The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

I am merely an anecdote

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ICv2 reports “A Second bad Year in a Row for Manga,” noting a 20% drop in sales. This doesn’t reflect my personal experience, but we all know how irrelevant that is. Since it’s Saturday and I don’t want to start it off on too gloomy a note, I’ll quote the article’s marginally positive paragraph:

“In European markets where manga boomed before it hit it big here in the States, there was a post-boom drop-off, but sales then stabilized at a substantial level. Manga continues to dominate sales of graphic novels (in units) in bookstores.”

The report notes that “manga is now facing its own crisis created by the availability of free unlicensed scanlations on the Web,” and a Japanese publisher has spoken publicly on the subject. Over at Anime Vice, GodLen finds a message from Weekly Shonen Jump (Shueisha) to its readers:

“The unjust internet copies are deeply hurting the manga culture, mangakas’ rights, and even mangakas’ souls.”

Hardcore. It probably won’t have any impact, but… hardcore.

Update: ICv2 has rather drastically altered the portion of the report that covered scanlations:

“While comic retailers tell ICv2 that they believe scanlations (translations of scanned manga, which appear on the Web within days of their publication in Japan) are hurting their sales, the evidence is not conclusive. Scanlations were around through the growth of the manga market as well as its decline, and some feel that they actually increase the market for manga collections by creating greater exposure for new properties. While it may be true that more manga buyers are telling retailers that they’re reading online rather than buying, that may be due to economic conditions (they’re buying fewer titles over-all), or to the lack of a major hit that stimulates buying.”

Perpetual anticipation

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If there’s a single story in all of manga journalism that qualifies most as unproductive drudgery, it’s trying to dig up something about Kodansha USA. So kudos to Gia (Anime Vice) Manry for actually speaking to a human being, the initiative’s general manager. It’s been ages since we’ve had a scrap of anything new to use as fodder for speculation.

As you may recall, right before the official announcement of the effort (or “effort”), Kodansha withdrew all of its properties from Tokyopop. Before that, they ended their first-look agreement with Del Rey. The Random House imprint has still been licensing new Kodansha titles, but, as Lori (Manga Xanadu) Henderson notes, their hearts don’t really seem to be in it lately.

Vertical has two Kodansha properties coming up. The first volume of Kanata Komani’s Chi’s Sweet Home is due June 29, and the first volume of Felipe Smith’s Peepo Choo is due July 13. (Chi’s is serialized in Kodansha’s Morning, and Peepo runs in Morning 2.) Dark Horse is in the process of releasing handsome new collections of some of Kodansha’s CLAMP properties. And the creators of that much-covered wine manga seem to think an announcement of English-language publication is imminent. But aside from these, all’s relatively quiet on the Kodansha front.

So I thought I’d take the opportunity to look back at some of my most-desired Kodansha properties.

The Manga Moveable Feast on Sexy Voice and Robo has made me even hungrier for more comics by Iou Kuroda, so Japan Tengu Party Illustrated certainly makes the cut.

On the classic front, an English version of Shigeru Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitaro would be more than welcome.

I may not have a burning desire to know more about the history and practices of Vikings, but I do desperately want to read more manga by Makoto (Planetes) Yukimura, and that means I want Vinland Saga.

I love it when awesome women creators create comics for seinen magazines, and it’s unlikely to get more awesome than Moyocco Anno’s Hataraki Man.

Unless of course we bring Fumi Yoshinaga into the conversation, specifically referencing her What Did You Eat Yesterday? Given Yoshinaga’s demonstrable fondness for food-obsessed gay men, I am certain we would totally be best friends. Or she’d file a restraining order against me.

It should be evident by now that I’m a huge fan of quirky, slice-of-life titles, so Hitoshi Ashinano’s Yokohama Kaidashi Kikô is high on my wish list.

What’s on your Kodansha wish list? Would it be a new edition of Naoki Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon? Do you hunger for something more contemporary, like Hitoshi (Parasyte) Iwaaki’s Histoire, Fuyumi (E.S.) Soryo’s Cesare, or Natsume (House of Five Leaves) Ono’s Coppers? Don’t let the apparent futility deter you. Share your hopes.

Star search

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We’ll wrap up Press Release Thursday with some information on Kou Yaginuma’s lovely Twin Spica (Vertical), which I reviewed here. I always appreciate it when a publisher shares a substantial online preview of their upcoming titles (heck, or stuff that they’ve already got in print, because everything is new to somebody), and the chapter Vertical chose is a haunting and lovely prequel to the main action of the series.

