Friday, September 21, 2012

Some Beautiful Manga

I'd like to say first of all, I'm discovering some AWESOME new songs that's hard to---STOP GIRL, in the name of loooove~ Uhh... what? Haha, U-Kiss's new single "Stop Girl" is pretty FANtastic. Listen to it. I'm warming up to these boys, although it might be because of Kevin's sweet voice.

Anywho, I'm purchasing up a storm of manga again! What arrived in the mail this month were...
  • The Magic Touch Volume 9
  • Love * Com Volumes 12-14
  • Oresama Teacher Volumes 1-4
  • Soul Eater Not! Volume 1
  • Otomen Volume 13
They're all VERY good stuff. And I actually should be expecting "The Day of Revolution" in my mailbox within a week ^^

I'm not going to talk about how Amazon trolled me badly (because it was partly due to my carelessness as well), but uhhh... yeah, I also bought some goodies from Omari's Sisters stuff sale :'D

I'm really happy about Oresama, guys...

Plus, there are some GOOD manga coming at me in the beginning of next month (not to mention an anime premiere of one of my treasured manga series!)

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Otomen v01 ch01 Summary

Well, I know Otomen is an incredible adorable gem, but scanlators only got to a couple chapters before it got licensed in English. So I'm definitely no translator, but I can at least share some of the love with you other aspiring Otomen fans!

I don't really know what chapters/volumes other people have already summarized, so I'll just start at the beginning until people ask for certain chapters/volumes. I might switch between the beginning and the place where scanlators left off though... tell me what you think! If you like it, feel free to request any particular chapter that you want to know about! I have volumes 1-13 in English =]

Follow along with the Japanese raws! I put the page numbers and some pictures in between to help you keep track of where you are :'D

Otomen by Aya Kanno [summaries]

[summary from VIZ Shojo Beat] Asuka Masamune is a guy who loves girly things--sewing, knitting, making cute stuffed animals and reading shojo comics. But in a world where boys are expected to act manly, Asuka must hide his beloved hobbies and play the part of a masculine jock instead. Ryo Miyakozuka, on the other hand, is a girl who can't sew or bake a cake to save her life. Asuka finds himself drawn to Ryo, but she likes only the manliest of men! Can Asuka ever show his true self to anyone, much less to the girl that he's falling for?


[volume 1] one, two, three, four
[volume 2] five, six, seven, eight
[volume 3] nine, ten, eleven, twelve
[volume 4] thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen
[volume 5] seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty
[volume 6] twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four
[volume 7] twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight
[volume 8] twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two
[volume 9] thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six
[volume 10] thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty
[volume 11] forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four
[volume 12] forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight
[volume 13] forty-nine, forty-fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two
[volume 14] releases in English on January 1st, 2013
[volume 15] releases in English on May, 2013
[volume 16] releases in English on August, 2013
[volume 17] last volume

Monday, September 3, 2012

Making Plans for Buying Comics!

My plan of attack involves getting most of my Bakuman, Oresama Teacher and Yotsuba&!? volumes from Anime Expo 2013. There are usually some pretty nice discounts for NEW books at Anime Expo to try and get you to buy the manga there. The first time I went there, it was 30% off your entire purchase, so I just snagged the rest of my Spiral collection from there ;D The used books booths usually have 50% off, which is nice, but it's hard to find newer series there. Most of the titles are obscure of have been out for a long time in America (ie. Naruto, Bleach, Skip Beat). I will buy Strobe Edge, Pokemon Adventures DPP, Soul Eater Not! and Otomen as they come out (most likely in Barnes&Nobles where I can get a discount on them). Anything else, I'll probably just find cheap used copies online or at BookOff ^___^

This gets even better. So lots of the series I'm collecting at the moment are coming to an end in America! They include Bakuman, Otomen and also Chocolat (manhwa).

  • Bakuman ends in 20 volumes.
    I've got about 6 non-consecutive volumes at the moment.
    VIZ's Shonen Jump is releasing every month until they hit the last two volumes. Then they'll wait a month for those two, I believe. That's fine with me. By the time Anime Expo hits, I think it might actually finish.
    Sooo... that means, if I don't find anymore volumes in the next 10 months (I'm sure I will lol) At 30% off an entire purchase, it'll cost me $90.90, plus potential tax, so that sound round up to about $100 for 13 volumes. Not bad, but I could probably do better lol.
    I should be finished with this series before the end of 2013
  • Otomen seems like it's ending with 17 volumes in Japan.
    Volume 13 is on the way for me, that means there's only 4 volumes left to buy if that's true.
    American releases of Otomen are pretty much caught up, the 14th volume is already listed for New Years. That's about a 4 month delay, and I expect it to be the same for the rest of the volumes. Japan is releasing the 16th volume later THIS month.
    This allll means that I should be done with this series by the start of 2014 =]
  • Chocolat will be done by the end of 2012, I don't think I need to say much about this LOL
 I hope that next year, I'll hear some nice new licensing agreements! I would love to hear if VIZ is planning to do the HGSS arc after they finish DPP and Platinum, because they're finally caught up in publishing the volumes in Japan. My other hopeful is a RE-license of Gakuen Alice because that's on it's last arc in Japan, and it's one of my favorite and most precious series! Oh yes, and with the coming of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun's anime in October and success on the Oricon manga charts, I WISH that Kodansha USA would publish it in English! That would seriously be awesome.

If I hear some news about a licensing of new works from Natsuki Takaya, Aya Nakahara, Kawahara Kazune, Izumi Tsubaki and Sakisaka Io... I will be SOOOO excited!

My final hope is that Yen Press will be able to pick up a nice new manhwa title or two next year! It's tough getting a license for Korean comics because their industry isn't as stable as Japan's comic industry. Often, series get cut left and right, plus they're only starting to get a little popular. Manhwa (currently) has a certain taste to it that's a little different than Japanese manga that caters to a whole assortment of people.

So... there are my hopes! =]