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24 November 2010 6 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Feast of Firsts

Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving here in the United States, probably my absolute favorite holiday seeing as it centers around food. So, I’m feeling particularly giving this month and am giving away a set of four, count them, four boys’ love/yaoi first volumes to one lucky winner. The giveaway is open world-wide but you must be over the age of 18 to enter. (Also, please don’t be asking me to be doing something illegal by sending this to your country.) So, if you’re interested in a chance to win some free manga, read on!

First, a little about of the books. Love Mode is brand new, Shout Out Loud! is used but still in good condition, and both Eerie Queerie! and Gravitation are library discards that I rescued. All of the books are quite different and should give you an opportunity to sample some of the variety of boys’ love that’s out there.

Shuri Shiozu’s Eerie Queerie! was nominated for a Gaylactic Spectrum award in 2005 and then again in 2007 when it was shortlisted. Other than Sanami Matoh’s Until the Full Moon, Eerie Queerie! is the only manga that I know of that has been nominated for this award so far.

Maki Murakami’s Gravitation is a pretty substantial property with both light novels and an anime adaptation in addition to the manga. It’s a ridiculous series and makes me laugh and has quite a following. I believe the individual volumes of Gravitation are actually no longer being printed but the series is being republished in omnibuses as Gravitation Collection.

Of the four manga being offered in this sampler, Yuki Shimizu’s Love Mode is the most explicit, and I promise the art is better than what the cover might make you think. At eleven volumes, Love Mode is one of the longest yaoi series that I’m familiar with available in English.

Last month I posted my response to the NYAF/NYCC panel Gay for You? Yaoi and Yuri Manga for GBLTQ Readers. Satosumi Takaguchi’s Shout Out Loud! was included in the panelists’ list of recommended titles and is well worth checking out.

Since I’m giving away a bunch of first volumes, I thought I’d share a few of my manga firsts. (There’s some sort of logic there, I swear.) For the longest time, I thought that Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal was the first manga that I had read and it remains one of my favorites. However, in the process of setting up Experiments in Manga, I realized that the honor in fact goes to either Osamu Tezuka’s Adolf or Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell. As for yaoi, my introduction to the genre was Yaya Sakuragi’s Hey, Sensei? which I’m still fond of. Around the same time I randomly picked up Sanami Matoh’s Fake from the library without realizing it was a boys’ love title.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a sampler of boys’ love first volumes?

1) In the comments section below, tell me about one of the first manga that you read.
2) For a second entry, tell me about the first boys’ love/yaoi manga you read, OR if you’ve never read boys’ love before just mention that.
3) If you’re on Twitter you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).

Pretty easy? One person can earn up to three entries for the giveaway. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on December 1, 2010 (hey, another first!)—so you’ve only got one week to get your entries in this time. Good luck!

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address, link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Contest winner announced—Manga Giveaway: Feast of Firsts Winner

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27 October 2010 Leave a Comment

Manga Giveaway: Mushishi Madness Winner

And the winner of my second manga giveaway is…Brent P. Newhall of Otaku, No Video!

As the winner of Mushishi Madness, Brent will be receiving a copy of Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi, Volume 6.

I was a little worried this time around because there wasn’t a single entry for the giveaway until two days ago. Thank you to everyone who helped get the word out and thank you to everyone who entered. It makes me happy to spread the manga love, so make sure to look out for next month’s contest!

For this giveaway, I had people tell me a bit about their favorite supernatural or creepy manga. Here’s brief summary of those mentioned, but make sure to check out the Mushishi Madness comments, too:

First up is Matsuri Akino’s Pet Shop of Horrors, a ten volume horror manga which features the androgynous and enigmatic Count D, proprietor of the pet shop in question. Like Mushishi, the series is primarily episodic. I haven’t read this manga myself yet, but I have been meaning to ever since reading Jason Thompson’s 365 Days of Manga post about it’s sequel, Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo.

Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo was released in English in three volumes and won Vertical an Eisner in 2009 for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan. The manga is a historical adventure fantasy with plenty of monsters, literal and figurative, and the protagonist has one of the most horrifying origin stories I know. This series also made Katherine Dacey’s My Favorite Spooky Manga list.

Berserk by Kentaro Miura is a dark fantasy manga of epic proportions that started publication in 1990. So far, it’s up to thirty-five volumes (thirty-four currently in English translation) and although it’s published somewhat irregularly, I’m not sure Miura has any intention of stopping any time soon. For some reason I seem to be hearing a lot about Berserk recently and I know of quite a few people who love this series. I guess it’s about time I pick it up myself.

Hideyuki Kikuchi, probably best known for Vampire Hunter D, is paired up with manhwa artist Shin Yong-Gwan to create the super-creepy supernatural horror manga Taimashin: The Red Spider Exorcist. This is another series I don’t know much about personally, but I’ve heard very good things—the art in particular is supposed to be fantastic. Yet another manga I’ll need to check out.