Countdown to Twin Spica‘s Launch Begins

Twin Spica, the thoughtful manga by renowned comic artist Kou Yaginuma, is getting ready for liftoff later this spring, and Vertical, Inc. wants readers to join in on the countdown to launch as we unveil one of the stories that helped start it all nearly a decade ago. Starting today manga readers can preview Yaginuma’s 30-page-long short story Asumi at Vertical’s official Twin Spica webpage.

Published originally in 2000, the Asumi short reveals many secrets of the world of Twin Spica. Shedding light on the bitter sweet past of Twin Spica‘s main character Asumi Kamogawa, with a focus on a younger version of the titular character, Asumi takes readers back to when our heroine first met her guardian astronaut.

Asumi supporters can then countdown the days to the Twin Spica launch as Volume 1 of the English edition of this heart-warming manga series will go on sale worldwide on May 4th. Endorsed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA, Japan’s version of NASA), the sixteen-volume manga series has spun off animated and live-action TV series each broadcasted by NHK (the Japanese PBS), here’s what critics have to say about Twin Spica:

“With art that would make Studio Ghibli proud, this story moved and impressed me. A+” —About Heroes

“[Yaginuma]’s work fuses Twin Spica with both a sense of childhood nostalgia as well as encouragement to venture beyond. Replace ‘space exploration’ with the goal of your choosing and you have the recipe for an inspiring parable of progress… It’s refreshingly divergent from the majority of the manga on shelves at the moment.” —Otaku USA

“Kou Yaginuma has created a fascinating alternate future for Japan, where tragedy becomes the foundation of both the protagonist’s story and her country’s entry into the space race… Asumi’s single-minded dedication to her childhood dream is admirable. As soon as I finished this book, I found myself already longing to read more.” —i ♥ manga!

Fanfare Eisner fanfare

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Our next press release comes from Fanfare/Ponent Mon, and I have a sturdy tradition of shameless favoritism towards press releases from this fine publisher. This time around, it’s a run-down of their well-deserved Eisner nominations, which provides an opportunity for me to remind you that My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill is just grand in every conceivable way and should really win at least one of the awards for which it’s nominated.

Here’s hoping that Summit of the Gods (written by Baku Yumemakura and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi) gets nominated for something next year. I actually liked it better than Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood and am looking forward to the next volume.

AN IMPRESSIVE SEVEN 2010 EISNER AWARD NOMINATIONS FOR FANFARE / PONENT MON

INDUSTRY DISTINGUISHES THE LITTLE COMPANY THAT DOES

Ami and Stephen would like to thank Jackie Estrada and the 2010 Eisner Award panel for all their hard (and fast) reading!

Since Fanfare / Ponent Mon’s founding in 2003, the company has dedicated itself to publishing quality translations of some of the choicest European and Japanese graphic novels available for mature readers. With just four titles published in 2009 the recent announcement of seven 2010 Eisner Award nominations means Fanfare / Ponent Mon has put to rest any thoughts that it is merely the little company that could but rather the little company that does!

Receiving the second most nominations overall with three, My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill by Jean Regnaud (W) and Émile Bravo (A) was honored in the categories:

  • Graphic Album – New
  • U.S. Edition of International Material
  • Painter/Multimedia Artist: Émile Bravo

    • This bittersweet tale of a five-year-old’s childhood struggles while overcoming his mother’s absence is a powerful, yet sensitive, tour-de-force made all the more moving by Bravo’s deceptively innocent artwork.

    978-84-96427-85-3 — $25.00 / £13.99 — 120pp FC HC

    Years of the Elephant by Willy Linthout was distinguished in two categories:

  • U.S. Edition of International Material
  • Writer / Artist – Nonfiction

    • In his native Belgium, Willy Linthout is a household name through his cartoon Urbanus with over 130 albums and 10 million copies in print. But this graphic novel is far from his daily work. It is a poignant, heartbreaking tale of the creator’s emotional survival in the years following his son’s suicide and is
    presented in Linthout’s rough pencils, the author’s way of conveying that he, too, is not yet whole from the tragedy.

    978-84-92444-30-4 — $18.95 / £11.99 — 164pp B/W SC

    Since its inception. Fanfare / Ponent Mon has released several titles by Jiro Taniguchi – the fourth volume of the artist’s ambitious adaptation of The Times of Botchan makes its debut at the MoCCA Arts Festival as we go to press – so the company is most pleased to see the work of one of Japan’s contemporary manga masters honored with two nominations:

  • Graphic Album – New: A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.)
  • U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia: A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.)

