I knew October was going to be rough on my wallet since there were a lot of manga that I was planning on picking up. Most of October’s acquisitions were the result of preorders, but there were a few impulse buys as a result of some major sales. There were some out-of-print materials that I was happy to welcome into my home, too. For example, I’ve recently become rather enamored with the Boogiepop franchise, and so I made a point to pick up all of the manga and related music albums that were released in North America to add to my collection. As for the new October manga releases that I was particularly excited to see, Kodansha and Vertical made an especially good showing with Vinland Saga, Omnibus 5 by Makoto Yukimura, No. 6, Volume 9 by Hinoki Kino, and Tsuina Miura and Gamon Sakurai’s Ajin: Demi-Human, Volume 1. (Expect in-depth reviews of all three in the near future.) I’m also very excited to read the All You Need Is Kill manga illustrated by Takeshi Obata and Setona Mizushiro’s Black Rose Alice, Volume 2 from Viz. Technically they won’t be released until November, though; I was simply lucky enough to get my copies a little early. October was a good month for independent comics, too.
Manga!
Ajin: Demi-Human, Volume 1 written by Tsuina Miura, illustrated by Gamon Sakurai
All You Need Is Kill written by Ryosuke Takeuchi, illustrated by Takeshi Obata
Apple and Honey by Hideyoshico
Black Rose Alice, Volume 2 by Setona Mizushiro
Blue Morning, Volume 5 by Shoko Hidaka
Boogiepop Doesn’t Laugh, Volumes 1-2 written by Kouhei Kadono, illlustrated by Kouji Ogata
Boogiepop Dual: Losers’ Circus, Volumes 1-2 written by Kouhei Kadono, illustrated by Masayuki Takano
Castle of Dreams by Masami Tsuda
Dengeki Daisy, Volume 15 by Kyousuke Motomi
Disciplinarian by Inochi Wazuka
The Flowers of Evil, Volume 11 by Shuzo Oshimi
Food Wars!, Volume 2 written by Yuto Tsukuda, illustrated by Shun Saeki
The Judged by Akira Honma
Kamen, Volume 2 by Gunya Mihara
Knights of Sidonia, Volume 11 by Tsutomu Nihei
Last Portrait by Akira Honma
Legal Drug by CLAMP
Lone Wolf and Cub, Omnibus 6 written by Kazuo Koike, illustrated by Goseki Kojima
Heartbroken Angels, Volumes 1-2 by Masahiko Kikuni
Magical Girl Apocalypse, Volume 1 by Kentaro Sato
New Lone Wolf and Cub, Volume 2 written by Kazuo Koike, illustrated by Hideki Mori
A New Season of Young Leaves written by Venio Tachibana, illustrated by Akeno Kitahata
No. 6, Volume 9 by Hinoki Kino
Nyotai-ka!, Volumes 2-3 by Ru-en Rouga
Sunny, Volume 4 by Taiyo Matsumoto
Twittering Birds Never Fly, Volume 1 by Kou Yoneda
Vinland Saga, Omnibus 5 by Makoto Yukimura
Whispered Words, Omnibus 2 by Takashi Ikeda
Witchcraft Works, Volume 1 by Ryu Mizunagi
World Trigger, Volumes 1-2 by Daisuke Ashihara
Ze, Volume 9 by Yuki Shimizu
Manhwa!
Aron’s Absurd Armada, Omnibus 3 by MiSun Kim
Comics!
My Japanese Husband Thinks I’m Crazy by Grace Buchele Mineta
Oh Joy, Sex Toy, Volume 1 by Erika Moen
RAV by Mickey Zacchilli
Smut Peddler 2014 by Various
Snackies by Nick Sumida
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
YU+ME: Dream, Omnibuses 1-2 by Megan Rose Gedris
Artbooks!
The Art of Angel Sanctuary, Volumes 1-2 by Kaori Yuki
Film!
Edge of Tomorrow directed by Doug Liman
Music!
Boogiepop: Music Album Inspired by Boogiepop and Others by Yuki Kajiura
Boogiepop Phantom Original Soundtrack by Various
I picked up Edge of Tomorrow too! I really liked the book, and I quite enjoyed the movie too. I also read the manga, and I still don’t quite get the end of the novel and manga, the manga didn’t seem to help me understand it any better. Still, I enjoyed the movie, I didn’t mind changes as much as I thought I might. And Tom Cruise got to run. A lot. So I’m sure he enjoyed that.
I really meant to see Edge of Tomorrow while it was still in the theater, but I never quite got around to it. I’ve heard good things, though, so I’m looking forward to watching it. I enjoyed the original All You Need Is Kill light novel, wasn’t nearly as fond of the graphic novel adaptation, but have high hopes for the manga. At the very least, Obata is a great artist! ^_^
I didn’t see it in theater either, though I wanted to. I only seem to hit the theaters twice a year. I saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 (as the first quickly became one of my favorite movies and I can’t wait to buy it on blu-ray next week all for me!) and will probably see Big Hero 6 and that’s it. I’m rather behind on American movies really. I’ll definitely see Croods 2 (the first had a terrible ad campaign, but was actually really good, to be expected from one of the Dragons directors) and Dragons 3, but that’s far in the future. I think last year I saw World’s End (because Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are awesome, as was the movie) and Frozen (because didn’t everyone?)
I didn’t read the US comic for All You Need is Kill. I enjoyed the manga well enough, but I felt like it went waaay too fast, so I enjoyed both the novel and movie more in terms of pacing.
I don’t make it to the theater very often any more, either. But, I did see How to Train Your Dragon 2! Both it and the first movie are great. I hadn’t realized that Croods had one of the same directors; I’ll have to make a point to check it out. And I somehow managed to forget about World’s End! So that’ll be going on my list to watch now, too.
My library had the American comic adaptation of All You Need Is Kill and I just had to know how bad it was. Yeah, that was pretty bad. I can imagine it being near impossible to follow if you hadn’t already read the original novel, people who only watched Edge of Tomorrow have no chance at all. The pacing was god-awful, it just jumped all over the story and between scenes and the flow of the scenes was clunky. It’s like someone was given random pages and went “I don’t care what happens in between, we’ll just make do with this”, I think this might be one of the worst comic adaptations I’ve seen yet (of a work that was originally good anyway). I can assure you the manga is much much better, it’s not even a contest.
Oh, that’s good to hear! I pretty much agree with your assessment of the comic. I was so, so disappointed with that adaptation.