Manga the Week of 6/20

Eep. You may look at what’s coming out next week and think it’s a first week of the month. There is a giant PILE of stuff from several publishers. Let’s break it down.

Dark Horse has the 23rd volume of Gantz. It’s been mentioned that Dark Horse’s manga licenses (Berserk, Gunsmith Cats, Gantz) tend to cater more for the Western Comics sort of fan, and I can sort of see their point. These may not hit any bookstore bestseller lists, but rest assured they do well with Diamond folks.

Kodansha has a few titles that are already out via bookstores but are trickling into Diamond, because Diamond knows the Kodansha buyer is willing to wait those extra weeks. (sarcasm mode off) There’s Volume 19 of Fairy Tail, continuing the long protracted battle against… um… those guys, you know. The latest villains. Also, Jellal. We also have the 3rd volume of the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex manga, which apparently has an ongoing plot here regarding a serial killer. I think Bloody Monday 6 and Gon 6 are also out, though they vanished from Midtown’s list between 1pm and now. Midtown does this to me sometimes. I think they vanished Mickey Mouse to spite me last week as well.

Viz has their usual slate of non-Jump releases. (Though my shop still has yet to get Toriko and Kamisama Kiss from 2 weeks ago, Bless you, Diamond. Bliamond.) New Arata the Legend and Kekkaishi from Shonen Sunday. New Bokurano and House Of Five Leaves from the diminished but still plugging away Ikki line. New Jormungand from Sunday GX, which is sort of the Shogakukan equivalent to Ultra Jump. And a new Tenjo Tenge omnibus from Ultra Jump, which, well, is sort of a Shueisha version of Sunday GX.

And then there’s Yen’s huge June lineup. No Higurashi, which is taking the summer off (ironically, given it takes place in a June that never ends). But we have tons of other stuff to whet your appetites. As you see, Olympos is coming out. (OK, it’s not on Midtown’s list either, but my store is getting it in.) This is a done-in-one fantasy manga from Ichijinsha’s sorta josei magazine Comic Zero-Sum, and as you can imagine deals with gods and mythology. Two volumes in Japanese, it’s out as an omnibus here. Speaking of omnibuses, remember Alice in the Country of Hearts and its 5 of 6 completed volumes? Well, Yen has rescued it, and is redoing the whole shebang in 3 big omnibuses, including the as-yet-unseen ending volume. I enjoyed this dark and twisted otome game world, and look forward to seeing how it wraps up… or, being a harem game, *if* it wraps up.

Other titles from Yen include the 6th Kobato manga from CLAMP, which I believe is the final one, and which will no doubt be adorable as all get out. Also in the adorable category is Sunshine Sketch 6. I have a soft spot for this 4-koma series, which has gotten some flak for its lack of plot and its even-more-superdeformed-than-usual designs. I do wonder if it will get more readers in this post-Madoka Magica world? In the OEL category, there’s the 2nd volume of James Patterson’s Witch & Wizard, by Nightschool artist Svetlana Chmakova. And lastly, though it’s not Yen, the 7th Haruhi Suzumiya novel is out from their corporate parents. This one is a full complete novel rather than a short story collection, and has enough time-travel to shake a TPDD at. Go get it.