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This week’s On The Shelf went up a couple days early but that just means more time to plot and plan your manga buying trip tomorrow! Sailor Moon (Vol.04) is an easy decision for top pick but I can’t ignore all those new boys’ love books either. The full list for this week’s shipping manga is available over at Otaku USA – enjoy!
The eyes! They stare into my soul! They also command me to let you know that last week Seven Seas sent out a press release announcing two new manga licenses, both due out late this winter in single volume editions:
Mayo Chiki! (Hajime Asano and Niito) – “Kinjiro Sakamachi is a “normal” seventeen-year-old boy who happens to suffer from an abnormal fear of women, otherwise known as gynophobia. His phobia, which surfaces as an occasional nosebleed, has been kept more or less under control…until now. A fateful visit to the school bathroom turns Kinjiro’s world upside down, as he discovers the dashing and popular Konoe Subaru is actually a girl!? What’s worse, the principal’s cruel and domineering daughter, Kanade Suzutsuki, has every reason to keep this secret from leaking out, and makes it her life’s work to torment Kinjiro, while attempting to cure his gynophobia.”
Haganai: I Have No Friends (Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi) – “Recent high school transfer student Hasegawa Kodaka is pathetically inept at making friends. Kodaka is an outcast, with his natural blonde hair which he inherited from his deceased English mother, and his unpleasant, fierce gaze. When he comes across the brash loner Mikazuki Yozorai, who typically chats with her imaginary friend, the two outsiders become the unlikeliest of allies. Realizing they have no hope of a normal social life, the two rejects decide to form a group called “The Neighbor’s Club” in order to make friends and maybe even learn a thing or two about social skills.”
Perfectly timed for the eager, the first volumes of Haganai: I Have No Friends (US) and Mayo Chiki! (US) were added to Amazon for pre-order early this week. The retail website also has listings up for Girl Friends: The Complete Collection (Volume 01 (US) & Volume 02), both of which are listed with just under 500 pages each. Seven Seas announced their license for Girlfriends in November 2011. Seeing their listings reiterates these are some of my most anticipated releases of 2012. It’s going to be a big year for Seven Seas!
Seven Seas Licenses HAGANAI and MAYO CHIKI!
LOS ANGELES, February 29, 2012 – Seven Seas Entertainment is thrilled to announce that it has added two hilarious comedy manga series to its 2012 line-up-the high school fandom comedy Haganai: I Have No Friends and the zany gender-bender Mayo Chiki!
Haganai: I Have No Friends (Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, aka Haganai), by Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi, is a wild, offbeat comedy about social outcasts that spawned a popular Japanese anime TV series that was simulcast in the US in Fall 2011 and will be released on video in North America by Funimation.
Recent high school transfer student Hasegawa Kodaka is pathetically inept at making friends. Kodaka is an outcast, with his natural blonde hair which he inherited from his deceased English mother, and his unpleasant, fierce gaze. When he comes across the brash loner Mikazuki Yozorai, who typically chats with her imaginary friend, the two outsiders become the unlikeliest of allies. Realizing they have no hope of a normal social life, the two rejects decide to form a group called “The Neighbor’s Club” in order to make friends and maybe even learn a thing or two about social skills.
Volume 1 of Haganai: I Have No Friends will hit store shelves in November 2012, with Volume 2 following in February 2013, with later volumes to follow.
Mayo Chiki!, by Hajime Asano and Niito, is a fan service-filled romp sure to please fans of wacky gender-benders like Kashimashi, rollicking harem comedies like Inukami, and over-the-top high school romances such as Toradora. Mayo Chiki! was adapted into a popular anime that aired on Japanese TV in summer 2011.
Kinjiro Sakamachi is a “normal” seventeen-year-old boy who happens to suffer from an abnormal fear of women, otherwise known as gynophobia. His phobia, which surfaces as an occasional nosebleed, has been kept more or less under control…until now. A fateful visit to the school bathroom turns Kinjiro’s world upside down, as he discovers the dashing and popular Konoe Subaru is actually a girl!? What’s worse, the principal’s cruel and domineering daughter, Kanade Suzutsuki, has every reason to keep this secret from leaking out, and makes it her life’s work to torment Kinjiro, while attempting to cure his gynophobia.
Volume 1 of Mayo Chiki! will come out at the end of the year in December 2012, with Volume 2 following in March 2013, with later volumes to follow.
