Love Manga

It’s Yaoicon this weekend and already the first reports are slowly trickling in.

Over at Mangacast Ed runs with a pre-con podcast which is well worth a quick listen just to get a taste of all the various panels that are happening over the next 3 days.

Friday night saw the launch party of 801 Media, but not a huge amount of details have so far been forthcoming. You know, those all important questions like Who are they?! ^.^
Anyway, both Jen at YaoiSuki and Ed pick up on their first title announcement with the possibility of another potential title;

	801 Media
Affair by Kano Shiuko	Bondz by Toko Kawai	Ichigenme by Yoshinaga Fumi
Tonari no Heya no Paranoia by Minami Haruka	Sky Over My Spectacles by Tennouji Mio	Love Is Like A Hurricane by Shimazaki Tokiya

The other potential new title is probably going to be coming through from Kawai Touko.

The next update was from the DramaQueen panel where we were treated to three new licenses which appear so far to be vastly more hardcore then anything which has come out from 801 Media at the moment. ^.~ (Missing Road is probably my pick of title out of that lot, even though I remember Angel and Devil as rather funny story wise with some ridiculous threesome and I’m reliably informed that Cage of Thorns is very smutty, so that’ll be two copies then!)
As yet no news on how RUSH wad perceived so I guess we’ll have to wait on Ed for that one. Anyway here are the cover images (the DQ ones!) for their new licenses.

	DramaQueen
Cage of Thorns by Sakuragawa Sonoko	Angel and Devil by Uzuki Jun	Missing Road by Sakurai Shushushu

Next up was BeBeautiful, or rather at the same time as DramaQueen, who also announced three licenses. Now to be perfectly honest I’d still be fairly sceptical about this until I actually see them on the shelves, because their track record just isn’t that great for me regardless of their assurances otherwise. Then again these titles are all one-shots so the risk isn’t really that great on us the readers if were tempted to buy them. Much as I hate to see a publisher disappear I hope this at least means a reversal of fortunes for BB, then again these were all annouced at NYCC so really who cares. ^.~

The final panel so far was Blu Manga who in the same vein as everyone else also announced three titles. June Pride is of particular interest consider it is book 6 in a series, as yet I’ve no details on whether they plan to release anymore of the other titles.

	Blu Manga
Innocent Bird by Saragi Hirotakaki	June Pride by Gotou Shinobu	Bokura no Onsel by Matsumoto Temari

And now even more updates from the June Manga panel. ^.~

	June Manga
Love Recipe by Higashizato Kiriko	In The Walnut by Kawai Toko	Picnic by Yamada Yugi
Othello by Hasumi Toui	Sweet Whisper by Furiyama Hyouta	Worlds End by Eiki Eiki
Ordinary Crush by Fujiyama Hyouta	Can’t Win With You by Honami Yukino	Nakimushi na Little by Kinoshita Keiko
	Lovers In 1K Apartment by Fujiyama Hyouta

As more information comes through I’ll add to this post.

This topic came up a couple of weeks back, but without having a place to write about it I put it on hold, so here you go now.

A little while back on the Digital Manga Publishing forum we learnt that the excellent Bambi and Her Pink Gun was going on hiatus, temporarily or more Worst like we don’t know but volumes 01 and 02 are all were getting at the moment.

This brought about an exchange over IM about just what it means to be DMP at the moment and whether the traffic is all one way where June Manga is concerned, what about the special relationship that DMP enjoys with Dark Horse? Which then prompted a post over at DH boards asking that exact question. The response was less than stellar.

So I was thinking is there room for DMP or are they just sustained through the more than successful June Manga releases and one with 801 Media when it finally launches?

The best place to start seemed to be through looking at what is actually available as a DMP title. At the recent Anime Expo and Otakon conventions both June Manga and DMP announced new titles but the ratio was 5:1 for AX and 6:1 for Otakon in favour of June titles. The only two new licenses was another Fumi Yoshinaga title in Flower Of Life and the probably highly anticipated Vampire Hunter D manga.

