Tag Archives: tokyopop

Guest Post: Rescue Me! Kyo Kara Maoh!

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While I intend to get my Rescue Me! series back up and running in the near future, I recently received an email from a reader of Manga Widget asking if I would be interested in discussing one of her favorite manga that is currently in need of a rescue. After a little discussion, Teresa wrote a nice guest post below. If you have a license you want rescued and would like to have your writing featured at Manga Widget, please contact mangawidget *at* gmail *dot* com. Teresa tweets at @Vineyardelf.
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Kyo Kara Maoh! is a fantasy series originally licensed by Tokyopop, but remains unfinished in English after the company closed shop in 2011.  It started out as a series of light novels written by Tomo Takabayashi in 2000, and was adapted into a manga illustrated by Temari Matsumoto  and published in Kadokawa Shoten’s Asuka anthology. The first seven English volumes are available from the secondary market, but the series is still ongoing, with at least a 15th volume in Japan currently published.

The series details the story of Yuri Shibuya, a seemingly typical 15 year-old Japanese boy, as he is transported into an alternate universe where humans and demons coexist. It turns out that Yuri is actually not of our world, and is the next king of the demons.  The story follows Yuri as he tries to make sense of his new role, from making peace with the humans next door to handling his accidental engagement to another man. He is helped along the way by his advisors and his new fiancé, all of whom have their own ideas about his kingship and how he should rule. The focus of the story seems to be on the relationships between the new king and his advisors as they struggle to bring peace and prosperity to the land, and it’s engrossing to watch Yuri develop from the different perspectives of his advisors and guardians.

At first blush, Kyo Kara Maoh! seems to be a simple male harem fantasy story, but it actually has surprising depth.  Yuri is a genuinely likeable protagonist while still managing to have flaws. In fact, one of the most appealing parts of the story is how flawed but relatable and lovable the characters are. There are no perfect Prince Charmings in this story; even the most affable of the advisors has his secrets.

The story is also light and easy to read while still being engaging. I started to read the first volume with a healthy sense of skepticism, but was completely absorbed by the middle of the book.  Kyo Kara Maoh!  manages to be serious while still funny enough to keep me giggling out loud at the lighthearted parts, to the point that I was garnering stares from people nearby. I also am impressed at the way the male-male engagement has been handled so far in the first seven volumes. It’s an important part of the story that does not overwhelm the rest of the story, and it’s really heartwarming to see the relationship develop at a realistic pace outside of mere physical attraction.

I’ve been dying to continue Kyo Kara Maoh! ever since I learned that there were more volumes. Given their previous rescue of other old Tokyopop titles, I can definitely see thing being picked up by Yen Press, perhaps in collected volumes as the single ones are somewhat thin. Jaded as I am, it’s rare for me to get so absorbed, and I would hate to see a series with such broad appeal languish.

A 2011 Manga Widget Retrospective and Thoughts for 2012

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2011 was a fantastic year for me. I effectively doubled the content on my blog, and managed to do so while earning my Doctor of Pharmacy degree, starting a post-graduate residency, getting married, and conducting a large scale research project focused on patient compliance. It has been a busy year. It has also been a great year for me in terms of my hobbies. I have read quite a few volumes of good manga, have expanded my beer brewing setup and have done all of this while blogging and doing other writing that I love. As we reach the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new, it seems customary for bloggers to wrap up their years with a “Best of 2011″ list, and I was going to write one of these yesterday.

As I worked over my list, I came upon a sort of realization: blogging in general has a sort of perverse relationship with top 10 lists. Blogging is by its nature very quick and unseasoned. It can be excellent journalism, but more often than not is an assortment of opinions and a few pictures. Top 10 lists do this excellently. There are plenty of pictures, plenty of opinions, and it all turns into one quick article very nicely. Badda bing, badda boom. But this seems to have generated a sort of “need to make a top 10 list” mentality that many people are so quick to mention or notice, and some people have broken down the general formula of the list post and displayed it for all to see in a sort of “dissected-frog” sort of way.

