The Beat has this year’s Eisner Award nominations, which include Japanese names in many of the categories (not always for manga, mind).

But Naoki Urasawa’s Monster was nominated for Best Continuing Series and Fumi Yoshinaga was nominated for Best Writer/Artist for Flower of Life (pictured). I dunno about you, but I’m throwing a goddamn party! It’s about time Yoshinaga got some real recognition here.

Here’s a full list of manga nominations:
- Best Continuing Series: Monster (Naoki Urasawa/VIZ)
- Best Publication for Kids: Yotsuba& (Kiyohiko Azuma/ADV)
- Best Archival Collection/Project: Apollo’s Song (Osamu Tezuka/Vertical)
- Best Writer: Fumi Yoshinaga for Flower of Life (DMP)
- Best Writer–Humor: Brandon Graham for King City (TOKYOPOP)
- Best Penciller/Inker: Takeshi Obata for Death Note (VIZ)
- Best Comics-Related Book: Manga: The Complete Guide (Jason Thompson/Del Rey)
- Best Comics-Related Book: Understanding Manga and Anime (Robin Brenner/Libraries Unlimited & Greenwood Publishing)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories (Jiro Taniguchi/Fanfare)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: MW (Osamu Tezuka/Vertical)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Monster (Naoki Urasawa/VIZ)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Tekkonkinkreet (Taiyo Matsumoto/VIZ)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Fuyumi Kouno/Last Gasp)

Also nominated (but not really ‘manga’ per se, from what I can tell): Yuichi Yokoyama’s New Engineering, published by PictureBox.

Yaoi? Rare? It’s more likely than you think! Well, for titles from 801 Media, anyway. Kuri reports that 801 has announced that a couple of their earlier titles– which remain unspecified –are just about out of their print run, and from the sound of it, they don’t plan to print more any time soon.

As mascot 801-chan says…

These books may be in stock for another year, or we might get a huge order from our distributor tomorrow and mail out the last few books. But there are only a few hundred copies left at the 801 warehouse. So… procrastinate at your own risk!

If you want me to speculate, I’m betting it’s their earliest and most popular titles, like possibly the first volume or two of the highly anticipated Love is Like a Hurricane or the first volume of yaoi superstar Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ichigenme. Other possibilities I’d suggest are Sensitive Pornograph, which was undoubtedly a big hit thanks to its super-hot anime OVA version (even though it wasn’t one of 801’s earliest licenses), and My Paranoid Next Door Neighbor, one of the early releases by popular mangaka Kazuka Minami (aka Haruka Minami).

But that’s all speculation on my part, so I could be way off. In any case, go get shopping!

According to anime!anime!, Fumi Yoshinaga’s shoujo (and just-barely-not-BL) masterpiece Antique Bakery, about a troupe of colorful characters who run a bakery, is being made into an anime. It’ll be 12 eps long and run this July.

I hope it’s well-done, and I hope people won’t be complete morons and assume it’s yaoi. It DOES have a gay character, and because Digital Manga Publishing released it in English it generally gets shelved with the yaoi, but there’s only hints at any actual couplings; it’s really just an excellent character study of its four main characters.

HEAR ME PEOPLE? It may still not be your kinda thing, but don’t write it off too fast!@#$

anime!anime! has the manga!manga! news of the nominations for the first annual Manga Taisho awards, whose nominees are decided mostly by booksellers who specialize in manga. There are some familiar names on the list, particularly to me…

Fumi Yoshinaga– whose manga Antique Bakery I declared to be underrated –scored THREE nominations in the awards. I.e. 25%. She was nominated for her historical drama Ooku (I noticed some sites called it Ohoku, which may give the incorrect idea that it’s pronounced oh-hoh-ku, but if romanized directly it’s actually Oooku (おおおく), which looks weird in English, so I went with Ooku, which anyone who knows the basics of Japanese pronunciation will get is pronounced “ohh-ku”– just FYI), which also won a Shogakukan award a year or two ago, if I remember correctly.

The other two titles she was nominated for were Kinou Nani Tabeta? (”what did you eat yesterday?”) and Flower of Life. The latter is not BL; I’m not sure about the former but BL isn’t usually given awards, so I bet it’s not. (For those unaware, Fumi Yoshinaga is best known in America for her BL manga, though Japan knows better than to ignore her non-BL works!)

The rest of the nominations are:

• Umi Machi Diary 1 Semishigure no Yamugoro (”Beach Town Diary 1 The Time the Cricket Chirping Stops”) by Akimi Yoshida
• Gaku (”Mountain”) by Shinichi Ishizuka
• Kimi ni Todoke (”Reaching You”) by Karuho Shiina
• Koukoku no Shugosha (”Imperial Guards”) by Daisuke Satou and Yuu Itou
• Tomehane! Suzuri Koukou Shodoubu (”Tomehane! Suzuri High School Calligraphy Club)”) by Katsutoshi Kawai
• Natsume Yuujinchou (”Natsume Friend Directory”) by Yuki Midorikawa
• Himawari Kenichi Legend (”Sunflower Legend of Kenichi”) by Akiko Higashimura
• Moyashimon (could be translated as “Gangly Beansprout Children,” ha!) by Masayuki Ishikawa
• Yotsubato! (”Yotsuba&!”) by Kiyohiko Azuma

Congratulations, Yoshinaga-sensei! @_@ And everyone else too. ;)

The American Library Association has released its list of Great Graphic Novels for 2008, and ADV, TOKYOPOP, Del Rey, Go! Comi, CMX, VIZ, Dark Horse, Vertical, and Digital Manga Publishing all took home prizes this year.

For Del Rey it was Pumpkin Scissors 1, Alive 1 and 2, and Mushishi 1 and 2 (natch).

TOKYOPOP got honors for King of Thorn 1 and 2, VIZ’s Love*Com 1 and Kekkaishi 7 and 8 are mentioned, and ADV’s Yotsuba& volume 4.

CMX wins for Emma, of course, volumes 1-5. Dark Horse took home one for the well-received shoujo manga Translucent, and Vertical’s prize is for To Terra 1-3. Digital Manga Publishing got awards for Flower of Life, by Fumi Yoshinaga (who is an amazing mangaka, best known for her BL– unfortunately for her non-BL titles like Flower or Antique Bakery, which are phenomenal).

I think Go! Comi wins for the actual number of books mentioned: Train+Train 1-3 and After School Nightmare 1-5, a total of 8 books (versus Del Rey and CMX who got 5 each).

And finally, the well-regarded manga Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fuyimo Kouno also made the list.

Also of note: Mark Crilley’s extremely manga-inspired graphic novel series Miki made the list for three volumes, and the first volume of SoHee Park’s manhwa Goong gives some last-second acclaim to the defunct ICE Kunion.

Original source: ALA
Secondary source: Blog@Newsarama

Sorry about the weekend quietness, but I was at a RennFaire. I’m back now!

The American Library Association has nominated another round of books for its Young Adult Library Services Association Award, and as usual, some manga made it to the list of “great graphic novels.” A lot of them are OEL, but here goes:

Let’s see, going down the list from top to bottom: