New Manga: Wandering Sons, Operas, and Falconry

This morning I spotted a really interesting listing for a manga on Amazon-- it's listed as a title published by comic pub Fantagraphics, who have been known on very rare occasion to publish a manga (Anywhere But Here, for example, and the first seven volumes of Usagi Yojimbo).

More importantly, it's Aoi Hana creator Takako Shimura's seinen slice of life drama Hourou Musuko, to be titled Wandering Son in English. I remember stumbling upon the title originally at Precocious Curmudgeon as a license request. The series revolves around a boy named Shuuichi who wants to become a girl, and who becomes friends with a girl named Yoshino, who wants to be a boy. It may sound like the setup for a wacky gag comedy manga, but it's a more serious drama revolving around gender identity specifically as well as puberty in general. Assuming the listing is accurate, the first volume comes out on December 22nd.

Another item I spotted earlier this week, but which now has a cover, is Opera Manga!, "a ground-breaking book that takes some of the best opera's[sic] in the world and transforms them into inspiring manga literature." It's being released by Arcana Studio, and after a bit of research I vaguely recalled hearing a bit about it a year or so ago-- it's actually a collection of manga that's been made available online at the Vancouver Opera's website. It looks like the art has improved somewhat over the first time I saw it, so I'll be interested in checking it out, at least.

And finally, to round out our off-the-beaten-path manga listings for the day, MangaBlog spotted the United Arab Emirates' first manga offering-- which is a shounen series about falconry. That...actually sounds really cool. The cover's looks great, too. It's called The Gold Ring and it's currently being translated into English for "local" (UAE) release-- maybe I'll get a chance to import a copy!

So, kids, take your pick: transsexuality, opera, falconry, some, none, or all? (I, for one, pick "all.")