I appreciate the idea of a backwards glance at the year as much as the next person, but there are plenty of great Top 10 lists already on the internet. (Your local flavor may vary) So instead of a Top Ten list, I just want instead to talk about things that I thought were important in 2011, along with a few thoughts for 2012.

1. Digital manga becomes mainstream:

The biggest change to manga in 2011, in my opinion, is the push towards the digital medium. We have been seeing a bit of this for some time, but with the advent of the iPad and the B&N nook, Viz Media, Yen Press, and Kodansha have started releasing a quantity of their manga into the digital realm for download. Viz shuttered Shonen Jump magazine, and announced the start of Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, a weekly digital anthology offering the weekly releases of the newest shonen manga in Japan. Yen Press also moved Yen Plus online in 2010 and has continued to publish the magazine with seeming success.

Gen Manga, an online anthology of seinen manga written by independent mangaka in Japan, has also jumped into the fray this year and has released an impressive lineup of seinen manga available monthly in a very accessible format. The content delivered by Gen Manga is easily accessible on most devices, and its relatively low price has made it a great investment as far as entertainment/dollars spent goes. I have been extremely impressed with the latest releases, and hope that great content continues to grow and increase. Gen Manga is one of the first digital hybrid models, where content is released first digitally and then can be printed on demand once the content has been collected.

The other big digital player this year was JManga, which opened its doors this summer. While I feel JManga had an okay starting platform, it is clear that there is a lot of work that needs to be done this year if they are going to survive as a digital content provider. Digital content has a price ceiling, and it seems as though JManga has realized that. Still, the major problem with the platform right now is a lack of continuation of content already on the service, and hopefully that will change in 2012. Additionally, JManga can only do itself good if it releases apps for the Apple and Android devices in 2012.

2. DMP utilizes Kickstarter to reprint Swallowing the Earth:

While this may not seem like much on the surface, I feel like microniche publishing has now found a unique and powerful tool to publish what would normally be considered unpublishable manga in the United States and all across the world. Microniche publishing through crowd-sourced funding can be the source of some really off-beat and fantastic comics, and I hope that DMP and other publishers try to use the Kickstarter model to their own advantage.

Think about Kickstarter as the method to get josei manga published in English. Just think about that for a second. Or, if you would prefer, how about obscure horror manga, classic shojo, or yuri? Kickstarter has proven to be a successful market for comics, and if Swallowing the Earth is any indication, DMP will be using the service again to fund future projects.

3. TOKYOPOP shuttered, Stu Levy sells TOKYOPOP brand to GeekChicDaily:

TOKYOPOP, the publisher I loved to hate, and sometimes loved, shut down after being one of the longest-lived companies in the business. While financial woes were certainly caused by the 2011 Borders closing, it also seemed as though Stu Levy was tired of publishing books. He is now off in Japan shooting a documentary of the hurricane disaster from this year.

I can understand not wanting to stick with something for your entire life. People’s interests change over time, and I can’t blame someone for wanting to stop doing what they have been doing. However, I do think that TOKYOPOP didn’t need Stu Levy at the helm to publish books, and I think shutting down the company instead of selling it or transitioning it to another CEO or publisher would have been more pleasant for the community.

The real nail in the coffin is the GeekChicDaily newsletter, which it appears Levy has sold the TOKYOPOP name to, utilizing what I am sure is the last ounce of public goodwill towards Levy for either a license or a lump sum payment for the name. Additionally, TOKYOPOP has promised to return to publishing comics, however nothing has really come of this except promises for more work and pleas for purchases of old content from current retailers. Hmmmmmmm.

4. Kodansha prints money with Sailor Moon:

This is a series that many people have been waiting on for quite some time, and Kodansha took advantage of its reverted TOKYOPOP rights to republish a new set of reprints of the books, which quickly sold out and went to second printing. It appears that a lot of people who liked the Sailor Moon anime as kids (me being one of those kids) wanted to read the manga and didn’t want to fiddle with the old versions that TOKYOPOP printed in the early 2000′s.

