Let's take it a little easy

Just some nice tidbits off the blogosphere today ...

Reading Along shares some thoughts on Rurouni Kenshin and Planetes ...

Precocious Curmudgeon rounds up some end-of-the-year goings-on so that I don't have to. >:D

And with that, I'm going to close down until New Year's as I spend the week recharging. And catching up on my reviews for ANN. To all manga distributors and publishers: Don't make any big announcements until I get back. plzkthxbye!

Happy Holidays! Dash away, dash away, dash away all.

If J.K. Rowling had been a manga-ka ...

Courtesy of Thought Balloons: Looks like we have insider confirmation from Viz on the licensing of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. Plus, more ani-manga are on their way.

Looks like another story of the North Korean abductions, "Megumi," will be adapted into a manga in Futabasha's Manga Action anthology.

Tokyopop has just added homegrown title Van Von Hunter to their website.

And today's random shoujo silliness comes in the form of Gakuen Alice (Alice Academy), a bubblegum romp that's something like X-Men or Harry Potter in its premise of a "school for kids with special powers." But, of course, with lots more sparklies in the background. Fans of Kodocha might go for this one.

Sometimes, manga readers come from the American comics.

Cool, the blogosphere's very own David Welsh has started a manga column at Comic World News. (Link swiped from Thought Balloons.)

And no other notable news besides that! :D

One Jump Ahead

It could take a few years, but man, kids are going to kill for this Shonen Jump video game if it comes to US shores.

And on a similar note, Viz has announced Shonen Jump Advanced, "a new imprint under the company's SHONEN JUMP brand that will present the latest cutting-edge manga stories offering titles with progressive storylines and characters to older teens and young adults." Translation: Now we can sell OTHER graphic novels besides the fighting-by-proxy kiddy ones for $8! Haha!

Among the new ADV Manga licenses -- some of which are old news, some of which are new -- Full Metal Panic! OVERLOAD might be interesting (is this the one that's all super-deformed?) and Noodle Fighter Miki just has a terrific title. (You get three guesses what the premise of the story is, and the first two don't count.)

Lastly, behold! Taiyo Matsumoto's Blue Spring is now a comic book movie too! And a live action one, at that.

Comickers like us

CWR checks out the surprisingly insightful Tramps Like Us.

Bill @ PCG investigates CMX's proclivity for licensing older manga titles -- namely, From Eroica With Love -- and finds that old stuff doesn't turn out all that bad sometimes.

Okay, seriously, where can I buy a copy of Ikki? Or Garo, for that matter? For all the diversity of manga, it seems that the Japanese bookstores in my area don't stock the artcomix end of it.

So, Korea is getting into comic-book movies too.

And in the Kansai region of Japan, you CAN major in manga when you go to college.