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

Lazy bum. We can’t open presents until he’s up and moving. *grumble*

• So Ken Hirai– my favorite Jpop artist, for the record –is going to sing the theme for the new Honey and Clover drama, says TokyoGraph. Damn, now I’ll have to actually watch it. (Yes, I’m a heathen and I could never really get into H&C.)
• About.com manga lists Mushishi as 2007’s Best New Manga, and I’m inclined to agree with that assessment. ♥ Good pick Deb!
• For us perverts who want to see what Kodomo no Jikan is like without all that nasty censorship, Japanator spotted a video on Moetron that provides a batch of the previously-censored scenes uncut from the DVD. Some of the scenes seem silly to censor, but a few I have a hard time being upset over.
• ComiPress Backstage has a feature on Anime News Service, a long-running but often-on-sabbatical news site. (It hasn’t updated since September at the moment, but in all likelihood it’ll pop back into constant updates for a few months in the near future before dropping back out.)

That’s it! Happy holidays, everyone. ♥

Japanator has a fun weekly feature called the Tuesday Otaku Debate, where fans pick a side and do battle to the death in the comments. This week’s debate is a pair of anime/game composers, Toshio Masuda and Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Why am I posting about it? Because I’m officially campaigning for a Masuda win– preferably by a landslide. Masuda-sensei composed two soundtracks that have enriched my life personally: Mushishi and Ghost Hunt. The former is probably better known than the latter, but both are really fantastic CDs, and they’re not his only well-known works: see also Jubei-chan and Jubei-chan 2, Hand Maid May, Puni Puni Poemi, Mahoromatic, and even Naruto.

No disrespect meant for Sakimoto, whose work on games like Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII, along with the music for the anime Romeo x Juliet, is solid and respectable. But I find Masuda’s music stays with me much more firmly.

If you’re interested in other (non-Yoko Kanno) anime composers, I’d recommend Michiru Oshima, who did the fantastic OSTs for Fullmetal Alchemist, and Kouji Ishii, who (along with Yasukasu Tabei) created the incredibly amazing Hellsing soundtrack.

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: