ADV Manga Says No News Is Okay News

Categorized Under: Interviews, Manga, News, Western News
Dated: 25 Jun 2008
Comments: 4

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Chris Oarr seems to be getting a little exhausted of fielding the question “When will Yotsuba&! volume 6 come out,” judging by this brief interview with Publishers Weekly. Oarr says that ADV is “not dead,” which means that they’re still fulfilling orders– even though they aren’t publishing anything new or even reprinting at the moment (i.e. they’re just selling what they have on-hand).

“I know we’ve been criticized for our PR strategy or whatever you want to call it,” Oarr said. “But right now, while we’re sorting everything out, it just doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose to answer the very reasonable questions that fans post on the Internet every day: ‘When will Yotsuba&! come out?’ We don’t know, and we’re not going to lie about it. I’m also not going to go out on the Net every day and say, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

On the one hand, I can sympathize: how many people do you have to say “I don’t know” to before people get it? Hell, I’m kind of tired of people asking about Yotsuba&!. But…for the lulz, you can’t beat John Jakala’s response at Sporadic Sequential:

When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out? When will Yotsuba&! come out?

First Annual Manga Taisho Award Noms Announced

Categorized Under: JP News, Manga, News
Dated: 23 Jan 2008
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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. ;)

Manga Wins Big at ALA’s Great Graphic Novels

Categorized Under: Manga, News, Western News
Dated: 16 Jan 2008
Comments: 6

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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

On the Fridge: I Love Revoltech’s Blog

Categorized Under: Misc, On the Fridge
Dated: 11 Oct 2007
Comment: 1

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Because they’ve got a great sense of humor.

yotsubato.jpg

A Quick Pre-SDCC Roundup

Categorized Under: Anime, Games, JP News, Manga, News, Toys / Swag, Western News
Dated: 26 Jul 2007
Comments: 0

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Okay, I gotta go get ready to do this convention thing, but here are a few more items:

  • Randall over at Ikimashou has a good catch-up with recent figures, including the new Yotsuba Revoltech figure, which is finally up for preorder ♥
  • Speaking of figures, Japanator has a closer look at the fantasy!Haruhi that comes with the new PS2 game.
  • Award-winning Hollow Fields creator Madeleine Rosca has a third post about her trip to Japan up.
  • Apparently loli manga is the best way to explain the Japanese Defense Ministry.
  • Aaaaand according to ComiPress, GoodsTrain is starting a new line for novels, drama CDs, and other books, and one of their first products will be a drama CD for Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de, which is also getting an anime in the near future.