Add to that we have the Business manga (Project X), the Edumanga and the How to Manga (Gloom Party), all quite eclectic and on-going. Next up we have Enchanter, of which the first volume is out, Princess Princess which is due out soon and the two new titles mentioned already.
What we are missing is Bambi which we now know is on hold, Worst which is cancelled and IWGP whose fourth and final volume is due out this August but I’ve not heard anything yet and has been over a year and a half ago since volume 03.

I’m not including the completed series like Antique Bakery, Cafe Kichijouji de or Princess Ninja Scroll Tenka Muso, because, well they are completed. In fact whilst I’m mentioning them the two Fumi Yoshinaga series and Cafe Kichijouji de could quite easily have slipped into the June Manga imprint. Though they are not BL titles as such that June Manga releases but they wouldn’t be out of place amongst them either; so I was genuinely curious if they were kept back for DMP knowing that they would prove to be quite popular. A quick flick through Diamond’s top 100 Graphic Novel Chart for Antique Bakery shows that all 4 volumes have made the chart and each successive volume has placed higher then its predecessor.

As it stands at the moment that just leaves seven series currently being released by DMP which is a little less then the 23 which I’ve only quickly counted up coming from June Manga in the future.

What about Dark Horse and Dark Horse Press. We know that their combined work is currently running on Berserk, Trigun, Hellsing and the Vampire Hunter D novel, of which only Hellsing has currently stopped, one can only guess that they’ll keep the production team the same when volume 08 arrives.
But no other new DH titles have seemed to follow suit, actually Sno Cone Studios seems to be the flavour of the month at the moment for all things lettering and retouching. Was the special relationship only meant for those few titles or did the two not want to continue on other titles?

I’ve always been curious about whether DMP is just hanging on with their other manga titles whilst the June Manga BL licenses go from strength to strength and now with the news that another title in Bambi has been put on hiatus I’m actually genuinely concerned about what’s happening to DMP. Add to that the announcement from Aka-san that he was leaving the company, the man behind much of the success of DMP’s titles, such as the excellent Robot and things don’t seem as rosy as their imprint.

This isn’t a death of DMP post, I personally don’t think they are going anywhere. But it is more out of curiosity. Can or should the June Manga imprint carry the DMP titles like Project X or the edumanga ones? Does it even need to?

Over at Activeanime there is a great example of a pointless article in which 801media announce that a title has been licensed.

Digital Manga Publishing’s sister company, 801 Media, acquired one of the yaoi graphic novel that is most frequently requested by fans of DMP through their website, forums, at conventions and online surveys. The mysterious title that was acquired, and other titles as well, will be formally announced during Yaoi Con 2006.

801 Media Inc formation was announced during Otakon 2006 and will focus on bringing yaoi for a more mature audience to the United States. The company will be hosting a launch party at their panel at Yaoi Con.

What is this, pre-emptive license announcing? Did people forget about 801media since the talk all last week?

Anyway, always one to put a positive spin on events Yaoisuki have set-up a competition on their site for people to try and guess what this mysterious title is, and in doing so win themselves a copy of it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

YAOISUKI CONTEST: GUESS THE NEW 801 MEDIA LICENSE!
First correct guess wins

PORTLAND, OR - August 16 2006 - Upon hearing that new yaoi
publisher 801 Media has licensed a “mysterious title”, BL
news and review site YaoiSuki has opened up a contest to win a copy of
the new title. How do you win? Simple: be the first to guess the
license on their forums.

The first person to correctly guess the license which will be
announced at YaoiCon in October will receive a copy of the
licensed title when it comes available, or the first volume if the
title is a series.

The contest only accepts entries from people ages 18 and up, and
entrants must be registered on the site to use the forums and submit
their entries; however, registration is free.

You can register and enter the contest at http://yaoisuki.net.

ABOUT YAOISUKI: YaoiSuki is run by Jen Parker and Jordan Marks, who
felt that there was a need for a site that did no-BS reviews of BL
material. The site was founded in March 2006.

