Top Five Manga News Stories from NY Anime Fest 2007

Now that the last cosplaying Soul Reaper has hung up his zanpakutou, I thought I’d take stock of the major manga news stories to emerge from the first New York Anime Festival. If you want the lowdown on individual titles, I encourage you to visit About.com, where Deb Aoki has posted plot summaries and release dates for series discussed at NYAF, and MangaBlog, where Brigid Alverson has filed detailed reports on the weekend’s big panels. Anime fans and fujioshi should check the Manga Recon blog later this week, when Erin F. files her reports on the anime panels and Drama Queen’s big plans for 2008.

Here are my votes for the five most important manga-related news stories from NYAF 2007:

5. Everyone’s riding the omnibus.
Chalk it up to budget conscious consumers or burgeoning back catalogs, but several publishers announced plans to repackage fan favorites in new, multi-volume editions. Tokyopop and Viz are focusing on older titles, with Tokyopop offering both deluxe, hardbound editions of Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy and Fruits Basket (complete with extras and larger trim size) and more wallet-friendly omnibus treatments of crowd-pleasers like Chronicles of the Cursed Sword and Kare Kano. Viz, meanwhile, will be rolling out Big Editions of Rurouni Kenshin and both DragonBall series. The Viz Big Editions will be formatted like Tekkonkinkreet, with a larger trim size, color pages, and a dust jacket. Curiously, no one at the Viz panel mentioned the more exciting news that Inoue’s Vagabond will also be getting the Big Edition treatment in 2008. File that under Things That Make You Go Hmmmm….

While Del Rey has no plans to continue its Barnes and Noble omnibus program, it will be offering readers a deluxe presentation of Me and The Devil Blues (June 2008), a fictionalized biography of legendary Delta guitarist Robert Johnson. Each installment will include two volumes of the manga—that’s nearly 500 pages of story—formatted for a slightly larger trim size.

• Tokyopop Graphic Novel Editions: Chronicles of the Cursed Sword, Kare Kano, King of Hell, Rebirth (Spring 2008), Sgt. Frog (December 2007) (3 volumes each; $12.99; limited availability)
• Tokyopop Ultimate Editions: Battle Royale, Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy, Fruits Basket (available now) (2-3 volumes each; hardcover; $14.99 - $29.99)
• Viz Big Editions: DragonBall (April 2008), DragonBall Z (August 2008), Rurouni Kenshin (February 2008), Vagabond (Fall 2008) (3 vols. each; softcover; $17.99)

4. nisiOisin: not just an acronym anymore.
In an effort to capitalize on popular manga franchises, Del Rey and Viz have licensed novels by prolific author nisiOisin. Del Rey will offer CLAMP fans xxxHolic: Another Holic, a novel set in the xxxHolic universe, while Viz will be releasing Death Note: The Last Note, a prequel to the manga. nisiOisin’s work will also appear in the first volume of Del Rey’s Faust anthology, which will include a collaboration between him and Loveless manga-ka Yun Kouga. And Del Rey has licensed his light novel series Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle.

• Del Rey: Faust: Fiction and Manga from the Cutting Edge of Japanese Pop Culture (short story w/illustrations by Yun Kouga; summer 2008), xxxHolic: Another Holic (light novel; one volume; illustrations by CLAMP), Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle (light novel; nine volumes)
• Viz: Death Note: Another Note (light novel; one volume; February 2008)

3. Yen Press has 4-coma fever.
Among the many titles Yen Press plans to release in 2008 are four series that follow the same yonkoma format as Azumanga Daioh. The first, Shoulder a Coffin, Kuro (May 2008), follows the adventures of a young girl who travels the countryside with a talking bat and a coffin strapped to her back; the second, Sunshine Sketch, is a slice-of-life comedy set in a boarding school dormitory (June 2008); the third, Suzunari! (July 2008), tells the story of a young girl and her cat-eared doppelganger (and yes, wacky hijinks ensue); and the fourth, SS Astro: Teacher’s Lounge (October 2008) offers a humorous look at how faculty members really interact when their students aren’t around.

2. X-Men/1999.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (or avoiding the Internet), you’ve probably heard the news that Del Rey and Marvel have teamed up to produce two manga series based on the X-Men. Before you roll your eyes, keep in mind that Del Rey and Marvel are bringing A-list talent to the project (writers, artists, and editors) in an effort to create a product that manga fans will want to read.

