27-year-old Dan Luffey essentially knew he would be going to Japan to translate works there since his days as a kid. Born in Pennsylvania but growing up in California, after going to Japan as a high school student he ended up loving his time in Japan. So much so that he attended Kyoto University. Yes, ... Read more
Over the past couple months I’ve looked at both of Satoshi Mizukami’s works that are available in English, Spirit Circle and Hoshi no Samidare: The Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, and my feelings on Biscuit Hammer were rather lukewarm. I felt like Spirit Circle improved on all of the problems I had with the story but that was expected, ... Read more
Remember the manga advice series that got started last year? Well guess what? I’m doing it again! It was well received, so I did plan on trying to do it again. Unlike last year though, it’s been a bit tougher to get in contact with people. I can only blame my scheduling this year. Anyways, ... Read more
On February 16, 2016, Seven Seas will release to North American audiences Katsuhisa Kigitsu’s Franken Fran in omnibus format (two volumes in one and color inserts). Serialized in Champion Red (Akita Shoten) in 2006 and concluding in 2012, it’s a dark parody manga that focuses on Fran, who takes over the job of the greatest ... Read more
Last week I was able to get in touch with Hope Donovan. As you’ll discover when reading this interview, she’s been editing manga for a long time. I mean long enough to have edited (or copy edited) works like Chibi Vampire, GTO Early Years for Tokyopop, and today edits Toriko and Seraph of The End ... Read more
28-year old Robert and his brother expected to go to their regular thrift store in O’Fallon, Missouri to pick up Nerf Guns for their game of Humans Vs Zombies on April 13. What happened was: They didn’t find Nerf Guns. They walked out with over 400 manga volumes instead. The catch? “I’ve never actually read ... Read more
I posted the audio version of the manga insight panel I moderated at Castle Point Anime Con. Now, here’s the transcribed version of it, just for you people who aren’t prone to listening! So if you missed some audio when you listened to it originally or want to see what was said in text, you ... Read more
Planetes has been one of those titles that people in manga circles have been hoping would be reprinted and licensed after it was formerly released by TOKYOPOP many years ago. But years end up going by, and well, nothing. Well, that will end this year. Planetes, by Makoto Yukimura (creator of Vinland Saga), is a ... Read more
The first thing that will strike you about speaking to the creator of Henshin and Eisner nominated artist of I KILL GIANTS is his English is solid, considering he grew up in Spain and now lives in Tokyo working on manga for a manga publisher. The second thing that will strike you is him expressing ... Read more
So it’s the end of the month, and it’s time to reflect a bit. In other words, reflecting on manga that we read this month and revealing that it was amazing. Let’s just say Justin continues to find absolutely weird manga on his reading list though and call it a day. Basara Justin: Despite all ... Read more
This is a guest post from Laura at Heart of Manga. Hey shoujo fans! It’s always nice to hear when a new series is licensed but it’s hard to keep up with all the announcements throughout the year. Well, here’s a little cheat sheet for you for 2015. As of this week, these are the ... Read more
Let me just say Majiko’s Mikansei No. 1, a two volume series about Neo Takigawa’s adjustment to life from the conservative 23rd Century to the frolicking 21st Century and her goals of being a singing star, was a title that I expected to be pretty poor. Instead, I ended up reading the first volume, and ... Read more
So, there’s a lot of places to read manga. There’s a lot of places to buy manga. There are manga titles that can be liked by all. And we know what manga publishers are allowed to license. That’s all over the place on the internet. Let’s fix that by putting it all in one place. ... Read more
2015’s gonna bring a ton of change, for better or for worse. And I have little doubt this is gonna involve some services in the industry. And you know what? These services are on the clock, as their success (or failure) will shape how the industry moves forward from now. Funimation In case you haven’t ... Read more
There’s generally been a reason, a few reasons, or many reasons, why people don’t buy manga. What exactly are those reasons? Aside from potential translation/editing/product issues (which, well, IS a possibility), we’ve come up with 5 “fears” of buying manga from manga publishers, which takes into account the present and the future. Of course, this ... Read more
“The level of idiocy of some people in this world surpasses imagination.” *** Okuda is a long time temp worker at a computer software company in 2008, and after suddenly realizing that he was never going to get a long term, stable position, he eventually got fired for being “fucking useless,” or bringing up the ... Read more
Hmm, not sure if this is a pardon my dust situation or what, but yeah, pardon the lack of articles from me recently, but work has been work, and I’ve done a terribad job of managing my time. That, and been reading Game of Thrones. Hopefully that time has past though, and I can manage my ... Read more
We all know about the classic elements seen in shoujo manga: the heroine and hero are childhood friends, the rivals are horrible pricks, and the hero is always there to save the heroine. And you’d think by now most manga artists would have managed to change things a bit and spice it up? Unfortunately, no. ... Read more
My final NYCC interview (Yes, this is it, I swear!) ended up with me talking to someone very important right next to people turning a contest wheel. I guess you’ll find out what I mean when you listen to the audio. (That’s me imploring you to listen to the audio version.) Anyways, I was able ... Read more
For a lot of reasons, I was only able to speak to most of the people I talked to at NYCC for a short period. Here’s another somewhat brief one that also happened unexpectedly: my interview with Editor-in-Chief of the English, or US version, of Weekly Shonen Jump, Andy Nakatani. Andy didn’t exactly know what ... Read more
I easily admit it would be kind of weird if I was able to interview Tiffany at NYCC, but somehow not Danika when the reason Crunchyroll was there in the first place was because they have their manga service up and running. But no worries, as I did manage to talk to the Manga Brand ... Read more
For at least the past few years I didn’t really talk to anyone or ask for interviews the past couple of NYCC’s. This year you’ll see a drastic change in that philosophy, and I hope you’ll all enjoy that! Over this year’s NYCC, I spoke with Robert McGuire, who is the Editor-in-Chief of Gen Manga, ... Read more
Let’s just say I decided to expand upon that post I wrote about a month ago on Manga Bookshelf and took my adventure to New York Comic Con. For better or worse. Give a listen to publishers and fans on why they think it’s worth it to buy manga, and you can share, in however ... Read more
So I ended up writing an article about why it’s worth it to buy manga. While attempting to do research into it, I admit I was looking into resources that did buy manga that didn’t live in the US. You can make the case I did a poor job! I only ended up getting in ... Read more
There are a lot of talked about aspects when it comes to manga, but out of all of them, manga lettering is generally the one aspect that’s not talked about much. That’s mostly because the only time you would ever notice a letterer is if the manga they actually worked on has mistakes with the ... Read more
[…] be particularly interesting. And over at Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, Justin wants you all to Meet the Man Who’s Translated a Thousand Manga Chapters—Dan […]