I may be in NY for the convention, but that’s no reason not to tell you what’s coming out next week in manga!

Bandai celebrates the week with two whole releases – the second volume of Code Geass: Knight, the female oriented doujinshi anthology (note: it’s clean. Sorry, girls.) And there’s the 6th volume of Lucky Star, featuring, no doubt, more 4-koma otaku-oriented humor.

Dark Horse has been pumping out volumes of the dark, violent series Gantz, so I guess it must be doing well for them. It certainly seems to fit, coming from the publisher of Berserk and Blade of the Immortal. I wonder if there’s any other Shueisha or Shogakukan series that might bypass Viz for Dark Horse? (Gantz runs in Weekly Young Jump, a men’s magazine.)

I don’t really have anything witty to say about Love Potion, the newest yaoi manga from DMP, except to say that I am sad it’s not Volume 9.

And then there’s Viz. The big news is the first omnibus edition of Cross Game, which makes me very excited. (It’s not on Midtown’s list, but I’ll assume that’s the usual glitch.) Cross Game is by the legendary Mitsuru Adachi, and I hope readers enjoy his subtle understatement, his love of baseball, and his big surprise at the 1/3 mark of this volume.

In other Viz news, we get new Case Closed, Inu Yasha, Kekkaishi and Yakitate! Japan, and the second volume of boy and his teddy bear action comic Hyde & Closer. Here’s hoping some of these Shonen Sunday series do better in terms of sales (well, apart from Inu Yasha, which needs no help.)

First week of the month, and that means mostly Viz. Their debut this month is Grand Guignol Orchestra, a high-gothic fantasy from the pen of Kaori Yuki, author of Godchild and the Count Cain series.

We also get a new One Piece, for the first time in what seems like forever but is only 3 months, as Luffy goes further into Impel Down. Other Jump titles include Eyeshield 21 (still battling for the Christmas Bowl), Strawberry 100% (still proving that ecchi shonen romances don’t sell well here), Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo (I’d looooooooooove to see the sales figures for this one – did Viz prepare their print run of one for me?), and some ninja thing or something.

For Viz’s shoujo line, I’m looking forward to Dengeki Daizy and Seiho Boy’s High School, whose first volumes I liked. I’m intrigued but wary of Stepping on Roses, which is gloriously over the top trash. I plan to smile wryly at Natsume’s Book of Friends, which is not as fantastic as I’d expected from the hype, but is a nice relaxing change of pace among all the shojo romance. And I’m still avoiding Black Bird.

On the non-Viz front, Dark Horse finishes their Chobits omnibus. I recall that when the last volume came out, I was somewhat irritated with the ending. Now I get to re-read it and remember why. Del Rey releases a couple of ‘hey, these sell poorly’ omnibuses, as well as the new Fairy Tail, which does not sell poorly. Digital Manga Publishing is re-releasing the popular yaoi title Kizuna in a deluze edition. And, with Seven Seas releasing a new Dance in the Vampire Bund, and Vertical putting out volume 1 of the horror manga 7 Billion Needles, we have *two* titles from Media Factory’s Comic Flapper in the same week – possibly a record. Now if only Dark Horse would release Translucent Volume 4 (also a Flapper title)…

Let’s start with the not-Tokyopop stuff. Bandai has Volume 3 of Gundam-00 Season 2, which should definitely please the numerologists among you. Given this runs in Magazine E-No, I’ve decided to rename it Gundam For Airports.

Dark Horse has Volume 36 or Oh My Goddess, which will probably be a nice comforting relaxing read for me, despite containing none of the Keiichi/Belldandy sex marathon that readers have been waiting for for about 22 years now.

I’m not sure what Digital Manga Publishing’s Seven Days – Monday→Thursday is all about, but any title containing an arrow is a winner in my book. Also, it runs in a magazine called Craft, so perhaps you could use it as gateway yaoi for knitters.

And then there’s Tokyopop’s pile o’ titles. I’ve discussed how much I like Shinobi Life and Maid-sama before. Tokyopop’s experimenting with Demon Sacred, releasing the first two volumes at 5.99 each. It’s old-style shoujo from LaLa, and quite intriguing. And of course there’s Hetalia Axis Powers. It was only two years ago that I was walking all over NYAF telling everyone and their brother to license this. Now Tokyopop has it, and I imagine it should do pretty well for them. Oddly, I’ve still never read it – I was recommending purely on hearing of the fanbase. Now I’ll see what the fuss is about.