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Archive for the On The Shelf Category

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – October 26, 2011

On The Shelf - October 26, 2011

It’s a week of especially amazing works coming out! Don’t waste a manga-buying moment and stop by this week’s On The Shelf article to see the titles being released tomorrow.

A Bride’s Story (Vol.02), Yotsuba&! (Vol.10), Drops of God (Vol.01)… and then you have the fangirl button pressing Black Butler (Vol. 07) and a guilty pleasure like Air Gear (Vol.20) sprinkled on top. But those are just my absolute must-haves – still lots more on the list where those came from.

Writing On The Shelf for Otaku USA, I continue to be impressed week after week about just how much manga is released in North America. Stacks of new books every week. And by stand nearly every book at 150+ pages and all this ‘after’ the manga bubble ‘burst’. Sure we can always want more and more but you know what? We’re so darn lucky and I love it! Thank you, publishers :)


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – October 19, 2011

On The Shelf - October 19th - Gate7

Back from New York with a suitcase full of swag and I was still excited to get home and see what new goodies are out this week! If you’re curious about what new manga titles are out, you can pop over to Otaku USA to read my On The Shelf article for the week.

A big chunk of my excitement for this week’s releases is because the first volume of Gate 7 is finally out. CLAMP are some of my favourite creators and to have a new title from them to read for the first time is really exciting. How many years has it been since that happened? Plus the book looks gorgeous! Dark Horse has a preview of the manga’s first chapter over on their website that you can read to get an early glimpse.


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – October 12, 2011

On The Shelf - October 12, 2011

Conventions are generally my time to dig through boxes of vendors’ manga to find those older missed titles but that doesn’t mean I skip a beat on the new titles out! My most recent On The Shelf article is up at Otaku USA with this week’s new releases.

I was really happy to see the new volume of March Story is out from Viz Media. It’s not a series that seems to be on many people’s radar but I really enjoyed the first two. They can get pretty gruesome but my interest in the characters and gorgeous imagery outweighed the sometimes overly-heavy violence elements easily.

Seeing the release dates come up for Digital Manga‘s big pile of boys’ love titles was the real kicker for me though. Rabbit Man, Tiger Man; A Strange & Mystifying Story; and Kizuna are three of my favourite boys’ love series. I hope I can find copies of these new books at NYAF this weekend!


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – October 5, 2011

On The Shelf - October 5, 2011

Better late than never? My On The Shelf article went up last week on Otaku USA so check it out to see what new books you can expect to see on bookstore shelves right now. It’s the beginning of the month so that means lots and lots of Viz Media!

My top picks for the week are My Boyfriend is A Vampire from Seven Seas and Bakuman (Vol. 07) from Viz Media. The first sounds a lot like Until the Full Moon from Kodansha Comics, only with a manhwa and street-gang twist. It’s an omnibus too so ‘yay!’ for more manga for my money.


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 21, 2011

On The Shelf - September 21, 2011

It’s Full Metal Alchemist week! Only two volumes left, making tomorrow’s release (Vol. 26) the penultimate installment. With Viz Media‘s trend of stopping series mid-omnibus (which seems rather ridiculous to me!), I’m looking forward to buying the huge boxsetout in November. The whole series, plus some bonuses, all in one go – it’s a beautiful thing.

Back to the here and tomorrow, you can see the list of books released this week over at my Otaku USA: On The Shelf article . My top picks (alongside FMA) are XXXHolic (Vol. 17), Arata the Legend (Vol. 07) and Berserk (Vol.35). Some modern fantasy, overlapping modern/ancient fantasy and then some outright old-fashion, demon-ridden Western-style fantasy – an excellent combination for manga reading this week!


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 14, 2011

On The Shelf - September 14, 2011

It’s Sailor Moon week!! Well… for lots of people anyway. Alas not me and many others relying on Diamond Comics and/or overseas shipping. Still, knowing it’s out there this week and coming our way soon is really exciting.

There are a lot of new manga releases this week alongside Sailor Moon however so I’ll have plenty of fantastic books to distract me from the woes of a Moon-less release date. For all the titles out to bookstore shelves this week, my newest On The Shelf article is posted over at Otaku USA.

New volumes of Bunny Drop, Twin Spica, With The Light, Arisa and a handful of new series starting (among others) – plenty for everyone!


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 7, 2011

Otaku USA: On The Shelf - September 7

Students, students, students – they’re everywhere! Here in Halifax we have a large amount of universities and colleges considering the size of our humble city so when September hits, the population seems to spike! I hope they’re lucky enough to find the awesome places we have here to buy comics and manga, just in time for this week’s new stuff.

My On The Shelf article is up over at Otaku USA which includes a whole bunch of Viz Media titles and four new series starting from Kodansha Comics. There’s just so darn much! A gift for the shelves and a curse for the wallet. Perfect moment to be thankful that so many independent Canadian retailers charge based on the strength of the dollar and not those prices on the back of books though… yikes.


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – August 31, 2011

On The Shelf - August 31, 2011

Is it really the last day of August already? Yikes… summer just flew by. I can’t believe people will be returning to school in just a few days. I may’ve graduated years ago, but I still love hitting the books – just a different kind of course (not that I didn’t read a heck of a lot of manga in my school years as well!). Otaku USA has my newest edition of On The Shelf posted for this week’s manga releases.

My top pick is definitely Kohta Hirano’s Drifters. Elves, magic, distorted and exaggerated historical figures and the creator’s snazzy art style = a must read! Fingers crossed we don’t have to wait as long for volume two of Drifters as we did for volume thirteen of Eden… Better than never though, Dark Horse, so my thanks for both this week!


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – August 24, 2011

On The Shelf!

New manga day! Well… yesterday was anyway. Not much out this week but still some goodies. You can read the whopping list of four over at this week’s edition of Otaku USA’s On The Shelf.

My top pick this week is the new volume of Oh!Great’s Air Gear. Having just finished the new omnibus book of Tenjo Tenge, I’m ready for another similar dose of action! It’s also a relief knowing Air Gear isn’t as violent, sexual and over-dramatized. Sure it is all of those things too, but the years between the two series has made the art much more polished and the story tighter.


Otaku USA: On The Shelf – August 17, 2011

Otaku USA: On The Shelf - August 17

Wednesday is upon us again! New comics time, it’s a beautiful thing. This week new manga releases are represented in full by Viz Media and Yen Press. You can check out the full list over in my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.

My top pick for this week is Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys (Vol. 16) from Viz Media:

“Hands down the book I’m most eager for is 20th Century Boys (Vol. 16)—after the short epilogue-esque chapter at the end of volume 15, I’ll be diving atop that book as soon as it’s unpacked. A certain main character has some explaining to do amidst all the world-altering biological warfare.”


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