US Manga Recap VII [Week of February 12, 2013]

For it not even being full-swing con-season yet, you’d think this past week was completely out of junction with the rest of the year. And certainly, it was a strange one. We’ve had a bevvy of licenses announcements, cover updates and news flooding in – and mainly, from only two days! Not that I’m really complaining; I’m always happy to see this kind of news, especially when it brings about licenses to series I’ve wanted!

Unfortunately this week’s release has been delayed to lengths previously unseen. I’ve had a rather nasty encounter with that awful flu that seems to be dealing a bad card to everyone around me lately, and it would seem I was no exception. Next week’s release will be on Monday/Tuesday, as it’ll cover everything from this week.

Upcoming Releases for the Week of February 19, 2013

• Air Gear, volume 27 (Kodansha Comics)
• Battle Angel Alita, volume 17 (Kodansha Comics)
• Kitchen Princess, omnibus 4 (Kodansha Comics)
• Love Hina, omnibus 5 [vol.13-14] (Kodansha Comics) [final volume]
• Trigun Maximum, omnibus 2 (Dark Horse)

It’s a pretty light week for releases, with mainly showings from Kodansha Comics and one Dark Horse release. I’ve personally been meaning to check out the Trigun Maximum omnibus releases, since Dark Horse is definitely one of the best publishers out there when it comes to omnibus. Sure I own the singles, but Trigun Maximum is one of my favorite series. Other than that, Kodansha Comics concludes their release of Love Hina, with the 5th and final omnibus hitting stores this week. I fell behind on this one, if only due to the large number of quality-control issues that plagued it early on — though from what I hear now, the production quality has improved greatly for the series.

Licensing News

Love is in the air, and the gracing of St. Valentine was bestowed upon [most of] everyone last week. Especially manga fans; publishers went all out with a number of license announcements. Of course, while all of this is going down, I’m stuck at work. Typical, right? I covered a few in previous posts, and some I didn’t get around to. Of course, I’ll recap all of them regardless.

It all started with VIZ Media’s Shojo Beat imprint teasing 4 new licenses last Wednesday on Twitter. The following day, on Valentine’s Day, they started hashing out the new acquisitions just like that! Shojo Beat licensed the following manga:

Series Name (Romanji/JP)	Author	Magazine (Publisher)
Happy Marriage?! (Hapi Mari – はぴまり ～Happy Marriage!?～)	Enjouji Maki	Petit Comic (Shogakukan)
Midnight Secretary (ミッドナイト・セクレタリ)	Ohmi Tomu	Petit Comic (Shogakukan)
Voice Over!: Seiyuu Academy (Seiyuu ka! – 声優かっ!)	Minami Maki	Hana to Yume (Hakusensha)
Sweet Rein (Yoroshiku Master – よろしく・マスター)	Tsukuba Sakura	LaLa DX (Hakusensha)

For more information on those, ANN has the official PR. So a few more “mature” series, falling under an ’18+’ tag, and I certainly don’t mind trying out Midnight Secretary. Will definitely be picking up Voice Over!: Seiyuu Academy too, since that sounds like something more up my alley. A great batch of shoujo/josei pick-ups for Shojo Beat, which I’m sure the fans are going to really enjoy.

Onto the second half of VIZ licensing news. First and foremost, there was a peculiar rumor of Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic being licensed by VIZ Media UK. This would imply that the US branch had acquired the series too, since all manga imports for the UK are English licensed manga in the US. Simply put, if a manga is licensed in the UK, that means that it has been licensed already and is available in the US. Needless to say, this article caught my attention when it came about and I meant to actually talk about it earlier…but that fell by the wayside since news came quickly.

Also included in the VIZ Media PR (see above Shojo Beat ANN link) was the license announce for Ohtaka Shinobu’s Magi manga series. I’ve talked about it a few times here, and I’ve been pretty vocal about it on Twitter for some time as well, but I’m thrilled to see this manga finally licensed Stateside. It’ll be going under their Shonen Sunday imprint, which last saw a license nearly 3 years ago at San Diego Comic-Con. I’m almost positive this will do well in the US, and could very well be as popular as Blue Exorcist (if not more so), which is under the ‘Shonen Jump Advanced’ imprint.  The first volume is slated for an August release.

Continuing off of the Valentine’s Day momentum, Seven Seas kicked off a trio of fascinating monster-girl manga licenses. They also later announced the license to video-game console parody manga, World War Blue. I covered those 4 new acquisitions earlier in the week, so click on over there to read up more on the series and details for them.

