This is where someone would say sorry for the lack of blogging, but it’s best to blog instead. Just a series of unhelpful events and uncertainty of life. There’s been a lot of good things this year.

Moon Boy returns – Yen Press took off as it announced many new series along with the manhwa picked up from ICEkunion. One of them being this adventure of rabbit and wolf people. Volume four had a September release and it can be found on Amazon for a fairly cheaper price.

The basic idea of the story is that these rabbit like people once lived on the moon, but were forced off and came to earth. It’s either that or be eaten. These people fit in society like normal, but many have no knowledge of this or their power. Myung-Ee Joo is the (loud…) main character who’s…okay stop. She’s not really the main character. The story pretty much drags her along with it.

Back to the basic idea. You have these loose rabbit people along with a fighting force called Rabbit Tribe who helps Myung-Ee Joo and protects Yu-Da Lee. Their goal is to save Yu-Da Lee from the foxes who believe they’ve completely wiped his mind and surround him everyday. Both sides are able to form swords either from fox claws or by the will of a rabbit.

Each volume comes with a small folded poster, the art is always styled, and the series gets straight into the fun and drama. There’s not really any character development minus learning about what one capable of and their different ways of not being serious. Publishers Yen Press and Orbit are now under one roof so now there’s going to be volumes of the Moon Boy series with three different logos and companies on it…

ADV and Tokyopop – Tokyopop licensed Mirai Nikki as Future Diary with the first volume in May 11, 2009. Other than that ADV and Tokyopop have been more of a pain than good. Tokyopop dropped Lagoon Engine, Beyond the Beyond, and others. ADV dropped Sergeant Frog and gave up after releasing 5 Centimeters per Second.

More? Yes and who knows what ADV Manga will do when and if volume two of Lagoon Engine Lagoon Engine Einsatz comes out. With Yotsuba&! being on hold and the big list of canceled manga from ages ago…Gamerz Heaven, The First King Adventure, and Rise R to the Second Power as examples. ADV tossing out both the profiting Newtype USA and the poorly thought PiQ anime magazines.

Mirai Nikki from Tokyopop? No thanks.
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Kaiba was a crazy adventure, Yozakura Quartet is animated, Kyo no Gononi has a new series, a cosplay magazine comes to the US with a large massive hard cover, and Soul Eater became popular.

Where’s the hard cover of Q Ko-chan volume two, though?

Next year maybe Geneon will return, Lolifox the web browser will make a come back, Letter Bee has a TV series announcement, and more Japan based comic publishers will cross the sea themselves to other countries. Guess this entry serves more of what to expect in future writings (but hopefully easier to read and coherent).

It’s nothing too new that the big global chain Borders isn’t doing well. The company lost several million dollars this year from what they normally earn and it can be seen when entering a store. Music and other non-book merchandise has been doing more harm than good. The greeting person they have by the door now is pretty annoying, too. Shelves are getting bare, there’s longer lines, and stores I visited don’t carry any manga from Yen Press (minus the magazine Yen+). It would be a tragedy if such large stores went under. Having such stores around makes getting into manga much easier and Borders does tend to carry more mature series then others (either certain types of romance or graphic action).

It’s been weeks since volume four of Moon Boy was released. No way to get it for myself unless bought online.

There are a lot of manga that can easily be adapted to an anime. Some either didn’t get enough attention or hit too few people in who they’d attract. This list isn’t in any order and isn’t meant to convicence any big company, but enjoy. One thing common with a few of them, though, is the strong focus on style.

Cloth Road

Anime and manga lack change of clothing of the characters, so why not have an anime that features fashion? The author of the manga, Hideyuki Kurata, already had Read or Die adapted. Clearly worthy.

Yozakura Quartet

Unique character designs and a small gang of super youth in charge. Local politics and super powers would make for a good solid season.

Moon Boy

So the manhwa stopped after a few volumes (out of over 5 volumes) after the company Yen Press took over Ice Kunion. With Ice Kunion site down and the “Coming Soon…” redirect on the Yen Press site, one can only hope they keep Moon Boy licensed for their mid 2008 debut. Moon Boy has diverse character art, heavily styled character outfits, and great art inserts in each volume. Bunny people and demon like foxes wage a secret war on Earth. One of the main characters is obessed with Yu-Gi-Oh and how they got away with Upper Deck Entertainment not wanting money from them is unknown…

Rise R to the Second Power

The manga had an anime promo so it could have easily been done. Young pizza boy is sent to an odd world with a powerful girl. It worked for Elemental Gelade, but the only thing stopping it is it’s age.

Yotsuba&!

The fanbase for Yotsuba&! is still strong, just have to re-gather the production staff of the Azumanga Daioh anime.