(full list and commentary after the break)

Manga (& Manga-ish) Releases for 29 July to 4 August 2007

• 100% Perfect Girl, vol. 3 — Netcomics — $9.99
• Ai-Land Chronicles: the Book of the Second Revolution, vol. 1 (novel) — Tokyopop — $7.99
• Air Gear, vol. 5 — Del Rey — $10.95
• Alive: The Final Evolution, vol. 1 — Del Rey — $10.95
• Art of Drawing Manga — Sterling — $17.95

• Claymore, vol. 9 — Viz — $7.99
• Click, vol. 3 — Netcomics — $9.99
• Drifting Classroom, vol. 7 — Viz — $9.99
• Free Collars Kingdom, vol. 3 — Del Rey — $10.95
• Fullmetal Alchemist, vol 14 — Viz — $9.99

• Golgo 13, vol. 10 — Viz — $9.99
• Good as Lily — Minx (DC Comics) — $9.99
• Gundam Seed Destiny, vol. 4 — Del Rey — $10.95
• Guru Guru Pon-Chan, vol. 9 — Del Rey — $10.95
• Hana-Kimi, vol. 19 — Viz — $9.99

• Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, vol. 4 — Viz — $9.99
• Kekkaishi, vol. 10 — Viz — $9.99
• King of Cards, vol. 1 — CMX — $9.99
• Kitchen Princess, vol. 3 — Del Rey — $9.99
• Law of Ueki, vol. 7 — Viz — $9.99

• Lover’s Flat — DMP — $12.95
• Manga Studio X for Dummies — Wiley — $24.99
• Mushishi, vol. 2 — Del Rey — $12.95
• Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, vol. 10 — Viz — $9.99
• Nodame Cantabile, vol. 10 — Del Rey — $10.95

• Omukae Desu, vol. 5 (final volume) — CMX — $9.99
• Sugar Sugar Rune, vol. 6 — Del Rey — $9.99
• Treasure, vol. 2 — Yaoi Press — $12.95
• Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, vol. 14 — Del Rey — $9.99

Not Manga, but Noted

• Alan Moore’s Wild Worlds — Wildstorm (DC Comics) — $24.99
• Artists on Comic Art, vol. 2 — Titan — $16.95
• Bone vol. 6: Old Man’s Cave — Graphix (Scholastic) — $9.99
• Devil Dinosaur (Kirby) — Marvel — $29.99 hardcover
• Immortal Iron Fist, vol. 1 — Marvel — $13.99 paperback, $19.99 hardcover
• Lio: Happiness is a Squishy Cephalopod — Andrew’s & McMeel — $12.95

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Yakking points:

– Not on the list: Tokyopop also has a few trade paperbacks coming out in “Scholastic Editions”, primarily for Scholastic to sell at their book fairs, though a search on Amazon or other sites will pull them up. Previously Tokyopop has produced quite a bit of cinemanga for Scholastic, but this weeks release of Kingdom Hearts may be the first “real” (as in: from Japan, mostly) manga title to crack the school book fairs.

Why is this news? via icv2 (roughly a year ago): How about the potential for half a million in sales. That’s units, not dollars. Scholastic is a different kind of direct market, and more folks with kid-friendly titles should be knocking on their door methinks.

– Batting cleanup on the August Viz releases: Not all of these are Viz Signature or Shonen Jump Advanced titles, but they are all at the higher (for Viz, anyway) price point of $9.99 — which makes me think the weeks delay is intentional, to separate these from the cheaper SJ and Shojo Beat trade paperbacks. This is good news for me, because this week we see a personal fav of mine: Inubaka. I say that without shame or embarrassment, even if Inubaka *is* primarily about cute puppies. [*aawww*]

– Bone. yep.

– King of Cards? What’s this, a shoujo take on Yu-Gi-Oh? Maybe it is. Heck, maybe I’ll buy it. Manga Maniac Cafe has a preview of volume one from a couple of weeks ago.
– Quite a bit of Del Rey on this week’s list — none of the series I’m following, but I think I actually have vols. 1 and 2 of Kitchen Princess toward the bottom of my reading queue, so I guess this would be a timely week to dig those out of the stack and get a review up on the site. In my ongoing quest to bring a cynical middle-aged perspective to teen comics, I was also planning on catching up with Sugar Sugar Rune, and now it will cost me an extra $10 to do so. [*sigh*] I really need to finish off the manga already on-hand first, however.

– Wild Worlds, from the descriptions I’ve found on sales sites and on DC’s own webpage, really doesn’t sound like Moore’s best work. But it’s worth noting because it’s Alan Moore.

– More Kirby from Marvel this week: if the name “Kirby” and the cover thumbnail don’t make you want to buy it, I don’t know what will.
There are actually quite a few trade paperbacks coming out from folks like Marvel and DC (somewhere in the rough neighborhood of 20) but my eyes tend to glaze over when going through that half of the list. Anything I missed? let me know: