Next month, the live-action Death Note movie will appear in theaters for two nights only, May 20 and 21. Tickets are available through Fathom Events, and here’s the list of participating theaters.

According to the press release, “This special two-night event includes a specially-produced 20-minute feature on how the manga translates to live action as well as the first-ever interview with director Shusuke Kaneko.”

I was disappointed by the manga, but that was in part due to its length (which meant the story effectively restarted at least twice). I suspect that the on-screen presentations in this case work better for me due to the condensed storytelling. The poster image is certainly gripping and intense, and I’m curious about how Ryuk (the death god) looks.

One of which is for the New York Comic Con, which starts in three days, so this release date is cutting it a little close, hmm? But I expect that they’re going to be giving away copies of this issue at their booth at the show. The other two pages are for four Funimation DVD sets corresponding to series they publish, shoved in at the very back.

Princess Ai is the cover feature. I’ve completely given up on paying attention to any project involving that character since finding out that the “creator”, “DJ Milky”, is really CEO & CCO Stuart Levy. That fact is nowhere identified in this book, by the way, which I would think would be a key fact for a journalist to reveal to avoid conflict of interest concerns, but I suspect I take the term “magazine” more seriously than the publisher does.

The first article, on the history of Lolita fashion, begins as follows:

In 1955, Russian author Vladimir Nabokov wrote a novel in English about a man obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl. … Thanks to Nabokov, “Lolita” is used now to describe any sexually desirable or promiscuous young girl — an innocent who is not quite uncorrupted or uncorruptable.

It quickly moves away from this subject, but what’s the target age group for this free giveaway again?

Then come three light novel excerpts, given very little context, and then the cover feature starts: page reprints from the book Princess Ai: Rumors From the Other Side, which came out last month. It’s a collection of stories by other creators based on the Weekly World News tabloid. The article ends “it’s just one piece of the ever-growing Princess Ai franchise.” And that’s supposed to be enticing to readers?

The rest of the magazine is solicitation material for other titles and an excerpt from J-Pop Idol, the “first printed edition anywhere in the world” of a “mobile phone manga”. The notes keep quoting “the editor” without ever identifying him/her. Weird.

But then, so is the whole project these days. I shouldn’t be so harsh on it, really — I’m just left confused by what this was promised to be and what it wound up as. For comparison, Viz has its for-sale anthologies to promote its titles. Few American publishers do anything similar. I guess it’s admirable that this is still coming out.

Love*Com the Movie
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The material on-screen is very broadly played. It’s not a subtle story — tall girl and short boy, both feeling limited by their heights, become friends over their shared taste in bad music, maybe leading to more — but the manga, with the additional space it has, develops the characters more and conveys a wide range of emotions believably. In the movie, the blend of over-the-top slapstick comedy and heartfelt moments feels very jumpy and shallow. Too much is compressed into less than two hours, with too many events from the manga shoehorned in. Also, lots isn’t explained, so readers of the manga will have a definite advantage in understanding the characters and their relationships.

Visually, much of the movie is distracting. The female lead looks 16 (with huge ears), the male lead looks 25, and another female high school friend looks 30-something. (That friend’s relationship consists of telling her boyfriend “buy me this and I’ll do things for you with my body.”) They all act like they’re 12. And if she’s so worried about being tall, why does she wear her hair like Pebbles, in a ponytail on top of her head?

There’s a fine line between funny and disturbing, and this movie crosses it a lot. There’s a pop-up narrator covered in stuffed monkeys (I have no idea why), and a really creepy sister. I kept waiting for her to snap and kill someone, because she looks psychotic in a Frankenstein kind of way. It’s narrated in bad English, perhaps to give it more of a wacky flavor, and colorful Japanese characters appear on-screen for additional visual distraction. Unfortunately, they often collide with the subtitles.

Once the movie gets to the point where the super-teacher shows up and plays the short guy in basketball, it leaves the manga released so far behind, so readers should be warned that upcoming events will be spoiled for them. That plotline encapsulates the Japanese tendency to keep trying even in the face of certain defeat, although to my eyes, I kept wondering who’d let a teacher get away with this kind of stuff.