I was a bit late picking up my Previews magazine this month so my apologies to the two of you who were wondering where the heck my second installment of Previews was (I kid! …don’t I?). So here I am taking advantage of that extra day – Happy Leap Day! This month’s previews didn’t have as much manga content as January’s but still lots of fun stuff to look forward to and order in at our local comic stores.
February 2012 Manga Previews Checklist (PDF)
You may continue reading at your own discretion for my thoughts, elaborations, random pictures and the Top 10 Selling Manga of December 2011 and Diamond Comics top selling manga of all 2011!
Post-Valentine’s Day, aka discount chocolate day! New manga and bags full of chocolate is a winning combination to me. There aren’t a whole lot of new titles this week but still plenty of quality, including a couple omnibus for added value.
The new volume of Viz Media‘s 20th Century Boys and Digital Manga’s Black Sun are my must-haves this week. It’s hard to believe I reviewed Black Sun (Vol. 01) back in December 2008! You can see the full list of this week’s releases over at Otaku USA in my On The Shelf article.
Diamond Comics is North America’s largest comic book distributor. If you have a local comic store in your area, it’s very likely they get their books from them. Every month Diamond releases a giant magazine, Previews, containing all the products they have – from comics, manga, DVDs and merchandise – that will be released starting in about two months’ time, giving retailers and buyers the chance to put their orders in before shipping dates.
I’ve been picking up the Previews magazines for years, oogling all the different books coming out from publishers and wondering how long until the stacks of Preview magazines I’ve yet to get rid of will crush me in my sleep. Starting now I’ll be writing about the different manga content published in Previews each month here on Kuriousity. This includes all the manga titles listed, the top Manga sellers as tracked by Diamond and mention of other things of interest I spot. With the small two month window, Diamond Previews has rarely been the source of new licenses but it’s a great reminder and showcase of all the books coming our way soon, plus the perfect time to get your orders in, whether through Diamond or at your online retailer of choice.
I’ll also be including with these monthly Preview posts a downloadable PDF that you can print off and check off the manga you’d like to order. Then it’s as easy as bringing it into your local comic or book store – wherever in your area that orders in through Diamond Comics! Currently the list is just the names and does not include the Diamond order codes. I’ve never come across a store that requires them for ordering but if yours does, let me know and I’ll include them on subsequent files:
January 2012 Manga Previews Checklist (PDF)
You may continue reading at your own discretion for my thoughts, elaborations, random pictures and the Top 10 Selling Manga of November 2011!
It’s the first manga shipment of 2012! Fantagraphics, Kodansha Comics, Seven Seas and Viz Media all have some goodies out this week. You can read all the titles over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.
My top pick of the week is the long-awaited second volume of Wandering Son. I really enjoyed the first and it’s got great publishing quality too. A big hardcover book isn’t how I’d like all my books but for a special few it works beautifully. You can read Shannon’s thoughts on the first book in her review – Wandering Son (Vol. 01).
There are no shortage of ‘Best Of’ lists this time of year. While I like popping around to different peoples’ sites and seeing what they thought, it’s a bit of a frustration that I can’t seem to write one myself. How people choose a solid list containing five or ten favourites, from across different genres and subject matters, is just something I can’t seem to muster the brain power for. Not enough conviction I suppose? There’s just so much to love!
But I can’t overlook the perfect chance to look back at all the great titles a year had to offer and 2011 had some really fantastic ones. So then where is this going, oh rambling one, you ask? My semi-traditional equivalent to the yearly best of – the random Lissa’s favourites and best-ofs list! Which really just means you get a lot more titles broken into a lot more categories so I can remain a lot more loving to a lot more series. And in some cases not so loving… From the Best Release Quality to the Favourite Fan Service and even to the most Gag Worthy – here are a bunch of my favourite titles from 2011!
So it’s that time of year again. Yes, the “everyone makes lists about the best/worst things of the year.” And you know what? I love it. Yes, love it. And so, I decided to put together my own list of my top five best manga of 2011.
To be eligible for this list, all a series had to do was have one book this year that I have read. Some (most actually) began in earlier years but they were the titles I looked forward to reading the most in these last twelve months. And so, without further ado, here are my top picks of the year.
It’s like Christmas come early with release weeks like this – a whole bunch of must-have manga titles! My top pick goes to Princess Knight (Vol. 02) but Blood Alone (Vol. 05) and a slew of Viz Media titles aren’t far behind it.
You can read the full list of titles shipping out this week, along with my usual random synopsis and price-noting, over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.
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