Notes from Anime Expo
CPM Manga / Be Beautiful
- Upcoming releases include Embracing Love, Target in the Finder (August), and the Kizuna DVD on August 9 (the fourth manga volume will arrive in October).
- A number of CPM titles have had their release dates moved to 2006 due to the shifting market. Because of how quickly manga moves on and off bookshelves now, they'll be promoting titles first through the "Digipress" online previews and then bringing them out.
DRMaster
- Didn't have a panel, but their booth showed the full range of titles for sale that were formerly from ComicsOne. Tsukihime Vol. 1 has just come out and Stellvia is due this month.
Digital Manga Publishing
- The big thing right now is Range Murata's Robot Vol. 1, a full-color anthology which can be likened to the Japanese version of Flight and comes out this month.
- By popular fan request, the Only the Ring Finger Knows novel will come out in May 2006.
- Upcoming boy's-love/yaoi titles include Yellow, Our Kingdom, Jazz and Alone in My King's Harem (both of which are more explicit than previously published work), Beyond My Touch, and newly acquired Binetsu Kakumei, G-senjou no Neko (Cat on the G-line), Renai Koufukuron, and a bunch of others that the panelists couldn't pronounce very well so I couldn't write them down.
- There's also an advanced Let's Draw Manga: Pen and Ink book due next May.
- Of more interest to artbook fans (and those who would enjoy Robot) is a reprint of Yoshitoshi ABe's Lain artbook, at a more affordable price than the original Japanese hardback edition and containing a US-exclusive "How-to" section.
- There's now a Yuri paddle to go with the Yaoi one, and yuri manga releases are planned in the future.
- And (you're all going to love this one) DMP is planning an English-language boy's-love anthology magazine.
Tokyopop
- Now available: Beck (highly recommended), Sakura Taisen, and Felipe Smith's OEL manga MBQ.
- Highlights coming in August: BLAME!, Saiyuki Reload (sequel to the original series), and Marty LeGrow's OEL Bizenghast.
- September: Girls Bravo, Kamichama Karin (by Pita-Ten and Di Gi Charat manga-ka Koge Donbo, so I'm braking for this one), and OEL titles War on Flesh (voodoo zombies! sounds like something Larry Young would do) and Jen Quick's Off*Beat.
- October: Devil May Cry 3 (based on the videogame), Kingdom Hearts (based on the videogame, highly anticipated, and weirdly enough reads left-to-right), Lights Out, Justice N Mercy (an artbook by the artist of Priest), and OELs Steady Beat, I Luv Halloween and Dramacon.
- November: Samurai Champloo (should easily sell just as fast as the anime), Telepathic Wanderers, Ark Angels (a unique effort where TP Japan provided the project and signed on the artist of Les Bijoux), and OELs A Midnight Opera, Mark of the Succubus, and Psy-comm.
- December: The World Exists For Me (by the creator of Utena) and Tsukiyomi Moon Phase (can't go wrong with vampire catgirls).
- Highlights for 2006 include the popular boy's-love series Loveless in February and Rose Hip Rose in March, by the creator of GTO.
- Also licensed but with no release date announced is Rozen Maiden, which turns the harem formula on its head as a young boy finds himself having to serve a quartet of sentient, elegantly-dressed dolls.
- New illustrated novels include Scrapped Princess and the Gravitation novel.
- LICENSING ISSUES: the publisher of Marmalade Boy is now owned by Viz, so that's out of the question. Meanwhile, Sailor Moon is sort of in limbo as manga-ka Naoko Takeuchi is having issues with the publisher.
Del Rey
- The release of Basilisk is confirmed at last, and will be out sometime in 2006 to sync with Funimation's release of the anime.
- Freshly released titles include A Perfect Day for Love Letters, Guru Guru Pon-chan (dog turns into girl, hilarity ensues), and Love Roma (which is highly recommended by CLAMP themselves).
- Also coming soon are Gacha Gacha (a split-personality comedy by the artist of Boys Be), Ghost Hunt (by the author of Twelve Kingdoms), Sugar Sugar Rune (which will probably worth it just to see Moyoco Anno doing a magical girl story), and shounen rom-com Pastel.
Regarding CLAMP's newest series Kobato, this is being published by the shounen department at Shueisha, which is owned by Viz, although whether Viz had anything to say about it, I don't know because their panel was going on at the same time I was at Del Rey's. I asked at Viz's Shôjo Beat panel and they didn't know.
Viz Shôjo Beat
- No new titles to announce. Wait until Comic-con.
- SB aims to hit the uninitiated crowd as well, and will do so by starting out in bookstores and then expanding to newsstands/supermarkets as regular-type folks discover the magazine.
- The magazine will include occasional giveaways like cell-phone charms and stickers, just like in Japanese shoujo magazines, as well as subscriber exlcusives.
- Extended content will include how-to-draw and a fanart section. OEL works may be allowed later down the line, but they want to build on the Japanese licenses first (which most likely means Viz still doesn't care about OEL manga, seeing as they have a huge Japanese library to pick from already).
- Yes. The cover is REALLY REALLY pink. Opinions are mixed about this.
Oh, and the AX manga library was a disappointment. They need more books and a more efficient borrowing system.
And the NEW NEWS for today is thatSvetlana Chmakova (she of Dramacon) will be starting a new Tokyopop-backed series called The Adventures of CG! in CosmoGIRL! magazine Amy "Tentopet" Hadley has been signed by Tokyopop for Fool's Gold, a dramaish, romanceish, slice-of-lifeish series set in Colorado.