The first will be aimed squarely at a shojo audience. Editor Tricia Narwani reassured readers that the story would “respect shojo conventions” while remaining faithful to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original characters. The concept sketches suggested something in the vein of X/1999 or Godchild—a tone that I hope carries over to the dialogue and plot as well. (Please, no X-Men: Fruits Basket or Dr. Xavier’s Here Is Greenwood. Keep it dark, and keep those chibis to a minimum!) The second series, Wolverine, was aimed at a shonen audience. Though Del Rey had secured a writer for the project, no artist was announced, nor were any plot points discussed. (UPDATE: Deb Aoki has posted some preliminary character sketches at About.com. Click here to view bishonen Wolverine!)

• Wolverine (2 vols., Spring 2009; Story by Antony Johnston)
• X-Men: The Manga (2 vols., Spring 2009; Story by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, Art by Anzu)

1. Shonen Jump may face some stiff competition.
Received wisdom is that the US market can’t support manga magazines. Given how many worthy anthologies have tanked—remember Super Manga Blast or Raijin Comics?—it seems like a fool’s errand to launch a new magazine. But Kurt Hasseler may have hit on a winning formula with the just-announced Yen Plus: run cool titles by big-name artists and authors. A manga adaptation of James Patterson’s best-selling YA series Maximum Ride will be serialized in Yen Plus, as will Svetlana Chmakova’s highly anticipated Night School. Among the other franchises slated to run in the magazine are Jack Frost, a supernatural Korean adventure story, and Pig Bride, a soong-jeong comedy about a young man who’s never seen his bride-to-be’s face. (She wears a pig mask at all times. Paging Dr. Phil…) Each volume will be approximately 460 pages, and will sell for $8.99 at a variety of retail outlets. Look for the first issue in the summer of 2008.

Del Rey will also be publishing an anthology, though Faust will offer readers a mixture of fiction and manga. The first volume, scheduled for an August 2008 release, will include contributions from CLAMP, Takeshi Oba (Death Note, Hikaru no Go), nisiOisin (Death Note: The Last Note), and Yun Kouga (Loveless), while the second will feature a short manga by American cartoonist Fred Gallagher (Megatokyo).

Most fan-friendly licensing news: Tokyopop announced that it will be releasing a manga adaptation of Kyo Kara Maoh! in the third quarter of 2008, while Bandai Entertainment announced that it had acquired the rights to the Code GEASS manga and light novels.

Most YALSA-friendly licensing news: Go! Comi announced that it will be publishing Song of the Hanging Sky, a folkloric story about an indigenous people threatened by modernity. The concept and the gorgeous artwork suggest that this might be a future YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens pick. Ditto for Kasumi (Del Rey), an OEL title from American writer Surt Lim and Japanese artist Hirofumi Sugimoto. The premise sounded quite amusing: a teen moves to a small village where a tree god grants her (and other teens) special powers. The catch: they can only activate these powers by closing their eyes or holding their breath, making them less-than-ideally suited for saving the world.

Least surprising licensing news: Viz will be pushing more Naruto and Death Note products in 2008, including The Official Naruto Fan Book (February 2008) and a Death Note 13: How to Read (February 2008), while Tokyopop will be releasing a Fruits Basket sticker book (May 2008) that will include pin-ups, posters, and temporary tattoos inspired by the series’ zodiac theme.

Best news for manga bloggers and web surfers: Tokyopop will be overhauling its website, making it easier to navigate and locate information about its own products. Tokyopop will also be launching a new program that will dovetail beautifully with their Rising Stars of Manga initiative. I can’t say more right now—the details are still being hammered out—but I think that it will be a real boon for both the company and for creators.

Best news for booksellers: Del Rey will begin staggering its releases, offering two to four new titles per week instead of ten or thirteen titles on the same day each month. As an added bonus, Del Rey will be simultaneously releasing the first two volumes of several series including Hiro Mashima’s eagerly anticipated Fairy Tale (March 2008).

Best convention swag: Vertical’s Guin Saga leopard masks.

Most entertaining panel: Drama Queen. (And I’m not saying that just because I won volumes one and two of DVD—I swear!)

Most abused marketing hook: Comparing a series’ premise with Harry Potter. I heard no fewer than four pitches that began, “It’s like Harry Potter in manga form” or “Think of it as Harry Potter meets…”

What the kids will be reading next: Gakuen Alice (Tokyopop), Night School (Yen Press), The Record of a Fallen Vampire (Viz)

What the old curmudgeons will be reading next: Black Jack (Vertical, Inc.), Dororo (Vertical, Inc.); Manga Sutra (Tokyopop); Me and the Devil Blues (Del Rey); Real (Viz), SS Astro: Teacher’s Lounge (Yen Press); Summit of the Gods (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)