Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

In my seemingly endless quest to catch back up, I've come upon several items I think you guys would be interested in.

The first is blogger welcome datacomp's translation of Kaori Kumi's essay on Hayao Miyazaki, and in particular his Nausicaa manga. Kumi-san, who requested that WD translate the essay (though he only did one part; the second will be translated by and posted at Ogiue Maniax), looks at several of Miyazaki's earliest manga works, from when he still wanted to, and notes just how much they draw on cinematic techniques.

Next up is a shorter piece. Rumiko Takahashi, continuing to blog on VIZ's The Rumic World site, answers the age-old question.. why the hell would Kagome keep wearing her school uniform on her jaunts to the Warring States era? The answer is more practical than you may expect!

Back to something a touch more serious: manga as marketing tool. There are some errors here (such as talk about the "axed plans for a national manga museum"-- it was an anime spot, not manga, primarily --but it's still an interesting piece on how businesses are trying to buy into the manga world, whether selling manga itself or using it as a method of advertising (hello, product placement!)

Finally, we'll end with another piece by manga expert Jason Thompson, who this time addresses the length of manga series, and how it tends to relate to the magazines the titles are serialized in-- a weekly series that's popular will churn out a lot more content in a year than a monthly series, for example, and is more likely to run for as long as its popularity allows rather than having a set ending time.

Okay, that should keep you guys busy for a few minutes!