Fantagraphics and Manga

An aside here from this great essay on Tokyopop and the page rate. Someone mentioned that Fantagraphics manga would be inaccessible to the youth. I think that Fantagraphics' manga line will echo it's American comics line. They have a lot of classics of the cartoon age, quirky indie comics, and the like. You probably won't see Samurai Harem from them, and their presentation will echo the content. It's the same as Vertical, which publishes a lot of art manga- Twin Spica has its original covers and Black Jack has a lovely artsy design.

I think there's plenty of places for manga to grow. The youth market is fairly well covered with everything from One Piece to Card Captor Sakura. Art manga is also growing with books like A Druken Dream and Ayako. Of course, I think we need more josei and yuri manga, but that may just be my personal preference. However, I am the sort of person who supports manga with my dollars instead of merely complaining, so...

For god's sake

Liscence the series that the Fruits Basket mangaka did after Fruits Basket. Even if they don't achieve mega best seller status, I think they'd have respectable sales.

Okazu's comments are interesting as Erika implores fans to think deeply about the market.

Tokyopop Falls

As they say the end of an era. I will post deeper thoughts later, but for now, I'm sad that just when Gakuen Alice was getting a plot(vol 16 was almost all plot, a very rare occurrence!), Tokyopop has to close down.

Gatcha Gatcha 1-4

Yuri is a cheerful girl who believes the best of everyone, and especially in love. So obviously, she's taken advantage of by tons of losers from drug addicts to domestic abusers. Motoko is a tall, beauty, the Madonna of the school. So obviously, she eats squid jerky, beats the crap out of half of the guys she encounters, and is involved in an incestous lesbian love triangle.

OK, maybe not obviously. But that's what makes Gatcha Gatcha so fun. Rounding out the cast is Yabe, Yuri's object de drool of the day, who has a connection to Motoko, Hirao, a nice guy in the internet sense, and Sekine,a 'maidenly boy' who Motoko says "is MY bitch". This is the sort of ensemble in which you don't need a deep plot, jut let them bounce off of each other, but there is a plot here- mostly involving Motoko's soap operaesque past.

It's good fun with many twists, turns, and stabbings, but I'd like to know more about Yuri. Why is she almost suicidally devoted to love? Is it just her lack of visible parents or is there some horror in her past that we don't know about yet?

It seems that volume 5 will be dealing with Motoko's past as well, so we may or may not find out.

Yet again, you're not entitled to manga

You're not entitled to steal the books off the shelves, you're not entitled to have the volumes the instant they get off the press in Japan. (although I wonder about people who always need the newest thing the second it's created- they don't have a backlog at all? I have anime that I haven't watched from Christmas! I have not seen all of Wandering Son, and I love Wandering Son! I've finally gotten through most of my April release manga, but there's tons of stuff I haven't been able to read.)