In amongst more isekai titles — although the press releases meant I learned that word, which describes a normal person trapped in another universe, usually a fantasy or video game world — Seven Seas will be releasing some interesting-sounding titles next year. The most prominent is Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, a manga autobiography by Akiko Higashimura, who created the much-loved Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls. It’s due out May 21, 2019. High schooler Akiko has big plans […]

It’s a common plotline in the many manga series that deal with some aspect of the entertainment industry: “We can’t reveal our romantic interest in each other because we’ll lose our careers! Our managers won’t let us date!” Now, it’s happened in real life, and it made the NY Times. Two of South Korea’s pop idols, HyunA and E’Dawn, have learned of the painful cost of falling in love and declaring their relationship in public: On Thursday, they were fired […]

New manga publisher Denpa Books will be putting out its first two titles this year, and they’re now available to preorder at Amazon.com. Both are due out November 22. Inside Mari volume 1 by Shuzo Oshimi (Happiness, The Flowers of Evil) is $12.95 for 192 pages. It’s a body-swap story. College dropout Isao Komori wakes up one morning to find himself in the body of a high school girl. How did this happen and what happened to the girl whose […]

Ed Chavez, previously marketing director at Vertical, appeared at Otakon this weekend representing new manga publisher Denpa. What little information is available comes from their new Twitter feed, where they list themselves as the “home of Kaiji, Inside Mari, Futurelog, PEZ, panpanya, and Maiden Railways“. There’s been a little information on the various titles, but they seem to be aimed a little older than the teen manga audience and have some more unusual choices. PEZ by Hiroyuki Asada Full color […]

In this roundup of recent manga announcements comes mention in passing of a beloved manga series returning. Aria, the gorgeously illustrated story by Kozue Amano of women apprenticing to be gondoliers on Mars in a sci-fi future, was first published in the US by ADV Manga in 2004. They put out three volumes, then Tokyopop picked up the license and released six, plus a two-volume prequel, Aqua, beginning in 2007. The sixth book came out in 2010, although the series […]

No, that isn’t a typo. I’m going backwards before looking forwards to fill in a gap, and because in years to come, I will enjoy seeing a summary of what I was reading in a particular year. (I’ve just finished doing some archive maintenance, and it was interesting seeing the short rise and fall of JManga from 2011-2013, for instance. Remember them?) As I’ve said before, for the purpose of this post, I’m using a highly idiosyncratic definition of “best”, […]

I find it amusing that nowadays, any time Stu Levy or Tokyopop is mentioned, plenty of people pop up to warn aspiring creators away from them. That’s a great use of social media, to share business knowledge and experience. Tokyopop was promoted as appearing at this weekend’s Anime Expo, including company founder Stu Levy offering portfolio reviews. The history, as I’ve been covering them over the past 12 years, is checkered, from dubious business decisions to questionable contracts to chasing […]

This weekend was Anime Expo, so Kodansha made a number of announcements. They will be putting out their first yaoi (boys’ love) and yuri (girls’ love) series, with three titles coming in January. 10 Dance by Satoh Inoue is about “kings of the ballroom”, rivals attracted to each other. Hitorijime My Hero by Memeko Arii is “a yaoi romance between a good boy who didn’t know he was waiting for a hero, and a bad boy who comes to his […]