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NYCC 2012: Yen Press Announces New Madoka, Alice and Artbooks

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 15, 2012

Yen Press took the stage – quite literally it sounds – this past week at NYCC to announce a handful of new manga licenses and upcoming releases. For new titles, behold the following:

Are You Alice? – Ai Ninomiya & Ikumi Katagiri
K-ON! highschool – kakifly
K-ON! college – kakifly
Puella Magi Kazumi Magica ~The innocent malice~ – Takashi Tensugi
Puella Magi Oriko Magica – Chloe Mura

The two K-ON books are sequels to the original K-ON manga, which Yen Press is currently publishing, while the two Puella Magi series are spin-offs of their origin story, Puella Magi Madoka Magica. As two of Yen Press’s most popular titles, it’s no surprise to see their franchises get further title exploration. Good news for the fans!

The solo entirely-new series in this batch is Are You Alice?, a story based on Alice in Wonderland but that sees a young man don the name of Alice and become embroiled in a sinister, non-nonsensical game of kill-the-white-rabbit. The story sounds neat though not especially gripping by synopsis alone. The art though really caught my eye when I was looking it up. I see some eye-candy on the horizon at the very least.

Other neat news of the panel was word that Yen Press will be releasing a Soul Eater art book next year including colour pages from the original manga and a bunch of character illustrations. Down the road they also plan to release an art book based on Highschool of the Dead. It likely goes without saying that you can expect plenty of blood, boobs and butts from that one.

I was hoping for a little more from Yen Press at NYCC, but spin-offs or not, five new titles is still something to be appreciative for and I’ll very likely be picking up Are You Alice? when it’s released next year. Of the announcements, I’m actually most excited to see them delving into art book territory. I love manga art books!

For more coverage on Yen Press’s panel, including news about their digital ventures, I recommend ANN’s full write up of the show.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Conventions, Manga, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Yen Press

NYCC 2012: Kodansha Comics Licenses No. 6, Sailor Moon Artbook…

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, October 14, 2012

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It was Kodansha Comics‘ turn to impress today at NYCC with a handful of new licenses:

No. 6 – Atsuko Asano & Hinoki Kino
Sankarea: Undying Love – Mitsuru Hattori
Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode – Mia Ikumi
Vinland Saga – Makoto Yukimura

Kodansha Comics is bound to have made many readers really happy today with these titles. I have no experience with any of them myself but I’ve seen rallying cries for No. 6 and Vinland Saga, in particular, for quite a while. These are the two I’m most excited to read by reputation alone (and all the adorable No. 6 fanart that continues to litter art sites doesn’t hurt either). Sankarea sounds bizarre enough to potentially give a try and Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode I’ll likely pick up out of affection for its predecessor, Tokyo Mew Mew.

You can read a synopsis for all Kodansha Comics’ newest titles on their website. Huzzah for new license announcements that include titles, creator credits, release dates and synopsis’s! Volume one of No. 6 and Sankarea are scheduled for a June 2013 release, while Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode and Vinland Saga will be released that following winter.

Along with their new titles, Kodansha Comics also announced they’d be speeding up the print copies of Fairy Tail to one a month in order to catch up with Japan. This will begin in March 2013 with volume twenty-four. The series itself is currently over thirty volumes in Japan.

Air Gear – which Kodansha Comics has released up to volume twenty-six so far – is due to be released in omnibus format from the beginning. The first volume of this new edition will be released in May 2013.

A bonus treat announced today was that Kodansha Comics would be handling the English publication of an upcoming Sailor Moon art book that’s due to be published worldwide in 2013. All editions released globally will have the same paperback trim size, plus dust jacket, and art content including some of the most popular Sailor Moon drawings along with new artwork by the series creator, Naoki Takeuchi. Kodansha Comics also confirmed that after they finish publishing the original manga series, they will be releasing the series of Sailor Moon short stories as well. (Src: A Case Suitable For Treatment)

And last, but not least – though I don’t believe this was announced during their Saturday panel – Kodansha Comics has relaunched their website with a new layout. It doesn’t offer any new content but does load a lot more nicely than their previous site. There is a blog section currently marked as Coming Soon that could offer some interesting new info and insight in the future, much like Vertical Inc’s newly relaunched on-site blog. (Note: Lack of link to Vertical’s blog is due to numerous virus warnings on Vertical’s site in recent weeks; better safe than sorry!)