And what better way to end the week of licenses with Vertical and two very interesting titles? Vertical was decked out and ready for Katsucon, as they revealed at their panel last Saturday that they’d acquired the licenses to Satoshi Kon’s Tropic of the Sea (Kaikisen – 海帰線) and Asada Hikaru / Seguchi Takehiro’s Sickness Unto Death (Shi ni Itaru Yamai – 死に至る病). The series themselves may not be anything too commonly known, Satoshi Kon is of course a big draw in the community. While Satoshi Kon was obviously known for his productions and creations in the anime industry, he thankfully left us with a few manga series before going off to work in the anime industry, and then tragically leaving us all back in 2010 after a fight with pancreatic cancer. Nevertheless, these are solid pickups from Vertical and I’m happily anticipating both of these releases.

Manga Solicitations

• Cage of Eden, volume 12 [November 12, 2013] (Kodansha Comics)
• Disgaea 3: School of Devils, volume 1 [July 11, 2013] (UDON Entertainment)
• Takasugi-san’s Obento, volume 2 [December 10, 2013] (Digital Manga Publishing)
• Tokyo Babylon, Book 2 [July 23, 2013] (Dark Horse)

A nice, varied week of solicitations here. Disgaea 3: School of Devils from UDON Entertainment finally gets a release date and solicitation, after being announced back at SDCC 2012. We also see another volume of Cage of Eden, scheduled for November, which should now set the release timeframe on the series for 3-months/volume (as of volume 9, released this month).

There were also a few new solicitations for Project-H titles (that were previously up on the DMP website) and are now on Amazon. Although, given Amazon’s inconsistent releases of any/all DMP/Project-H series, I’m separating them here. I highly advise anyone and everyone to either order these titles directly from DMP’s Akadot or on TRSI when the series become available.

• Idolhouse (18+) [July 16, 2013] (Project-H)
• Love on the Job, volume 2 (18+) [June 11, 2013] (Project-H)
• Range of Love (18+) [June 11, 2013] (Project-H)
• Velvet Kiss, volume 3 (18+) [June 11, 2013] (Project-H)

Manga Cover Updates

As you might be able to tell, it was also a very big week for new covers being updated (18 in total). Of the manga updated here, I’d like to elaborate a bit on one series. Volume 14 is the “finale” of Dance in the Vampire Bund. Tamaki Nozomu ended it last year, in 2012, and has since started on the second part of it, Dance in the Vampire Bund – Sledge Hammer no Tsuioku (ダンスインザヴァンパイアバンド スレッジ・ハマーの追憶).

While Seven Seas has not officially announced any plans to license the sequel as of this time, I can only imagine they’ve likely begun the contracts on this and will do their utmost to bring it Stateside (‘Vampire Bund’ is one of their most popular/successful series here, after all). Lastly, the MSRP is higher than previous volumes (which were $11.99) as the page-count listing on their website states ‘280 pages’, compared to the normal 208 pages for the others.

Manga News

Oh Project-H, you bunch of teases! Though to be fair, they’ve already given us a fair bit this year, right? I suppose waiting another month or so isn’t so bad when their schedules are bursting at the seems. To tide us over, they even gave us a hint. Good luck figuring out that mosaic, though.

Speaking of bursting from the seems, Project-H also posted a very cool graphic for their 2013 release schedule. Check it out.

Now THAT is a lot of ‘H’! 47 releases in 2013, to be exact. Think your wallet is ready for the amount of hentai-manga flooding the market? Mine sure isn’t, though I’m willing to see how big of a dent I can put in it.

And to once again end our news recap, Manga-News reported that Zetsuen no Tempest (絶園のテンペスト), from authors Sano Arihide, Shirodaira Kyou and artist Saizaki Ren, will be coming to a close in the April issue of Square ENIX’s Shounen GanGan magazine; it’s expected that the material will conclude in the 10th compiled volume (with only volume 8 out so far). This would probably be around the perfect time to license the manga here in the US…right, Yen Press? *nudge nudge*

As you can see, I’m starting to shift around a few things and reformat the way (at least superficially) certain parts are presented. Hopefully it’ll look a bit better and read easier. Of course, if you have any questions, complaints/critique or suggestions, I’m always happy to hear them. See all of you in a few days with Week VIII!

 

[Dark Horse | Digital Manga | Fantagraphics | Kodansha Comics | Seven Seas]

[UDON Entertainment | Vertical, Inc. | Yen Press | VIZ Media]