5. Less content was published in 2011:

This is mostly a function of a stagnant economy, the shuttering of TOKYOPOP, and the closure of Borders Booksellers, but it bears repeating that manga publishing is down from where it was in its peak days and even down from two years ago. As a function of this publishing environment, it seems as though more risky titles are not getting an opportunity in the USA, at least from larger publishers. New shonen releases have been fairly formulaic, which is fine, but some of the diversity of previous years is sorely lacking this year.

6. But even though less was published, there was still some fantastic new content published in 2011:

New series or one-shots include: A Bride’s Story, Drops of God, Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths, A Zoo in Winter, Wandering Son

Continuing series of note include 20th Century Boys, Bunny Drop, Chi’s Sweet Home, Cross Game, and Twin Spica

7. And I am looking forward to some fantastic comics in 2012:

Books that have been announced that are sure to please: Heart of Thomas, Sakuran, 5 Centimeters Per Second, A Message to Adolf, Fallen Words, Cigarette Girl

Continuing Series I’ll be reading in in 2012 not already mentioned: Sailor Moon, Blue Exorcist, The Story Saiunkoku, Kimi ni Todoke, Itazura na Kiss

I hope that everyone has a fantastic new year, and that this year is a great year for manga. I am looking forward to reading more great comics in 2012!

Review: Butterfly, Vol. 1

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Butterfly, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Yu Aikawa
Paperback: 208 pages
Genre: Seinen/Horror/Gender-Bender
Publisher: TokyoPop (March 1, 2011)
Rated: T for Teen (13+)
ISBN-13: 978-1427818522

One of the things that surprised me (and continues to surprise me) about TokyoPop was their ability to survive off of B-list titles. The subject matter of this review is a prime example. Butterfly is the definition of B-list. The series is a five volume supernatural/horror/gender bender from Gentosha, which looks to have a really smart collection of josei and seinen manga. Why this series was picked from all of the other content Gentosha could provide is really not the subject of this review, but it is worth considering. Perhaps Tokyopop was getting smarter with their releases, and knew that Butterfly would appeal to their fan base.

If that is the case, this series proves that I was not a part of the TokyoPop fan base. The story centers on Ginji, a high-school guy with a severe hatred for the occult, but who is haunted by the image of his dead brother. This dead brother appears to have hung himself, for reasons unknown. Ginji meets up with a girl who his friend has introduced him to and ends up in a rough spot at a carnival. He gets spooked in a haunted house, punches an actor in the face, and then runs off. This turns out to be a problem when the company that owns the carnival blackmails Ginji for 600,000 yen (approximately $6000) to keep from reporting him to the police. Ageha, a middle school girl/boy (gender ambiguity ensues yuk yuk) promises to pay all of Ginji’s debts if he helps her kill all the ghosts in existence.

So after a completely contrived beginning with holes in it the size a of Mac truck you could drive through, we get to these episodic adventures where Ageha uses his/her special powers to create a ghost out of the thoughts and memories of the people who believe in it, and then Ginji kills the ghost. The ending of the manga promises an upcoming tell all about Ginji’s brother and the death of some small girl that somehow leads to his death? It’s not very clear, and the lack of future volumes makes it a moot point.

I don’t like the art in Butterfly. It has a sort of sketchy quality that I don’t care for (personal taste here, so this is right up your alley if you like less refined art). The character designs are also very much rooted in the early 2000′s which makes sense, given the original publication date in 2003. The manga hasn’t aged that well, especially now that readers are far more likely to see illustration like Tegami Bachi or Blue Exorcist as their shonen manga of choice. It shows that things have changed since the boom years, and it shocks me that Tokyopop liked this series enough to publish it in the USA. It has all the hallmarks of dated material written when anyone would pay any amount for these comics.

Am I being overly critical? Perhaps. TokyoPop, for all the ridiculousness of its closure and limited reopening to publish Hetalia (this may or may not be the case, news to come as we find out more) did produce some good comic books for American audiences. Some of these comics sold copies, even! But I don’t think I am overly critical when I say that Butterfly was a very typical TokyoPop license, and one of the reasons why I wasn’t a huge fan of their catalog. Series like Butterfly aren’t my favorites, and even if there were another 4 volumes waiting in the wings to read, I wouldn’t. I don’t even suggest you go out and buy Butterfly on the second hand market – it’s not worth the time.

