Square Enix, best known in the US as the video game company behind Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Hearts, and Space Invaders, has announced that they will be launching “a new line of English-language manga, novels, and art books” this coming fall. Previously, they have licensed their manga titles to existing English-language publishers, including Fullmetal Alchemist (Viz), Soul Eater (Yen Press), and Black Butler (Yen Press). Their first releases will be a Final Fantasy XV novel, The Dawn of the […]

Thanks to the generosity of Udon Entertainment, I have a set of Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu volumes 1 and 2 to give away to one lucky reader. Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu is a charming manga series about a modern-day Japanese restaurant that somehow appears in medieval Germany, where everyone is amazed by how good the dishes are. Volume 3 was released last month, so it’s still easy to start reading. To enter to win this contest, leave a comment below telling me […]

Kodansha has a robust digital-first manga program. (They emphasize calling them “digital-first”, instead of “digital-only”, since a few of the more popular titles have later been released in print.) Their newest announcement, of a title coming to their various digital outlets on April 23, stunned me, since it’s a manga series that many said would be too challenging to release in the US. Hikaru Nakamura, author of Arakawa Under the Bridge, has also created a more infamous story, about two […]

This is a major change without much detail behind it yet. Viz Media, the long-standing publisher of translated manga, has been operating in the US since 1986. It’s owned by three major Japanese publishers. Many observers of the comic market, coming out of the superhero world, don’t pay attention to just how substantial they are. They have almost a quarter of book market graphic novel sales, far above any other publisher. Now they have announced that they are launching Viz […]

I’ve been enjoying Cells at Work!, the manga series by Akane Shimizu that anthropomorphizes red and white blood cells and dramatizes various body processes. Kodansha Comics has released five volumes in English so far, with volume 5 out last November. (I’m not sure what’s going on with volume 6. The February Previews catalog had a listing for it, due out mid-April, but that code now shows “item not found”. Amazon has a release date of 2080, which means its unavailable […]

Food manga is my favorite manga category. Whether it’s the heartwarming family cooking of Sweetness & Lightning or What Did You Eat Yesterday? or the fantasy of Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu or the solo woman restaurant visits of Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! or Wakako Zake, sharing the vicarious experience of a tasty meal is a great read. So I’m glad to hear that Dark Horse will be releasing its first food manga, Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen […]

In an interview with Stu Levy at ICv2, the Tokyopop CEO gave some more information about the company’s plans to reprint Aria. Kozue Amano’s Aria (and its two-volume predecessor series Aqua) was a beautifully illustrated light science fiction series about girl gondoliers on a future Mars that looked a lot like historical Europe. The appeal to me was the mood it created, about appreciating nature, seasonal change, and the small moments of daily life. The first three volumes were first […]

This year, Kodansha is celebrating 10 years of publishing manga in English. For the “10 Years of Kodansha Comics” event, every month, they will spotlight a classic series. The January title is Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, first published by Kodansha in October 2009. They have since released a hardcover Akira 35th Anniversary Edition Box Set, which won Eisners last year for Best Archival Collection/Project — Comic Books and Best Publication Design. It’s the story of motorcycle gangs in the post-apocalypse […]