Kids these days… they’re all irreverent slackers, consumed in the little bubbles of social media and self-absorption, right? Not so fast! That’s not what I just experienced at all. Each year, Bergen (County New Jersey) Community College is the site for the Bergen Teen Arts Festival. This impressive event invites outstanding high school students to…
So there’s this guy, see? Name of Shouta. And he’s obsessed with the female lead character in his favorite manga story, which he re-reads over and over again. (He’s otherwise the usual shonen lead character: first-year in high school, glasses, quiet, no friends or respectable hobbies — the total otaku.) And then, on page two…
http://cbldf.org/2014/06/cnn-spectacularly-fails-to-understand-manga-and-anime/ As Japan prepares to implement a new law which bans the possession of child pornography but exempts manga and anime, CNN released an over-the-top sensation…
Sequart Organization is proud to announce the release of When Manga Came to America: Super-Hero Revisionism in Mai, the Psychic Girl, by Julian Darius. The first manga widely available in English, Mai, the Psychic Girl – written by Kazuya Kudō, with art by Ryoichi Ikegami – offered a near-perfect story for American readers: a realistic super-hero story, in line with…
Properly channeling Japanese culture for American audiences has been a challenge given how different our tastes and expectations are. We find the content of much of their Manga and anime either not to our taste or outright incomprehensible. So, the challenge of adapting their bushido Edo-era and adding in some powerful fantasy into [[[47 Ronin]]]…
Some writers love their characters, and can hardly bear to have anything bad happen to them. Osamu Tezuka, though, is not one of them: particularly in his books for adults, like MW, Ayako, Ode to Kirihito, and Apollo’s Song, he creates profoundly damaged — and damaging — characters, and then sets them up to bounce…
Sony is telling PSP owners that its comic book portal is shutting down after October 30th. Users will then be unable to download the necessary app or buy additional titles. Any currently owned comics will be available to download again until mid-January, but readers will be on their own to preserve existing comic collections after…
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is pleased to announce that thanks to the support of its contributors, the organization has disbursed an additional $10,000 to Ryan Matheson to help pay off the $75,000 legal defense costs that he incurred defending himself against false charges brought by Canada Customs in a case involving manga comics…
Swedish news outlet The Local reports that their Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of manga translator Simon Lundström on child pornography charges relating to manga files on his computer. The court’s decision reflects the viewpoint of free speech advocates, including the CBLDF, that sexually explicit manga images are protected artistic expression and not child…
This week’s Reviewing the Mail begins with a long-distance shout-out to Ellen Wright, who started at Wiley the first week I did, but has since moved up and on to working in Publicity with the fine folks at Orbit US. My pipeline of Yen Press titles — Yen being the manga arm of Orbit —…
We haven’t done a Manga Friday post in a while, but this is just a bit too accurate to brush off. From Saturday Night Live with guest host Anna Faris, two college students celebrate their love of Japanese culture with their TV show “J-Pop America Fun Time Now!” Warning: ComicMix Management takes no responsibility if…
I will stipulate upfront that I am a casual, at best, reader of [[[Manga]]] and barely watch any anime. It does not mean, though, that I am unaware of the essential titles and creators. As a result, I have been aware of [[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]] and the work of the legendary…