My Belated Thoughts on JManga

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Since I’ve been thinking about digital comics recently (you can hear me talk about digital at Manga Out Loud with a whole host of excellent manga bloggers), I thought it would be good to give my more formal thoughts on the JManga. I don’t really need to write a long essay, since that sort of thing has already been done, so I think a list should suffice:

The Good:

1. The title selection – JManga has a large number of series that have not yet been translated into English in any format, and have been given the full workup by JManga. Series like Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogizoshi and Anesthesiologist Hana prove that digital opens doors to manga that is basically not going to be profitable in print form but can make it in a digital world. JManga is also using original trade dress and it seems like translations from series from defunct publishers like CMX, which gives me hope that series published by Tokyopop, Go! Comi, CMX, and other defunct publishers will make reentrance into the world of digital.

2. Website Usability – I have not had any problems with the site. It is cleanly constructed, easily navigated, and generally a pleasant experience to use. The Flash reader that they have put in place to read comics with is uncluttered and works well for its purpose. The digital files are high quality, and are generally easy to read.

The Bad:

1. Price– JManga is essentially charging what amounts to print price for their books. Some books are going for even more – a good example is Hawking, a Takao Saito manga which is retailing for about $20 for 400 pages of comics. That’s absolutely insane for digital items, which have already shown a huge price sensitivity. You are not going to convince me to try vintage digital manga at this price, JManga. Viz’s pricing structure is much more reasonable, and I suggest it to J Manga in the future.

2. Translations/Editing – While most of the time this isn’t a problem, there are some issues with the readability of the site (the manga explanation blurbs that show up on each series’ individual page is a good area to reference) because the translation is a little stilted. There have been some comics where the text runs outside of word bubbles, etc. There is plenty of freelance talent in the USA that does work in manga, JManga, and you would do yourself well to tap into this talent.

3. Unavailable content – there are quite a few series that are showing up in the JManga store that you cannot actually purchase. This is a problem. I want to be able to buy a book if it is in your store. Please let me do this. I understand that with Viz, you are redirecting to the Vizmanga.com website. That’s fine. But some series are just plain unavailable, and that is an irritation.

4. No apps?? – JManga is not on iPad or iPod. This should be addressed as soon as possible.

The Ugly:

1. Subscription model – First, it seems ridiculous that users can not just buy a la carte points. Signing up for a subscription for points and then being able to buy a la carte is ridiculous and not that intuitive. If you want to encourage subscriptions, make users pay for multiple months at a time and give them a better deal on points or some other bonuses, but don’t make having a subscription mandatory to get points.

2. Points expiration – this is pretty sleezy. Dollars don’t expire. Forcing your users to use up points within the calendar year that they were purchased is just absolutely poor form. There is no other good explanation. I am sure it make sense in some lovely corporate world, but it doesn’t make sense for regular users, and it shouldn’t be a part of any digital company’s platform.

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I honestly think that JManga will have a hard time with the American market until they fix some of the problems I have mentioned here. Granted, the site has worked well for me, and this is only a few weeks into their opening, so much of this could change. The issue is that JManga needs to change in order to make itself into a really profitable venture. For now, I will be keeping a close eye on the site. I really have liked the content I have bought, but I am holding out until the site gets more of its act together.

Dear Otaku: Stu Levy Hates You

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Author’s Note: I thought it would be pertinent to get this out in  timely fashion, so the Rescue Me! article that would have been published today will be pushed back to next week. Sorry!

In all honesty, the title of this blog post should actually be something like, “Dear Otaku: Stu Levy Thinks You Are All A Bunch of Chumps, And Wants To Cash In On Your Hopes and Dreams” but that runs a bit outside of a reasonable title length, and realistically, they mean the same thing in this regard.