DVD extras include an interlocking set of three extra scenes and lots of short trailers. Plus, the package includes a print sample of the manga, which is great cross-promotion. You can find out more at the official website. (A complimentary DVD for this review was provided by the studio.)

Talking About
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Here’s the description:

Meet Sarah, successful event planner by day… frustrated 30-year-old virgin by night. Actually, she’s not quite 30 yet. The night before the dreaded birthday, she vows to do something about it. Meet Gang-E, a 29 year-old graphic novelist. She only has one problem — she likes them young. Males, that is — especially her 19-year-old assistant and lover (and adoring fan) Jooyoung. No more boys, she pledges. Gang-E vows to find a real man, even if it kills her. And finally, meet 27-year-old Amber who ruthlessly climbs the corporate ladder, leaving many dead career corpses in her wake. Amber has never met a man she didn’t like (and sleep with), nor has Amber ever met a woman she did. Three lonely women in search of “happily ever after” in one modern city filled to the brim with difficult men.

Like so many books of this type, it sounds like “Sex in the City”, but I was willing to give it a try anyway. It’s by Wann, whose 9 Faces of Love story collection I enjoyed. I went looking for more information on the Netcomics site, only to find that their new releases section was empty and there was no mention of the title elsewhere.

So I guess I’m not surprised that the latest Previews lists it as Cancelled by Publisher. That’s a shame. I have no idea if it’s because of low sales or changing plans or rights issues (there are so many things that can derail a publication), or if the publisher plans to try again.

Update: As of the end of April, the publisher confirmed that the title “is canceled, and we currently don’t have a plan to release it any time soon. However, we plan to serialize it on our web site netcomics.com first within a few to several months and see how our online readers respond to the title.”

As Johanna’s unofficial roving reporter, I ventured into the wilds of Washington, DC, to view an exhibition of Shigeru Mizuki’s Fifty-Three Stations of the Yokaido Road at the Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC).

Shigeru Mizuki is a famous manga author best known for his long running manga GeGeGe no Kitaro, which has been serialized in Japan for over 40 years. The series tells of Kitaro’s struggle to maintain peace between the worlds of the yokai and humans. Yokai is a difficult term to translate. Originally, it appears these were woodland spirits, both benevolent and malevolent in nature. Later, this concept expanded to include the spirits of inanimate objects like tools, musical instruments, household items, etc. Also, the term includes what we would consider folklore ghosts like Bloody Mary, the Jersey Devil, and the Loch Ness Monster. Mizuki has made a career of illustrating these yokai in his manga.
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Enter the Rising Stars of Prose - Dreaming Contest and automatically win!! Just for entering TOKYOPOP is going to give you a free copy of Tarot Cafe and a piece of key art from The Dreaming!!

Does that make anyone more interested in entering? Are rights to your ideas worth a free manga volume and an art page?

King of Cards 2
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She’s gotten two copies now, both with printing errors, and she’s trying to find out how widespread the problem is. Since it’s a less popular CMX title (redundant!), she can’t easily browse it in a store or check other copies.

If it’s a case of a misprint across the entire line, then she may be out of luck. Unless many customers (which mostly means retailers) complain, DC may not be motivated to reprint, especially if sales were low. That decision would be bad for future sales, since those who can’t finish reading book 2 are unlikely to buy future volumes in the series, but a reprint might erase any profits on this volume (unless it was an error on the part of the printer, in which case DC wouldn’t have to pay for the reprint). It’s a tough financial decision to make.

Alternately, just some of the books might be affected, in which case CMX should have been more diligent about getting her a corrected version.

The blogger is wrong about one thing — she should be able to return it no matter where she bought it. It doesn’t matter that it was preordered through Previews. It’s defective merchandise. She should return it to her place of purchase for a refund, and that vendor should take the matter up with their supplier.

The covers resemble their yaoi manga, a clear appeal to the core audience. As you’ll see from the descriptions below, they’re also trying some “if you like this” style recommendations. I hope there’s no market confusion — I admit, at first I wasn’t clear whether these were graphic novels or not. The books will be out this Fall. Following are DMP’s descriptions.

