Okay! So, I would consider July to be a fairly reasonable month for manga (and other) acquisitions. (I did pretty well in June, too, so hopefully this is a trend that continues.) I’ve gotten to the point that most of my purchases nowadays tend to be preorders, but there were a couple out-of-print things that I picked up (most notably Minako Narita’s Cipher). I also picked up Animal Land, Volume 9 by Makoto Raiku, which I missed getting when it was first released. Particularly exciting in July was that Flowering Harbour, a newly translated manga by Seiichi Hayashi, was released by the UK-based Breakdown Press. As for other preorders that I was happy to see arrive in July: Moyoco Anno’s In Clothes Called Fat is one of the best comics I’ve read this year (which I reviewed very recently); Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 3 continues to endear the series to me (I have a review of that one, too); and Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga, Omnibus 4 is fantastic (no review yet, but there should be one soon). You should also expect a review of Jami Lynn Lano’s The Princess of Tennis, a memoir of her time spent as a manga assistant for Takeshi Konomi, in the near future, too.
Manga!
Animal Land, Volume 9 by Makoto Raiku
Anomal by Nukuharu
Cipher, Volumes 1-11 by Minako Narita
Deadlock, Volume 1 written by Saki Aida and illustrated by Yuh Takashina
Flowering Harbour by Seiichi Hayashi
Flowers of Evil, Volume 10 by Shuzo Oshimi
In Clothes Called Fat by Moyoco Anno
Lone Wolf and Cub, Omnibus 5 written by Kazuo Koike, illustrated by Goseki Kojima
Madara, Volume 5 written by Eiji Otsuka, illustrated by Shou Tajima
No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!, Volume 4 by Nico Tanigawa
One Is Enough by Love
Sonny Leads, Volume 1 written by Richard Mosdell, illustrated by Genshi Kamobayashi
Terra Formars, Volume 1 written by Yu Sasuga and illustrated by Ken-ichi Tachibana
Vinland Saga, Omnibus 4 by Makoto Yukimura
What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 3 by Fumi Yoshinaga
Comics!
Chaos by Philippe Druillet
Dicebox, Book 1: Wander by Jenn Manley Lee
A Distant Soil, Volume 1: The Gathering by Colleen Doran
Forming II by Jesse Moynihan
Hana Doki Kira by the Year 85 Group
How to Be Happy by Elenor Davis
Pinoy Komiks edited by Adam Pasion and Zon Petilla
Novels!
Seikai: Crest of the Stars, Volume 1: Princess of the Empire by Hiroyuki Morioka
Nonfiction!
A Brief History of Manga by Helen McCarthy
The Princess of Tennis by Jamie Lynn Lano
Anime!
Baoh directed by Hiroyuki Yokoyama
Hetalia, Season 5: The Beautiful World directed by Hiroshi Watanabe
Mononoke directed by Kenji Nakamura
Sengoku Basara: The Last Party directed by Kazuya Nomura
Short Peace directed by Shuhei Morita, Katsuhiro Otomo, Hiroaki Ando, Hajime Katoki
Lots of good pick-ups this month. :) I picked up Cipher awhile ago at an anime convention and I’ve read some of it; curious to see what you’ll think too.
I’m waiting for my newer Rightstuf order to come in so I can check out In Clothes Called Fat. but I’m having a hard time waiting for this one! It’s gotten such good reviews. My top manga this year was Nijigahara Holograph, but I wonder if that will top it.
In Clothes Called Fat and Nijigahara Holograph are fantastic. I hate having to pick just one favorite, and they’re different enough that it’s hard to really compare them to each other, but they’re both definitely among my top releases of the year.