Over at About.Com, Deb Aoki surveys a lot of the year-end lists of best graphic novels to assemble a list of the most acclaimed manga of 2009. Every title on there is on my list of Eisner-worthy books, which means I’m either a cutting-edge taste-maker or that I’m unpardonably middlebrow. It could mean both, who can say? One other conclusion one can draw is that Viz had a really great year in terms of publishing quality manga.
December need not be all rainbows and sunshine and fond looks back, though. Kate (The Manga Critic) Dacey inducts some works into her Manga Hall of Shame. This leads Kurt (Yen Press) Hassler to mount a forceful but cordial defense of one of Yen’s inductees.