Autumn Manga Preview 2012

There are plenty of new manga releases to look forward to in the next few months, as well as re-releases of some classics. Here is a guide to what is coming out in the next three months.

September

September appears to be a month of re-releases. Viz is bringing out a box-set of the second half of Pokemon Gold and Silver. Former Del Rey title Shugo Chara! is being re-released by Kodansha, who are also releasing new copies of Ghost in the Shell 1.5. Old Tokyopop titles are coming back as well, with Paradise Kiss brought back by Vertical and CLAMP’s Angelic Layer being released by Dark Horse.

But the biggest title in September is Barbara from Digital Manga Publishing. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, it is by Osamu Tezuka, albeit one of his rarer, more adult titles. Secondly, the release was crowdfunded by manga fans from around the world. Having read a preview copy of this myself, I can see that this is a project well worth the money that was given to it.

Other new titles include the second season of Genshiken (Kodansha), otaku comedy Oreimo (Dark Horse), and the new “”Massacre Arc” of Higurashi (Yen). September also sees new volumes of Bakuman (Viz), Attack on Titan (Kodansha), Library Wars (Viz), Sailor Moon (Kodansha) and Yotsuba&! (Yen).

October

October looks to be rather adult. Viz is re-releasing one of the most famous shonen-ai titles ever made: Loveless. Seven Seas meanwhile is bringing out the yuri title Girl Friends, and One Peace (not One Piece), is publishing the adult comedy Crayon Shin-chan. Yen is also selling Triage X, a series about a group of nurses who are also mercenary assassins.

If this is not your sort of thing, you may be interested in the shojo series Start with a Happy Ending (DMP), an odd series featuring dead people being reincarnated as cats for a week. Vertical meanwhile is bringing out collaboration between Bones and Stan Lee with the mecha manga Heroman.

Viz are bringing out another Pokemon box set, (the first half of Black and White). Continuing titles include a new omnibus edition of X (Viz), The Flowers of Evil (Vertical), Jiu Jiu (Viz), Gantz (Dark Horse) and Durarara!! (Yen).

November

Once again Viz are going mad with the box-sets and re-releases. There are two complete box-sets coming out, this time of Ouran High School Host Club and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Perhaps even bigger though is the re-release of one of the biggest and most controversial mecha series ever seen, with a new omnibus edition of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion.

There is also a healthy mix of new titles bring brought out. These include the romantic drama Missions of Love (Yen), the more comedic romance Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends (Seven Seas), the sequel to 20th Century Boys, the imaginatively entitled 21st Century Boys (Viz), and bathhouse comedy Thermae Romae (Yen).

Amongst the continuing tiles in November there are new volumes of Message to Adolf (Vertical), Tegami Bachi (Viz), Sengoku Basara (Udon), Vampire Knight (Viz) and Blood Blockade Battlefront (Dark Horse).