Well hey, look who finally decided to show up! Now that everyone else has read and talked about Tokyopop’s March releases, they finally come crawling into comic shops a mere 5 weeks late. But at least they are HERE.
We have tons of shoujo, with no less than *six* Hakusensha titles. New Maid-sama!, Happy Cafe, and Skyblue Shore. A new Demon Sacred, which deserves to be separated from those others as it’s a very different breed of shoujo. The 2nd and final Eensy-Weensy Monster. And the debut of a new 2-volume series, Clean Freak Fully Equipped. In non-Hakusensha titles, we have a new ‘it’s shoujo, really’ volume of Red Hot Chili Samurai, as well as new volumes of ‘they’re shonen, really’ series Animal Academy (also its final volume) and Pavane for a Dead Girl (from Koge-Donbo). Lastly, there’s the mysterious Butterfly from Tokyopop’s new best friends, Gentosha, and their Comic Birz.
There is, of course, non-Tokyopop stuff, for those folks who are going “but we read these ages ago, as we order from Amazon/Right Stuf”. Blue has a new yaoi, Crimson Snow. DMP has a huge pile of new yaoi, including new volumes of Finder and Kabuki. And Seven Seas has the new Vampire Bund spinoff, and the 2nd Hayate x Blade omnibus.
Then there’s Viz, which is here right on time with their giant blast of first-week titles. From Jump proper we get a new Eyeshield 21, which is in the ‘international’ part of its story, as well as new volumes of Nura and Slam Dunk, and the penultimate Prince of Tennis. From Jump Square we get one of the few best-selling harem manga left out there, Rosario + Vampire, now in Season 2. (Hint: it doesn’t sell because of the harem.) And we get a new series debut in Blue Exorcist, which word on the street tells me has a bad start but revs up after its first chapter. Sounds like Nura, oddly enough.
On the shoujo front, Viz has new volumes of Dengeki Daisy and Seiho Boys’ High School for you fans of Betsucomi. (Note: the term ‘Betsucomi’ is copyright Shogakukan, and is used here flagrantly without their permission. Tee hee.) From the Shueisha end of Viz, we have the debut of Sakura Hime, the new Tanemura series, from the underrated Ribon magazine. And we have a new volume of Stepping on Roses, which continues to have far less shogi than I would really like, from the equally underrated Margaret magazine.
Is your wallet crushed yet?
Wait! Red Hot Chilli Samurai is shoujo?! No way!"Note: the term 'Betsucomi' is copyright Shogakukan, and is used here flagrantly without their permission. Tee hee."Tee hee indeed XD-hikaru
Red Hot Chili Samurai ran in Kadokawa Shoten's shoujo fantasy otaku girl magazine Asuka. It's not shoujo in the same way that Ribon and Nakayoshi are, but Asuka's primary market is teen girls.