It’s always striking how calm Sunday is compared to the previous two days. You’d think it would be near the same, given the large number of 4-day badges you saw walking around earlier, but the truth is that Anime NYC has always tended to have Sunday be the least happening day. On the bright side, this meant the lines for the bathroom were much shorter (well, for me, using a men’s room.)
Because I have a lengthy journey home thanks to Connecticut’s train tracks still being hundreds of years old (Amtrak can make trains that go 800 miles an hour, and they’ll still have to dawdle through New England), I was only able to attend one panel Sunday, which was Kodansha Comics. Kodansha always has one of the better, most professional panels out there, and this year was no exception, with Ben Applegate, TJ Ferentini, and Haruko Hashimoto.
The entrance to the con was packed with free copies of the Young Magazine 100-page English Edition that everyone at the con seemed to be lugging around (including me), as well as a totebag. Readers can vote on which series they want to see more of, and if it gets a good response they may do another one. Having a sequel to Boys Run the Riot inside got the biggest reaction. People were also happy to hear about Kodansha House in October, with more creators coming to New York, including Atsushi Ohkubo and Suu Morishita.
They discussed the “print-on-demand” service they started last year, in an effort to put digital-only series that deserved print but possibly the sales did not justify it. We’re getting second volumes for Love, That’s an Understatement, Teppu, and Blade Girl. And then we get the big news, which is that all the big news happened last month. This is not uncommon for publishers. The summer is littered with huge conventions. Kodansha had panels at Anime Expo at the start of July and San Diego Comic Con at the end of July. There’s no way they’d have a list of 15-20 new series by the end of August.
As a result, most of this panel was a recap of what they’d already announced at the last two panels. That said, there are some really great titles in there. They’re bringing back iconic shoujo manga Mars (hardcover, fancy metallic covers, new translation) and iconic shoujo manga Shugo Chara (new covers, new translation). There’s Fruit of the Underworld, by popular author Aya Kanno, known for Requiem of the Rose King and Otomen. They’re also doing a big ol’ giant deluxe box set for Ghost in the Shell, and Ben knows his audience, as he immediately said “yes, it will include those three pages. If you know, you know.” Shirow instructed them as to how he did some of this stuff, so they could replicate it. Rolled posters in the box – not folded!
There’s also Wicked Spot, a new series from the creator of Tough Love at the Office; Love at First Memory, from the creator of Springtime with Ninjas and Boss Bride days; Love Out on a Limb, from the creator of Love in Focus and That Wolf-Boy Is Mine!; popular yuri title Marrying the Dark Knight (For Her Money); BL baseball manga Blue Summer Haze; BL title Smells Like Green Spirit, from the creator of Boys, Be Ambitious!; Dragon Circus, from the creators of Ultraman’s manga; and Stella Must Die!, with a story by the author of Princess Resurrection.
They were quite enthusiastic about a couple of titles. That’s Not Love is by the creator of 1122: For a Happy Marriage, and is about former friends reconnecting years later and secrets from middle school. Cat-Life Balance stars a man who will gladly take on any task and help other co-workers… and it’s causing him to burn out. One day he spots fellow employee Kurone, who deals with work by being stonefaced, playing in an alley with stray cats. Can cats solve their issues? Probably not, but the cats are cute, right?
We then got to the new announcements, of which there were three. My Journey to Her was a very popular digital-only title when it came out last year, and it won an Eisner. They’re now doing a print release for it. I had read this when it first came out, and it’s a riveting and informative look at the author’s gender dysphoria and subsequent reassignment surgery. It ran in Weekly Morning.
Speaking of Yūna Hirasawa, they’ve also licensed her current Weekly Morning series, Luca the Dragon Vet (Ryūi no Luca). A young woman is determined to be a vet who takes care of dragons in her fantasy world. Alas, there are tough exams, difficult classes, and unfortunate family connections. But, I mean, dragon vet! Who wouldn’t want to be a dragon vet?
Then we got the big announcement: Yes, it’s not just iconic shoujo manga getting the big re-release treatment. Beck, a Monthly Shonen Magazine series from 25 years ago, is finally getting fully released in print in English! Tokyopop released about a dozen volumes before the 2008 “everything is cancelled” happened, and the series being 31 volumes meant we missed over half the story. Kodansha picked up the series about seven years ago and finished it, but that was digital only. Now it’s coming in print in 2-in-1 omnibuses.
And that just left Q&A, my old nemesis. (I have several nemeses.) So I departed the con. Anime NYC has gotten near 150,000 people by now, so it’s not a convention to be taken lightly. But if you love anime and manga (and light novels, maybe, they get mentioned once or twice), you should have a great time.
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