This post is late, mostly as Midtown’s list was so ludicrously small that I knew it would be missing stuff. And I was right. A comparison between Diamond, my store, and Midtown:
Diamond: About 80% of Viz’s first week August titles, plus Del Rey’s last week of July titles, plus 2 TP titles.
My store: no Del Rey stuff, but 100% of Viz.
Midtown: just the TP titles, and nothing else.
So I waited till Monday, so I’d have something that vaguely resembled reality. I’m leaving off Del Rey, as I don’t get it, so you can’t have it either. :p I’m also fudging the Viz releases, as Diamond’s list is leaving off some of their titles my shop is getting in (like Seiho), so I’ll note all of Viz’s first week of August stuff.
Vertical has another volume of the always fantastic Black Jack. Tokyopop has another back from the abyss twofer, with Vol. 8 and 9 of Yubisaki Milk Tea, a series last seen in March 2008. Sadly, I can’t stand it, but I’m sure its fans are happy.
And as for Viz… wow, that’s a lot of stuff I read. A lot. There’s Skip Beat! 21, starting its new story arc. Otomen will hopefully feature a little more Ryo, as she’s on the cover. Kimi ni Todoke gets a great Chizuru subplot to go with its adorable Sawako one. Gin Tama is… well, it’s Gin Tama. Need I say more?
There’s three series ending this week. I never read Muhyo and Roji, so can’t say much about it, except it lasted 18 volumes in the cauldron that is Weekly Shonen Jump, which is pretty good. Flower in a Storm is ending at 2, which is probably the sole reason I’m getting the 2nd volume – the first was merely adequate. Speaking of adequate, my favorite lost cause is ending, as The Magic Touch comes to an end. But we have Oresama Teacher to look forward to in 2011.
As for debuts, there’s Seiho Men’s High School, which looks like your standard Shojo beat fluff. Don’t know much about it, but will certainly give it a try. I hear it focuses on the guys rather than the gals, and not in a reverse harem way. And then there’s Bakuman, which I will give another shot. I read the scans when it debuted, and Chapter 2 irritated me so much I stopped dead. But it seems to be very popular, so I will persevere!
And yeah, the Del Rey stuff that everyone but me will get. I’ll talk about it for next week’s post… I hope.
Is Chapter 2 of Bakuman the one where the A-student wannabe mangaka explains to his reluctant collaborator that the collaborator's crush is really the smartest girl in the class because she's deliberately (he thinks) not getting good grades in order to conform to some 1950's standard of desirable female behavior? I'd found the first Bakuman excerpt that appeared in the U.S. Shonen Jump interesting, but once I saw that one, they could forget about my ever spending money on that series.