Head to Love Manga for the rest of the news over the long weekend. Like Newsarama doing so many OEL manga interviews that they gave up on numbering. (roflwaffle)
- Upcoming releases include Embracing Love, Target in the Finder (August), and the Kizuna DVD on August 9 (the fourth manga volume will arrive in October).
- A number of CPM titles have had their release dates moved to 2006 due to the shifting market. Because of how quickly manga moves on and off bookshelves now, they'll be promoting titles first through the "Digipress" online previews and then bringing them out.
DRMaster
- Didn't have a panel, but their booth showed the full range of titles for sale that were formerly from ComicsOne. Tsukihime Vol. 1 has just come out and Stellvia is due this month.
Digital Manga Publishing
- The big thing right now is Range Murata's Robot Vol. 1, a full-color anthology which can be likened to the Japanese version of Flight and comes out this month.
- By popular fan request, the Only the Ring Finger Knows novel will come out in May 2006.
- Upcoming boy's-love/yaoi titles include Yellow, Our Kingdom, Jazz and Alone in My King's Harem (both of which are more explicit than previously published work), Beyond My Touch, and newly acquired Binetsu Kakumei, G-senjou no Neko (Cat on the G-line), Renai Koufukuron, and a bunch of others that the panelists couldn't pronounce very well so I couldn't write them down.
- There's also an advanced Let's Draw Manga: Pen and Ink book due next May.
- Of more interest to artbook fans (and those who would enjoy Robot) is a reprint of Yoshitoshi ABe's Lain artbook, at a more affordable price than the original Japanese hardback edition and containing a US-exclusive "How-to" section.
- There's now a Yuri paddle to go with the Yaoi one, and yuri manga releases are planned in the future.
- And (you're all going to love this one) DMP is planning an English-language boy's-love anthology magazine.
Tokyopop
- Now available: Beck (highly recommended), Sakura Taisen, and Felipe Smith's OEL manga MBQ.
- Highlights coming in August: BLAME!, Saiyuki Reload (sequel to the original series), and Marty LeGrow's OEL Bizenghast.
- September: Girls Bravo, Kamichama Karin (by Pita-Ten and Di Gi Charat manga-ka Koge Donbo, so I'm braking for this one), and OEL titles War on Flesh (voodoo zombies! sounds like something Larry Young would do) and Jen Quick's Off*Beat.
- October: Devil May Cry 3 (based on the videogame), Kingdom Hearts (based on the videogame, highly anticipated, and weirdly enough reads left-to-right), Lights Out, Justice N Mercy (an artbook by the artist of Priest), and OELs Steady Beat, I Luv Halloween and Dramacon.
- November: Samurai Champloo (should easily sell just as fast as the anime), Telepathic Wanderers, Ark Angels (a unique effort where TP Japan provided the project and signed on the artist of Les Bijoux), and OELs A Midnight Opera, Mark of the Succubus, and Psy-comm.
- December: The World Exists For Me (by the creator of Utena) and Tsukiyomi Moon Phase (can't go wrong with vampire catgirls).
- Highlights for 2006 include the popular boy's-love series Loveless in February and Rose Hip Rose in March, by the creator of GTO.
- Also licensed but with no release date announced is Rozen Maiden, which turns the harem formula on its head as a young boy finds himself having to serve a quartet of sentient, elegantly-dressed dolls.
- New illustrated novels include Scrapped Princess and the Gravitation novel.
- LICENSING ISSUES: the publisher of Marmalade Boy is now owned by Viz, so that's out of the question. Meanwhile, Sailor Moon is sort of in limbo as manga-ka Naoko Takeuchi is having issues with the publisher.
Del Rey
- The release of Basilisk is confirmed at last, and will be out sometime in 2006 to sync with Funimation's release of the anime.
- Freshly released titles include A Perfect Day for Love Letters, Guru Guru Pon-chan (dog turns into girl, hilarity ensues), and Love Roma (which is highly recommended by CLAMP themselves).
- Also coming soon are Gacha Gacha (a split-personality comedy by the artist of Boys Be), Ghost Hunt (by the author of Twelve Kingdoms), Sugar Sugar Rune (which will probably worth it just to see Moyoco Anno doing a magical girl story), and shounen rom-com Pastel.
Regarding CLAMP's newest series Kobato, this is being published by the shounen department at Shueisha, which is owned by Viz, although whether Viz had anything to say about it, I don't know because their panel was going on at the same time I was at Del Rey's. I asked at Viz's Shôjo Beat panel and they didn't know.
Viz Shôjo Beat
- No new titles to announce. Wait until Comic-con.
- SB aims to hit the uninitiated crowd as well, and will do so by starting out in bookstores and then expanding to newsstands/supermarkets as regular-type folks discover the magazine.
- The magazine will include occasional giveaways like cell-phone charms and stickers, just like in Japanese shoujo magazines, as well as subscriber exlcusives.
- Extended content will include how-to-draw and a fanart section. OEL works may be allowed later down the line, but they want to build on the Japanese licenses first (which most likely means Viz still doesn't care about OEL manga, seeing as they have a huge Japanese library to pick from already).
- Yes. The cover is REALLY REALLY pink. Opinions are mixed about this.
Oh, and the AX manga library was a disappointment. They need more books and a more efficient borrowing system.
And the NEW NEWS for today is that
Head to Love Manga for the rest of the news over the long weekend. Like Newsarama doing so many OEL manga interviews that they gave up on numbering. (roflwaffle)
1 Comments:
For some reason, this post isn't showing up on your homepage. I had to jump back to the June archives, then mess with the URL to find it.
- Dirk Deppey,
The Comics Journal
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