Slightly Biased Manga

I wanted to add a separate links section with these, but for some reason I wasn’t able to. This is mostly for my benefit when I’m cruising around looking for new releases. I decided that I couldn’t live without a list of them this week, and since I have to do this in a page format, you get light commentary too. I ranked them roughly by volume published, though I may have skewed things towards the bottom.

Viz - Largest and one of the oldest English-language manga publishers. They’ve got most of your popular series like… I don’t know, Naruto… anything that ran in Shounen Jump. They also publish the English version of Shounen Jump, along with a girl’s anthology called Shoujo Beat.

Tokyopop - Second largest publisher, and also the ones that started the whole direct-to-graphic novel thing. They used to publish a TON of popular manga series, but lately it seems they’ve been shifting to mid-range titles and a lot of OEL. They still have Fruits Basket though, and that’s something. I only buy a few titles from them now, two of them are ending soon and most of the rest come out extremely infrequently.

Dark Horse - One of the oldest publishers of manga in English along with Viz. They release a fair number of series, though it doesn’t seem like much sometimes. They’ve fallen out of my good graces after cancelling a number of their series after only 3 volumes recently, and it seems like they’ve had more than their share of cancellations in the past. They’re the only ones that still publish a monthly 32-page non-ero manga (Blade of the Immortal), and I believe Oh My Goddess is the longest-running manga in English now, too.

Del Rey - This is a relatively new publisher, but being backed by Random House helps growth a lot. They’ve got a few high-profile series and a few really solid ones. They tend to grab fairly high-quality titles. They also have my eternal respect for Guru Guru Pon-chan and My Heavenly Hockey Club.

Digital Manga Publishing - They had some sort of link with Dark Horse (I think they handle a couple things like Trigun and Hellsing for them), but eventually started doing their own thing. Most of their titles come out under their Juné imprint, which means it’s mostly the gay stuff. They get random cool things that are not Boy’s Love from time to time too, and I read a couple of those. Actually, most of their Fumi Yoshinaga’s titles just go under the DMP imprint, and they’ve got a good number of other fun stuff too.

Juné - The above-mentioned Boy’s Love imprint. I wasn’t gonna post the separate link for this because it’s not quite as separate as 801 or Blu or Be Beautiful, but what the hell. I haven’t actually liked any Juné series yet, but I still pick them up from time to time. They’ve got Solfege, so I’ll probably like that one when it comes. They’ve got some fairly popular stuff though, so I think I’ve just had bad luck so far.

CMX - This company has backing from DC Comics, but they’re actually pretty moderately sized. Mostly shoujo manga, but they’re notable for publishing a lot of shoujo from the 70s and 80s (and also 90s, I don’t think too many of their series are terribly contemporary, but I may be wrong). They publish the greatest manga on Earth, From Eroica with Love, so they’ll have my dollars for a long time to come.

Netcomics - This publisher is currently 100% manhwa, but they say that’ll change soon. They’ve been around for a little over a year, and they’ve already got quite a few series under their belt. I actually tend to like what they publish a lot. They have some translation issues, but I can generally overlook stuff like that.

DramaQueen - This one maybe should be lower on the list, but they’ve promised an increase in production and have been putting out more books this year, so they get this slot. Their bread and butter is Boy’s Love (smutty boy’s love in particular), but they have a handful of other things, too. I’ve really liked all the Boy’s Love I’ve picked up from them, and DVD (a shoujo series) is another one of the best series I’m reading right now, so they get high marks from me… especially since their book presentation is to die for. They do an occasional anthology called Rush which features OEL series.

Blu - The Boy’s Love branch of Tokyopop, the two do a good job of keeping apart unless you count Previews or the Harpercollins catalog. They publish somewhere between 1-3 series a month. They’ve got some fairly high profile series mixed in with other good titles, which makes for a strong catalog. I’ve only picked up one series from them (a Fumi Yoshinaga title) and am considering another, but it was the one that made me realize that Boy’s Love wasn’t all crap when I had the misfortune of picking up several bad series in a row when I was trying out the genre again and again.

