Reading manga online isn’t for everyone. Looking at any screen for hours can make your head hurt and your eyeballs fell like they’ve been dipped in bleach. Luckily, I was designed in a lab specifically to avoid those symptoms. I love reading manga online. I love that I control the vertical and the horizontal, that I can sharpen a single image to crystal clarity. I love that no trees were killed in order for me to enjoy a particular volume. I love that I can read the many works of Makoto Tateno and not worry about where in my tiny house I’ll fit them.

But while I like reading manga on my computer screen, that doesn’t mean I give every manga company that posts their wares online a pass. In fact, because I enjoy it so much, I want to see it done right. For the most part there’s not a big difference between publishers’ online manga viewers. It’s a pretty basic concept: it’s manga, and it’s online. This article is to point out the tiny details that differentiate them, the little things that either makes reading manga online a pleasure or a pain.

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My local comic shop Strange Adventures is having a 20% off everything sale this month – hopefully that means lots of new books in the coming weeks!

While there this week I picked up a few different books:

Peepo Choo (Vol. 01) – This book was insane. I read it on the way home on the bus (for which thankfully I was sitting in the back because this is not the kind of book you want to think people are reading over your shoulder). Very 18+ material and pretty mean too. I liked it over all because of the sheer amount of ridiculous energy but the creator is definitely out to make a statement by being pretty insultive. But though over-emphasized, it’s still based on nerd-dom truths so you can’t hate it for that. The stereotypical anime fans versus comic fans scene is pretty entertaining and hits the nail on the head. The amount of sex and violence really surprised me though but I did very much find myself wishing it’d stick to those parts and leave the ‘weeabo’ drooling, shiney-eyed main character behind.

Black Jack (Vol. 12) – One of the series that I just cannot wait to pick-up – when I know it’s out, I must have it! This volume continues the trend of never disappointing. I do find each time I read a new volume I always think ‘this is darker than before’ in regards to how the stories end but since I have that thought every time, I think it just proves how much continuing good shock value some of the stories have, not that they’re actually getting more grim or serious over time.

And from the wonderful bargain bin I picked up volume four of Me & My Brothers and volume two of A Tale of an Unknown Country. I haven’t read either of the series before so reading through these volumes should give me an idea of if I’d like to hunt out the rest of the volumes.

And arriving in the mail for me this week was two volumes of Yuri Montogari which are really uniquely varied stories of lesbian-love stories (some with definite twists in some stories) and a copy of Moto Haigo’s Drunken Dream and Other Stories from Fantagraphics Books. I was really surprised to see Drunken Dreams is a large-trim, hardcover book with glossy decoration work.

And as a little birthday present for myself I picked up an artbook by Ken Mizuki titled Sarasa. It’s a pretty small artbook compared to the others in my collection (small page count) but the cost was cheap and the art inside still very pretty. I think this artist primarily does doujinshi so while I’ve never read any of their manga, it was neat to see some artwork in here that I remember seeing scattered across fan-forums back in the days of Gundam and Saint Seiya fandom.

And lastly, thanks to the public library, I’ve been reading the Manga Guide to Statistics. It’s admittedly weird reading something that makes me feel like I’ve been dropped back in high school yet at the same time I really have to give the book credit for being such a good teaching tool. I had to reread some parts a few times to grasp the more involved stuff yet the fact that it makes me want to learn this stuff enough to do so is impressing me in itself. I’m definitely planning on reading the other books in this series.

Apologies to any who now have a four word jingle stuck in their head and want to clean things with the aid of a brawny bald man. Here we are on Monday, meaning San Diego Comic Con is behind us for another year. Not as many announcements as people were hoping but still some fun new titles to look forward to. As I’m all behind on posting on them, we can look at it as a sort of extended SDCC 2010… right?

Tokyopop had its panel mid-weekend and offered up few new series for the masses:

The staff also went over the list of upcoming releases which you can read in its entirety over at AnimeNewsNetwork. After noticing an absence of a number of titles I was really looking forward (such as the newest volumes of Matsuri Akino’s series), I asked over Twitter and was promptly responded to by Tokyopop who assured me they were coming soon (with picture proof!). Now that’s service :)

Other tidbits of news included confirmation of the new Gakuen Heaven titles discovered on Amazon a few months ago ( Endo ~ Calling you & Shichijo ~ Sweet Sweet Darling) along with schedule updates for a few other BLU titles as well – “Baseball Heaven, due out 10/12/10, Stray Cat by Halco (11/9/10), Secretary’s Love by tohko Akiba (12/7/10), and You and Me, Etc. by Kyuugou (2/8/11)” (from ANN)

Tokyopop will also be releasing some jigsaw puzzles for their original properties (yay?), will be releasing more manga via digital means at $5.99 a book and shared some more details on a How To Draw Shoujo Manga book which will include material from Japanese company Hakusensha’s line-up including fan-favourites Ouran Host Club and Fruits Basket.

Here we are kicking off day one of Kuriousity’s fourth year! How about starting a new tradition with some new weekly content?

Buying manga isn’t something that seems to be as shared and celebrated as I’d like it to be, despite knowing that thousands of people are out there enjoying their purchases on a daily basis. Though my reviewers and I have managed to accumulate almost 700 reviews these past few years, they’re barely even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the books we buy and enjoy (not enough hours in the day!).

So! I’m going to start sharing what I buy with a few first impressions before I sit down to read them. Whether they serve as a reminder that ‘oh such-and-such a title is out now!’ or a simple ‘neat, she’s reading it too!’, I hope people find some fun in what’s in my shopping bag this week and are encouraged to share what you’ve bought recently as well! And if you’re interested in hearing more about a particular title, please feel free to let me know and I’ll do my best to have that title reviewed in full here on Kuriousity once I’ve finished reading it.

So what was in the bag this week thanks to new-comics-Wednesday at my favourite stop-and-shop location, Strange Adventures? Let’s take a look-see! (anyone but me have a bad habit of forgetting what they bought on the way home? At least there’s that fun rediscovery later!)

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News travels fast in the manga-world and this is definitely news worth spreading – a press release circulated by Viz Media today outlines the creation of a publisher coalition teaming up to target illegal distribution of their work.

“Working together, the membership of the coalition will actively seek legal remedies to this intellectual property theft against those sites that fail to voluntarily cease their illegal appropriation of this material.”

Along with a list of Japanese license-holders, North American manga publishers Viz Media, Yen Press, Vertical and Tokyopop are also all on the list showing a crackdown on piracy that many had hoped (and some expected) was coming.

So what does this mean for the manga scanlation world? In some ways a lot, and in others probably not so much. While the specifics of this coalition isn’t addressed in much detail in the press release, it seems safe to say that Viz, Yen Press and Tokyopop aren’t likely to call out the big guns over things like individual scanlation groups unless they’re outright violating licenses they hold. The large aggregator sites that make money off of posting full series (many of which fully available in English) on the other hand, are something that’s been a huge eyesore in the entire industry and medium for ages, offending companies, fans and scanlators alike as they dropkick any percieved notion of nobility square in the proverbial balls.

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MULTI-NATIONAL MANGA ANTI-PIRACY COALITION FORMED

San Francisco, CA, June 8, 2010 – Today a coalition of Japanese and U.S. publishers announced a coordinated effort to combat a rampant and growing problem of internet piracy plaguing the manga industry. “Scanlation,” as this form of piracy has come to be known, refers to the unauthorized digital scanning and translation of manga material that is subsequently posted to the internet without the consent of copyright holders or their licensees. According to the coalition, the problem has reached a point where “scanlation aggregator” sites now host thousands of pirated titles, earning ad revenue and/or membership dues at creators’ expense while simultaneously undermining foreign licensing opportunities and unlawfully cannibalizing legitimate sales. Worse still, this pirated material is already making its way to smartphones and other wireless devices, like the iPhone and iPad, through apps that exist solely to link to and republish the content of scanlation sites.

Participants in the coalition include the 36 members of Japan’s Digital Comic Association, Square Enix, VIZ Media, TOKYOPOP, Vertical, Inc., the Tuttle-Mori Agency and Yen Press. Working together, the membership of the coalition will actively seek legal remedies to this intellectual property theft against those sites that fail to voluntarily cease their illegal appropriation of this material.

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CALLING ALL OTAKU…
Announcing America’s Greatest Otaku and the TOKYOPOP Tour

The search is on for the most talented fan in the nation!

Los Angeles, CA (May 13, 2010) - This summer, TOKYOPOP will hit the road on a 12,000-mile journey to find America’s Greatest Otaku, the person who best exemplifies a truly unique fervor and passion for all things influenced by Japanese pop culture. This nationwide competition will be part of the ambitious “TOKYOPOP Tour,” a road show that takes a tour bus to hundreds of thousands of fans, in dozens of cities across the United States-including five fan conventions-to discover and embrace manga and anime fan culture around the nation.

