As long as someone doesn't start a Death Blog ...

Well, the Five Favorite Manga meme sure is getting around. Shawn @ Worlds Within Worlds rounds up the results of AoD Forums vs. the Comics Blogosphere and reveals that there's something of a disconnect between manga readers with an anime background as opposed to those with a Western-comics background. But hey, as long as people are reading comics that they like, I'm all for it.

Johanna @ Cognitive Dissonance, meanwhile, continues to do the totaling for The blogosphere, and adds new material to the reviews at Comics Worth Reading.

And an interesting tidbit from MNS: merchandise from the manga Death Note has been causing a stir in China lately ... those familiar with this title know that the premise centers around a notebook called a "Death Note," where the user writes the names of people that they wish to kill. Actual notepads with the header "The Person's Name Written Here Will Die In 40 Seconds" is getting pretty popular with students writing names of teachers they don't like. Hrmmmm.

Silly schoolgirls, tricks are for wizards!

Broccoli Books, manga's kingpin of production values, releases the first volume of Until the Full Moon, a boy's-love romance with werewolves. And vampires. Throw in some angst and you're set.

Miracle of miracles, Dorian reviews manga @ PoMoBa! Good stuff all around.

AoD looks at Negima Vol. 4, which promises plenty of fanservice and some terrific action.

Pilgrimage

Weekly Toronto periodical eye has a feature on Bryan Lee O'Malley, also known as YOUR GOD, I mean, the creator of Scott Pilgrim. Movie deal, you say? Hmm ... even better if it's animated. (but not CGI plzkthx.)

Chris @ 212 has some stern words for would-be Tokyopop creators. Remember kids, if you're talented enough, there are plenty of places that would love publish your comics rather than just the OMGJAPANESE! one.

AoD launches a new column, Bottom of the Pile, focusing on underrated and overlooked manga. With input from the review staff and AoD forumites, this month's installment looks at the Firefighter! series.

MNS has the latest Top 10 titles in Japan:

1. Fruits Basket Vol. 16
2. Great Detective Conan Vol. 48 (aka Case Closed)
3. RAVE Vol. 31 (I'm assuming this is known in my neck of the woods as Rave Master?)
4. Golden Gouache Vol. 19
5. BECK Vol. 21 (Just licensed!)
6. SAMURAI DEEPER KYO Vol. 30
7. GetBackers-Recapture Ya- Vol. 28
8. KATSU! Vol. 15
9. Empty Of Duck Vol. 5
10. D-LIVE Vol. 9

Blue House

So it looks like the first couple of pages of Seven Seas' Aoi House are up online ... and let me be honest, this is not the impression that English-speaking "manga" ought to be making on the comics world. Anything that references Chobits on the first page as some kind of life ideal -- even jokingly -- is in dire danger of turning into fanboy wank along the lines of "AHAHAHAHA WE ARE ANIME NERDS." Now, I'm not the type to automatically dismiss a comic based on two pages (unless they're really BAD pages), so I'll give Aoi House the benefit of the doubt for now. I sincerely hope that it'll become good, character-driven situational comedy, and not a series of stilted anime references that are only funny to the joke-teller.

The whole point of good manga is to tell imaginative and unexpected stories that soar past the clichés already set forth in the artform. Let's leave the self-referential snark to some other crappy medium, like blogs. ;)

ICv2's latest Retailer Guide to Anime and Manga is out, including a report on the state of the manga market. It's interesting to note that anime, which exploded at the turn of the century with the rise of the DVD, is now tapering off. Using that as a model, perhaps we can expect the manga "bubble" to reach steady-state at around ... 2009?

The Five Comics You Read in Heaven

This just in from ANN: Liann Cooper covers the manga highlights of 2004, including newcomers to the industry such as Del Rey and CMX, the manwha effect, and of course, a whole lot of yaoi.

Cognitive Dissonance kindly rounds up the latest manga goings-on. Most notable is that Viz has merged with Japanese company ShoPro (part of the Shogakukan media empire) to form ONE REALLY GIANT ROBOT. I mean, one really big manga/anime/randomJapanesegoodies distributor.

And since everyone else is doing it, my top five currently running manga series:

1. Hot Gimmick
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion (if only we could get Sadamoto to draw faster ... )
3. xxxHOLiC
4. Oh My Goddess!
5. Midori No Hibi / Midori's Days (okay -- I cheated and this is actually in some weird limbo between being finished on the scanlation circuit but not yet released in the US -- but it's just so cool I have to plug for it anyway, and it WILL be current within a few months)

From Otenba (Bittorrent only; sorry folks) comes another chapter of Read or Dream, the action-comedy that makes bibliophilia cool.

Made to hit in America!

Apologies for the site being down ... it would appear that my hosting provider went on its regularly-scheduled fritz (coughcough).

It would appear that Tokyopop has licensed BECK, the rock 'n' roll manga about a 14-year-old boy who finds direction in his life by taking up guitar and joining a band.

Tokyopop also has plans to animate a couple of original titles that, quite honestly, aren't really all that popular. Or anything. I don't know.

Seven Seas, that champion of the cause of "world manga," announces a new online-only series, Aoi House. (They say webmanga, I say webcomic, let's call the whole thiing off.) Aoi House "follows the trials and tribulations of two down-on-their-luck college boys who join an anime club dominated by crazed fangirls." Hardly original, but I can sympathize all too well with the "crazed fangirls" part. Yeowch.

From Manga News Service comes a listing of Shogakukan's 50th Manga Sho award winners. Winning titles that have already been licensed in the US include Keroro Gunsou (that's Sgt. Frog to Anglophones) in the children's category and Bleach in the shounen category.

And does the world really, really need a collectible card game based on Case Closed?

EVERYONE BE HAPPY Kotonoha has put up another chapter of The Music of Marie. Now go download! :D