Let me preface my commentary on the recent Facebook/Tokyopop/Hetalia Vol.3 kerfuffle that has been all over the manga blogs these past few days by saying that I am not an ardent fan of Tokyopop or Hetalia. In all honesty, while I found Hetalia fairly amusing, I did not think it was “the best thing evar” nor was I really concerned with the hype surrounding the series. I know there is a lot of fan love out there, and perhaps it is warranted. The series is a major hit among American “otaku” and when that crowd loves something, they LOVE it.

It then seems especially abhorrent to me that Stu Levy is whipping the Hetalia trick out of his magical disappearing hat. Stu has obviously found the need for some additional income, and has decided to use what leverage he has in the Japanese publishing industry to bargain for some sort of rights deal where he could publish Hetalia Vol. 3. If I understand correctly from Daniella OG at All About Manga, Hetalia Vol. 3 is essentially a completed product. This means it would not cost Stu a whole lot to get it into the retail market, and honestly, fans would probably snap it up.

Now, I understand that everyone needs to eat, and I am fine with capitalism and free markets, etc. If Stu does manage to publish Hetalia and people want to buy it, then by all means, go right ahead. The point here, though, is that this would not be a revival of Tokyopop in the sense that the company would return from the grave and start publishing manga again. More likely, Stu is milking the series for what it’s worth, and once he has sufficient funds, he’ll be back off to doing the vanity projects he so very much loves (and destroyed Tokyopop with). He knows that with the work almost completely done on Hetalia, it could be a quick way to make easy money.

Tokyopop’s money has already been invested in Hetalia, so by not publishing the book, they took a big loss, especially since it had such a rabid fan base. The point of the matter is not that Tokyopop went under because it ran out of funding. I don’t necessarily think Tokyopop was making a fortune, but they had cleaned the company up, made some really good choices on titles to release, and had become a smarter, leaner company between the manga bust and the end of the company. It is my ungrounded assumption that Stu was no longer interested in books as a medium for entertainment. With his Priest movie, America’s Greatest Otaku, and even the Earthquake/Tsunami documentary project, it seems fairly clear that Stu had no interest in books. This return to the medium seems all the more fishy because of his recent trend away from books.

Let me be clear with my opinion. I do not think Stu is looking to restart Tokyopop. I do not think Stu wants to give up the rights to Hetalia either. I think that Stu is trying to live in the best of both worlds, and concurrently stop book publishing while making money on Tokyopop’s most profitable titles. It even makes sense from a cash perspective – Levy no longer has any other bodies to pay – run it all through this weird project of his, and he can pocket the profits directly.

Stu’s Facebookery has nothing to do with his want or desire to see Tokyopop back as a manga publisher. There is no mention of resuming printing of other series like The Stellar Six of Gingacho or Skyshore Blue, which I would happily pony up for more volumes of. Most of the bloggers who are writing about this move are saying some of the same things I am, that this is really just another dig for cash.

And guess what, otaku – Stu is doing this at your expense. It’s always been at your expense, really, because you were buying his products, but now Stu is willing to exploit the Tokyopop fan base (or what is left of it) and make promises he honestly can’t keep in order to make a quick dollar.

So no, Hetalia coming back is not a gift or a return to form for Tokyopop. It is just Stu Levy taking another giant crap on the Hetalia fan base and the otaku community.

Rescue Me! The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko

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Here at Manga Widget, we’re taking two solid months to look at abandoned licenses of great shojo and josei series from the late Tokyopop and CMX. Last week’s entry into the series was a feature on Stolen Hearts, a traditional shojo high school romance story from CMX with a lovely kimono twist.

Here’s the list of the series (and links back to previous articles in case you missed one).

  1. Stolen Hearts
  2. The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko
  3. Skyshore Blue
  4. The Ginkacho Stellar Six
  5. Happy Café
  6. Argentis Apothecarium
  7. The Lapis Lazuli Crown
  8. Suppli

This week’s rescue request is The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko (笑うかのこ様, Warau Kanoko-sama), which is a three volume series originally licensed by Tokyopop in a wave of really fun licenses in the Winter of 2010/Spring of 2011. Written and illustrated by Ririko Tsujita, the series was originally published in LaLa DX, a shojo anthology from Hakusensha, which is a bimonthly sister publication to their LaLa anthology. LaLa DX generally debuts new series or one shot stories which can be turned into series if they are popular. Such is the case with The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko.