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Air Gear, Conventions, Kodansha Comics, Manga, No.6, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Omnibus, Sailor Moon, Sankarea

NYCC 2012: Vertical Nabs Tezuka’s Twin Knights, Okazaki’s Helter Skelter

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, October 13, 2012

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It begins! New York Comic Con 2012 is this weekend and there’s been a lot of anticipation that this would be the big news event of the year for comics and manga. It’s a great show, having an audience big enough to be an important promotional opportunity but without all the same Hollywood-suffocation of SDCC. This is the first time in a few years I haven’t attended, but fortunately there’s no shortage of Twitter tweets and news posts to keep us all informed of the news as it breaks.

Vertical Inc. was one of the first to provide us eager readers with manga news. They’ve licensed two new series both due out next year:

Twin Knights – Osamu Tezuka
Helter Skelter – Kyoko Okazaki

Of the two, Twin Knights is definitely the big news for me. It’s a sequel series to Tezuka’s Princess Knight which Vertical released in two omnibus volumes last year. This follow-up story takes place years in the future with the birth of Princess Sapphire’s twin children – Prince Daisy and Princess Violetta. When the two grow older, the son is kidnapped and his sister juggles her own identity while pretending to be him in order to go out and make a rescue. Sounds great to me!

The other series really piques my interest as well. I haven’t heard of Helter Skelter in detail until now but it sounds like a story that fits well in Vertical’s library of books which includes titles like Lychee Light Club, Black Jack and 7 Billion Needles.

“Helter Skelter revolves around Ririko, a model who underwent extensive plastic surgery to attain her beauty. The clinic who performed Ririko’s surgeries goes under investigation for questionable business practices, and Ririko’s body starts to deteriorate. As the model’s prominence in the entertainment industry begins to falter, so does her sanity.” – AnimeNewsNetwork

The first volume of Twin Knights will be released in July 2013 for $12.95/US, $13.95/CAN. Volume one of Helter Skelter will premiere in July 2013 as well for $16.95/US, $18.95/CAN.

ANN has a full write-up of the event, including this interesting tidbit “…gauging interest in starting a subscription model so that series will stay in print.”. Fantagraphics recently offered a subscription-like service for their series, Wandering Son. Omnibus volumes were a big trend-shift for print manga in North America – could subscription models be next? If it’ll keep printed books in my hands, then sign me up! My only real issue with subscriptions directly with publishers is cutting out the comic-store middle man, but it’s all test-and-see now.

Back to the manga goods in closing – two awesome licenses! Excellent choices, Vertical. I’m eagerly awaiting them both next summer.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: 7 Billion Needles, Conventions, Helter Skelter, Manga, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Osamu Tezuka, Vertical Inc

PR: Author of the Doujin Smash Hit Let’s Eat Ramen! at New York Comic Con 2012!

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, September 29, 2012

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GEN Manga Announces the appearance of Nagumo at NYCC 2012!

Nagumo will be signing and talking with fans daily at NYCC (Oct. 11th-14th )

NEW YORK, NY – GEN Manga Entertainment, Inc. announces the appearance of Nagumo, the author of Let’s Eat Ramen at the official GEN Manga booth #1025. Nagumo will be conducting signings and Q&A’s daily with fans throughout this year’s NYCC.

Nagumo is the author of the popular series Radio de Go! Making his debut in Manga Time Kirakira Carat in 2007 he has since made waves in the Japanese doujin community with his hit Radio de Go! Nagumo released an original story earlier this year exclusively for GEN Manga titled Let’s Eat Ramen.

Let’s Eat Ramen is the story of Saeki, a girl who loves ramen noodles. At last, she thinks that she has finally found the perfect ramen shop, but the problem is the shop is completely full of old regulars and she can’t get in. Will the timid Saeki ever summon the willpower to reach out and get the ramen that she desperately wants? An indie manga about the finer points of eating ramen noodles from the creator of the radio manga Radio de Go!, brought to you by genmanga.com. Available now in GEN 8 (162 pages, 1.99, available now)!

Flavor by Aji-chi, is GEN Manga’s latest edition to the exclusive underground anthology.