Broccoli Books - They used to be fairly small, but they seem to put out a couple volumes a month now. I am certainly not their target audience, as the only series I’ve picked up from them is a one-shot I did not care for. I hesitate to say this, but their series seem like they’re marketed at more of an anime/otaku audience, even though they don’t license manga from popular anime or anything. I’ve been looking hard at Kamui though, and they’ve got one other series coming up, so maybe I’ll come around eventually. They’ve got some very nice book design as well.

Seven Seas Entertainment - This is kind of a small publisher that also does OEL, but they seem to be increasing their size lately and do one or two volumes a month fairly consistently. They do all things Boogiepop and have a few other series of note, including the extremely dirty Nymphet. My current favorite from them is Kashimashi, one of the few yuri series published in English.

Go!Comi - They only have around 8 series, but they’re all GOOD series. I like things from Akita Shoten, which is where most of their stuff comes from. After School Nightmare is fantastic, but I also read a few of their other series. I have to restrain myself lest I pick up absolutely everything they publish. They put out around 2 or so volumes every couple months or so. They’re probably also ranked higher than they should be, but I like them a lot.

ADV Manga - They lost a lot of trust from everyone when they licensed a ton of series and shut them all down after one year. They currently randomly license and release a handful of volumes sporadically. I buy from them occasionally. Their quality of series isn’t always good. They tend to pick up things that will tie into their anime… though maybe that’s not even the case anymore. If you forgive or forget the fact that they suspended a ton of series since it was a few years ago now, they’re just another low-volume low-profile publisher. They need to do something about their website to put it in modern times. PLEASE.

Infinity Studios - Very small, they only publish a few of titles sporadically, they have both Korean and Japanese comics. They tend to have a slow release schedule that gets delayed a lot. On the other hand, they’ve got the absolute best book design by far. I buy one series from them. I don’t even like it, but I’ll probably keep reading it because I like the book design so much and I’m only gonna get one volume a year anyway.

801 Media - They publish harder core Boy’s Love series. They just launched, so they’re still small and only have around 6 titles. I buy one of them, the one by Fumi Yoshinaga, who has come up a few times because she is that good. They seem pretty good so far, with volumes shipping early for those who ordered from their store, color inserts, and dustjackets on their books. I’ve got no beef thus far. Actually, I thought they were part of DMP, which I’m sure was mentioned on some news site because I wasn’t the only one, but I guess they’re not. Hm.

DrMaster - DrMaster used to be fairly large, but they don’t really license high profile (or, according to most, high quality) series. They wound up with a lot of the back catalog from Comics One when they went down, but they dropped the two series I followed from them and have a bunch of weird stuff now. I haven’t really liked any of their titles except Lunar Legend Tsukihime, which is indeed great. They seem to have a one volume a month or every other month schedule, but they also have a lot of delays, so I think their releases may be slower than that.

Fanfare - This is the English language branch of Ponent Mon. They do high quality, if not very frequent, releases… maybe a few volumes a year. Their titles are all fairly literary. They also tend to be hard to find. Some of the stores around here carry them (mainly Borders and Chicago Comics), but I’ve only ever bought one of their titles. I should buy more to support them, though…

Vertical - This is an awesome publisher who does a handful of volumes a year. They specialize in classic manga with a focus in Osamu Tezuka. They’ve only published about ten volumes in the past two (?) years, but these few are all spectacular, and their outlook is great. After I catch myself up on Buddha, I’ll have pretty much their entire current catalog, which is weird.

Yen Press - They’re so new they haven’t even published anything yet. They have about seven titles coming out before the end of the year to launch themselves, and I’m thinking of picking up 3-4 of them, so I suppose that says something. You can probably expect good things from them, particularly since they’re backed by a large French publisher. They’re like Del Rey, except 3-4 years later.

Icarus Comics - Your honest purveyors of porn since 2002. I want to pick up one of their titles, if only because I respect the fact they do a biweekly anthology and because I have never read an honest-to-goodness porn comic. They’ve got low graphic novel production, but dude, they’ve got a biweekly porn anthology!