Finally, we have CLAMP’s Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. It’s another lengthy series at twenty-eight volumes that just finished up in Japan last October. I really enjoy most of CLAMP’s work, and Tsubasa is no exception—I particularly love the characters. Parts of the manga’s story can been seen from a different perspective in another of CLAMP’s series, xxxHolic, which is still ongoing.

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20 October 2010 5 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Mushishi Madness

It’s that time again—time for another manga giveaway! This month I have a nice copy of Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi, Volume 6 available. The giveaway is open world-wide, so if you’re interested in a chance to win some free manga, read on!

Mushishi is one of my favorite manga that I’ve recently come across. Fortunately, the entire series has been published in English by Del Rey Manga. Although there are a couple of recurring characters in addition Ginko, the protagonist, the story is primarily episodic. This means you don’t really have to start with the first volume. So, if you’ve never read Mushishi, don’t be discouraged by the fact that I’m giving away the sixth collected book!

Mushishi, Volume 6 contains the stories “Heaven’s Thread,” “The Chirping Shell,” “The Hand That Pets the Night,” “Under the Snow,” and “Banquet in the Farthest Field.” I felt Mushishi was an appropriate giveaway for the month of October with Hallowe’en and all the harvest festivals and celebrations coming up—the stories can be rather creepy, and there’s a lot of nature imagery. It’s filled with all sorts of wonderful folklore and pseudosciencey goodness.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a copy of Mushishi, Volume 6?

1) In the comments section below, tell me about one of your favorite creepy or supernatural manga.
2) If you’re on Twitter you can earn another entry by tweeting about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).

There you go! One person can earn up to two entries for the giveaway. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on Wednesday, September 27, 2010—so you’ve only got one week to get your entries in this time.

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address, link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Contest winner announced—Manga Giveaway: Mushishi Madness Winner

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29 September 2010 Leave a Comment

Manga Giveaway: Crazy Karate Contest Winner

And the winner of my first ever manga giveaway is…PB!

As the winner of the Crazy Karate Contest, PB will be receiving a free copy of Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2, Volume 11: Creative Cures.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest and got the word out to others; it is greatly appreciated. I hope to do more giveaways in the future and see an even bigger response. In the meantime, those of you who enter have a really good chance of winning some free manga.

So, this contest was about naming some martial arts manga and martial artist manga characters. Here’s what we came up with:

Samejima Ranmaru from Kazuma Kodaka’s yaoi series Kizuna: Bonds of Love is a skilled kendōka. Kendo is a martial art based on traditional Japanese sword fighting with a history dating back to at least the 12th century.

Asuka Masamune, “the manliest of men,” from Aya Kanno’s romantic shōjo comedy Otomen also studies kendo. He’s the captain of his team and has gone on to compete in the national championship tournament. He also excels at judo, a martial art that focuses on throwing and grappling, and karate.

In Yuu Watase’s Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden, another shōjo series, Takiko Okuda is very competent with a naginata, a weapon that in Japan is generally associated with women, traditionally of the samurai class. A naginata is a pole weapon with a curved blade—sort of a mix between a short sword and a spear—that can be used to slash, stab, hook, or bludgeon an adversary.

Juline, the eponymous character of Narumi Kakinouchi’s Juline manga series, studies kung fu. A Chinese martial art, kung fu has a number of different styles that can vary widely from one another. I’m not familiar enough with Juline to identify which style is involved, but my dōjō offers training in both Hung Gar-Sil Lum (also known as the Tiger-Crane style) and Wing Chun.

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15 September 2010 4 Comments

Manga Giveaway: Crazy Karate Contest

I am currently in possession of an extra copy of Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2, Volume 11: Creative Cures and so I have decided to run a contest. The giveaway is open world-wide, so if you’re interested in a chance to win a free, brand new copy of Ranma 1/2, Volume 11, read on!

I have been studying karate for a little over a year now. I absolutely love it and it has been really good for me. I also happen to love when karate makes an appearance in the manga that I read. It doesn’t matter whether it’s crazy karate like in Ranma 1/2 or Yu Yagami’s Hikkatsu! or something more serious—it just makes me happy. Sometimes, karate might not be critical to the story itself, but is important to a specific character. Eikichi Onizuka, the eponymous character from Tohru Fujisawa’s Great Teacher Onizuka, is a second-degree black-belt and captain of his university karate team. In Yaya Sakuragi’s yaoi series Tea for Two, both Tokumaru and his sister study karate and he helps teach the kids’ class and run the dojo’s training camp.

So, you may be wondering, how can you win a copy of Ranma 1/2, Volume 11?

1) In the comments section below, name any martial arts manga or martial artist manga character that hasn’t been mentioned in this post or in others’ comments. If possible, include the style of martial art involved.
2) If that style is a form of karate, you get a bonus entry!
3) If you’re on Twitter you can earn another entry by tweeting about this contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me) so that I know you’ve tweeted.

And that’s it! One person can earn up to three entries in the contest. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on Wednesday, September 29, 2010—so you’ve got two weeks to get your entries in.

VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address, link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.

Contest winner announced—Manga Giveaway: Crazy Karate Contest Winner

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