Although we at PCS are grateful for some truly great licensing announcements in 2008, manga fans always want more! Here are our picks.

MICHELLE: In our last Manga Recon Roundtable, we talked about what cancelled series you’d most like to see rescued. This time, let’s give things a slightly more positive spin. Which series would you most like to see get licensed, and why?

SAM: For me, I would like to see more Mitsuru Adachi stuff. Like Adventure Boys, Rough, Touch and Katsu. I really enjoyed Short Program and think that his other works do just as well. Also I think Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro would be a big hit in America with all the crime drama crazes going on.

Others that come to mind are the bike racing manga Over Drive, Eiichiro Oda’s Wanted!, Takei Hiroyuki’s Jyuki Ningen Jumbor, the rest of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure more or less from begining to end, and finally Ai Yazawa’s Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai.

CHLOE: You know, there’s been some good stuff hitting the shelves here lately: it’s been quite a bit of wish fulfillment in this past year in terms of licenses. That said, there’s plenty of great untapped gold out there..

I’ll always be promoting underloved seinen-shojo hybrid C-Blossom Case 792 and Matsumoto Tomo. (Beauty Honey needs a license, like, five minutes ago.) There are older titles shojo that deserve some US shelf space too; all this Shojo Beat stuff would be peanuts without Glass Mask and Rose of Versailles. Lastly, somebody license Kami no Shizuku/Les Gouttes de Dieu/The Drops of God just so we can stop referencing it as “that wine manga.” Seriously.

MELINDA: Okay, first of all, I am so new to this world compared to the rest of you, I’m not sure how significantly I can contribute here. I am still trying to catch up with all the manga that’s already been published in English! That said, a few series do come to mind.

I’d like to second Sam’s request for Ai Yazawa’s Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai and also add Gokinjo Monogatari.

In terms of currently running series, I would dearly love to read Hikaru Nakamura’s Saint Oniisan though I expect it would face some controversy over here, despite the fact that it seems to just be completely charming.

Also, and here’s where people start throwing things at me for being stunningly obvious and mainstream, I want Bakuman. I know it hasn’t even run long enough to fill a single tankouban yet, but I’m a Takeshi Obata fangirl, and this series is so much more interesting to me than Death Note was.

MICHELLE: Oh, there are dozens and dozens of available series that I haven’t read yet! I’m just greedy.

My picks pretty much fall into two categories (and the vast majority are shojo, as well). First are the classics, like Glass Mask, Touch, Rose of Versailles, and The Song of Wind and Trees. Secondly, whenever I read something I like, I always want more of their works (I too would love to read more by Matsumoto Tomo, having enjoyed Beauty is the Beast a great deal). Titles in this category include 7SEEDS, a sci-fi manga by Basara creator Yumi Tamura; Cat Street, by Yoko Kamio (Boys Over Flowers); Himitsu and Kaguya Hime by Moon Child creator Reiko Shimizu; Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai, Gokinjo Monogatari (of which Paradise Kiss is the sequel), and Kagen no Tsuki by NANA’s Ai Yazawa; the incredibly awesome-looking Hataraki Man by Moyoko Anno; and Fumi Yoshinaga’s Kinou Nani Tabeta?.

Of these, probably the three by Ai Yazawa and the one by Fumi Yoshinaga are most likely to be licensed. I’ll continue to hold out hope for the rest; the more sci-fi titles seem to be right up CMX’s shojo alley, but lately they’ve been licensing shorter fare, so I’m not sure they’d be willing to gamble on a lengthier series like Kaguya Hime. If Kodansha really does set up shop here, perhaps they’ll go for Hataraki Man.

Do y’all have any Kodansha-specific wishlist items?

SAM: Nothing comes to mind for Kodansha from me, however I would like to second Bakuman! You’re right, Melinda, it is a much more interesting series than Death Note! I wonder if Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi based Mashiro and Tamaki off of themselves! I think it would be a huge hit in America right now!

ERIN: Sorry to jump in late on this one—I feel like I already answered this on the MangaCast. Be sure to check out our picks there.

Here’s my reproduced list, some of which I think are Kodansha:

• Saint Oniisan
• March Comes in Like a Lion – Umino Chika’s post-Honey and Clover title
• Kinou Nani Tabeta? – Fumi Yoshinaga’s latest
• Drops of God – the manga that popularized wine in Korea

Drops of God isn’t the only wine manga out there—there’s also La Sommelier, not to be confused with an older series just called Sommelier. The former is about a lady and the latter is about a guy. I heard Tokyopop was thinking about a wine manga—I mean, Marco Pavia said that when I expressed my interest in wine manga to him. I think he was considering La Sommelier and not Drops of God, but he wasn’t specific.

For Kodansha, I’ll add Chi’s Sweet Home and Hataraki Man (by Moyoko Anno, author of Happy Mania). Speaking of Anno, this one shot sounds good—In the Clothes Named Fat.

Did Tonari No 801-chan get picked up here? Was it a web comic first in Japan? Looks like the anime adaptation got cancelled.

On my far-out request list is Naoka, a title about a cross country runner. In general I tend to agree—almost everything I could possibly want to read (within reason) got picked up in 2008!

MICHELLE: It certainly seemed like a fair measure of quality works for older readers were licensed in 2008 and are slated to debut in 2009. David Welsh recently wrote a piece on these exciting prospects which includes some of those I’m most looking forward to. Even so, I still look forward to a new year of fabulous licensing announcements!

Manga Recon License Wishlist:

• 7SEEDS
• Adventure Boys
• Bakuman
• Beauty Honey
• C-Blossom Case 792
• Cat Street
• Chi’s Sweet Home
• The Drops of God
• Glass Mask
• Gokinjo Monogatari
• Hataraki Man
• Himitsu
• Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (the rest of it)
• Jyuki Ningen Jumbor
• Kagen no Tsuki
• Kaguya Hime
• Katsu
• Kinou Nani Tabeta?
• Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
• March Comes in Like a Lion
• Naoka
• The Rose of Versailles
• Rough
• Saint Oniisan
• The Song of Wind and Trees
• Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai
• Touch
• Wanted!