ANN has reported on the upcoming discontinuation of Young You, a magazine aimed at adult women that has published favorites such as Honey and Clover. ANN has translated the article in full on their site, a snippet of which can be read below:
It has been almost 20 years since “YOUNG YOU” was first published in 1986. As a manga magazine designed for adult women, YOUNG YOU has published close to 350 volumes, including supplemental issues.
Many of the titles that have appeared in YOUNG YOU have been able to earnestly portray fashionable and beautiful stories of women growing up. The magazine has produced many hit series, many of which were made into TV dramas and Anime.
Read the full article!
Not your typical thief manga, to be sure!
On Niwa Daisuke’s fourteenth birthday, getting rejected by the girl he loves seems like the worst of his problems. Until something strange happens to him…he discovers that he is the heir to a thieves’ legacy, and now that he has come of age, he must take up the life of crime that his grandfather before him led! A cunning personality named Dark lives within Daisuke, and whenever he thinks too much about the girl he likes, he turns into Dark. Of course, there’s more to the intrigue when it’s revealed who Dark likes…and the presence of a classmates’ long-standing family fued with the Niwas comes to light.
This series by Sugisaki Yukiru is being published in English by Tokyopop, and the tenth and finally eleventh volumes will be released in the next few months. It’s a great mix of genres that you shouldn’t miss!
Links:
Yami o Sukasu
OFFRAMP
Blind
Another CLAMP feature, Chobits is one of their newer series, with the same Gothic-style clothing of early titles but using neither the initial angst nor Magical Girl shoujo style they seem to have perfected in earlier successes. (Not to say that some angst doesn’t pop up eventually…this is CLAMP we’re talking about.) Instead, Chobits is more considered to be a guys’ manga, as it is the story of a young ronin (cram school, pre-college student) who finds a seemingly broken but beautiful female robot (a “persocom”, basically a walking computer) named Chii in the trash. As you probably might have expected, he immediately finds himself attracted to Chii, and can we go so far as to say that he…loves her?
Produced in 2000, the manga ran for eight tankubon before its completion, all of which are now available in English from Tokyopop. As you might expect, there is also an anime version, which is also commericially available.
Links:
Anipike - Chobits
(sorry about the cop-out links, my connection is to skippy to search properly! ;o;)
When presented with the choice of covering Sailormoon (known as, surprise, Sailor Moon in North America) in either the anime or manga section, despite the genuinely interesting deviances made the the anime, the manga is truly something spectacular, and if you passed it by thinking it was the same as the anime, you should think again. Aside from the breathtaking artwork, Takeuchi Naoko’s Moon Princess story is a true classic and well worth keeping.
Sailormoon got its start in Nakayoshi magazine after their sister publication, Run-Run, featured a short manga about a sailor-suited fighter, called Codename wa Sailor V. Fans will of course recognize Sailor V as the masked heroine in the early episodes of the anime and some of the manga, later revealed to be a true ally to Sailormoon. When Ms. Takeuchi was approched to turn Sailor V into an anime series, it ended up evolving into Sailormoon, while the new manga began its Nakayoshi run. It serialized from 1992-1997.
The story (my, it has been quite a while since I’ve read it) is that of Tsukino Usagi, an ordinary-seeming schoolgirl who has great power hidden within her. Having been searched for since a reincarnation from her past life, Usagi encounters a mysterious black cat who presents her with the opportunity (or shall we say…insists that she take the opportunity) to rid the world of the demons that pursue her and those she loves. She is joined later by the Sailor Senshi - one for each planet - a heroic masked man with secrets of his own, and many others. There are five basic story arcs, each one encompassing several tankubons of the manga.
Until very recently the series was licensed by Tokyopop, but it is now out of print and the license has been confirmed as expired. If you can get your hands on material copies of this series, it’s well worth having - and if not, refer to some of the links below to peruse scanlations of it and Sailor V.
Links:
The Manga of Takeuchi Naoko
manga style! pretty soldiers in sailor suits
Wishing Moon
I thought a fun idea for this section would be a listing of some of the more popular Japanese manga magazines out there (whether they be weekly or monthly) for those of you in a position to find them. (I wish there were more places around here, I’ve been searching for the June edition of Animedia for the past three weeks!) I had a little help from good ol’ Wikipedia to put this together - might help you decide whether to purchase or not, and tell the difference between them, if you can’t read Japanese!
Josei (women’s) magazines:
CUTIE
Be-Love
Feel Young
Judi
You
Young Rose
Seinen (young mens’) magazines:
Afternoon
Big Comic
Big Gold
Big Comic Ikki
Big Comic Original
Big Comic Spirits
Manga Action
Ultra Jump
Young Animal
Young Jump
Young Magazine
Weekly Morning
Shōnen (boys’) magazines:
Shonen Ace
Shonen Champion
Shonen Gangan
Shonen Jump
Shonen Magazine - weekly
Shonen Magazine Wonder - monthly
Magazine SPECIAL - quarterly
Shonen Sunday
Shōjo (girls’) magazines
Hana to Yume
Nakayoshi
Margaret
Shojo Comic
Ribon
Cookie
Ciao
Kodomo (kids’) magazines:
CoroCoro Comic
It is indeed time for another shoujo review~! Actually I read very little of the genre, you’re more likely to find me buying CoroCoro Comics than Ribon, but oh well.
Saint Tail is somewhat your typical kaitou/tantei manga, except that the thief is a junior high Catholic schoolgirl whose parents are, respectively, a magician and a former cat burglar. (What a combo.) The mysterious thief Saint Tail steals back previously-stolen items, most of the time, or otherwise exposes those who try to hurt others. Directed by her best friend Seira, a nun-in-training, Saint Tail regularly eludes the pursuit of a prodigy junior-high dectective (this sound like the Kaitou Kid from Meitantei Konan to anyone else?), a defensive classmate who she secretly likes.
The manga, dated 1995 in Nakayoshi magazine by Tachikawa Megumi, has a very airy feeling to the art and though the English-translated dialogue is a bit awkward, it does not lose much of the storyline. All seven volumes have been released in North American by Tokyopop as Saint Tail and, unsurprisingly, there was also an anime produced which has been released here as well.
Links:
Tokyopop - Saint Tail
In-depth Saint Tail manga review
Saint Tail manga books
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