At PWCW, Kai-Ming Cha reports that Dark Horse is republishing the works of Masamune Shirow in the original unflipped format, starting with the Appleseed series. This week’s issue also includes a preview of Seven, a new title from DMP, and, on the front page, a review of Meca Tanaka’s Pearl Pink.
David Welsh devotes this week’s Flipped column to two seinen stories, Mail and Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~, which shows you the range of that genre.
Ed posts another preview of E’S at MangaCast.
Mely thinks all writers could benefit from Kaoru Mori’s afterword to vol. 1 of Emma.
Kethylia wants to make sure we all know: To Terra is SHOUNEN manga. Her commenters are not so sure it matters. I just got one of the advance galleys from Vertical, and I’d say it’s fairly obvious that it’s shounen but my daughter will probably read it anyway, just as she reads Inu Yasha and Oh My Goddess, because she really doesn’t care. Of course, she’ll have to get the galleys away from me first!
Speaking of Vertical titles, Anne Ishii is pleased that Ode to Kirihito made Barnes & Noble’s staff picks of 2006 list.
A writer new to manga doesn’t like Princess Ai. Perhaps it wasn’t a good early choice.
Narutofan7st does a lengthy character analysis of Ghost in the Shell character. (This link and the one above found via When Fangirls Attack!)
Active Anime’s Blake Waymire reviews vol. 11 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. At AoD, Ed Chavez finds there’s not much to the anime-based one-shot Onegai Twins. LiveJournaler korinacaffeine really hates The Devil Does Exist.
You know, what disappoints me most of all about mislabeling Tera e as a shoujo manga is that part of its value as a classic (apart from pure entertainment) is its history. Read: DUDE, IT MATTERS!!! Takemiya Keiko was and is one of those rare shoujo manga artists who crossed over into shounen manga. It’s still remarkable today when artists like CLAMP do it, and it was waaaay more remarkable back then.
Yet the person who I first saw to call Tera e a shoujo manga justified her label by saying that Vertical is doing it too (and now defends her decision by saying it doesn’t matter—see above). This was all news to me, but that doesn’t make either her or the publisher correct. I suppose if Hitler’s biographer said that the Holocaust never happened, we should believe that, too? Labels are powerful things that affect how we perceive the world, and if we must label at all, it’s always best to be as truthful as possible.
It’s rather extreme to compare Hitler to a comic book.
I don’t care if Vertical markets the book to singing monkeys, or if it was originally published in a magazine for dolphins. If the publisher thinks they will sell more copies by marketing it to girls, and if it means that there will be a greater variety of titles available for purchase, than so be it. Whether it was published originally in a Japanese magazine for boys or girls doesn’t matter here, where all the graphic novels are intermingled for everyone to enjoy.
I do think there’s both historic and marketing value to describing it as one of the earliest examples of a successful shonen series to be created by an artist known primarily for her work in shojo. I think it’s an interesting bit of background that strongly suggests the book’s potentially broad appeal. It’s probably not information that’s all that meaningful to a casual reader, as you say, but I think it’s worth noting.
That said, I don’t think it quite reaches the Hitler level either.
Wow. On top of everything else Vertical sucks at, we’re also Holocaust deniers?
Check out my response to this debate at the Vertical blog (link should be in my ID), which is the response Kethylia refers to in this thread.
I have to say this, because I’ve been friendly with everyone involved in this at one time or another, but this is just a lame mess at this point.
First off, Julie, I don’t see what’s happening here as Godwin’s Law, so let’s stop acting outraged because the name Hitler was mentioned. She said…Hitler’s biographer. Anne, WTF [excuse the lack of pro here, but its late.] She never said Vertical are a bunch of holocaust deniers… The fact you’ve blogged about this amazes me.
Why?
People rant and express opinions in their LiveJournals all the time, it’s a journal, that’s what it’s for. Did she come to the Vertical Blog and say these things? No. Did she write a newspaper article that will reach hundreds of fans Vertical cares about? NO. She went to Manga Maniacs where she saw an entry on a press release, she commented there, she didn’t like the response she got from Julie, and so journaled her displeasure AT HER OWN LJ.
For crying out loud, can we stop turning molehills into mountains here? One fan doesn’t like the way you’re marketing it. She thinks labeling is important. Another thinks labeling is for the birds, let’s all just read manga. Ok, these are two fan views—why is Vertical blogging like they’ve been lanced?
I might be a little late to the party (I was reminded of this when, at my university bookstore of all places, I saw a sign announcing “hey shoujo and shonen, we have a brand new manga selection!”), but it seems like the reason that Anne decided to blog about this whole incident is spelled out in her entry— she was called a moron. I’m not sure about all of you, but if something like that happened to me, I would feel entitled to defend myself against those charges. Just because she works for a big scary corporation (with all of what, 10 employees?) doesn’t mean she’s any less entitled to write about it. I know the whole web2.0 blogosphere thing is young and all, but really, this blogging business opens up conversation between everyone, not just the small guys (and women).