The TOKYOPOP Tour kicks off in July at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, CA, and will run through Chicago Comic-Con at the end of August. The culminating event will be a multi-episode reality show, premiering in the fall on a major online video site, which will reveal to the nation who will be crowned America’s Greatest Otaku!

Stu Levy, Executive Producer of the America’s Greatest Otaku reality show, as well as TOKYOPOP’s founder, says, “Japanese pop culture has influenced many of us Americans in a number of ways. The goal of this show is to prove to the world that American otaku are just as talented – if not more – than their counterparts worldwide.”

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Los Angeles, CA (April 30, 2010) – TOKYOPOP is thrilled to announce the release of the international bestselling manga Hetalia: Axis Powers. The Japanese webcomic by Hidekaz Himaruya has swept the internet in a worldwide campaign, and its tankobon has sold more than a million units in Japan alone. Now the English-language edition will breach bookstores everywhere this Fall, just in time for International Hetalia Day.

Hetalia is an utterly hilarious and thoroughly politically incorrect view of history, where each country is anthropomorphized into bishōnen characters. The main plot follows Axis Powers Italy, Germany, and Japan from the fall of Rome through World War II. Hilarity arises when spotlights shine on each country’s stereotypes, including Italy’s singular euphoric love for pasta and America constantly yelling, “I’m the hero!”—sometimes muffled by a mouthful of hamburger. Also, countries rarely understand each other, as seen in statements such as, “In America, it is common to see men and women in various states of undress basking on the lawn.” (However, a quick visit to TOKYOPOP near the Southern California beaches this summer may prove this statement to be true after all!)

TOKYOPOP editor Cindy Suzuki says, “Hetalia is going to be very exciting. It will be a challenging project on many levels, but we are working closely with our friends at FUNimation as well as the Japanese publisher of the manga in hopes of bringing the fans an authentic product.”

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After weeks of teasing via their Twitter account, a listing on Amazon.com finally slaps a fairly definitive seal on Tokyopop‘s license acquisition of Hetalia Axis Powers. The online retail site lists the first volume of the series with a release date of September 2010. (via ANN)

Hetalia Axis Powers, which has garnered quite a fan following in recent years, is a satire series that plays on events occurring around the World Wars with involved-countries portrayed as human characters. Though originally starting as a web comic, it’s since been released in published manga form and most recently as an anime (which Funimation has licensed).

Along with Hetalia, Amazon’s recent update of Tokyopop listings include a couple other notable titles:

Black Gate by Yukiko Sumiyoshi
Eensy Weensy Monster by Masami Tsuda

Black Gate has a page count of 576 pages so it looks to be an omnibus release. Speaking of which, Amazon also lists a summer omnibus release of Queenie-chan’s The Dreaming series, which was originally released in three volumes between 2005-2007.

In their recent Tokyopop newsletter, the company has shared a list of manga titles that have been sent to the printers for reprints. This is great news for those who’ve been missing certain volumes in their collections from these series, including the first five volumes of Junji Romantica and the originally-released-in-2004 Saiyuki (Vol. 04). Wow those original releases feel like they were forever ago… sort of nostalgic!

I don’t know about you but seeing a book originally published six years ago getting a reprint is pretty snazzy – shows that when demand is high seeming-miracles can happen! Hopefully now I can finally get my hands on volume three of Kyo Kara Maoh! as well.

These books are set for re-release this week. You can see the full list on their website.

During their webinar this evening, Tokyopop officially announced their acquisition of Kenji Sonishi’s Neko Ramen. The first volume of the English edition, Neko Ramen: Order Up!, was initially spotted on Amazon this past November.

Coming on the heels of a lengthy bout of pre-announcement hints and related media via their newsletters, Tokyopop is launching Neko Ramen with a hefty campaign including its own website, contests and Facebook page complete with the series’ trailer. Tokyopop has also already posted several preview strips on its website with future comics strips accessible to those who subscribe to their weekly newsletter.

The first of the currently-three Neko Ramen books (the series is still on-going) is scheduled for June 2010 and will be priced at $10.99/US. The books are rated for youth so readers young and old can enjoy some hairballs in this 4-koma style series about a cat who runs a ramen shop.

Along with news about Neko Ramen, Tokyopop staffers confirmed they’ll be speeding up Gakuen Alice to bi-monthly starting in June of this year. They also responded with a “no comment” to questions regarding their recent Twitter-teases about the license for the Hetalia 4-koma series.

