Regional specialties
The Mature Graphic Novel section has not yet reached north-central West Virginia. I swung by Books-A-Million last night to see. It did look like there were fewer Juné and Blu titles than usual, so maybe they’ve been sorted out and it’s in the works. (The manager, who’s an acquaintance, wasn’t on hand to ask.)
One thing did strike me as I was browsing. It’s too bad Viz didn’t put out a Bleach box set in time for the holidays, like Tokyopop did with Kingdom Hearts. A conveniently bundled, nicely packaged chunk of the early volumes might entice the curious.
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I’m kind of baffled by the ComicList for the week. The list itself says the only Del Rey offering for the week is the second volume of Basilisk. Jog seems to think that the fourth volume of Love Roma is arriving. The e-mailer from the local comic shop suggests that the seventh volume of Genshiken will arrive. Should I focus on the happiness of new Genshiken, or wallow in the bitterness of delayed Love Roma gratification?
There does seem to be general consensus that this week will see the arrival of the second volumes of Off*Beat and The Dreaming and the fourteenth of The Kindaichi Case Files from Tokyopop. Okay, so maybe it would be nice if these suspenseful stories had dropped the day before Halloween instead of the day after. But it’s close enough.
Not to be outdone in the second volume category, Seven Seas releases the sophomore installment of Inverloch, a web-to-print fantasy story from Sarah Ellerton. I liked the first a lot.
It seems like it’s been weeks since a new volume of a post-apocalyptic survival manga showed up. Dark Horse leaps into the breach with the fifth volume of Eden: It’s an Endless World! For more science fiction, you could always check out June from Netcomics.
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There seems to be a mad flurry of manga reviews of late, and MangaBlog’s Brigid has been staying on top of them.
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So I’m glancing at the Taiyosha Top Ten over at MangaCast, and I can’t help but notice that Nodame Cantabile has really parked itself there. Volume 16 debuted at number one, with a special taking eighth place the same week. And it’s still in the top 10.
No particular point to that observation, aside from the fact that I like the book and its success makes me happy.
I would imagine the live-action TV adaptation probably has something to do with Nodame’s popularity. (The fansubs are available at D-Addicts, by the way.)
Comment by Anonymous — October 31, 2006 @ 9:48 am
Possibly helped #1 get on the top ten a few weeks back. But Nodame has been a best seller for a while before the drama came out.
On another note… bad pun sorry. Just read this week’s flipped and am wondering if DMP should try to add the doujinshi continuations that Yoshinaga made for Antique Bakery if they were to ever make an Antique Ominbus. Wouldn’t that be a tastey treat for fans of the Antique.
Comment by ed — October 31, 2006 @ 10:23 am
Too bad that doesn’t mean much in North America…
I actually picked up Love Roma 4 yesterday (they arrived on Friday), as my shop seemed to order them from a non-Diamond distributer along with the new Genshiken and Nodame. I’m going to assume the dates that other shops will recieve them will vary.
Comment by Huff — October 31, 2006 @ 10:42 am
Ed: That would be lovely indeed. I had no idea such wonders existed. It would be all the inducement I’d need to pay for the same material twice.
Huff: I thought my local shop was Diamond-only, but they can’t be, as they always get the Del Rey stuff either before or after Diamond ships it.
Comment by David Welsh — October 31, 2006 @ 11:15 am
According to my friends at MangaCast, a new Genshiken did come out. Diamond didn’t list it, and neither did Cold Cut, so I don’t know where retailers got it from, UNLESS Diamond really did release and didn’t put it in their weekly information.
Chuck from ComicList
Comment by Chuck — November 2, 2006 @ 3:01 am
Yup, it arrived at the shop I go to, but the owner had stepped out, so I couldn’t ask if he’d ordered it from Diamond or some ultra-super-secret source.
Comment by David Welsh — November 2, 2006 @ 3:38 am