole.
This makes me wonder, though: what’s the equivalent of Watchmen in manga? What title made artists and readers re-consider the medium? Is there any manga title that simultaneously uplifts and undermines a whole genre (like superheroes), and proved to be a game-changer?