A bunch of interesting news and previews this past week – what better way to spend a lazy Sunday than getting caught up on a bunch of them! From contests to continuations, there should be a little something for everyone in this lengthy round-up of the week’s what-have-yous:

RightStuf’s most recent sale is on Tokyopop books, including their boys’ love imprint, BLU. Until February 1st, you’ll save at least 33% on each book. Perfect time to get caught up some series and get your hands on the recent ones – which include lots of fantastic new licenses including Alice in the Country of Hearts and Deadman Wonderland.

More information about Yen Press’s upcoming adaptation of Twilight has been released. The book will be a hardcover edition costing $19.99. It’s already one of the top-selling books on Amazon right now! Entertainment Weekly has an image of the cover and an interior preview. On a related note, Shannon Garrity has a great – and amusing – post comparing Twilight with most modern-day shoujo manga.

Fans of the series rejoice – Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei) is returning! After an eight year hiatus the supernatural manga laced with all that glorious homoerotic tension (perhaps biggest understatement of the new year so far) will be returning to publication with the release of its twelth volume in Japan. Viz Media has the English license to the series and has published up to volume eleven, last released in 2006.

DeviantArt is currently holding a contest: Ponyo Make A Splash – Online Banner Creation Contest. They’re looking for ad banners designed for use on the website to promote the upcoming DVD/Blu-Ray release of Studio Ghibli/Disney’s Ponyo. There are four different banner templates for designers to submit banners in. As for the prizes, “…each of the four winners will recieve a $500 Visa gift card, a devWEAR bag of Winner’s choice, a copy of Ponyo on DVD, a devWEAR shirt of Winner’s choice, and a one year Premium Membership to deviantART.”

After the continuation was pushed back to Spring 2010in early 2009, it looks like Yu Watase is finally able to put Fushigi Yuugi‘s prequel series, Genbu Kaiden, back into her busy production schedule! She posts about it over on her personal blog, though no complete translation is yet publicly posted of the entry. Viz Media has released the currently available nine volumes of the series. (via Manga Xanadu)

Lastly, the fairly-silent-in-recent-months publisher, GoComi has posted an update of their status via their forums. There isn’t a lot of specific news but they assure readers that despite some economic problems, they’re still plugging forward and going at it their best. Unfortunately a number of titles have gone on hold. You can read the whole post over there which also includes information of the potential future of their website community, the popularity of 07-Ghost and word about the status of books sold through their online store. (via @danielle_leigh1)

Manga-ka: Shoko Conami
Publisher: Tokyopop
Rating: Teen (13+)
Release Date: March 2009

Synopsis: “Beni convinces Kagetora to go back with her to the future – as a student! Everything is going fine until they meet a strange and mysterious classmate, Iwatsuru. As Kagetora and Beni’s interest in one another blossoms, Beni’s Father reminds Kagetora that he is only a mere body guard and nothing more! What’s worse, he reveals that he has already arranged Beni to get married – to Iwatsuru!”

Whether it’s a comedic exchange of misunderstandings or one look at Beni and Kagetora’s pained expressions when fate intervenes, volume two of Shinobi Life continues to ensure your heart will laugh and ache right along with theirs. Thankfully the same can be said for their times of romantic bliss as well and as the two come to care deeply for one another, the smallest of moments can provide these gifts. But with an emotionally detached Father pulling the strings and an old foe making a surprise reappearance, there’s still much more to this story than just a remarkably compelling romance.

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Since the earthquake that struck Haiti quickly nabbed media attention around the world, support has been flooding in from every corner of the globe. The internet is certainly no exception and many artists have opened commissions and auctions to sell their services and work for charitable donations in support of Haiti.

Two well known manga-style artists have also done just that. Christy Lijewski (artist of RePlay!, published by Tokyopop) and KOSEN (artist of Saihoshi, published by Yaoi Press) have each put up a piece of their original artwork on eBay with all proceeds going to a Haiti support charity. Great art for a great cause!

Christy Lijewski is selling the original copic-coloured artwork commissioned by Tokyopop for the cover of the third and final volume of RePlay. The auction ends January 23, 2010.

KOSEN is selling an original copic-coloured drawing of the character Yinn from their boys’ love fantasy series, Saihoshi. The auction ends January 19, 2010.

Tokyopop has announced the date and time of their next Tokyopop Insider, the company’s web-based panels where they offer news, question-periods and special guests for interested parties on the internet.

Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM EST / 10:00 AM PST

Benjamin, artist of Orange and Remember - two full-colour comics published by Tokyopop – will be attending as the panel’s special guest. He’ll be speaking about his works and answering questions for aspiring artists.