801 Media Mystery License
URL: http://yaoisuki.net/content/view/175
Posted: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 9:42pm Pacific Standard Time

###
For further information contact:
Jen Parker, Editor, YaoiSuki
jen@yaoisuki.net
503.201.2520

Sounds like a fun idea to me. ^.^

The latest edition of the PW Comics Week lands in my inbox and as usual all the manga news gets syphoned off.

Not a huge amount to go on this week, well really there is just the one article and its the Top Story too. Kai-Ming Cha opens up with DramaQueen Hustles for Yaoi Fans, which acts as a rather interesting primer for all you need to know about the Boys’ Love publisher DramaQueen.

There won’t be much which regular readers of Love Manga don’t already know but there was certainly some points that I thought were worth highlighting.

DramaQueen specializes in hardcore boys’ love titles, books that depict graphic and explicit sex between men, a fast-growing category among yaoi fans. DQ also publishes girls’ comics licensed from Korea and Taiwan.

It’s often something that can get ignored from a predominately Boys’ Love publisher, the fact that they also do girls comics too. If you go back to when I first started talking about DQ in April 2005 their launch titles were 1 yaoi and 1 girl’s comic, ironically Visions from the Other Side was probably also the first Taiwanese Manga I had heard of. Since then they have added Audition and DVD, both by Kye Young Chon as well as the two recently announced Peter Panda by Na Ye-Ri and Promise by Eun-Young Lee titles.

“We do not censor our books,” Nguyen says. We want to capture the exact intent of the author.” The publisher is also open to a wide range of styles in the titles they license. Their latest title, The Judged, the story of a corrupt politician and a young detective, is similar in style to a yakuza (gangster) manga than to the typical boys love titles seen in the American market. DramaQueen also has age-ratings for its titles. DVD, a Korean manhwa series that depicts young adult life in Seoul, is rated for age 16 and older. “There’s no sex in it but there are language issues,” Nguyen says. Likewise, Brother is rated for age 18 or older as is The Judged, although its rating is for violence rather than sexual situations.

Again, I think this is certainly going to come to the fore more when 801media launch at Yaoicon. DQ have always picked titles which edge on the more explicit then say the usual fare from June, but their deserved position as the leader in this area (after the non event that is Be Beautiful) could come under challenge from this new competition. Not to say that DQ are getting complacent, with a whole raft of new titles set to be released in 2007, the global Boys’ Love anthology RUSH it looks like competition will do the whole BL scene here a world of good.
Or as Tran Nguyen puts it;

“We love what we do,” Nguyen says. “We’re passionate about it. Excellence is our aim, hard work is our means. There’s no fun in mediocrity.”

ICV2 today joins in the PR banter on the recent Digital Manga Publishing announcements from Otakon.

It is quite simply just a run down of all the titles that were announced. 1 for DMP and 6 for the June, (Moon and Sandals was announced at SDCC).

Interestingly though ICV2 also mention the arrival of 801media;

The parent company of Digital Manga Publishing, Digital Manga Inc., also announced the formation of a separate company called 801 Media Inc., which will focus on bringing yaoi manga for a more mature audience to the U.S.

Mature not Hardcore… ^.^

Finally got around to reading this weeks PW Comics Week newsletter and syphoning off the Manga news.

The main article is a round up of the recent Otakon convention (and I say main as it places better then the round-up for the Wizard World Chicago which is quite pleasing).
Kai-Ming Cha has a great summation article and has a look at all the publishers that turned up in the anime heavy convention.
Boys’ Love was definitely the flavour of the month with DramaQueen, Digital Manga Publishing and Tokyopop (Blu Manga) all present and Kai picks up on all the major news that each was eager to announce.

Drama Queen held a boys’ love panel after hours, for the 18-plus crowd, and drew fan approval with its publishing philosophy: “Faster, harder, cheaper.”…

Not/Love, about the angst-laden romance between a prostitute and a detective, is appearing six months ahead of schedule due to Drama Queen senior translator Calynda Pellikka’s commitment to the title.

Sorry just wanted to quote the DQ philosophy, because it makes me laugh every time I hear it.