    • Jiro Taniguchi was previously honored by a nomination for The Walking Man (2007), The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories (2008) and The Quest for the Missing Girl (2009). He also had a story in the nominated anthology Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (2007).

    This two-volume work tells the tender and haunting story of a middle-aged businessman who finds himself reliving his days as a fourteen-year-old but with his adult memories intact. He returns to the period immediately before his father mysteriously leaves the family behind and naturally wonders whether he can now change this course of events. Or will events change him?

    It is an affecting tale that showcases both Taniguchi’s sensitive storytelling and his beautifully detailed artwork.

    978-84-92444-29-8 $23.00 / £12.99 208pp B/W SC

    With many thanks to our creators and good luck to ALL nominees

    http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml

  • Graphic Album–New: A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.), by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • Graphic Album–New: My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, by Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • U.S. Edition of International Material: My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill, by Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • U.S. Edition of International Material: Years of the Elephant, by Willy Linthout (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • U.S. Edition of International Material–Asia: A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.), by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • Writer/Artist–Nonfiction: Willy Linthout, Years of the Elephant (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
  • Painter/Multimedia Artist: Émile Bravo, My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

    • Neaud in translation

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    And we almost immediately take a break from Press Release Thursday for a license request update! You may remember me carping for someone to publish an English translation of Fabrice Neaud’s Journal. In the comments, Travis McGee pointed to a script translation he had done of Neaud’s work, which drew the interest of Neaud’s publisher, Ego Comme X, and not in a cease-and-desist kind of way.

    The make a long story slightly less long, McGee and Ego have worked together to create and share an English-language version of Neaud’s “Émile” on the Ego Comme X web site:

    “Who will finally publish one of Neaud’s astonishing works in English ?… English readers, contact your favorite editors, make them read this English version of Émile !”

    Yeah, who will finally publish one of Neaud’s astonishing works in English? Huh? HUH?

    Update: At The Comics Reporter, Bart Beaty makes the case for Neaud.

    They presumably would know

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    I hereby declare it Press Release Thursday. There are a few interesting ones in my mailbox, and there’s nothing wrong with a little low-impact content generation.

    We’ll start with Viz, who has formerly announced the drop date for Bakuman, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. You may recognize them as the creative team that brought us Death Note (also from Viz), and I hope you recognize Obata as the illustrator for Hikaru No Go (wonderfully written by Yumi Hotta, and also published by Viz). I’m somewhat less concerned that you recognize Obata as the artist behind Ral Ω Grad (written by Tsuneo Takano, also from Viz), which is a little fan-service-y for my tastes. You may also recognize Bakuman as one of the nominees for the most recent round of Manga Taisho Awards.

    While I’ve covered the nominees rather exhaustively in various license requests, I’ve purposely neglected Bakuman, as I knew it had been licensed and assumed we would be getting a press release eventually. And voila! Details after the jump.

    FIND OUT WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT TO THE TOP AS A MANGA CREATOR IN THE NEW SHONEN JUMP SERIES BAKUMAN。

    Two Students Must Have Perseverance, Innovation And An Uncompromising Will To Succeed In The New Series From The Creators Of DEATH NOTE

    San Francisco, CA, April 14, 2010 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the upcoming release of the manga series BAKUMAN。. The series, rated ‘T’ for Teens, will be released on August 3rd under VIZ Media’s popular Shonen Jump imprint and will carry a MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN. Previews for the series will start to run in the May 2010 issue of VIZ Media’s popular monthly manga anthology – SHONEN JUMP magazine which is on stands now.

    BAKUMAN。is written by the author of DEATH NOTE, Tsugumi Ohba, and the artwork is by Takeshi Obata, the artist known for series such as DEATH NOTE, HIKARU NO GO and RALΩGRAD. The story follows average student Moritaka Mashiro, who enjoys drawing for fun, but when his classmate and aspiring writer Akito Takagi discovers his talent, he begs Moritaka to team up with him as a manga-creating duo. But what exactly does it take to make it in the manga-publishing world?

    In the opening volume, Moritaka is hesitant to seriously consider Akito’s proposal because he knows how difficult it can be to reach the professional level. Still, encouragement from persistent Akito and the motivation from a girl he has a crush on help push Moritaka to test his limits!

    “BAKUMAN。is an outstanding, behind-the-scenes manga about manga, and the artists who create it, written and drawn by the creative team that produced the DEATH NOTE series,” says Elizabeth Kawasaki, Senior Editorial Director at VIZ Media. “The series is a great read for all manga fans, and especially fun for aspiring artists.”

