I haven’t done this for a while, but after the announce-a-thons of recent conventions, I thought I’d run through the manga debuts in the new edition of Previews.
Given the popularity of Yua Kotegawa’s Anne Freaks, it makes sense that ADV would roll out another of the manga-ka’s work, Line. (That popularity would also lead you to believe that ADV would have information on their web site.) This time around, Kotegawa’s protagonist is saving lives instead of taking them.
I’m not all that familiar with Anime Works Publications and can’t find a web site for them, but they debut Sachi Oshimuzi’s Twin Signal, which looks to be a shônen battle comedy.
Yoshitaka (Vampire Hunter D) Amano was one of Dark Horse’s guests at the San Diego Comic-Con, and the publisher has an art book, Worlds of Amano, coming up. The Ghost in the Shell franchise barrels along, with Shirow Masamune’s GitS 1.5: Human-Error Processor debuting.
Digital Manga Publishing’s Project X series continues with the release of Challengers – 7-Eleven by Namoni Kimura and Tadashi Ikuta. Slurpees and nachos all around! There are two additions to the Juné line as well: Rin! by Satoru (Only the Ring Finger Knows) Kannagi and Yukine Honami, and The Man Who Doesn’t Take Off His Clothes by Narise Konohara and Yuki Shimizu. (Wait, he doesn’t take off his clothes? Ever? I can’t decide if I’m more troubled by the implied rudeness or poor hygiene of that.)
DrMaster offers a novel, Kaisyaku’s Key Princess Story: Eternal Alice Rondo. (DrMaster is another site I neglected in my trawl. It’s not bad, with an easily accessible book list. I find it a little busy visually, and I couldn’t find any information on the book above, but it’s got a solid infrastructure.)
As far as I’m concerned, the world can always use more manga by Jiro (The Walking Man) Taniguchi. Fanfare/Ponent Mon complies with the (probable) release of The Ice Wanderer, six shorts about man versus nature. No information is available on F/PM’s English site. The book is profiled on their Spanish site, but I can’t link to it directly. (Update: Thanks to Althalus for finding this direct link.)
Infinity Studios brings us Soo-Hyon Lee’s Unbalance Unbalance. It’s about a hot teacher and her recalcitrant student, and the title seems to refer to her spinal alignment, if I’m guessing correctly. (Infinity’s site is visually attractive and seems to be organized well, but some of the navigation seems a little finicky.)
There are two debuts from Netcomics. Tama’s X Diary offers slice-of-life romance. Youngran Lee’s June is a sci-fi mystery about cloning. (No information seems to be available on the latter.)
As usual, there’s plenty from Tokyopop, much of it with the Older Teen rating. Sunao Yoshida’s Trinity Blood offers dystopian battles between vampires and the clergy. Tohru Fujisawa’s Rose Hip Zero bears a striking resemblance to Anne Freaks, featuring a hot teen with a gun fighting terrorists. Kimura Noboru’s My-HiME features busty students battling invaders to their school. June Kim’s 12 Days seems to skew josei, following a protagonist working through her grief. Maki Kusumoto’s Die Todliche Dolis is described as “artsy, edgy, and sophisticated” and has an unusual $14.99 price point. Need more Gundam? There’s Mobile Suit Gundam Seed X Astray by Hajime Yatate, Tomohiro Chiba, and Yoshiyuki Tomino. Sung-Hyen Ha offers cross-dressing comedy in Queens. Fantasy fans might want to take a look at Kye Seung Hui’s Recast.
Tokyopop’s Blu imprint pushes us further towards You Higuri saturation (if such a thing is possible) with Gakuen Heaven, which explores the novel territory of romance at an all-boys school. Who has ever heard of such a thing? (No information is readily available on Blu’s site. Other than that, it’s a relative haven of soothing design and organization, though it could use a search function.)
Viz adds Rie Takada’s Punch to its Shojo Beat line, which seems to be about two guys fighting over a girl who’s being forced to marry one of them. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but… ew. There’s also Kenjiro Hata’s Hayate the Combat Butler and R.O.D.: Read or Dream by Hideyuki Kurata and Ran Ayanaga.
Apologies if I missed anything. Drop me a line, and I’ll add any first volumes that may have escaped my notice.