After a couple weeks where it seemed as if no manga were coming out at all, it falls to the good folks at Tokyopop to remind us that they’re back, and releasing more than ever! Plus Yen gets in the act as well with their January slate.

We actually start with DMP, which has 2 yaoi titles coming out, including one called No Touching At All. I have not read the manga in question, but given its genre, I’m going to make a wild guess that there will, in fact, be touching. And Tokyopop’s Blu imprint has a book from their new best friends, Gentosha, with the odd title You And Me Etc.

Back to Tokyopop proper, they have more cute shoujo coming out! Whee! We get the second volume of The Stellar Six of Gingacho, whose first surprised me with how big a smile it put on my face. There’s another Portrait of M & N, the silly series by the author of Gakuen Alice. There’s a new Gakuen Alice too, though we’re getting near the point in the series where I’m going to have to stop calling it ‘cute’ as it gets darker and darker. In non-Hakusensha shoujo, there’s the final volume of Mad Love Chase and the 4th of Momogumi Plus Senki, both from Kadokawa’s weird shoujo fantasy thing Asuka. And we even have (gasp!) a josei title this week, as they relase the 8th volume of cult hit Pet Shop of Horrors Tokyo, which comes from our friends at Asahi Shinbunsha, best known over here for… well, this.

On the shonen side, we see the debut of Lives, a new manga from Akita Shoten’s Champion Red. Those who are familiar with the type of reader Champion Red gets know what sort of reader they’re going for here. Expect a lot of fanservice and violence. Speaking of Akita Shoten, we also get the 7th volume of Samurai Harem from their monthly Shonen Champion. There’s also a pile of Kadokawa stuff, from the new Fate/Stay Night to Deadman Wonderland and the 2nd AiON (only a month after the first), all from Shonen Ace or Dragon Age, their two big shonen magazines.

Rounding off Tokyopop, we see at long last the 4th volume of the Full Metal Panic novels, Ending Day By Day. This was released as 2 novels in Japan, Part 1 and Part 2, but is being bundled together here. I’d love to see it sell better than the others have, if only as I want to see the rest of the books. (FMP, like Haruhi, has the major issue of the anime following the novel so closely that those who watched the anime first feel no need to buy the text version.) This one’s really good, though. There’s the 6th volume of the seinen Maria Holic, which no doubt will continue making fun of yuri tropes. And oh look, a new volume of .hack//Christ On A Bike.

(My lawyers advise me to note here that I bear no legal responsibility if you buy the new .hack and find that it does not, in fact, contain Christ, bicycles, or any combination thereof.)

Let’s move on to Yen, which also has a big fanservicey debut with High School of the Dead. This comes from Kadokawa’s Dragon Age, and many people were surprised at Yen getting it, but they have been expanding their range, so let’s see what they can do with it. I understand it has zombies in high school, in any case. Speaking of Kadokawa, we also have the 2nd Omamori Himari, which, along with Sumomomo Momomo, tells me that someone in Yen’s licensing department is taking the mickey. There’s more game-based bishoujo tease with Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution, and the penultimate volume of Spiral. There are new Black Butler and Pandora Hearts volumes from GFantasy (their motto: look, we’re shonen, OK? Just shut up!). And lastly, there’s the second volume in the Book Girl novels, featuring a Famished Spirit. I greatly enjoyed the first book, so look forward to this.

So what inspires you this week?

Well, I can only hope that Diamond’s eventual list differs from Midtown’s, as otherwise next week will be one of the smallest manga weeks I’ve seen in ages. The manga numbers 3. 3 shall be the number the manga numbers, and the number the manga numbers shall be 3. All from our friends at Viz.

I don’t really have much to say about Afterschool Charisma. It had one of the more intriguing premises from Viz’s Ikki line, but just never grabbed me. In any case, Volume 2 is out this week, and will feature more thrilling clone action, I am sure.

On the flip side, the third volume of Dorohedoro has me throbbing with anticipation (so to speak), as it was easily the biggest surprise of 2010. My initial thoughts were that it would be a brutal dystopian gorefest. Which it IS – but with a sly sense of humor, some amazing characterization, and a well thought-out world that makes me want to learn more. This is easily the longest running Ikki series Viz licensed (it’s at 15 volumes in Japan, and still running), so I hope sales do well enough for it to continue for a long time.

And we have Volume 24 of Fullmetal Alchemist, which is finished in Japan, but still crawls along here at the painful rate of 2 volumes per year. I don’t think it’s due to low sales – some suggested Viz wants to time its end with the end of the Brotherhood anime – but at least it makes each new volume a treat. It’ll be hard to top the amazingness that was Chapter 95 (aka Roy/Riza fans’ finest hour), but I’m sure we will see the author try.

And that’s it. Any plans for purchasing?

A very quiet Week 2 of the month here. Usually Week 2 is where we get a pile of Del Rey from Diamond, but of course we now have to wait till May for the ‘reborn as Kodansha’ titles to come out. And I’d hoped for some Yen, but I guess I wait till next week on that.

So it’s just Viz, but there are several notable entries. The biggie here is that Volume 56 is the final volume of Inu Yasha, which Viz has now been releasing for over 12 years. Of course, they’re still doing the VIZBIG omnibuses, and we still have Rin-Ne, but it just won’t be the same without it. There is also a 2nd omnibus of the awesome Cross Game, which is now down to 2-in-1 volumes. This therefore covers the Japanese Vol. 4 & 5.

There’s plenty more Shonen Sunday stuff as well, with the penultimate Yakitate!! Japan, new Kekkaishi (which I know little of, but which is big enough to get an omnibus release from Viz this summer), as well as new Hyde & Closer and Case Closed (is he still Jimmy? I suppose Viz can’t quietly make him Conan now after all this time…)

And lastly we have the one non-Sunday release, Vol. 14 of Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. Now, Shueisha did release Vol. 15 in Japan, so it’s likely that Viz will put that one out. After that, though, there was a big fuss over reprints that rewrote old dialogue, and the artist left Shueisha entirely, and will be continuing the series in Kodansha’s Evening magazine. What this means for the books over here is, I suppose, something that only the contract writers at Viz know for sure. Hopefully the series will not go the way of Zatch Bell, canceled over in North America due to contracts and bad feelings (and, admittedly, possibly due to mediocre sales).