    Born in Tokyo, Tsugumi Ohba is the author of the hit series DEATH NOTE. The writer’s current series BAKUMAN。is serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump in Japan.

    Takeshi Obata was born in 1969 in Niigata, Japan, and is the artist of the wildly popular SHONEN JUMP title HIKARU NO GO, which won the 2003 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize: Shinsei “New Hope” award and the 2000 Shogakukan Manga award. Obata is also the artist of Arabian Majin Bokentan Lamp Lamp, Ayatsuri Sakon, Cyborg Jichan G, and the smash hit manga DEATH NOTE.

    For more information on this title, and other Shonen Jump titles, please visit http://shonenjump.viz.com.

    Gleekery

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    So Glee is back, and I’m glad. It wasn’t a great episode (too little Quinn and Kurt), but it was nice to see everyone in fresh material. The problem, as I see it, resulted from achieving too much in the previous portion of the season. Remember that Dynasty cliffhanger when they were all at the wedding in Eurotrashia, or wherever, and gunmen mowed down all of the guests, and then when the new season started, everyone got up and brushed themselves off except for the other gay guy?

    Basically, the makers of Glee had to push things back to a certain point, leading couples to estrangement so the audience could resume rooting for them to get together and undoing various other plot developments to fuel future events. I remember this sort of thing happening with the season finales on Ryan Murphy’s earlier teen dramedy, Popular. I’m not going to complain too much, because even really good shows have so-so episodes, and it wasn’t like it was “Acafellas” or anything that dire.

    I would like to provide nerdish speculation on one plot development, which I will do after noting that I’d never actually watched an episode of American Idol before, and I am unlikely ever to do so again, because that hurt.

    Idina Menzel, who caught attention on Broadway in Rent and then grabbed that attention in a stranglehold in Wicked, plays the coach of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline. She gives a very good performance, and I don’t even mind that she didn’t get to sing anything, because that sentence can clearly be ended with “yet.” Geeky hero coach Will goes to talk to her about a budding romance between her star (Jesse St. James, played by Jonathan Groff of Spring Awakening fame) and his (Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele of Spring Awakening fame, and you have to love a TV show that incorporates Broadway musical in-jokes in its casting decisions).

    Will is worried about glee-club subterfuge, but Idina’s character assures him that Jesse is a good guy and has no ulterior motives. She later watches Jesse and Rachel making out, and there’s suspicious eye contact, and we’re all supposed to think that little Rachel is going to get her Broadway-bound heart broken by the conniving rival. This seems to me to be an obvious fake-out.

    My theory is that you don’t cast Idina Menzel in a throw-away villainess role. (Well, you might, but not after you cast Kristin Chenoweth in a throw-away villainess role. You don’t make that mistake twice.) When she bears enough of a physical resemblance to Lea Michele to play TV-related, and Lea Michele’s character is the product of surrogacy, and both are driven, show-choir obsessed brunettes, you cast Idina Menzel as Rachel’s biological mother, who just happens to be the director of a rival show choir who is using the rivalry and the romance to get closer to the child she bore for other people.

    This is my theory, and I’m sticking to it.

    The Shôjo-Sunjeong Alphabet: Z

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    “Z” is for…

    What are some of your favorite shôjo and sunjeong titles that start with the letter “Z”?

    And, in the interest of thoroughness, I’ll post a round-up of titles with numerical beginnings (actual numbers, not numbers spelled out as words), so please feel free to pitch your favorites to make sure I don’t miss any.

    March manga in the DM

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    I haven’t looked at manga numbers in the Direct Market in a while, so let’s see what happens when we extract the manga and manga-influenced work from ICv2’s Top 300 Graphic Novels Actual – March 2010, shall we?

    (I hope that’s readable. Thanks to Dirk Deppey for the helpful suggestions on how to get a table into a blog post without plunging myself into coding hell.)

    It’s not particularly surprising that Young C. Kim’s graphic-novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (Yen Press) has been topping the Hardcover Graphic Books list over at The New York Times since its release, but it’s a little unexpected that it would crack the top ten in the Direct Market. Perhaps it was narrow-minded of me to assume that the property’s audience wouldn’t seek it out in local comic shops, or that local comic shops would be particularly inclined to carry it, or that there wasn’t much crossover audience between Twilight and your average comic-shop inventory.

    Manga from Dark Horse continues to do well, and I’m pleased to see such a high ranking for the final volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto (Viz). It’s also nice to see all five of last month’s volumes of Eichiro Oda’s One Piece (Viz) crack the top 100. It would have been nice to see higher rankings for the classic titles, but some of them came out late in the month, so maybe that’s the explanation.