Passion: Forbidden Lovers
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Passion: Forbidden Lovers
by Shinobu Gotoh and Shoko Takaku
Available October 21, 2008

Juné Manga celebrates the conclusion of its first yaoi series Passion by Shoko Takaku and Shinobu Gotoh with the release of its original novel, Passion: Forbidden Lovers. Join Hikaru and Shima in their exploration of a forbidden love.

The Guilty
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The Guilty
by Katsura Izumi and Hinako Takanaga
Available October 21, 2008

Illustrated by Hinako Takanaga (The Devil’s Secret and Little Butterfly) and written by world famous author Katsura Izumi, The Guilty is a four-volume series reminiscent of the DMP best seller Love Recipe.

Toya Sakurai only went into the publishing business to work with his favorite author, Kai Hodaka. And now he’s getting the chance to do exactly that! But the demands of the job are more than he ever expected. When his company wants Hodaka to publish ahead of schedule, Toya has to find some way to persuade the author to cooperate. Hodaka takes cruel advantage of the situation, demanding Toya’s body in exchange for his next book. But the love of a fan is not so easily conquered… Let’s just hope his fiancée understands!

All You Need is Love
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All You Need is Love
by Jinko Fuyuno and Noboru Takatsuki
Available October 21, 2008

Junya Sawa is an ordinary man—a modestly successful bank employee in Tokyo. But that isn’t the life he wanted for himself. In the eight years since he graduated from high school, he’s been unable to forget the man who could have changed his life—Uzuki Kobayakawa, the heir to a yakuza dynasty in Tokyo. Now, brought together by chance once again, he’s forced to face the choices he made in his youth that tore them apart and to decide whether their differences will keep them apart forever.

Noboru Takatsuki is most famous for the artwork in the popular PC yaoi games Silver Chaos and Hanamachi Monogatari. Jinko Fuyuno has published over 26 yaoi novels in her career. The combination makes for an explosive novel with stunning artwork and a moving plot.

Dark Walker
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Dark Walker
by Hikaru Yura and Hirotaka Kisaragi
Available November 18, 2008

Tomoki Naruse has just started his freshman year in high school. And as with all healthy, young men at his age, he’s been dreaming of sex. But Tomoki isn’t having normal wet dreams like his classmates! In his nightmares, err… dreams his partner is a man and to make things worse, Tomoki is on the bottom! Aside from Tomoki’s unsettling dreams, high school life is fun – especially with his new, handsome, best friend Yugo Oda. But Yugo is no ordinary freshman; he is involved in mysterious activities that Tomoki can’t even begin to imagine…

Secret Moon
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Secret Moon
by Siira Gou and Sato Tomoe
Available December 2, 2008

Akihiro Tomoe has lived been living a lie for decades. A vampire, he has been able to hide his identity and somehow insinuate himself into typical town life. However, this peaceful and somewhat dull life is about to change. One night, he stumbles across a man called Taichi Yamagami. Attracted to the pure but wild Taichi and meaning to cut it off after one night, Akihiro seizes Taichi’s body. But one night of passion isn’t enough to satisfy Akihiro and he finds himself seeking out Taichi again and again. However, Taichi seems to have a few secrets of his own. Whenever the moon shines from the night sky onto the gentle Taichi, his personality transforms…

It appears that other companies are learning from the success of Viz’s accelerated Naruto release program — Del Rey is launching their new Fairy Tail series at the end of the month with simultaneous release of the first two books.

Fairy Tail is by Hiro Mashima, the creator of Rave Master, and it’s a top ten manga bestseller in Japan (according to the publicity materials). It’s described as the story of a “cute girl wizard” (not witch?) who has wacky friends, including a talking cat, and fights pirates. It sounds and looks to me like manga-by-the-cliches, but Chris Mautner at the Newsarama blog liked it.

The plan makes sense to me. If customers are interested, the publisher gets double the money and shelf space with no more marketing costs. But it’ll only work so long as it’s still a rare occurrence; once everyone does it, stores and customers will get swamped and publishers will have to figure out a new approach.

With 21 entries, I hope someone will publish reviews/guides on which ones are worth reading.

