We’re back baby! Manga Mavericks has been on a hiatus recently, but we’ve returned to end the year with a bang. That’s right, since 2017 is over, it’s time to look back at the last year of manga and highlight the best of the best. First we’ve got an hour and a half of news highlights from the past three months, giving our thoughts on some of the most important news stories we missed. Except for licensing news, because trying to recap everything Seven Seas has licensed this year would take a whole show in of itself. After that, it’s our best of manga superlative awards, where we gush about our favorite things about manga this year, and reminisce about our favorite moments from the podcast as well. It’s four hours of Manga Mavericks goodness to close out 2017 and begin 2018 strong!

PODCAST BREAKDOWN:

00:22 - Intro & Updates!
05:30 - Jump Starts! Lycopene the Tomatoy Poodle, Full Drive, & Golem Hearts

News:
18:20 - Bookscan November 2017 List
22:00 - Oricon’s Top Selling Manga by Series in 2017
29:50 - Oricon’s Top Selling Light Novels by Series in 2017
35:40 - Juni Taisen Novel Gets Sequel
38:30 - Hunter X Hunter Resumes on January 29th
43:20 - Kentaro Yabuki Launches New Manga in Jump+ in January
45:50 - Many Mangaka will Pen New One-shots for Jump in 2018
50:20 - Akiko Higashimura Launches a New Manga
52:10 - Welcome to the Ballroom Takes a 2-month Break
58:24 - Detective Conan Goes on Hiatus 
59:40 - Rin-ne Ends
1:01:20 - Astra Lost in Space Ends
1:04:05 - US Manga Sales up 29%
1:07:15 - Nobuhiro Watsuki is Charged with Child Porn Possession
1:15:05 - Tokyo Ghoul:re Gets an Anime
1:16:45 - Major 2nd Gets an Anime
1:17:40 - Banana Fish Gets an Anime
1:18:53 - Ashita no Joe Gets an Anime "Spiritual Successor"
1:19:53 - New Fist of the Blue Sky Anime Debuts in April
1:20:20 - Captain Tsubasa Gets an Anime Reboot
1:21:26 - MHA Gets an Anime Film in Summer 2018
1:22:28 - Live-action Gintama film Will Screen in US Theaters in January
1:25:10 - Gintama Live-Action Film Gets Sequel in Summer 2018
1:27:18 - Shonen Jump Inspires Live-Action Drama in January
Best of Manga Mavericks 2017:
1:29:42 - Favorite Podcast Intros of 2017
1:44:55 - Favorite Podcast Reviews of 2017
1:54:18 - Favorite Manga Fight of 2017
1:58:15 - Favorite Podcast Moments of 2017

Best of Manga 2017:
2:05:00 - Best Manga News Stories of 2017
2:07:08 - Best New North American Manga Licenses of 2017
2:09:40 - Best New North American Manga Releases of 2017
2:13:32 - Best Manga Characters of 2017
2:30:55 - Best Manga Villains of 2017
2:50:00 - Best Manga Fights of 2017
2:57:10 - Best Currently-Running Manga of 2017

3:03:27 - Best New Manga of 2017
3:08:55 - Best Manga Chapters of 2017
3:23:30 - Best Manga Series Finales of 2017
3:29:15 - Best Manga Moments of 2017
3:37:10 - Fan Favorites
3:45:15 - Manga We Promise to Read in 2018

3:56:36 - Wrap-Up

We want to thank everyone who listened and contributed to our podcasts this year. This was a big year for both the podcast and our personal lives, the latter of which resulting in the former being put on hiatus for the past couple of months. The podcast really grew this year as we tackled excellent topics like “The Future of Shonen Jump” and “The State of Shonen Sunday,” and we had guests from the manga industry on like Annaliese Christman and Jeff Ruberg. Manga Mavericks @ Movies debuted this year giving us a fun outlet to talk about movies with friends like Ethan and Jonathan, the latter of which also joining us for my favorite project we did this year – The Pokemon Adventures retrospectives. Not to mention we launched our Youtube channel early in the year, which finally surpassed the 100 subscriber threshold in November and continues to grow. It’s really incredible just how much we accomplished with the show this year even with our short hiatus, and we think 2018 is going to be an even better year for us. We have lots of ideas and topics for the show set and scheduled, as well as exciting projects we can’t wait to st