After a very busy week this week, next week is looking eerily quiet. Too quiet. (Except for me. Due to shipping issues with Diamond and UPS you may have heard of, 2/3 of my order this week never showed. Some is coming next week… some still later. In case you wonder where my Oresama Techer review is…)

In fact, Midtown is so quiet I’m going to throw in some stuff not on their list. One came in via Diamond today, the other next week, and both are from Drawn & Quarterly. Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Fallen Words is a new short story collection from the author of A Drifting Life, each story told in the oral tradition of rakugo. I got that one today, and it looks fantastic.

And next week we get a new Shigeru Mizuki title, NonNonBa, a memoir about his lifelong interest in yokai. Given we are apparently not getting Gegege no Kitaro over here anytime soon, this is the next best thing, and everyone who reads this blog should get a copy. (For those wondering, Midtown apparently gets their ‘indie publisher’ stuff from a non-Diamond source, meaning some D&Q titles take forever to get there.)

Dark Horse has two manga ouit, one new and one a re-release. The new is the 2nd volume of Yasuhiro Nightow’s Blood Blockade Battlefront, which brings a Jump Square mentality to his traditional Western-style gunplay heroics. Let’s hope Shieisha’s editors were better than Shonen Gahosha’s at making his art more coherent, especially in fight scenes.

Speaking of incoherence, Dark Horse is also releasing the FLCL series as one big omnibus. Originally an anime, it was adapted in Kodansha’s Magazine Z, which tended to be devoted to media properties. Tokyopop released it back in the day, but this should have a fresh new translation and color pages and other cool things. I wasn’t too impressed first time round, I seem to recall, but then I found the anime overrated as well. If you liked the anime, though, this should be right up your street.

Another ‘not from Midtown but from Diamond’ title, the fourth in Seven Seas’s A Certain New York Times Bestselling Railgun is coming out, and should be electrifying as usual. So to speak.

Lastly, a Viz title that for some reason didn’t come in with the pile this week. The Story of Saiunkoku is up to Vol. 7, and now that Shurei actually is a civil servant, she should finally be able to achieve her dream… once she stops being bullied damn near to death, of course. The series recently ended in Asuka at 9 volumes (though the light novels go on forever), so we’re in the home stretch. Court intrigue ahoy!

So what are you getting this week? (And yes, Sailor Moon will be out in bookstores a week before comic stores, as usual. I’ll plug it next week, no doubt.)

It’s a first week of the month, which means manga, manga, manga at the list we get from Midtown Comics and not from Amazon, as I’ve mentioned a few times. (Unless you shop at my store, which Diamond is not shipping anything to next week. I’m not sure why. To spite me?) So what have we got?

DMP has a new yaoi manga called Good Morning, which seems to deal with drunken office couplings and their aftermath. At least the cover doesn’t feature one guy with his arm possessively around the other. It’s a start?

Gen manga has another collection of an indie manga story that’s been serialized in their magazine. This one, Kamen, deals with… a masked man! I know, the title really threw you off.

Kodansha has the third and (I believe) final Tokyo Mew Mew omnibus, as well as the third and not final Love Hina omnibus. And to make this week re-releases week at Koda nsha, they also have the 5th volume of dinosaur seinen masterpiece Gon.

And of course there’s Viz. As you can see, I’m dedicated to spotlighting the most exciting, dynamic covers every week. So have another week of someone gazing blankly at the reader, this time from shoujo weepie We Were There. Also hitting the shoujo shelves are new volumes of Oresama Teacher and Haruka: Beyond The Stream of Reader Comprehension… um, Time. There’s also Ai Ore 5. Can the hero stay vaguely likeable, or will he remember he’s in a Mayu Shinjo manga? There’s also new omnibuses for Hana Kimi and Skip Beat, highlighting Vols. 4-6 of both series.

On the shonen side, there’s more Jump. Tegami Bachi Letter Bee 9 (I always forget if there’s a colon somewhere in that mess). Psyren 4. One Piece 62, where the Fishman Island arc makes readers forgive Skypeia and Thriller Bark everything. (I kid. But only some.) And lastly, for the kids there’s new Fluffy Fluffy Cinnamonroll, as well as a new Pokemon Black & White.

So what appeals to you this week?

Well, this shouldn’t take long. There’s a tiny, tiny amount of manga out next week (from Midtown Comics, a fact I try to emphasize every week when people say “But what about X, which Amazon released this week?”). In fact, there are two titles.

Stare into this girl’s soulful gaze and try not to buy Air Gear 23, you heartless monster. (At least I hope it’s a soulful gaze. It could be drugged to the gills for all I know.) The series is ending in Japan this spring, this reducing our number of manga with surprise Obama cameos in it by one.

Then there’s Volume 12 of GTO: The Early Years, aka Shonan Jun’ai Gumi. In the recent Shonan 14 Days, Onizuka had to really do his best to avoid violence (well, until it happened anyway), noting he is supposed to be a teacher. None of that here – Onizuka may be a Yankee with a heart, but he’s still a gang leader, meaning there’s lots and lots of fights. And more fights. And still more fights. It’s fantastic.

That’s it. Given the last three weeks, I for one welcome the break (though I’m getting SJG anyway). How about you?