Is VIZ planning to create a yaoi imprint? That’s the question on industry watchers’ minds after VIZ listed a new position on its website. According to the job description, the Yaoi/BL Editor will work closely with the Publisher to “develop strategic business and sales initiatives in order to expand the company’s position in the market” and “grow VIZ Media’s line of mature content titles.” If this sounds like an interesting opportunity, keep in mind that VIZ is looking for someone with at least three to five years’ experience in publishing and a thorough knowledge of the boys’ love market in Japan. (Follow the link above for complete job details.) Yaoi not your thing? VIZ has just posted several other positions as well.
Anime | The magical-girl experts at Fighting Evil by Moonlight deconstruct an eighties classic, Magical Angel Creamy Mami. [Fighting Evil by Moonlight]
Anime | Good news for Kaoru Mori fans: Nozomi Entertainment will be re-issuing Emma in September. [About Anime]
Books | Michelle Smith is disappointed in Rocket Girls, a sci-fi title from VIZ’s Haikasoru imprint. “I guess I was hoping for the novel equivalent of Twin Spica or something,” she notes, “But Rocket Girls doesn’t even come close to achieving the passion and poignancy on display in that series. In fact, it almost totally lacks any depth whatsoever.” [Soliloquy in Blue]
Comics | For the latest installment of Know Your New Yorker Cartoonists, Richard Gehr interviews Roz Chast. [The Comics Journal]
Comics | If you’re headed to the multiplex to see Green Lantern, Thor, or Captain America, be sure to bring Glen Weldon’s helpful Superhero Movie-Bingo Card. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! [Monkey See]
Comics | Kristy Valenti posts a brief but enthusiastic review of Jess Fink’s Chester 5000 XYV. This “erotic, robotic romance” is “utterly of the zeitgeist,” Valenti argues. “It has enough gadgets to entice the steampunk crowd, enough heat (tempered by romance) to seduce the yaoi crowd, enough sex-positivity for the feminist crowd, and enough craft for any ‘but girls can’t drrraawwwww’ naysayers.” [The Comics Journal]
Manga | Planning a trip to Tokyo? Kathryn Hemmann offers a detailed guide to finding dojinshi. [Contemporary Japanese Literature]
Manga | Someone license Junji Ito’s Cat Diaries please. Need I say more? [Same Hat!]
Manga | Serdar Yegulalp examines Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a manga adaptation of a television show that was itself a manga adaptation. Got that? [Genji Press]
Manga | In this week’s Off the Shelf column, Melinda Beasi and Michelle Smith review La Quinta Camera as well as the latest volumes of Kamisama Kiss, Ooku: The Inner Chambers, and Raiders. [Manga Bookshelf]
Manga | Erica Friedman rescues her informative essay on Ultra Jump (Battle Angel Alita, Dogs: Bullets and Carnage, Hayate x Blade, Tenjo Tenge) from internet limbo. [Manga Bookshelf]
Manga | Brigid Alverson reviews Shigeru Mizuki’s Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths. [Graphic Novel Reporter]
Manga | David Welsh has a license request: Sakuna Hitona, a josei title about a twenty-something woman “who becomes engaged to a divorced man and the various difficulties that relationship presents.” [The Manga Curmudgeon]
Manga | Are you on Tumblr? Do you love classic shojo? If you answered “yes” to both questions, you should be following Fuck Yeah Year 24. The site is updated regularly with artwork by Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, Keiko Takemiya, and Yasuko Aioke. [Fuck Yeah Year 24]
Misc. | You, too, can look just like Marie Antoinette with the aide of “Antoinette Lovely & Cute Eyes,” a waterproof eyeliner inspired by The Rose of Versailles. [A Feminist Otaku]
Movies | VIZ will be screening Linda, Linda, Linda on Friday, June 24th @ 7:00 PM. All proceeds will go to Japanese earthquake relief efforts. [New People]
Movies | Screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby — who’ve penned such high-profile comic book adaptations as Cowboys & Aliens and Iron Man — discuss their brief involvement with the live-action AKIRA film. [Ain't It Cool News]
Junji Ito’s Cat Diaries looks terrifying! I’d probably take a look at it if it were licensed, just out of a sense of morbid curiosity, but I’m happier sticking with Chi’s Sweet Home, thank you.
And, huh, I guess VIZ is looking to fill the hole left by the loss of Blu. If that’s really the case, I’ll cross my fingers for its success.
I’m sure Junji Ito could make house plants look scary. Just thinking about Gyo gives me the willies!
My guess is also that Viz is making a yaoi imprint, not sure why it took them so damn long. But there are Fumi Yoshinaga titles still floating around out there that aren’t yet licensed (all two or three of them), here’s hoping Viz will be comfortable getting them if the Ooku and All My Darling Daughters sales have been high enough!
Unlicensed Fumi Yoshinaga titles — is that even possible?! I say, open the floodgates!
Yep! There are a very few (and the titles from Blu should be up for grabs soon if not now, right? So those are Gerard & Jacques, Lovers in the Night, and Truly Kindly) and then there are the ones that I don’t think anyone has yet gotten: The Antique Bakery doujin, Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What did you eat yesterday?), and Kodomo no Taion are all just sitting there like ripe low hanging fruit for someone to come along and license! They will all look lovely in my Yoshinaga shrine (currently only missing 4 volumes I think, not including Ooku 6 which isn’t quite out yet)
I’d love to see all of those in English, but none of them are a plausible fit for a BL line, especially one from Viz. As an explicitly pornographic spinoff of a respectable shoujo publication, it is highly unlikely that Shinshokan would allow the Antique Bakery doujinshi to be officially published. Kodomo no Taion is shoujo, not BL, and it’s from Shinshokan, who currently seem to have a pretty close relationship with DMP. Kinou Nani Tabeta? is seinen, not BL, and Kodansha would probably have kittens at the very thought of printing it under a BL imprint (plus, I doubt they’d give the license to their rivals).
I’m hoping madly for Setona Mizushiro’s BL series The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, which Shogakukan currently owns. C’mon Viz, make me happy!
I’d second your call for more Setona Mizushiro in English!
Oh, you just want Cat Diaries licensed so you can use it as a piece of pro-dog propaganda. :3
Seriously though, I don’t think we could get enough of Junji Ito and that story looks great. I suggest considering Tomie for your horror recommendations rather than sending people straight through to Uzimaki, but then again, I’m not sure how easy it is to get a hold of these days.