(It usually goes young men -> older men -> kids (boys and girls) -> women. Some of the core male audience stays with it as they age, and then everyone starts worrying about where new young readers will come from. Targeting the adult female is an afterthought, but when that happens, it indicates a mature industry/genre/format.)

So I’m thrilled to see this many josei manga titles out these days. From Tokyopop, there are:

• The works of Erica Sakurazawa, although the last of the six books ends in the middle
• The Tramps Like Us romance series
• The sex comedy Happy Mania
• Oh, and Suppli, which I haven’t reviewed yet, but I’m looking forward to reading

Viz, which puts out more shojo titles than Tokyopop, only has two three I would put in this category:

• Sensual Phrase, a teen-girl fantasy love story, but with plenty of sex
• Nana, which the publisher puts out under its Shojo Beat label, but especially with a recent turn into more serious subjects, I think it’s arguably skewing older
• Update: The just-out Honey & Clover is another borderline title

Then there’s new, female-targeted Aurora. They’ve put out, along with a couple of shojo titles, the josei Walkin’ Butterfly. But even more exciting is their Luv Luv Press line, explicit manga for women. The first book in that line is Voices of Love.

Seems to me that I’m forgetting some. Does Del Rey have any women-targeted manga? Update: Yes. Nodame Cantabile is considered josei.

And I’m still wondering what happened to CPM’s Sweet Cream and Strawberries, which has had two rounds of promotion but never came out.

This tour includes, in addition to three days in Tokyo, the option for guests to sell their own manga at a show in August. The company promises to help with translation and printing. Even if you don’t want to make your own manga, you’ll also meet artists. No price yet, but they’ve established a mailing list for those who are interested. The press release with more details follows.
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Two weekends ago, as Johanna’s unofficial roving reporter, I went to the final three days of the Japan! culture + hyperculture festival at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. My main reason for going was five anime films they were showing. (All the speakers mentioned below, except Joseph Chou, spoke through translators.)

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Each story will feature different creators and styles. Oh, and the title of this anthology isn’t finalized yet. I threw out “Tales of the Labyrinth,” but feel free to suggest your own titles in the comments section.

I’ve also added a review of Hikaru no Go Book 11 to that series recommendation page.

I was dismayed when I noticed in the latest Previews that Steady Beat Book 3 was listed as “cancelled by publisher”, because I have very much enjoyed the previous volumes. Then I saw that the author was having discussions with her publisher over whether the series should end with book 3 (Tokyopop’s choice) or 4 (her preference). Uh oh. (That thread also has some interesting lessons about art as a profession and speculation about the publisher’s decision-making.) So I emailed Tokyopop, who reassured me that the book was just running late, with no reschedule date yet. Whew! I’m glad there’s still hope, assuming all the decisions can get hammered out.

As if a Manga Bible or two wasn’t enough, now there’s a new series promising Bible heroes… but with robots!

That’s not the only … unusual choice made by new publisher JMG Comics. More on that after the press release.

THE COOLEST COMIC BOOK YOUR SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER EVER CONFISCATED!

New Comic Series Brings ‘New Twist’ to ‘Old Testament’

JMG Comics, a division of JMG Studios, is pleased to announce the upcoming release of its first comic book series, MECHA MANGA BIBLE HEROES.

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Superheroes

Diana Prince: Wonder Woman
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I was very pleasantly surprised by The Twelve #1, reading it multiple times with enjoyment. So I’m curious to see if I like the second issue as much.

I’m excited to see Alan Davis bringing back his superhero family in Clandestine #1.

That both of these are miniseries helps, since it gives me hope that they will have rewarding endings.

On the DC side, there’s Diana Prince: Wonder Woman, a collection of 60s-era Mike Sekowsky stories from Wonder Woman #178-184 and Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #93. They’re not great reads, but they have a certain energy.

Manga

I didn’t realize that Flock of Angels was a short series. Book two of three is out this week.

T Campbell and Amy Mebberson’s comedy of pop stardom, Divalicious, ends this week with book two.

My beloved Tramps Like Us ends with book 14, and I’m simultaneously looking forward to it and dreading it. Because I like it so much, I don’t want it to end.

Other

Exhibit A Press has a new issue of Mavis, number 5. You can read the description here.