Fantagraphics - Fantagraphics does mostly things that are not manga, but they do have a few eromanga series. I’m not too sure, but I think they mostly still do 32-page comics, with only a few graphic novels a year. Maybe they don’t do 32 pagers anymore, though. All I know is that their books are supposedly high quality, they have french flaps, and they also have the license for Oh! great’s Silky Whip series.

Drawn and Quarterly - They’re more of an indy comics publisher (and also do some really nice historic compilations and facsimile editions), but they also publish some Yoshihiro Tatsumi stuff. Currently there’s only two volumes out, but there should be a third coming, along with a couple other things, so I’ll include them. They’re book design is also unlike any other publisher on this list. I’ll take cloth-bound hardcovers, thank you.

Kitty Media - This is the Boy’s Love arm (imprint?) of Media Blasters, who publishes a handful of other titles. This site is so broken it won’t even let me past the splash page, so I’m not going to say anything nice about them. Skyscrapers of Oz sucked. I also have Poison Cherry Drive on the way, but only because I heard it was really cracked out. They only put out a volume every once in awhile, if I’m not mistaken.

Media Blasters - The parent to the above company (may actually be called Anime Works, but this was the only site I could find), which I listed separately lower because they publish very little else besides BL these days, so not much comes from Media Blasters that isn’t Kitty Media. They actually only published a handful of series overall, and they just cancelled almost everything that wasn’t BL. I would tell you more, but their site is broken beyond belief too, so I can’t, sorry.

Aurora Publishing - Apparently they’ve already launched with a couple interesting-sounding books, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them. Their parent company is a Japanese publisher, which is interesting. Supposedly they’ll be doing josei and boy’s love, so we’ll see what they put out. For now, they go near the bottom.

Luv Luv - Aurora’s Redicomi line. So far it’s mostly one-shots, which I like because there’s no commitment. I also like the type of story in the Redicomi genre, so I like these books a lot, but I suspect others can probably take or leave them. So far they’ve got a bimonthly release schedule.

Deux - Aurora’s BL Line. Nothing yet here that’s struck my fancy, but if I weren’t so firmly against incest, I would buy Kiss All the Boys in, like, a SECOND. These books seem to be coming out slightly more frequently than Luv Luv, which kind of bums me out.

Udon Entertainment - They just started publishing a few Korean series, and are currently pretty low profile. Their first three series recently launched, one sounds interesting but has a really terrible cover, and one sounds so-so but has a great cover. The third is about wizards.

Boysenberry Books - This is the BL imprint of Broccoli Books.  They’re listed down here because they’ve got… kind of a slow output.  The imprint is about a year old and has published… 4 books, I think?  They’re quality though, the one I bought looks great and wound up being one of my favorite BL one-shots, Delivery Cupid.

ALC Publishing - They’ve only published around 7 books, and the one I have from them is of pretty poor quality, was expensive, and was really, really short. They’re notable, however, for being the only publisher that handles exclusively yuri books. I’m not sure if they plan to publish more, or what’s going to happen with them… but I think their newest one (Yuri Monogatari 4) just came out at the end of last year, so I guess they’re still around. They do an anthology, the above-mentioned Yuri Monogatari, which features artists from around the world.

Be Beautiful - The oldest sole purveyors of Boy’s Love manga, they have some of the highest profile of those titles available. Unfortunately, they tend to get themselves in all kinds of trouble, so their books can be a bit rare. I’m not sure if they’re gonna be in business much longer, so I’ll just throw them down at the bottom here.

CPM Press - Be Beautiful’s parent company, the publishing arm of Central Park Media. I’m not too sure if they’ll be publishing again either. They cut off a bunch of their series in the middle, and it seems like they may have lost the license to the one I wanted to pick up again. I have quite a few of their old titles though, they outdate most of the other current publishers. I recommend Tomoko Taniguchi for all the girly girls at heart.