The US Yaoi-con just wrapped up and while I have never been there to witness the famous slave auctions, this year, there was one announcement that I wanted to catch up on: Viz’s BL line, SuBLime.
I’ve been teasing in twitter that Viz doesn’t need a dedicated BL line because they already have titles that has been keeping the fujoshi heart ablaze. Shounen Jump has enough treasures for us. We can start with Naruto, then down to Bleach, Gintama (although they stopped before it even got more fun), even One Piece and now the new favorites: Ao no Exorcist, Reborn, and the Legend of Nura. We can also look back at some Shounen Jump classics like Prince of Tennis and even some Shounen Sunday favorites like Case Closed for some fujoshi staples. Needless to say, Viz has enough to make some fujoshi squee with joy.
However, I honestly don’t blame them considering starting a BL line considering that there’s currently one active publisher that sells BL manga: DMP. I personally am not a big fan of DMP hence I welcome SuBLime in the market! I also find their name cute because it seems that a good number of BL publishers have this knack of finding BL in their names (BL-ink?). More so, it’s loaded with meanings of subtext and lime. For those in English fandoms, you might remember that lime was an old term used to describe the soft porn of fanfics. Yaoi was not spared from the lime category and thus I thought, it was a smart homage to that old term. Of course, I was surprised that they didn’t color their pages to lime and chose the more romantic, harlequinesque color of purple. I asked them over at twitter and they’ve noted that it was because it was a mature color. It’s actually nice and pretty. Not bad, but we’ll see how they package their covers as DMP seems to have started mimicking the famous Beboy Comics side box.
SuBLime has made the announcement of their website and their plans in the recent US Yaoi-con. Here’s a rundown of their nefarious plans:
1. SuBLime is a partnership between Animate and Libre.
This means we’re going to get access from the treasure trove of BL titles that are published by Libre. We have titles running from the classic BeBoy, Beboy Gold, Beboy Luv, Super Beboy, etc. What also excites me about this is this means that Viz will have access to Libre anthologies too such as Citron, Beboy Honey, and Beboy Phoenix!
2. Partnership with Libre means access to some of the best BL authors out there
While I have been writing spotlights for Ohta Shuppan authors like Asumiko and basso, Libre does have an amazing wealth of BL authors under their belt: Est Em, Kyuushu Danzi, Suzuki Tsuta, Aniya Yuiji, Nekota Yonezou, Natsume Isaku, Akira Norikazu, and I can go on forever. Some of these artists, such as Naono Bohra, have not been licensed yet and finally… FINALLY they’re getting some love in English. It honestly excites me to finally see these titles in English. Among the authors that they’re publishing, look out for Sakae Kusama, Nitro+Chiral, Naono Bohra, Akira Norikazu, You Higashino, and Natsume Isaku!
3. The partnership entails worldwide distribution of BL manga via the SuBLime website, as well as printed English translated titles.
YESSSSSS!! \o/ This means our tropical isles and every other place in the world that has access to internet CAN download their BL. According to the news brief, it’s a Download to Own option, which I am curious as to how this will be folded out. I suppose this means that after paying, we basically own that copy. If I base it on Viz prices for manga online via the iPad app, it will cost around $5.00. Still cheap compared to the prices of English BL manga here (which can go for $15-16) However, unlike the vizmanga.com app, this one is going global. I wonder how they will address non iPad users. Could they even sell via Android? I remember Amazon taking out BL titles from their kindle line, and with Kindle Fire coming out, will they have something to answer to that as well? If it’s download to own, does this mean that we can keep the file to ourselves and access it anywhere and everywhere and even offline? I’d like to see those details someday. Also, what would be the payment scheme for SuBLime? Can they account for the number of fujoshi with no credit cards yet?
With all of these lined up, it made me reflect on a couple of things.
- Will the BL scanlation community stop scanlating titles from Libre?
- Is SuBLime the only publisher for Libre titles?
- Are they a dedicated Libre publisher or are they willing to venture out and license titles from other publishers?
- Will SuBLime also tap Shueisha’s BL-ink titles?
- What will happen to DMP? Will they focus towards titles outside of Libre?
With all of these questions running in my head, I can only hope and look forward to the launch of SuBLime. For now, it’s looking good.
UPDATE: It seems that the ANN article was not enough and Lisa Patillo has some answers to my questions already:
1.) They are just working with Animate and Libre but they can look at other publishers as well (please look at Ohta Shuppan!)
2.) Digital manga costs $5.99. Not… bad. You do download the manga and they seem to rely on trust of the buyers to not spread it around for pirates. We’ll see about that. Let’s hope the fujoshi do follow through and support BL authors the way they have always been advertising in their credit pages.
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As some of you know, there was a level of concern during the Toronto Comic Arts Forum (TCAF) when a programmer was caught in the Canadian border for having Madoka doujinshi in his laptop. Many people have raised valid concerns over the injustice of this arrest and a couple of others that were caught in the borders because of their “graphic” novels, but the news has also brought enough paranoia to make some otaku travelers like myself worried when I cross international borders.
While I find the cultural defense logic of Roland Kelts in CNN GO flawed (please, using ukiyo-e as a cultural stand when lolimanga is already a far deviation of ukiyo-e), I find that the article was strong enough to remind me of my mild paranoia during my recent visit to the United States.
I recently traveled to the United States to present in the International Comic Arts Forum where I spoke on the topic of scanlations. And while my topic lies in a safe space, the material I held in my hard drive was something that could probably get me arrested. I’m not speaking of materials exactly similar to those arrested (although I think I had some of those stuff), but this fujoshi would have some materials in her hard drive that does contain underage boys, boys who are younger than 18 who are getting laid with men over 30 or 40. I know for a fact that such topics already taps pedophilia but hey… this fujoshi likes her May-December BL affairs. Most of those who have been apprehended for carrying these materials were male so… will I ever get caught in an airport for my BL?