DMP though as Kai says had the biggest presence at Otakon and a part of that was taken up with the announcement of 801 media. We’ve had small bits of details here and there so in the sake of completeness (that is until Yaoicon) here’s some more titbits.

801 Media books will be available starting in March 2007 with one or two new titles appearing every month. 801 Media titles will be available only at online retailers, independent bookstores and comics shops. “You won’t find [801 Media books] in Borders or Barnes & Noble,” said Rachel Livingston of DMP’s PR department. Livingston explained that while 801 Media is working with distributors, the books will not have a wide level of distribution because of their explicit content. She added that fans will be able to special order the books through Walden or retail chain stores. “We’re letting retailers know we’re not giving them inappropriate material while giving readers what they want and supporting online retailers,” Livingston said.

The other article of note, again by Kai-Ming Cha was an interview with Jae-Hwan Kim the artist behind Warcraft from Tokyopop. It is definitely worth a read as some of the answers are quite entertaining, particularly the ones which enquire about the differences between the Korean and American way of working.

Digital Manga Inc. announces new titles under its Juné imprint and Digital Manga Publishing along with the formation of a new company!

Gardena, CA, August 8, 2006 – Digital Manga Publishing wrapped up its summer convention season with new title announcements at its DMP panel at Otakon 2006. Flower of Life by Fumi Yoshinaga joins Vampire Hunter D and Megami DX in Digital Manga Publishing’s line-up for 2007.

Flower of Life
Written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga
Rated 16+; MSRP: $12.95 – January 17, 2007

Forced to enroll in school one month late after recovering from a serious illness, Harutaro is doing his best to remain optimistic about the entire situation. The other students are working hard to make Haru feel welcome – especially his chubby, loveable pal, Shota. However, Kai Majima, President of the Manga Club and all-around hard case, seems to be the one person intent on making Harutaro’s school life a living nightmare.

Megami DX
Written and Illustrated by Various artists
Rated 16+ - June 6, 2007

Known as Megami Deluxe in Japan, this mook – a cross between a magazine and a book – is a collection of art from famous bishoujo anime and manga series.

Vampire Hunter D
Written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Saiko Takaki
In production – tentative release date of December 4, 2007

From the master horror author Hideyuki Kikuchi and Saiko Takaki, the illustrator hand chosen by Kikuchi-sensei, comes Vampire Hunter D: The Manga. Based off the original novels first published in 1983, D finally makes the jump from film and prose to an original manga. Having inspired several anime features and a hit Playstation 2 video game, the tale of the epic Hunter will continue in this revolutionary series.

For fans of Juné, Digital Manga Publishing’s yaoi imprint, 6 new yaoi titles join Moon and Sandals by Fumi Yoshinaga, announced at Comic Con two weeks prior, in the spring 2007 line-up.

Kurashina Sensei’s Passion Written and illustrated by Shino Natsuho
La Vie in Rose Written and illustrated by Sakurako Yamada
Waru Written and illustrated by Yukare Hashida
Wagamama Kitchen Written and illustrated by Kaori Monchi
Fake Fur Written and illustrated by Satomi Yamagata
The Paradise on the Hill Written and illustrated by Momoko Tenzen

Finally, Digital Manga Inc. announced the formation of a separate company called 801 Media Inc. that will focus on bringing yaoi for a more mature audience to the United States. The company will be hosting a launch party and a panel at Yaoi Con 2006. So, stay tuned for title announcements and more information.

*******************************************************************************
About Digital Manga, Inc.
Digital Manga, Inc. (DMI) specializes in building corporate and cultural bridges from Japan to the Western Hemisphere - specifically through the licensing, importation and preparation of anime (Japanese animation), manga (Japanese comic books) and related merchandise for the North American mainstream and subculture markets. In this capacity, DMI serves as a catalyst for the expansion of Japanese pop-culture institutions into global arenas.

Contact Digital Manga, Inc at 1487 West 178th Street Suite 300, Gardena, CA 90248;
Phone (310) 817-8010; Fax (310) 817-8018; and web site at www.emanga.com.