Manga Articles and More…

Spiegel Online, the online portal of Germany’s leading and Europe’s biggest weekly magazine, recently (at least when I started to write this post) published another article from their reports on German mangaka. However instead of posting a link to one article, I will use the chance to list their other articles as well. All articles are in German, but even if you don’t understand German you can check out the art samples.

I’m personally not a fan of German manga, not because they are German, but rather because their stories lack a certain touch and uniqueness. They often either try to emulate a Japanese setting or “japanize” German settings (might be a reason why no work by a German mangaka was in the Top 20 of Kodansha’s Second Manga Award). I’m not very fond of the art either, it’s mediocre, which is not enough, especially if combined with a boring story. It’s maybe not even the mangaka’s fault but rather the fact that their target group is 14 year old girls and I’m very far from being one ;). Well, enough of my blabbering here’s the list:

German Manga Releases for April

Carlsen’s, Tokyopop’s and Heyne’s releases are already available in stores. Panini’s and Egmont’s will be in stores later, towards the end of April. Sadly, none of the seinen titles released this month are on my shopping list. Berserk surely is interesting, but it’s just a re-edition of the older volumes, which I own. I never liked the Hellsing art, so I never thought of buying it. Oh! My Goddess is too light-hearted, slow and boring for me. I won’t even comment on xxxHolic…its story & illustration is by Clamp… n/c.

Carlsen’s Bestsellers for 2007

The list below was posted by a Carlsen official a few weeks ago and I had totally forgotten about it until someone bumped it up again. I thought it’s interesting to see that Carlsen’s own productions sold so well. For a more detailed list check below.

German Manga Charts for January & February

With a *cough* little *cough* delay, here are the German Manga Charts for January and February. Yes! You heard right for January AND February (Via splashcomics.de)!

The Shopping List Marches

So now that we all are familiar with the German releases in March, here’s my shopping list for the same month. It got rather heavy, with 9 definite purchases, 10 if you count Taniguchi’s release as two (2x price, 2x pages), that’s 3 more than last month and 8 more than in January!

I’m Alive & March Releases!

“Well, here I am, I’m back again. From the dead lands I descend’, back from the dead, back from the end, I’m here to take revenge write some posts!” Some might’ve wondered what happened to this blog…or not. The reasons for the ‘post-absentees” were quite simple, first exams, then a flu and then a broken notebook…lots of fun. However, I managed to get a hold of a PC and therefore you can…