Online Manga and Ultimo

Manga Xanadu has a thoughtful piece on the increase in price of VIZ manga and how it will undoubtedly affect diehard manga readers. Two dollars doesn't seem like that much more for a single volume for manga, but considering that manga readers are more than likely able to read several volumes in a week, the price begins to have an effect. Hence, VIZ's choice to offer true, online, manga from a reputable publisher I think is an intelligent one. Their choice in doing this can trap readers into buying merchandise, print manga, and other merch that peeps wish to sell.

And what's the deal with the new Ultimo manga, via Stan Lee and the Shama King author? Is this just another manga-created-that-really-ought-to-be-in-another-medium (like superhero comic book or Saturday morning cartoon), or is it a legit manga?

Shojo Beat No More

Word on the street from Manga Worth Reading and MangaBlog that Shojo Beat magazine by Viz only has one more issue remaining. July will be the last.

This is a tough call for VIZ to make, especially with the great series that are a part of Shojo. I just hope they don't take this a step further and start cutting volumes of manga.

From reading Vampire Knight, I was impessed with what Shojo Beat offers.

Clamp and Legal Drug

So my local comic book store had some of this manga called Legal Drug in the half-off rack, so I figured why not. Not knowing much about the Clamp artists, I figured I'd give it a try. Any English manga in 1st edition with volumes 1 and 2 isn't a bad investment in my book.

After reading a few chapters, I was became confused about the marajuana leaf and the references to drugs that the cover pages showed. The chapters involving Kudo and Rikuo have nothing to do with drugs (other than working at a pharmacy, that is)! They ought to have just named the series 'Kuno and Rikuo', at least going by the first few volumes, that is.

It seems that the fans at TP ar craving more, and the wikipedia page for Legal Drug claims that the story is only 1/5th told. If there isn't enough general interest from manga readers to tell the rest of the storyline with twelve more volumes (only 3 have come out since '05), then why not make just one or two more super-packed volumes to please the diehard fans that they hooked?

From the little bit that I've read, I don't think I'll purchase any of the other Clamp series... the storylines are well-written, but the graphics can be much better I believe. Sometimes it just seems that there is just too much white on the pages, when they can show a better story with maybe fewer pages and fewer images that are well drawn and say a lot more.

Just my thoughts after reading the first seven chapters of Legal Drug...

BSG and Manga

Word on the street is that the new Battlestar Gallatica manga gives much more than just "more-of-the-same" with regard to content that first becomes famous in areas other than manga. It seems like this manga adds to the BSG series (as opposed to maybe the Star Trek manga that has come out). Yes... these words are by a TP person (the link i provide is a bit like a chef critiquing his own food that he cooked {fresh out of the oven, nonetheless}), but still, all looks good from the outset anyway.

For BSG amateurs and rookies, this DVD seems like an appropriate synopsis.

Harry Potter Manga? Heck yes would be my vote! It would get us our fix between the undoubtedly long months while wating for the last movie to come out...

Manga 101 via Video

As a manga newbie, I have found the videos posted by tokirocket to be QUITE informative. She has a series of informative videos about manga reading/collecting. The first few are basic, but one she posted a few weeks ago discusses how to begin reading manga in Japanese, some intense stuff (intense for me, that is).

I especially liked the video about print ordering and editions.