First week of the month, so must be Viz! Well, mostly.

Certainly the title that caught my eye the most is the manga biography of Che Guevara, which Penguin Books is putting out. Unlike most faux-manga bios, this seems to have actual Japanese artists. If you like Che Guevara, check this out! (How often do I get to type that?)

Bandai has another 4-koma volume of Lucky Star coming out. And DMP has Bloody Kiss tonight, which seems to feature yaoi vampires, making it the most licenseable title in the history of the world.

And Viz. New Gintama is always welcome, this one wrapping up the long arc with the cursed otaku sword. New Bakuman will likely give me mixed feelings, but I’ll read it anyway. Special A and Crown of Love put out their final volumes, though I think everybody but me dropped SA a while back. There’s also new Otomen, hopefully with more Ryo after that last cliffhanger, and new Kimi ni Todoke, which continues the arc focused on Chizuru.

As for debuts, I’m very interested in Genkaku Picasso, a title from the author of Short Cuts, which sounds vaguely disturbing. Though possibly not as disturbing as the cover to Kurozakuro, a new Shonen Sunday title which will not eat you if you buy it, despite those teeth. And a new shoujo series, The Story of Saiunkoku, comes from Kadokawa’s Asuka magazine, and no doubt has an anime tie-in or two already.

What’s interesting you?

You thought the last week of the month might give you a break? HAH! Tokyopop and Del Rey team up to double team you!

Oh yes, and Dark Horse as a new volume of the Shinji Ikari spinoff manga that simply doesn’t appeal to me, mostly as I hate the ‘Episode 26’ universe and thought that it was a parody when it appeared in the anime.

As for Del Rey, all of these volumes will be ‘final volumes’ from Del Rey manga itself, but only Hell Girl, which gets its last 3 volumes put out in one giant omnibus, is actually over (bar its sequel, Hell Girl R). The others are all entering limbo land, hopefully to be rescued soon by Kodansha USA. I say hopefully as there’s some great stuff here.

A new Mahou Sensei Negima, which has the scene the yuri fans have been waiting for forever. There’s also the second volume of Code: Breaker, a shonen series I was pleasantly surprised by this summer. On the shoujo end, we get an omnibus of Vols. 22-24 of The Wallflower, which I love for its wacky humor and characters, although many hate its lack of romantic payoff. There’s the 2nd volume of potential dark magical girl series Fairy Navigator Runa. And there’s a debut, Arisa, from the creator of Kitchen Princess.

And now we come to Tokyopop, who have 3 new debuts. Summoner Girl, a cute shonen series. The Stellar Six of Gingacho, a cute shoujo series. And Saving Life, an ecchi harem series. Something for all walks of life! They have new volumes of Happy Cafe and V.B. Rose, which makes me incredibly happy. And they have new .hack, Maria Holic, and Asu no Yoichi, which I’m sure makes people other than me incredibly happy. They also wrap up their Gravitation reprint with Vols. 11 and 12.

And, most interesting of all, they have Hakusensha’s How to Draw Shojo Manga book, with contributions from many of their star artists!

What interests you this week?

There’s enough manga out in the third week of October that it reminds me of the bad old days when Viz and Tokyopop used to release 25-30 titles in the same week. This time, though, it’s Yen getting into the act, as they drop 14 new manga on us.

First up, though, Dark Horse has Volume 1 of the new Card Captor Sakura in its new omnibus edition. The first of what appears to be four planned volumes, this will have Vol. 1-3 of the original shoujo classic. Even the grumpiest of CLAMP fans, weary of their hijinks, tend to love this one to death. And rightfully so, it’s fantastic. (It’s also rated 12+, which makes me cry, but given that I think this is the volume with THAT engagement ring, I can sort of see it…)

Fans of the just-released Baseball Heaven might be interested in a new yaoi title from DMP, Double Cast, which has the same artist. And there’s also the Wings title Alice 101st, Wings being Shinshokan’s ‘non yaoi titles for yaoi fangirls’ shoujo magazine.

Vertical has the adorable Chi’s Sweet Home, while Viz has the gritty samurai drama Vagabond. Both, of course, run in the same magazine. Viz also has the Vampire Knight fanbook, telling you more than you ever want to know about Yuki Cross and her collection of vampire hangers-on. March Story is a Korean writer/artist who is being serialized in the Japanese Sunday Gene-X, so will inspire label debate. And more Kingyo Used Books, which will never get the blogosphere chattering, but is relaxing and makes me nostalgic for old manga titles I will never see here.

And then there’s Yen. For yaoi fans, there’s a new Black Butler (not technically yaoi, but come on…), and Ugly Duckling’s Love Revolution is a reverse harem. For the guys, Omamori Himari is a plain old normal fanservicey harem manga. We get another volume of the Haruhi Suzumiya manga, and the first volume in its much, much better gag spinoff, Haruhi-chan. We get the first of a new 2-volume Higurashi set, the first one not adapted from one of the games – it’s an original to the manga storyline. And intriguingly, we get a 500-page omnibus of a manga from the magazine Princess, Dragon Girl. This is by the author of CMX’s Oyayubihime Infinity (which also came from Princess), and involves a female Ouendan! Only in Japan would a female cheerleader be an intriguing and unusual idea…