A heads up that Tokyopop will be offering a chapter from Fruits Basket volume 13 in their Manga Magazine next month. Apparantly it’s a sneak preview since that manga volume won’t be out for a long while yet! Check out Tokyopop.com if you’re interested in signing up for their (free) Manga Magazine, Furuba fans!
ANN has confirmed through Dark Horse representatives that after a five-and-a-half year run that started in the spring of 2000, the manga anthology Super Manga Blast will be discontinued after issue 59 hits store shelves in December.
This marks the fourth manga anthology cancellation in as many years, the third since early last year.
Viz announced the cancellation of Animerica Extra in December 2004, and cancelled Pulp in August 2002; Raijin Comics announced it’s publication “hiatus” in March 2004.
Thanks to Scott Green for assistance with this article.
Source: Anime News Network
On November 19th a store focusing exclusively on Paradise Kiss opened in Tokyo’s Odaiba district. The store will remain open until March 31st and carries items related to the Paradise Kiss anime and manga, including a clothing line inspired by the manga.
The Paradise Kiss online shop gives a look at a few of the Paradise Kiss related items for sale in the store, including a recreation of the Butterfly Ring featured in the manga.
The store’s grand-opening party, open to the general public, feature Tommy February, singer of the anime’s theme song.
Source: Anime News Network
Descendents of Darkness, or Yami no Matsuei, is a manga series created by Matsushita Yoko in 1995. The series was published in the bimonthly publication Hana to Yume through 2003. It is currently on hiatus, and is set to resume publication next year. Much of the manga has also been released in 11 tankobon. In North America, the series is currently being translated by Viz Comics. In 2001, it was adapted into a short anime that was 13 episodes long.
Yami no Matsuei revolves around the Shinigami, or Gods of Death. Shinigami are employees of Meifu, the land of the dead. It is their job to collect the souls of those who should have died but haven’t, or those who have died but still linger in the living world. Shinigami work in pairs, with each pair assigned to a specific section of Japan. The main characters of YnM are Tsuzuki Asato and Kurosaki Hisoka, the Shinigami of the Kyushu region.
YnM is a shoujo manga, aimed primarily at girls. Like many shoujo manga, it has elements of shounen-ai to it. This is mostly seen in the relationships between Tsuzuki, Hisoka, and Muraki, although there are also elements in Tatsumi’s feelings toward Tsuzuki. However, there are no official romances between any of the characters.
Links:
Theria.net
Bleeding Moon
Phantom Moon
Source: Wikipedia
Black Cat is a manga series by Kentaro Yabuki which was serialized in Shonen Jump. The series has concluded in Japan at 20 volumes. It is also licensed by Viz, and it is not released in English publically yet.
The story centers on a man named Train Heartnet who withdrew from an elite group of assassins called the toki no bannin (the Time Guardians) to become a Sweeper (a bounty hunter).
The Time Guardians are controlled by a shadowy parent organisation named Chronos. All of the members of the Time Guardians carry specially-constructed weapons made from a metal named Orihalcon. Train was the thirteenth member, and wields a gun made from Orihalcon. He appears like a cat, and disappears like a cat, and has never failed a job: he is known as “Black Cat”, the thirteenth, an ominous man who delivers bad luck.
A Black Cat anime also began airing in October 2005.
Source: Wikipedia
(I haven’t been able to locate any decent Black Cat websites to link to, so if you know of any, please feel free to email me or comment!)
Viz has put out a press release detailing their English-language releases for the holiday season, including the first volume of Death Note and special editions of fan-favorite Fullmetal Alchemist volume 4, along with the new novel, and other great-looking books. Read the full article here!
In an effort to draw the attention of more young readers, starting in 2006 several major North American newspapers will be running manga-style comics (both by American artists and previously published by Tokyopop).
The U.S. newspaper debut is a bit of a landmark for manga - a product of Japanese pop culture that has never been quite mainstream in the United States, although it’s long been a hit with the younger generation that grew up on Pokemon, Hello Kitty and Japanese animation movies - or “anime” for short.
The two strips debuting are Van Von Hunter and Peach Fuzz. Both gained much fame through Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga contest in recent years and are available for preview on Tokyopop’s site.
Read more here!
Tokyopo’s website now features a profile for Akamatsu Ken’s popular shounen story Love Hina, which has been out in North America in anime form for quite some time now. It’s actually kind of surprising that Tokyopop handled this title when Del Rey has done such a superb job with Akamatsu’s Negima!, a title that contains nearly as much random nudity and fanservice as Love Hina does. We’ll see in a few months’ time whether they’re up to the challenge [of the novel]!
[edited for clarity on November 8th - this post refers to the novelization based on the manga version, not the manga itself!]
A great article on horror manga in honor of All Hallow’s Eve.
Ito manages to mine a rich variety of chills out of an otherwise innocent bit of geometry. In the process, he manages to capture the unsettling nature of dream logic in a graphic novel. The citizens of Kurôzu-cho gape in astonishment not just at the horror of these events, but at how ridiculous they are. They’re almost impossible to process, but they’re clearly happening. How can something be so absurd and so disturbing at the same time?
Read the full article here!
My first e-mail question! Kate sent in this query about shoujo manga, more specifically in Shounen Jump:
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Q: Can a manga star a magical girl and still be classified Shounen? Could it be published in Shounen Jump? Has Shounen Jump published a manga starring a girl? Does Shounen Jump publish non shounen manga? Thanks.
A: Magical girl manga stories are classified as shoujo 99% of the time. Not to say that a magical girl can’t exist in a shounen manga, that’s not out of the question. But since shounen magazines are made to appeal to boys, and magical girl anime usually doesn’t, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Shounen Jump has published a few mangas with girls as co-stars, but not as the leading character, as far as I recall. And SJ has published a few “ambiguous” stories (such as Hikaru no Go) which could appeal to either gender. I suppose that’s counted as “non-shounen“, but it isn’t a very feminine manga either. Hope this answers your question!
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Feel free to e-mail me with your own questions, or leave a comment!
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