Hakusensha, as I have mentioned before, is now one of the mid-list major publishers who do not have any real publishing partners in the USA.

The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko is critically lauded in the manga community in the USA for its spunky heroine, a girl much like Harriet from Nickelodeon’s Harriet the Spy or Nico from Sexy Voice and Robo, who declares that she is the impartial observer of all her classmates antics; she records activities and personalities, and unearths particular traits, forbidden relationships, and sour relationships with gusto. The catchline of “objective observer” is more of a running joke, however- Kanoko always manages to get herself dragged into problems and manages to bring justice (or her version of it) to those deserving using her particular skill set to its advantage.

One of the most interesting points to The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko is its format; because LaLa DX is a bimonthly publication, most series have to reintroduce their running storyline in the first few pages of each chapter. While this could get tedious when transferred to the collected tankoban format, The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko uses this reintroduction to its advantage, having Kanoko transfer school at each new chapter (friends from the first chapter pop back into the storyline from time to time and help her out). This allows her to revisit her “objective observer” ways and really let her start dissecting problems at each new school, allowing her to get messily involved.

Tokyopop managed to get two of the three volumes published before their sudden closure, so we get to see most of the series in print from them. Still, having read the first volume, I want to know how the series ends. Being so close to completion is really disappointing, and there are other Tokyopop series that are stuck in this “one and done” mode, so close to being finished, but never completed.

Another strong point for this license (besides its small size) is that it has an apparently successful sequel currently running in LaLa DX (恋だの愛だの, Koi Dano Ai Dano) which is currently at 2 collected volumes in length. One point regarding this sequel which a few bloggers have mentioned is the second volume of Koi Dano Ai Dano and its fairly steamy cover, so perhaps we will get to see Kanoko give up her school hopping and start making some real and lasting relationships.

Two series with a total of 5 volumes is really small and affordable, so it would be great to see this manga revisited; an omnibus from Yen Press might be just the thing for this fun and quirky little series.

Review: Saturn Apartments, Vols. 1-2

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I’m writing this review crammed into the back of a Jeep Liberty. We’re on the road, traveling to see my little sister for her 20th birthday. The car is packed to the gills with presents and people. Things are pleasant, but if someone decides to pass a little gas, we will be having some serious problems. Likewise, we’re very physically close, and on this dark, country road, things are a bit claustrophobic.

I imagine that this feeling is similar, if a bit off in scale, to the feeling felt by the people in Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments. After the entire Earth is deemed a nature preserve, mankind relocates to a manmade ring that humans put into orbit. It contains living space for all the world’s remaining humans, as well as fields and fisheries and everything needed to maintain human life. Broken into three parts, the top of the ring contains the rich aristocracy, the middle level contains public works and fields, and the bottom contains power plants, sewer systems, fuel cells, and apartments for the poor and middle class. The one thing that is missing in all of this is natural sunlight.

That’s where Mitsu comes in. He and his company, a guild of window washers, depressurize, don spacesuits that protect them from UV radiation, and go out onto the surface of the ring and wash windows for the elite upper-level dwellers. They risk life and limb to provide a vanity for the obscenely rich, and in return, make a living wage.

In a sense, Saturn Apartments is very much like a series published by TokyoPop during the manga boom, Planetes, in that it shows what everyday people doing their not-so everyday jobs because of a specific scientific advancement. What makes Saturn Apartments interesting is that you get to see how humans become conditioned in these strange situations. People become stratified based on what level they come from. Humanity is segregated, and clothing styles are remarkably different based on the level they are in. People from the bottom levels are discriminated against, and have a hard time getting jobs in the middle and upper levels. It’s a very interesting social examination based around a unique social stressor.

Mitsu, unlike most protagonists for manga series, is no heroic boy looking to change the world. He is very content to fall into the status quo, to start a job in the profession that killed his father, and to become a part of a society that at best commiserates with his difficult position, and at worst thinks of him as a piece of trash. That’s what makes him such an interesting character to read. He has his battles that he has to fight. He tries to make a difference in people’s lives, but he does it in his own way, washing people’s windows, and sometimes, looking in on their lives from above.

