Issue 2 of E-Choco the new English manga anthology from June manga is set to come out this Friday. E-Choco is a new BL manga magazine in English. The first issue of E-Choco was released in September. Digital Manga Publishing’s listing for the first issue of the anthology lists Medibang in its tags so it is likely that Medibang, who announced in a previous company report plans to release manga magazines in English, are the people actually responsible for putting the magazine issues together. Issues of e-choco are available for purchase on June Manga’s website for $7.95 per digital issue.

Source:  https://junemanga.com/products/e-choco-vol-1?variant=12658265522261

 

Bookwalker has now made Shogakukan’s vast array of Japanese manga magazines available for purchase in North America. Shogakukan is the publisher behind Weekly Shonen Sunday which is home to the long running manga and anime series Detective Conan also known in North America as Case Closed and Silver Spoon as well as past hit series such as Inuyasha and Magi. From a search through Bookwalker Japan’s manga magazine section, this includes pretty much every manga magazine Shogakukan Japan presently publishes with the only notable exceptions being the some of the companies’ kids manga magazines such as Chao which hasn’t been made available for e-book purchase as of November 10, 2018.

Lezhin finally updated their website on PCs the reason this is worth note is because they finally have an all-ages filter on the PC version of their website. While Lezhin may be best known as an adult smut manhwa (Korean term for manga) publisher they sell a considerable amount of comic targeted at the general market in English. This makes the service considerably easier to navigate as Lezhin releases a large volume of comics aimed at just as broad an audience from mainstream.

This month’s issue of Comic Zero Sum has a continuation for Karneval which Yen Press is putting out in English, and is already a fair ways into I might add. Strange+ is odd which is befitting considering the series’ trademark brand of surreal humor. My next Life As A Villainess All Routes Lead To Doom is spends this issue celebrating its forthcoming anime adaptation. Seven Seas has licensed the original manga and J-Novel Club is releasing the original light novels digitally for this series. Otherwise, this is a solid issue with continuations for a lot of really good stories I’ve come to enjoy.

The first chapter of Wakako Zake is no longer listed as a free “sampler” on English ebook platforms. In addition, it is listed under chapter collections with the first chapter retailing at $2.00 in Canada now. As of October 4, 2018 the subsequent chapters of Wakako Zake have not been added. It is unclear what method North Star Pictures and Media Do intend to release the remaining chapters of Wakako Zake. In the past, Media Do experimented with releasing individual chapters in volume groups although it is unclear whether they will resume doing so or if they will serialize Wakako Zake in addition to releasing volumes. North Star Pictures has some English social media presence on their Silent Manga Audition twitter account but Media Do remains rather quiet often dropping niche titles onto the market without much prior notice.

 

In other news, Tapas has released their first premium Japanese light novel release with My Big Sister Lives In A Fantasy World. J-Novel Club publishes the light novels in English as well. Nagate Yuka’s Gift manga is listed on Manga Club, a webtoon formatted manga service. The first release for Gift is listed on Manga Club’s schedule for the second week in October 2018. Viz Media announced at their New York Comic-con 2018 panel that they will begin releasing Mika Yamamori’s Margaret serialized manga Daytime Shooting Star manga in Summer 2019. Viz Media’s Shojo Beat imprint previously explained on their Tumblr they had 2 upcoming manga license announcements scheduled to be announced. Shojo Beat announced the licensing rights to Snow White With The Red Hair in September 2018.

After years of serialized shojo and josei manga being tested sporadically on the English in the English language comics market we seem to have reached a point where publishers are showing a genuine interest in serializing general audience marketed shojo and josei manga for the first time in many years. Notable efforts which have launched thus far or have been announced are Amucomi (available through Amazon Kindle), Digital Manga Publishing which has is set to launch their first BL manga magazine E-Choco, Coolmic, and Shobunkan which has very recently quietly started publishing through Manga Club.

 

The first part of Shufu no Seikatsu’s OL Visual Kei is presently listed on Bookwalker among other retailers with second part listed on the Kobo bookstore in Canada. Hakusensha continues their Love Silky and Love Jossie manga magazines’ chapter rollouts on Bookwalker. What is interesting about Shufu no Seikatsu’s publishing method is Futabasha’s and North Star Pictures’ English language launches are listed as graphic novels, as was the case for Baki and Creature from Akita Shoten. OL Visual Kei is listed as being published specifically in parts with no full graphic novel release for the title listed from retailers at launch at the time this is being written. New chapters from both Frontierworks and Hakusensha are notably not listed among this week’s Renta releases. In other Renta related news it has been announced through Twitter that Renta has started publishing BL manga originally localized by Digital Manga Publishing.

Akita Publishing has released the first chapter of New Grappler Baki through Media Do. Curiously, the first chapter of New Grappler Baki is listed as a sampler on Amazon while Comixology is treating it as a first issue. Comixology’s release of New Grappler Baki’s first chapter is listed as September 11, 2018 however Amazon released the “sampler” (effectively the first chapter)  on August 11, 2018. No release date has been given for future chapters. Volumes of New Grappler Baki are available for purchase through ebook retailers.

In addition, Akita Publishing has a listing for the first chapter of Shingo Honda’s Creature on Comixology and Amazon. As with New Grappler Baki, the release on Amazon is listed as a sampler while the Comixology release is listed as an issue 1. At present there is no listing for future chapter release dates however the first 3 volumes are listed for digital release the same day as the first chapter’s Comixology release date September 18, 2018. Amazon’s Creature sampler was published on September 13, 2018. It is unclear at the moment whether any of this is indicative of bigger trends or simply just inconsistent distribution release dates for Akita Publishing. If further developments occur rest assured they will be reported on.

Ryoko Takahata’s The Vampires Next Door is currently available on Manga Club, a webtoon styled manga service operated by Torico. Nihonbungeisha is listed as the publisher. The first 2 chapters are available for free with new chapters being added weekly. Manga Club offers a ticket system: 3 chapters can be read for free per day for a limited time. This service is not available for all titles however and, in the case of many series, it is only a temporary option.

 

As time moves forward chapters on the site often require to be paid for. Manga Club is a digital manga and manhua store, after all. The Vampires Next Door follows three sisters who are also vampires as they live in an apartment in a human society. The series follows their everyday lives.

 

Source: https://www.manga.club/book/title/VAMPIRESNEXTDOOR-EN/

First off, welcome to Comicedy! A blog for articles on Asian comics. I created this blog because I noticed there isn’t much reporting being done on the rather robust Asian comics markets in English. There are a number of publishers from Korea, China, Japan, and other places attempting to break out beyond their traditional comic markets which I feel could use some more reporting on and articles being written about. Forgive me if this blog starts off a little clumsily at first. I hope you learn some thing about Asian comics from this blog. There is a lot of diverse and growing amount of content being published from many talented creators around the world and I hope I can inform you about it.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton