Tag Archives: inio asano

Mujina into the Deep Vol. 1 has some great art but at times an odd story

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In the near future, human rights aren’t guaranteed, but they are for sale. Without your rights, you’re just a mujina, with no place to call your own and no laws to protect you. But if the laws don’t apply to you, you can do anything you want. You just need the skills to back it up. And if you’re really good, you can really make a killing.

Terumi Morgan bitterly accepts that he shouldn’t expect a lot from life. He just wants to meet his deadlines at work and watch his porn in peace. But then an unexpected sick day sends him on a collision course with two people who will change his world forever—a runaway kid and a thirtysomething mujina assassin. Suddenly life is expecting a lot from him.

Story: Inio Asano
Art: Inio Asano
Translation: JN Productions
Touch-up Art/Lettering: Annaliesse Christman

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Bookshop
Amazon

VIZ Media provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
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Kodansha announces New Print Releases Coming Fall 2023

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Following-up with the initial Fall 2023 New Print Licenses first revealed at Anime NYC 2022, Kodansha USA has announced even more new manga, premium editions, book reissues and even a special box set, all debuting Fall 2023. Take a look below for the full list of the amazing Kodansha titles coming later this year.

NEW MANGA:

nichijou 11

By Keiichi Arawi
Rated: 13+

The unexpected return of nichijou!


Seven years from the last release, the quirky gang is back! For the die-hard nichjou fans or even those picking it up for the first time, this cute and outrageous gag comedy series is definitely going to have you bust a gut!

nichijou 11

NEW PREMIUM EDITIONS & BOX SET:

5 Centimeters Per Second Collector’s Edition

Story By Makoto Shinkai
Art by Yukiko Seike
Rated: 13+

Based on the award winning film by Makoto Shinkai, this new edition of 5 Centimeters per Second is now compiled into a beautiful hardcover release with new cover art from illustrator Yukiko Seike.

Love can move at the speed of terminal velocity, but as awardwinning director Makoto Shinkai reveals in his latest comic, it can only be shared and embraced by those who refuse to see it stop. Takaki Tohno quickly befriends Akari Shinohara when she transfers to his school. They grow closer to each other due to similar interests and attitudes; for instance, they both prefer to stay inside during recess due to their constitutions. As a result, they form a strong bond. Upon ending their school year, Akari moves to Tochigi, due to her parents’ jobs. The two keep in contact by writing letters, but eventually begin to drift apart.

5 Centimeters Per Second Collector’s Edition

A Girl on the Shore (Hardcover)

By Inio Asano
Rated: 18+

Eisner-nominated author, Inio Asano’s A Girl on the Shore, now re-released as a hardcover, collector’s package with a newly drawn exquisite cover art!

Longing for Something Bigger From the Eisner Award-nominated Inio Asano, creator of Solanin and Nijigahara Holograph, comes one of his most challenging works yet; an intense teen romance set in what may at first glance be one of the sleepiest places in Japan. When Koume and Keisuke＊s relationship begins to take shape, it is apparent that they are both searching for something. Maybe Keisuke wants something more than a kiss from the fair Koume. Maybe Koume is looking for someone better than Misaki, the local playboy. But what they find in each other over the course of a summer might be far greater than anything they were expecting. Their lives are going to change. And this will all transpire before high school exams!

A Girl on the Shore (Hardcover)

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro Box Set 2

By Nanashi
Rated: 16+

Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro 2nd box set is here! Includes volumes 7-12 of the manga, box with Nagatoro artwork, plus a bonus item!

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro Box Set 2

NEW BOOK REISSUES:

Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I (Paperback)

By Shinobu Hashimoto
Rated: 16+

New paperback edition of the hardcover published in 2015.

Any list of Japan’s greatest screenplay writers would feature Shinobu Hashimoto at or near the top. This memoir, focusing on his collaborations with Akira Kurosawa, a gifted scenarist in his own right, offers indispensable insider account for fans and students of the director’s oeuvre and invaluable insights into the unique process that is writing for the screen.

The vast majority of Kurosawa works were filmed from screenplays that the director co-wrote with a stable of stellar writers, many of whom he discovered himself with his sharp eye for all things cinematic. Among these was Hashimoto, who caught the filmmaker’s attention with a script that eventually turned into Rashomon. Thus joining Team Kurosawa the debutant immediately went on to play an integral part in developing and writing two of the grandmaster’s most impressive achievements, Ikiru and Seven Samurai.

Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I (Paperback)

Edge

By Koji Suzuki
Rated: 16+

New paperback edition of hardcover published in 2012.

Koji Suzuki is an internationally recognized and lauded horror writer, often described as the Stephen King of Japan. And like King, Suzuki’s works have been adapted to both television and film around the world almost as soon as the ink dries on each new manuscript. Both Ring and Dark Water received the Hollywood treatment–the former’s success eliciting a sequel–and Dream Cruise–another short story from Dark Water–was adapted as one of the episodes of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series in 2007.

Edge

Slow Sex Secrets

By Adam Tokunaga
Rated: 18+

New paperback edition of hardcover published in 2008.

A sex book for the “ME” generation, Slow Sex Secrets: Lessons from the Master Masseur enlightens today’s selfish men to the debilitating effects of self-centered sex.

From in-depth analyses, gathered from more than a thousand sexual encounters with women, Japanese sexpert Adam Tokunaga reveals the secrets to having mind-blowing sex, everything from making your partner scream to mastering Tokunaga’s very own “Adam” touch.

Slow Sex Secrets

The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

By Keigo Higashino
Rated: 16+

Award-winning author Keigo Higashino’s modern mystery where a once powerful man is broken, and upon finding an opening makes a big and potentially dangerous game in the name of revenge.

The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction Arrives from VIZ on April 17

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VIZ Media will release Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction on April 17th.

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction is the latest series from Eisner-nominated author Inio Asano. The series is rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers and will be published in print and digital editions under the VIZ Signature imprint. Volume 1 will carry a print MSRP of $14.99 U.S. / $19.99 CAN. The series will launch digitally via viz.com and the VIZ Manga App, as well as from the Nook, Kobo, Kindle, iBooks, comiXology, and Google Play stores. Future volumes of the series will be published in English by VIZ Media on a quarterly basis.

In Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, the Japan Self Defense Forces are still looking for a way to combat the looming alien threat three years after the invasion, but so far conventional weapons have no effect on the mother ship. Maybe it’s time to try something unconventional. Meanwhile, Kadode Koyama is in high school. She and her best friend avidly track the aliens’ movements on social media and less enthusiastically study for college entrance exams. When the end of the world is overhead, you learn to take it one step at a time.

Inio Asano’s Goodnight PunPun Launches from Viz

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GoodnightPunpun-GN01VIZ Media introduces readers to an edgy coming-of-age story about the trials of adolescence from manga creator Inio Asano with the launch of Goodnight PunPun on March 15th.

Volume 1 of the series from the Eisner- and Harvey Award-nominated creator of Solanin, What a Wonderful World! and Nijigahara Holograph is rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers and will debut in print under the VIZ Signature imprint with an MSRP of $24.99 U.S. / $28.99 CAN. The series also launches digitally on March 15th via VIZManga.com and will be available from the Nook, Kobo, Kindle, iBooks, comiXology, and GooglePlay stores. Future installments of the 7-volume series are set to be published quarterly.

Meet Punpun Punyama. He’s an average kid in an average town. He wants to win a Nobel Prize and save the world. He wants to go far away with his true love. He wants to find some porn. But Punpun’s life is about to unravel…

Inio Asano was born in Ibaraki, Japan in 1980. In 2001, his short story “Hello from Outer Space” won the first Sunday GX Rookie Prize. GX went onto also publish his series, Subarashi Sekai, which is available in English from VIZ Media as WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD! (Rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens). His other works include Hikari no Machi (City of Light), Nijigahara Holograph and Umibe no Onna no Ko (A Girl on the Shore), as well as SOLANIN, which is published in English by VIZ Media (Rated ‘T+’ for Older Teens).

VIZ Media Announces New Manga

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VIZMedia-RectLogo-NoTMVIZ Media continues to expand its extensive manga catalog and gives fans and readers a sneak peek at a trio of notable new titles scheduled to launch during the Spring of 2016.