Saturn Apartments has one of the more unique art styles of the series in Viz Media‘s Sig IKKI line. People have round, expressive faces, their bodies are like tubes, and unlike other manga in the line, this series looks more like a comic you would expect Fantagraphics or another indie comics publisher to release. I like the change in style, and it fits the subject matter. Saturn Apartments is a very relaxed, simple story, and the relaxed, simple art complements it nicely.

It is hard to get too worked up about Saturn Apartments, mostly because it doesn’t get too worked up itself. Saturn Apartments doesn’t try to wow you or philosophize. It just wants to show you the life a boy who washes windows, and maybe a bit extra about life and the tenacity of humanity, if that happens to come out in the wash. It is because of this simple goal that the series excels so well – as a piece of slice-of-life fiction, Saturn Apartments is able to look at life in a way that few other manga can, in the way that it wants to.

Saturn Apartments is a fine piece of fiction, leisurely and pleasant, and while it isn’t something I’m excited to run out and buy as it is released in paperback, it is fine experience over a warm drink by a crackling fire. If you are looking to step back from the wild world of regular manga and relax a bit, Saturn Apartments will gladly be your cup of chamomile tea.

Talking Points: Why Do You Like Fumi Yoshinaga?

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I recently decided to go ahead and purchase Fumi Yoshinaga’s All My Darling Daughters.  A review will be forthcoming once the backlog I’ve already written get published (I like the once weekly schedule, so we’re looking into the middle of February already). Once I finished the first chapter, I was amazed by the quality of the character writing. This book mixes up family and interpersonal psychology with some really powerful storytelling.

Yoshinaga was a tough nut for me to crack. The first few times I read her stories, I wondered why I liked them so much. The first volume of Ooku was especially telling, since I hated (and still do hate), the Fakespeare translation that the book has been saddled with, but I couldn’t put the books down. I have not been on the Yoshinaga train for all that long, but for a time I was puzzled by how much her work resonated with me.

After reading All My Darling Daughters, I decided to take things public and ask everyone. What is it that you like most about Fumi Yoshinaga?

For me, it comes down to characters. Only Mitsuru Adachi can come close to Yoshinaga’s ability to construct characters, and even he falls short in places. Yoshinaga has an irreplaceable spark for developing complex, interesting, and sometimes broken characters that readers can identify with or cheer for. In the first chapter of All My Darling Daughters, even the supposed antagonist, Ohashi, turns out to be a really wonderful character. The main character, Yukiko, although prickly and demanding, is both a great stand-in for readers and a well written woman.

I could go on all day about the characters of All My Darling Daughters, the subtlety of their construction and development, but these people that Yoshinaga creates are what make her manga such a wonderful experience for me.

What makes Yoshinaga a good read for you?

Manga Widget Investigates: Cage of Eden

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Generally, I use this blog as a way to showcase my reviews and opinions on the manga publishing business in the United States. One of my new year’s resolutions for this blog was to get a more in-depth look at the publishing business from both sides of the Pacific, to learn more about manga as it appears in its native format, and most importantly, to blog more often. This post (and any future posts like it) are an attempt to roll all these goals together. Let me know what you think in the comments!

I want to start the inaugural edition of Manga Widget Investigates with something that I have been thinking about for awhile now; Kodansha‘s arrival in the USA. The announcement that Kodansha was starting business as a solo venture in the USA was big news originally, but it seemed like all they did originally  was take back their licenses from Dark Horse and TokyoPop and reprint Dark Horse‘s translations of Ghost in the Shell and Akira. This obviously was met with some consternation from manga fans – surely they weren’t just going to try to reprint previous books, were they? Things got even worse when Del Rey lost all its licenses to Kodansha. For a time, I wondered whether or not I would ever get to read the 29th volume of Negima!