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Categories: Press Releases
Tags: GEN Manga, NYCC

Manga Guests Announced for New York Comic Con 2012

By Lissa Pattillo on Thursday, September 20, 2012

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New York Comic Con – formally known in-part as the New York Anime Fest – is swiftly coming up with October just around the corner. Leading up to the date with news of their guests and events, the convention announced Tuesday (via their mobile app) that they’ll be having three manga guests in attendance for NYCC 2012.

Masakazu Ishiguro
Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru

Moyoco Anno (website)
Sakuran*, Flowers & Bees*, Sugar Sugar Rune

Toshio Maeda (website)
Demon Beast Invasion*, La Blue Girl, Legend of the Overfiend*, Adventures Kid*

*These series are rated 18+ for sexual content, and sometimes violence, so readers be warned if you’re curious of what they are! Toshio Maeda’s website also has a lot of mature imagery.

The app lists Masakazu Ishiguro as a guest courtesy of JManga, while Moyoco Anno will be there as a special guest of Vertical Inc. JManga is currently releasing Ishiguro’s Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru (digital only) and Vertical Inc. just released a beautiful omnibus release of Moyoco Anno’s Sakuran this past summer. They have a few more details about her appearance on their newly relaunched blog.

Vertical Inc’s marketing director, Ed Chavez, spent Monday teasing eager fans on Twitter with news that there would be a big announcement on Tuesday. Guesses ranged from new licenses to Vertical Inc going digital, but the closest hint he’d give was that the news would make some happy and others sad (“…will applaud but will be saddened all the same.”). The news is great for Vertical but I can’t say I was particularly happy or sad either way, finding the news rather lacklustre after all that hype. Then again I’m not someone who generally goes to conventions for the guests so that’s just me. None the less, I hope all three guests have a great time visiting the convention and meeting some of their global fans!

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Categories: News
Tags: Conventions, Digital, Hentai, Manga, Moyoco Anno, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Vertical Inc

NYAF 2011: Manga Out Loud Podcast & Recap

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, November 6, 2011

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It’s been almost a month since New York Anime Fest with recaps and reflections still trickling out from the thousands who attended. 105,000, in fact. Wow!

Ed Sizemore invited Erica (Okazu), Melinda (Manga BookShelf) and I to be guests on his Manga Out Loud podcast. It’s posted online now and is part two of his New York Comic Con podcasts. We had a good conversation about what we did at the convention, how we felt it was handled by staff and organizers and about the discussion of legal issues surrounding comics.

The podcast got my brain turning again on my thoughts on the convention. Overall I found other elements of my trip to New York more fulfilling than the convention itself (dinners with awesome people! Kinokuniya! Book-Off!) but from an organizational point of view, I thought NYCC/NYAF was much better handled this year than it was in 2010.

My thoughts and some accompanying photos can be read below:

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Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Conventions, Dark Horse, Gate 7, Kodansha Comics, Manga, Media Blasters, NYCC, One Peace Books, Podcast, Sailor Moon, Vertical Inc, Viz Media, Yen Press

NYAF 2011: Kodansha Comics

By Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, October 18, 2011

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A downside to larger cons is that panel rooms can’t always hold everyone who wants to attend. This was the case with me and the Kodansha Comics panel at this year’s New York Anime fest. A wait in a long, long line ended with me being told the room could hold no more – alas! I’d forgotten that Kodansha had brought the creator of Fairy Tale, Hiro Mashima, to the convention and his presence at the panel filled it to standing room only (minus any remaining standing room so I’m told!).

Internet and dedicated bloggers still ensured the news got out to the masses though, as well as two press releases. This means the news for you without the 1500+ words from me! You can read about their new license, upcoming omnibus editions and their digital launch under the cut.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Attack on Titan, Conventions, Kodansha Comics, NYAF 2011, NYCC, Sailor Moon

NYAF 2011: Viz Media

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 17, 2011

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Manga programming was light after Friday at NYCC, but Sunday had Viz Media‘s panel with a big announcement to share and some licenses worth getting giddy for. I’ve included the full write up of the panel in my post here, including the anime-related news instead of just the manga. Since the post is so lengthy, however, here’s a quick summary of the event manga-wise:

New licenses:

Jiu Jiu – Toya Tobino
Loveless – Yun Kouga

Announcement:

Shonen Jump print magazine to be discontinued in March 2012; replaced by digital edition that will come out weekly and feature new chapters of titles from Japan within weeks of their release. Graphic novels of these titles will be released digitally to allow readers to get caught up before the new chapters begin. Viz Media is calling this their ‘digital warp’.

