By Mat K.
If anyone has met me in the last 6 months you may be aware that I adore Florence & The Machine, and you may recognize the title of this week’s article as not just a timeless phrase, but the title of their current hit, (used in lots of movies and TV shows and commercials for such). However, that’s not really the reason for using the term as the title of this week’s anime column. The truth is the title comes from the saying “The dog days are over” which refers to the hot dreary uneventful days of summer coming to an end. The beginning of Autumn spurns the coming of school, and cooler weather, where we lose the lethargy and become busy anew. The origin of the “dog days” comes from those summer months that are ruled by Sirius (derived from the Greek for Scorcher) the dog-star which represents heat and fire. The end of the Dog Days also has a metaphorical significance, meaning that your stagnant life has come to an end, and revolution is coming. Nothing ever changes without the original form first “burning up”, like a phoenix. This concludes the educational portion of this week’s manga new article.
Now that you’ve learned something new, welcome to another full release week in September. Ironically, (for reasons I’ll leave to my older readers), this week also sees a lot of yaoi titles coming out. At the very least there are 11 yaoi titles(and a couple which may or may not be considered yaoi), many of which are coming at us from Digital Manga Publishing (as either June Press or Doki Doki). One of the biggest news releases for our yaoi titles is that June finally has the rights and releases the first book in the Finder Series: Target In The Finder, and even though this one might cost a bit more than most June books, it’s still less than when it was when it was being published by CPM. And I’m sure the fans of this series are thrilled to have it back, considering CPM went down before they had the chance to finish printing it. Also, for some reason they did manage to print the third book, but it never made wide distribution and was only available on, like, Amazon.com for an exorbitant amount of money. But I digress.
In terms of regular books this week, there is also plenty of good stuff. Ghost In the Shell 2: Man Machine Interface is back in print thanks to Kodansha (via Random House). The long awaited Berserk Volume 34 and Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volume 11 also make their debuts this week much to the delight of many. A Couple of Viz Signature favorites also come in this week: DMC Volume 6 and Dogs Volume 4. And despite all those awesome books, my new favorite also shows up which I’m calling “pick of the week”, Yuu Watase’s new shonen series Arata: The Legend releases it’s third volume this week, and I’m ecstatic. Most of all because it has been coming out pretty regularly, which is more than I can say for Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden. I love it, but damn waiting a whole year for each volume? It better be because she’s totally focused on Arata.
Anyway, I do believe I’ve run on a bit. So come in and buy all these awesome books. Plenty of stuff to fuel the otaku engine this week. So until next time!
Ja Ne!
