Believe it or not, for a first week of the month, it’s pretty quiet. Which is somewhat of a relief after all those Tokyopop releases last week. But Viz has scaled back and postponed some releases, so we don’t have quite as much as usual from them.
But first, Bandai comes out with the final Volume of Gundam 00 2nd Season, which is, naturally, totally distinct from Gundam 00F, which I believe may still be ongoing. And Dark Horse comes out with two titles at the complete opposite end of every demographic spectrum: the T&A; violence of Gantz (from Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump), and the horror with shonen ai overtones of Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse (which ran in Kadokawa’s shoujo magazine, Asuka).
As for Viz, a couple of their titles are also coming to an end, including one of the original Shonen Jump titles, Shaman King, which ends this week at Vol. 32. There’s also Prince of Tennis, which has hit Vol. 40 and is still going. Not much longer now, though, it wraps up at Vol. 42, provided Viz don’t pick up the sequel which just started. There’s also Eyeshield 21, which has 3 more volumes to go after this one. Given One Piece and Gin Tama (and Claymore, whose Vol. 17 is also out this week) are still piling up volumes with no end in sight, Viz must be relieved to see some of the lower-selling but long running series come to an end.
In shoujo news, we get new volumes of Natsume’s Book of Friends and Stepping on Roses (I’m hoping for more awesome shogi action in the latter, though I expect I’ll merely get more passive heroine mooning over jerk), and the final volume of Sand Chronicles, which ended its main storyline back 2 volumes ago but has added some side stories here rather than interspersed throughout as I’m more used to with shoujo.
Lastly, Viz lists the 2nd volume of Kurozakuro as coming out the week after next, but Midtown has it shipping on 1/5. Well, there had to be something different in this week’s comparison of Midtown and Diamond – there always is. Anyway, buy this title, or the character on the cover will leap out and rip your throat out with his razor-sharp teeth. I think.