You can read the full details and anime news under the cut!

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Bakuman, Bleach, Boys' Love/Yaoi, Conventions, Loveless, Manga, Naoki Urasawa, Neon Genesis Evangelion, NYAF 2011, NYCC, Omnibus, One Piece, Shoujo Beat, Skip Beat, Toriko, Viz Media

PR: Kodansha Comics’ New iPad App Debuts at NYCC

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 17, 2011

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KODANSHA COMICS’ NEW IPAD APP DEBUTS AT NEW YORK COMIC-CON
APP CREATED AND SERVICED BY RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHER SERVICES

App to launch with $2.99 Fairy Tail promotion in celebration of manga creator New York Comic-Con guest Hiro Mashima

NEW YORK, October 14, 2011 – Kodansha USA Publishing is proud to announce the debut of the Kodansha Comics app, appearing at midnight tonight in the iTunes store. The app was created by Random House, Inc.’s digital content team on behalf of Kodansha, a Random House Publisher Services division client. It will be free to download, with most volumes priced for sale at $4.99. The Kodansha Comics iPad app will launch with 34 books covering four series: Arisa by Natsumi Ando; Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima; Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei by Koji Kumeta; and Until the Full Moon by Sanami Matoh. Additional series will be added to the app in the near future.

In a special launch promotion designed to celebrate the appearance at New York Comic-Con of Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima, all fifteen volumes of Fairy Tail will be available at the special price of $2.99 each for a limited time.

Random House, Inc. has been increasing its own focus on the digital world with the acquisition in May of digital media agency Smashing Ideas, as well as with its in-house corporate digital content and services group. With numerous apps and specialized eBooks under their belt, the Random House team was the ideal choice to develop this exciting new app for Kodansha.

Servicing this app is a natural extension of Random House Publisher Services distribution agreement with Kodansha USA Publishing, which covers sales and distribution, and also editorial, production and marketing.

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Categories: Press Releases
Tags: Kodansha Comics, Manga, Negima, NYCC

PR: Kodansha Comics Announces Attack On Titan at NYCC

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 17, 2011

1 Comment »

KODANSHA COMICS ANNOUNCES HAJIME ISAYAMA’S
ATTACK ON TITAN AT NEW YORK COMIC-CON

Also reveals Genshiken and Kitchen Princess omnibuses

NEW YORK, October 14, 2011 – Today at New York Comic-Con Kodansha Comics announced three new titles for summer 2012: Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama, Genshiken Omnibus by Kio Shimoku, and Kitchen Princess Omnibus by Natsumi Ando and Miyuki Kobayashi.

** Attack on Titan
Humanity has been devastated by the bizarre, giant humanoids known as the Titans. Little is known about where they came from or why they are bent on consuming humanity. Seemingly unintelligent, they have roamed the world killing off humankind for years. For the past century, what’s left of mankind has hidden in a giant, three-walled city. People believe their 100-meter-high walls will protect them from the Titans, which are 10 to 20 meters tall. But the sudden appearance of an immense Titan is about to change everything.

Attack on Titan is a breakout hit in Japan, where the first five volumes of the series have sold over 5.5 million copies in just 18 months. The series has won multiple manga awards, including Best Shonen Manga of 2010. The first volume releases in June 2012.

Genshiken Omnibus
Welcome to the world of the Genshiken, home of the true otaku – the Japanese term for ubergeek. This is the story of a group of friends who are all members of the most hardcore anime and manga fan club in all of Tokyo – and the girls who love them. Genshiken was very popular during its initial release several years ago, and this edition collects the first three volumes in May 2012.

Kitchen Princess Omnibus
Najika has always known how to cook. She understands food, and how it touches people’s hearts. But she herself has always been looking for more. When she was a child, she met a boy who touched her heart, and now Najika has set out to find this boy. The only clue she has is a silver spoon that leads to the prestigious Seika Academy. Fitting in at Seika will be a challenge. Every kid in Najika’s class has a special talent, and the girls at the school think Najika’s not worthy. But Sora and Daichi, two popular brothers who barely speak to each other, recognize Najika’s cooking for what it is — magical. Is either boy Najika’s mysterious prince? Find out by starting with this three-volume collection of one of Kodansha’s most popular shojo series in June 2012.

Read more…

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