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Still catching up…

… but I’m getting there. Looking forward to that long weekend. At Good Comics for Kids, Kate Dacey has some advice for librarians (and others) on how to keep a manga collection current. Jason Thompson’s latest House of 1000 Manga column takes a look at doujinshi based on American superhero and Star Trek comics. At The Manga Critic, Kate Dacey also peers into the dusty recesses of manga history with a look at Pineapple Army. Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith discuss a handful of manhwa in their latest Off the Shelf column at Manga Bookshelf. Melinda also winds up ...

Manga: Not dead yet

At Reverse Thieves, Hisui and Narutaki take a look at the changes in the manga market and point to some possible factors, including the fact that publishing in general has been hit by the recession. And translator William Flanagan nails it in the comments: [T]here seems to be no real decline in popularity of manga, just that the fans aren’t paying for it anymore. Meanwhile, Danielle Leigh is taking matters into her own hands by learning Japanese so she can read her favorite series without worrying they will come to an untimely end. Kai-Ming Cha paints a brighter picture ...

PR: The Saturn Apartments

The print edition of The Saturn Apartments is on the way from Viz, due in stores on May 8. This is one of the stories that has been appearing regularly at SigIKKI.com, and you can check it out online, at least for a little while longer. I haven’t read it, but from the writeup below, it sounds kind of interesting: It’s the story of a window washer in a futuristic space colony. Read on for more. AN EXTRAORDINARY VIEW OF THE FUTURE SHINES IN SATURN APARTMENTS MANGA SERIES FROM VIZ MEDIA A Young Window Washer Offers A Panoramic View ...

Musical Impressions on 19 Colors by Natsumi Kiyoura

I first started paying attention to Natsuki Kiyoura after hearing her sing the OP to Sketchbook , and I haven’t gotten tired of her voice since then. Maybe because of that song itself, I like to think of her singing as soothing, regardless of how she’s been using it since, for power, for fun, or for awesome. That quality is something that I don’t usually hear in people who perform OP/EDs for anime, so it was captivating for me, especially after hearing the OP from Spice and Wolf for the first time. I also haven’t met a song of ...

PR: Dorohedoro

Time for some PR! It looks like there are some interesting manga hitting the bookstores in the next few weeks, so I’m going to go ahead and post the press releases, with covers, links to previews, etc. Feel free to drop by and tell me what you think. First up is Dorohedoro, a “gritty urban sci-fi/horror series” from Viz about Sorcerers who create animal-human mutants, and the alligator-headed man who hunts them. You can actually read most of the first volume on the Sigikki website right now. I went over and took a look—it’s interesting, that’s for sure. Not ...

Japan Expo awards up; Aurora speculation

The nominees for the Japan Expo awards are out, and they include some interesting titles. Japan Expo is a European event so all these manga are licensed over there; in some cases, they have different titles than the American editions. Here is a nice page from the Expo site with the covers of all the nominees. (Image of Vinland Saga lifted from Manga Curmudgeon, where it was a featured license request a while ago.) In other awards news, the L.A. Times Book Prizes have added a graphic novel category, and GoGo Monster is among the nominees. Simon Jones speculates ...

Translations, best-of lists, and deep thoughts

David Welsh and Kate Dacey make their picks from this week’s batch of new comics, and the Comics Village team picks the best of the last week’s releases as well as their November manga of the month. You could read all the best-manga-of-2009 lists, or you could let Deb Aoki boil them down into a single list of critics’ recommendations for you, since a lot of books are being mentioned over and over this year. Deb also lists her choices for the best continuing series of the year. Erica Friedman lists her top ten yuri manga of 2009 at ...

Becky Cloonan interviewed; more best-of lists

East Coast Rising artist Becky Cloonan is the featured artist in the latest edition of The Gallery at ANN. Lori Henderson rounds up the week’s manga news and announces the winner of her The Color of Earth giveaway at Manga Xanadu. Deb Aoki presents her list of the 25 best new manga released this year at About.com. At Comics-and-More, Dave Ferraro lists his choices for the 10 best manga of 2009. Reviews: The Manga Recon team has a new set of Manga Minis to start the week. Megan M. on vol. 2 of Bamboo Blade (Manga Bookshelf) Connie on ...

Manga death watch begins

As I noted yesterday, the Good Comics for Kids gang posted our picks for the best comics for kids and teens of 2009, and there were quite a few manga on the list. Gia linked to it at Anime Vice, and her fans have some suggestions of their own for younger readers. Gia also wonders if digital distribution would work for a manga magazine in the U.S. Are manga and anime dying in Japan? Roland Kelts makes that bold assertion in a recent blog post at the new Comics Journal site, and he enlarges on that point in this ...

