Stu Levy and Lillian Diaz-Pryzbyl talk about manga on Japanese TV. (It’s mostly in English, and the Japanese parts are subtitled.) Stu pontificates a bit, but Lillian is very interesting on the translation and adaptation process.
Manganews translates a Japanese article in which two editors discuss the year in manga. They say that sales of magazines were down 5% and books were down 3%, but TV gave certain titles a boost. Although kids are shrinking as part of the population, publishers created a couple of new shounen magazines, and they also targeted single women and middle-aged otaku. There are some interesting discussions of individual titles, but this is the weirdest exchange in the whole piece:
Kohai: But I am frightened by the stories like the “Reversed Harem” in which men wait on a woman shogun, or where a woman loves a gentleman in spectacles for ages.
Senpai: I know the reason why you can’t marry.
Another translated article informs us that Welcome to Black Jack has jumped from Morning magazine to Big Comic Spirits, where it was retitled New Welcome to Black Jack. Rumor has it that the manga-ka had a disagreement with the Morning editors about payments “and other stuff.”
Chris Arrant interviews Allan Gross and Joanna Estep, the writer and artist, respectively, of Roadsong, for Newsarama. (Via Journalista.)
At Yaoi Suki, Jen Parker has some thoughts on yaoi and rape fantasies.
MangaCast has more info on the Shogakukan awards and some scans from the Brokeback Manga doujinshi.
ComiPress rounds up some recent articles: Naoki Urasawa speaks, CLAMP member Mokona will be signing autographs, and there’s a new magazine in Japan female otaku.
At Otaku Champloo, Khursten looks at Jump through the fujoshi lens.
Tokyopop’s Dark Crystal manga is running late.
Sports cartoonist Shinji Mizushima is helping run a pro baseball league. (Via The Beat.)
Manga porn at Wal Mart? Well, only on the online store, and it seems to have been a mixup. Johanna has the scoop.
Reviews: Mangamaniaccafe reviews vol. 1 of Mugen Spiral. At Active Anime, Christopher Seaman reviews vol. 2 of Le Portrait de Petite Cossette, which completes the series, and Holly Ellingwood looks at vol. 2 of Aoi House. Ed Chavez does a podcast review of To Terra at MangaCast. At Okazu, Erica Friedman enjoys vol. 2 of the Japanese manga Aoi Hana. At Journalista, Dirk Deppey reviews two series dropped by ADV, Aria and Gunslinger Girl.
Ouch. I thought Stu speaks Japanese. “Monga”? I’m betting the interviewer is trying not to laugh…
And Dirk, the new anime fanboy, got ARIA all wrong… it’s not a children’s series but a shonen/shojou hybrid. Its fans are mostly young women and otakus; although I’m sure there are kids reading ARIA I’m pretty sure most of them are reading AniYoko or Kirari Revolution; kids would most likely not buy the manga mag ARIA’s currently published in. I’ve got ARIA up to volume 9 now… it’s just getting better with age. It’s just beyond sad the series was licened by the same idiots who can’t even catch up with Yotsubato!. ADV I hope you stay out of manga forever.