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A bookshelf of manga... in Osaka. lol.
I just can’t believe that even five years later, I missed my own blog anniversary. AGAIN. OTL. WHY DOES LIFE HAVE TO MAKE ME SO BUSY!?! >A<)9
It’s been five years since I started this blog and while I had started this with the intention to just link to my friends manga and anime that interest me, it has grown closer to a place where I can openly discuss and dissect one of the things I love: manga.
From this blog, I’ve learned a lot about manga, met a lot of amazing people who are just as passionate, and found a personal cause to incorporate my life and passion. I was just a college senior when I started and hundreds of manga later, I’ve become an academic who uses every excuse to write about manga. And strangely, I even get to go abroad to talk about it.
I’m forever grateful for all the things that happened in my life and I am proud to say that a good part of who I am today is all due to manga. I’ve been inspired by brave, strange and eccentric heroes and heroines who give me hope that things can get better if I just give things a try.
I can’t believe that it’s been five years although I must admit, I’ve been a delinquent writer for a while and I’m slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things. Of course, in those five years, a lot has changed not only with my life but also with manga’s presence in the Philippines.
A few months ago, someone asked me in Formspring, “For a non-American I wonder why you seem to only discuss U.S/Japanese editions. Is there a sizable large manga market by a local publisher in Philippines? In what language (Tagalog/English)?” I thought it’d be great to give this person an answer now.
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It’s quite an interesting month for manga and I wish I wasn’t so busy to miss this merry month of manga in Manila. Part of the Manga Realities exhibit is actually a lecture from a professor from Kyoto Seika University, Jacqueline Berndt. As some of you know, Kyoto Seika’s the only university in the world that has a faculty of manga, hence it’s interesting to hear from the perspective of people who have dedicated their lives to manga. Now, on to the details of the talk!
The Japan Foundation, Manila (JFM) in continuing its mission to promote international cultural and arts exchanges between the Philippines and Japan, is bringing to Manila Prof. Jacqueline Berndt for a two (2) day lecture on Manga. The lectures will be held on 9 September (Friday), 4:00 pm at the Ayala Museum in Makati and on 10 September (Saturday), 9:30 am at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University in Loyola Heights, Quezon City.
Jacqueline Berndt received her Ph.D. in Aesthetics from the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. She has been teaching art theory and media studies in Japan after receiving her doctorate. In 2009, she became Professor of Comics/Manga Theory at the Faculty of Manga, Kyoto Seika University. At present, she is the Director School of Manga Studies, KSU as well as the Deputy Director of the KSU’s International Manga Research Center which is located at the International Manga Museum in Kyoto, Japan. Her research interests include aesthetics of comics/manga, art discourse in modern Japan and animation studies. She has published the first comprehensive monograph on manga in German, Phänomen Manga. Comic-Kultur in Japan (Berlin 1995, Spanish transl. 1996), co-edited Reading Manga: Local and Global Perceptions of Japanese Comics (Leipzig 2006), and edited the bilingual volume Comics Worlds and the World of Comics (Kyoto 2010).
The lectures are in cooperation with the Ayala Museum and the Japanese Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University. The lecture at Ayala Museum, “Manga and Art: Alleged Traditions, Museum Galleries and Appropriative Artists” tackles the legitimization of manga as an art form. Prof. Berndt’s lecture will focus on three aspects: 1) the ir/relevance of traditional Japanese painting for contemporary manga; 2) manga museums compared to recent manga exhibitions in Japanese art museums; and 3) the unilateral interest in manga by contemporary artists such as Murakami Takashi and Aida Makoto. The lecture is part of the “Manga Realities: Exploring the Art of Japanese Comics Today” traveling exhibit which is on view at the Ayala Museum from 16 August to 2 October.
The lecture at the Ateneo Art Gallery, “Manga beyond subculture”
discusses the rekindling question about manga’s role in the Japanese society. It takes the A-bomb manga “Barefoot Gen” which started in
1973 in the Weekly Shonen Jump and was introduced into Japanese school libraries in the early 1980s as its point of departure and examines its impact on public consciousness.
For inquiries and reservations for the Sept. 9 lecture, please contact the Ayala Museum at telephone numbers 757.7117 to 21 or email: museum_inquiry@ayalamusuem.org. For the Sept. 10 lecture, please contact the Japanese Studies Program at telephone numbers 426.6001 loc. 5248 or 426.4326.
If you’re gonna ask whose manga are those on the cover… well… =3=)~~ *whistles*
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Tuna and Tomato Soumen
All this Yoshinaga talk around mangadom through this month’s Manga Moveable Feast has honestly left me hungry. We all know how much Yoshinaga Fumi loves her food and many of us often suffer from all the lovely food that she features in her manga. If you read Antique Bakery, I’m quite sure you’ll be craving for cakes. If you read Not Love But Food, you’d wish you were in Japan to try out all the fun restaurants they ate in. What’s frustrating is how the food she features in her manga is inaccessible unless you’re a genius baker like Ono.
Well, not any more. At least if you can read Kinou Nani Tabeta.
My favorite non-BL Yoshinaga is her domestic story between a lawyer and a hairdresser and their laidback dinners. They’re an odd couple of sorts but they share a passion for food and love for sharing meals. While some would think that reading into their dinners can get one hungry, the ease they show in preparing the dishes make you think that maybe… just maybe… you can cook it at home.
Starving for some Yoshinaga dishes, I thought I’d share with you two easy meals I learned from Kinou Nani Tabeta. These ingredients can be easily found in a Japanese grocery. I’ll also point in some alternatives just in case you want a taste of these dishes but can’t find the ingredients.
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Goran Markovic on 
Yousain on