The company’s newest publishing acquisitions were detailed this past weekend at Otakon 2015, one of the biggest anime/pop culture conventions on the East Coast.

The forthcoming releases include the Blanc Et Noir art book, a special high-end volume to be published under the Art of Shonen Jump imprint collecting the work of the famed manga artist Takeshi Obata and set to be released in a limited print run of only 10,000 copies. Also launching in the Spring of 2016 will be Goodnight Punpun, a dark and edgy coming-of-age tale from the Eisner- and Harvey Award-nominated creator Inio Asano. Shojo manga fans also can look forward to the Spring 2016 debut of creator Keiko Ishihara’s series about a wealthy girl’s relationship with her handsome driver in The Heiress and the Chauffeur.

GOODNIGHT PUNPUN

by Inio Asano
Rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers
Debuting Spring 2016

Meet Punpun Punyama. He’s an average kid in an average town. He wants to win a Nobel Prize and save the world. He wants to go far away with his true love. He wants to find some porn. But Punpun’s average life is about to unravel…

GOODNIGHT PUNPUN is an edgy, dark coming-of-age story from Inio Asano, the Eisner- and Harvey-nominated creator of SOLANIN, WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD! (both published by VIZ Media) and Nijigahara Holograph. GOODNIGHT PUNPUN will be published quarterly under the VIZ Signature imprint.

 

BLANC ET NOIR: TAKESHI OBATA ILLUSTRATIONS

by Takeshi Obata
Debuting Spring 2016

Takeshi Obata’s (DEATH NOTE, HIKARU NO GO, BAKUMAN, ALL YOU NEED IS KILL) long-awaited high-end art book will be released as a limited edition of 10,000 copies. This stunning book collects the bestselling artist’s work from 2001-2006 and includes illustrations from popular series such as DEATH NOTE and HIKARU NO GO (both published by VIZ Media). This gorgeous oversized art book is encased in a silver-stamped slipcase and stuffed with 132 pages of full-color artwork, several massive foldout posters, special papers and twelve pages of artist commentary including a “how to draw” section. It also includes three large double-sided laminated posters

 

THE HEIRESS AND THE CHAUFFEUR

by Keiko Ishihara
Rated ‘T’ for Teens
Debuting Spring 2016

At an all-girls school during the turn-of-the-century Taisho Era of Japan, rumors swirl that heiress Sayaka Yoshimura is having a forbidden love affair with her chauffeur, Shinobu Narutaki! Sayaka scoffs at the rumors, but could a romance between master and servant actually be brewing? At just two volumes, this sweet and thrilling story is a wonderful jumping-on point for the budding romance manga fan.

Nijigahara Holograph is Coming

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Nijigahara Holograph

Nijigahara Holograph

by Inio Asano; translated by Matt Thorn

February 2014

$26.99 Hardcover • 200 pages

Black-and-white • 7″ x 9.25″

ISBN: 978-1-60699-583-9

Nijigahara Holograph
Fantagraphics continues its line of acclaimed literary manga with new classic Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano. As society slowly spirals into darkness an unexplained explosion in the butterfly population is just the first of many curiosities in the town where rumors of a creature in a tunnel under the school spread like wildfire. A curse haunts the town as the story follows the scapegoat, Arié, who is plunged into the tunnel’s horrors and offered up to the creature. Many other characters harbor secrets, grudges, suicidal thoughts, and the physical scars of battles lost. How are they all linked and can the citizens of the town live with what they’ve done as the years creep by? Asano’s mysticism and slow terror take over the town in the span of a decade as told in two timelines.

NijigaharaHolograph is scheduled for release in February 2014 and Asano joins Shimura Takako (Wandering Son) and Moto Hagio (The Heart of Thomas, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories) in the Fantagraphics line of premium manga by the world’s greatest cartoonists. Translated by Matt Thorn, this 200 page book of beautiful black and white comics will be printed in gorgeous hardcover edition and presented in original “right to left” manga style for an authentic reading experience. Inio Asano‘s previous translated works include Solanin and What a Wonderful World and he continues to create new work in Japan as one of the young voices of his generation.