Active Anime interviews manga-ka Makoto Tateno, creator of Yellow.
At A Distant Soil, Colleen Doran gives a creator’s perspective on that yaoi article everyone has been talking about:
Why, once I was threatened with being sent to jail for pornography because Rieken and D’mer held hands and cuddled. I had a book seized in the legendary Friendly Franks Raid. And now all anybody wants is for me to draw pictures of guys bonking.
You pervy fans, you.
Meanwhile, Fandom_Wank turns up a yaoi debate at a CLAMP LJ community. Best quote:
Why discuss the sexual behaviour of ink?
(Via When Fangirls Attack.)
And at Icarus Comics, Simon Jones, no stranger to the sexual behavior of ink, slinks away from my challenge to explain why yaoi manga does better than hentai manga but does have an explanation for the paucity of yaoi in the anime arena:
not only is there less yaoi anime made, there is less anime made for girls after a certain age, period. Think of all the anime adapted from boy’s manga, compared to girl’s. For whatever reason, girls either seem to outgrow anime faster than boys, or anime producers place a lower priority on adapting material from traditionally girl’s and women’s genres. And I will follow this up with yet another observation that may cause some outrage with elite anime fans… anime is *still* considered to be kid’s stuff by most people in Japan.
(Link is NSFW, unless exposed nipples are OK in your workplace.)
At Tokyopop, Stephanie “Telophase” Folse devotes her latest column to the newly released Mangaka America. Her verdict: Great tutorials, great art, interviews could be more in-depth, but well worth picking up. Elsewhere on the site, Coral Peterson writes about ghosts in Japanese folklore and offers advice on writing your own manga.
The Broccoli blog notes Kurt Hassler’s contributions to their corner of the industry—he was “a big part” of Juvenile Orion’s release—and reports that Disgaea hit number 19 on the charts. And there’s a hint that some fan activism might be in order:
Now I wish there was a petition for a English release of the Disgaea manga anthologies. (hint, hint. I could really use the numbers to get the proposal through corporate)
The Nashville City Paper reviews Abandon the Old in Tokyo.
[...] Publishers Weekly’s Calvin Reid offers a short report as well. Commentary on the move has already started trickling in: Heidi MacDonald notes that the annouced plans for Yen Press are much more diffuse than one would expect from a new publisher setting forth in a burgeouning market — aside from manga licensed from Japan, the list of categories namechecked includes “original manga, original American comics and graphic novels, webcomics, licensed adaptations and children’s works,” suggesting a publisher attempting to cash in on whatever category looks likely to sell rather than a tightly focused initiative, but these are early days. We’ll see if the newfound precense of Hassler and Rich Johnson, formerly a vice-president at DC Comics, might tighten up the publishing focus a bit. Of course, one has to wonder at whether or not this will change Borders’ buying practices, a question best voiced by David Doub. Meanwhile, Hassler’s move has left whoever writes the blog for Broccoli Books waxing nostalgiac for his contributions, not the least of which being Hassler’s willingness to give Broccoli title Juvenile Orion a shot. (That last link via Brigid Alverson.) [...]