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 […]

Kodansha aims to put out a “more diverse and robust library of manga officially than what’s available in print” by releasing a number of series digitally. They call them “digital-first” because the most successful ones may come to print release later. For the month of May, they’ll be putting out these five new series, one per week on Tuesdays. I find it interesting that they also include the Japanese title in their press releases, which suggests they’re building on awareness […]

As I mentioned at the beginning of February, this year, as part of the Anime Awards, Crunchyroll added a Best Manga category, for which I was one of the judges. The winner was… B E S T M A N G A #AnimeAwards pic.twitter.com/Xi5zzdrO5g — Crunchyroll Camp △ (@Crunchyroll) February 25, 2018 My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Here’s the manga section from the awards ceremony: The awards allowed for both fan and judge voting, but Crunchyroll did this interesting followup, […]

Crunchyroll, the anime (and manga) streaming service, has launched their second annual Anime Awards. New this year is a Best Manga category, which you will be able to vote in starting Monday, February 5. The six nominees (in alphabetical order) are: Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui (Yen Press) Descending Stories: Show Genroku Rakugo Shinju by Haruko Kumota (Kodansha Comics) Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda (VIZ Media) In This Corner of the World by by Fumiyo Kouno (Seven Seas Entertainment) […]

OverDrive, a service to provide digital copies through libraries, has posted their list of the 6 Most Popular Manga Series of last year. Note, though, that they only seem to offer manga from Kodansha and Viz (so leaving out Yen and others), and they are not the only digital library service. (Another I’m familiar with is Hoopla.) It’s also unclear whether this list is ranked or random. (That it nicely alternates between publishers suggests to me it’s “arranged”.) Anyway, I […]