By Mat K.
Good morning sunshines, welcome to another December edition of your favorite manga editorial. So if you didn’t get the hint from this week’s title Pandora Hearts Volume 1 comes out this week. In case you aren’t already familiar with her, the creator Jun Mochizuki is also the creator of Crimson Shell, the one-shot book that was released a couple weeks ago about the Witch Of The Rose defending people from the montrous Black Rose infected. Though somehow I think even though it’s being printed second to Crimson Shell, this is going to be her flagship series.
So let’s get down to Pandora Hearts. Oz Bezarius is the heir to a huge fortune, and is just a carefree teen until his fifteenth birthday when at his coming of age party when dark forces come to punish him for sins of one of his past lives and thrown into a prison called the abyss. When he and his sanity are saved by the blood-stained black rabbit named Alice, he plunges down the rabbit hole and must unravel the mysteries that surround him before he falls into the clutches of the shadowy organization known as Pandora. Awesomeness and dark fantasy ensue, as well as a fistfull of strange.
That’s not all the news this week, mind you. Excel Saga Volume 20 finally makes an appearance after a good 8 or 9 months of absence. Also, Yostuba & Volume 7 arrives. It looks like ever since Yen Press took over the rights from ADV Manga to produce Volume 6, they really put an effort into reprinting all the earlier volumes so they would be readily available, and are continuing that momentum with the fairly quick release of the 7th book (in comparison to the speed with which ADV was printing the books, we’d all be geriatric by the time the series wraps up). And I’ll throw an honorable mention to Detroit Metal City Volume 3 and Dogs Volume 02 showing up too.
This also seems to be a week for collected editions for some reason. Azumanga Daioh is having the omnibus edition reprinted, if I had to guess, because ADV had also printed it originally and now someone else has the rights, which we should take as good news. Then there is Hack Legend Of The Twilight, that 3 book series about the boy and girl who win Kite and BlackRose character toons in a contest, is having a complete edition put out. And then there adorable shojo ai title Kashimashi is having the second volume of their omnibus editions show up as well.
See? Tons more this week on which to feed your addictions. Almost makes you miss the days when which ever of the 10 manga titles in print at the time, (Ranma 1/2, No Need For Tenchi, Sailor Moon, etc.) would only be released whenever the publisher that owned the rights damn well felt like printing it, but then, they say variety is the spice of life. So, enjoy the buffet, and until next time!
Ja Ne!