Now with Kodansha USA finally revealing some of its 2011 plans late last year, we have a chance to see what the company has been working on since Kodansha split with Del Rey as its publishing partner. As is to be expected, most of Del Rey‘s profitable line-up has been adopted for publication at Kodansha USA, but they did also announce a few new licenses that were being printed along with Del Rey‘s catalog. A subset of their shonen release announcements come from Weekly Shonen Magazine, Kodansha‘s equivalent to Shonen Jump.

The reason for this seems fairly simple; Weekly Shonen Magazine is the source for a lot of the previously published manga through Del Rey: Fairy Tail, Mahou Sensei Negima!, Code: Breaker, and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle are all series from Weekly Shonen Magazine that have done well in North America. Additional notable series to grace the pages of Weekly Shonen Magazine include Love Hina, Akita no Joe, Rave Master, GetBackers, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. When Del Rey‘s biggest financial hitters were all published in the same magazine, it seems intuitive to try to get the next big hit with another series from Weekly Shonen Magazine. Enter stage left: Cage of Eden.

Cage of Eden (or Eden no Ori) is a survival-themed manga that is currently running in Weekly Shonen Magazine, The book focuses on a group of students on an airplane back to Japan from a field trip to Guam. Due to some mysterious cause, the plane crashes, and although the emergency landing leaves most of the people on board alive, the island they land on is full of strange, prehistoric beasts, all willing to prey on unsuspecting humans.

Cage of Eden has been described by some as a mix between Lord of the Flies and Land of the Lost, which sounds like pretty good fiction, provided it is done right. Representatives from Kodansha also said at its license announcement that the series had a bit of a Negima! flavor to it, which, translated into regular English, means the series is going to have unabashed fan service mixed in with the trials and tribulations of survival fiction. Whatever Cage of Eden is doing, it is doing it right; the series started in 2008 and is still being serialized. Currently Cage of Eden is up to ten volumes in print in Japan.

Yoshinobu Yamada, the writer of Cage of Eden, seems like he’s done the survival genre before. His first series, EX-Shounen Hyouryuu (Young Castaways) ran for five volumes for the same anthology. His other work includes a Kendo shonen piece called Chanbara which ran for two volumes in 2003.

Cage of Eden isn’t the only manga coming from Weekly Shonen Magazine. The new series Bloody Monday, which began publication in 2007, is currently in its “second season” in the magazine (much like Season Two of Rosario + Vampire).

However good or bad Cage of Eden is, we can expect to see it hit shelves in August of 2011. Whether or not people like boobs, butts, and panty shots with their Lord of the Flies remains to be seen.

Fantagraphics Super Star

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Welcome to the midweek update!

Personal news: I went to Dear John with my fiance and I have to say that it was pretty cavalier with both 9/11 and autism in ways that I did not appreciate. I’m a sucker for over-complicated short fiction though (aka shojo) so I guess I felt right at home. Can someone please pass the tissues?

The blog community is all atwitter (and the Twitter community is tweeting too) about Fantagraphics starting up their new manga imprint (does it have a name?). This is, of course, a big deal. Come back on Friday when I talk about the literary manga movement, and what I think it means for the comics community.

Other things of note:

  • Apparently a glitch on Amazon.com caused a bunch of  omnibuses (it’s omnibuses in this new-fangled English, apparently, not omnibi) to go on sale for 85% off MSRP. HEADS WILL ROLLLLLLLLLL. Also, Amazon’s put most comics on hold right now. Bleeding Cool has been reporting the entire incident, so check out their commentary at the link.
  • Kevin Church shows off a collected version of the web comic “The Loneliest Astronaut” that he writes. Grab yourself a copy in April.
  • To follow up on last week’s bar-barring, David Welsh explains why he doesn’t read scanlations.  He has excellent commentary about digital initiatives that might help stem the tide of piracy, and the comments on these sorts of things are interesting.
  • TokyoPop gave out a bunch of manga through twitter on #FollowFriday. Did anyone get a copy?
  • Twilight, the comic book, hits stores this week. Suffer not ye the long lines of frothy-mouthed fan girls at thy local Borders!

Have a great week, and I”ll see you on Friday!