Opportunity and rejection

I didn’t get to listen in on the latest Tokyopop webinar, which featured CEO Stu Lefy and senior editor Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl but Daniella Orihuela-Gruber liveblogged it and then offered some additional thoughts, and ANN summarized the high points. Apparently Tokyopop is considering using “fan translators” to finish up series that are on hiatus due to low sales. It’s hard to know what this means—is “fan translators” a synonym for “unpaid labor”? Because from what I hear, professional translators aren’t paid that well to begin with. Anyway, they are in negotiation with a scanlation site, and they mentioned Crunchyroll, a ...

Domo creator speaks; yaoi readers pick their faves

Just a quick update today as I’m heading out for what I anticipate will be a busy day at work. One important reminder, though—if there’s an election going on where you live, get out and VOTE! We’re having municipal elections today, and although we all pay more attention to the president, local officials have a much more direct effect on everyday life. So take a minute to pull that lever or fill in that bubble. OK, on with the manga news… Lissa Pattillo and Deb Aoki write up the most recent Tokyopop webinar, which featured Domo creator Tsuneo Goda. ...

New manga, news from Deux, the annotated bookshelf

Lori Henderson has a thorough roundup of the week’s manga news at Manga Xanadu, and Erica Friedman checks in with the latest edition of Yuri Network News at Okazu. The Comics Village clan makes their picks from this week’s new releases. David Welsh, meanwhile, contemplates the upcoming titles featured in the September Previews. Gottsu-Iiyan posts some Naoki Urasawa sketches from a Japanese magazine at The Eastern Edge. The Daily Yomiuri reports that Japanese publishers are putting more of their works online to beat scanlators, since legal means have had limited success. Things were looking kind of bleak at Deux ...

Touka Gettan Review – 80/100

Touka Gettan is part of the “WTF am I watching!?”-series. From the creators of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito comes an equally eccentric series that will have just about everyone confused as hell in the first five episodes. Its big selling point is of course that the episode aired backwards: it starts with the conclusion and ends with the introduction. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! In any case, it’s definitely an interesting and unique experience watching this series. The first five episodes are a complete mindscrew, with just about everything not making any sense because ...

PR: Viz at SDCC

My in-box is overflowing with press releases, so I’m going to try to post a few. I do this for two reasons—to organize a lot of information in one place, and more importantly, to hear what you have to say about it. So feel free to comment away, or send in bulletins from the floor about the events listed here. Read on for the Viz schedule: VIZ MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2009 COMIC-CON Array Of Notable Personal Appearances, Events And Activities In Booth 2813 Showcase ULTIMO And New Imprint SHONEN SUNDAY AND SIGIKKI.COM San Francisco, CA, July 15, 2009 – ...

07-Ghost – 08

Posted by admin On May - 26 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

To give a bit of an indication of how much I’m liking the current Spring Season: out of all of the shows I’m blogging right now (at the moment twelve of them), I like 07-Ghost the least. And yet the rest of this post is going to be nothing but praises for how much I liked this episode. This season may not have another Birdy the Mighty, but that’s also just about the only negative thing I can say about it. And really, if it can keep this up, it’s definitely going to turn into my favourite season since Spring 2007. And Yes! It’s finally time for Mikage to show how he wasn’t exactly set free by Ayanami. The anime made it especially obvious that something was going to happen to him, and made it no surprise that he’d not live to see the second half of this show, and I must say still this episode in which we finally see his true colours doesn’t disappoint at all. Because really, the past few episodes have really served their job in fleshing out Teito and Mikage, so that as an audience you’d really get to know the two of them. If the creators would simply have sent a brainwashed Mikage to Teito and immediately had him start trying to kill the guy, it would definitely have lacked impact. Now however, I loved seeing the relationship between the two being broken up by Ayanami. It was the moment everyone had been waiting for ever since Mikage popped up from absolutely nowhere, and yeah: it was great. As a fantasy-series, 07 Ghost indeed doesn’t have the complex and imaginative setting that Shangri-La and Guin Saga can boast, nor the complex characters and well written dialogue of Pandora Hearts, but this series takes a much smaller setting and focus, and because its focus is so small (this series is just about Teito, who isn’t out there to save the world; you know the bad guys right from the start, the only setting of importance is the church), it really as the time to charm the viewer with this small story and bring out the best of it. And that’s the strength of 07-Ghost: it doesn’t feature much, but what it does, it does really well. Rating: ** (Excellent) I’m still amazed at how this episode was 20 minutes long, because it sucked me in completely. Finally the moment we’ve been waiting for has come.

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07-Ghost – 08

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