BIG NEWS! Because our Kenta Shinohara podcasts were delayed we didn’t get around to covering a lot of important news from the past couple months. To remedy that, we decided to record a big news-focused podcast to get everyone up to speed!

…This was a big bad idea. We accumulated nearly twelve pages worth of news, tallying to over one hundred stories in total! To make matters worse, we began recording late at night after I was already exhausted from drawing for nearly 20 hours that day. Thanks to a spotty internet connection, we ended up needing two recording sessions and over four hours of rough audio to cover everything we wanted to. Needless to say, recording this was a tiring process. You can definitely hear the exhaustion in my voice by the end of this podcast, alongside Colton’s groans of impatience. Though frankly, listening back to this episode I did most of the talking, so it’s kinda funny that Colton was more vocally upset by the experience. ^^,

Regardless of how frustrating the process was, this was a necessary podcast to make. Discussing manga news is the reason this show originally came into being, and doing a purely news-focused episode brings us nostalgically back to the roots of our early episodes. Did we go a little overboard in the mountain of content we attempted to surmount? Perhaps. But hopefully you’ll find this podcast as valuable as we found these stories important to discuss. From lists to licenses, endings to sequels, controversies to scandals, and adaptations to anime this podcast is jam-packed with all the stories you need to know to understand where the manga industry is at as of Spring 2018!

PODCAST BREAKDOWN:

00:22 - Intro & Updates

02:50 - ICV2 releases Top 10 manga franchises in Fall 2017
07:20 - My Brother’s Husband ranks in YALSA Top 10 Graphic Novels for teens 
09:30 - Monthly Bookscan February List & Diamond’s Top 50 Manga of February 2017 List 
15:23 - Attack on Titan’s 1st volume has sold 21000 copies in the U.S. in 2017
17:22 - Tokyo Ghoul;re enters final arc
20:22 - Irregular of Magic High School light novels head towards climax 
20:52 - Dagashi Kashi ends
22:12 - Nekogahara ends of April 17th
23:22 - Behind the Scenes ends in its 7th volume
26:14 - The Disastrous Life in Saiki K. manga ends and gets a 4-koma sequel series 
30:17 - Muhyo & Roji sequel & Godzilla manga debut on Shonen Jump+ 
31:41 - Captain Tsubasa receives two new spinoff manga in April 
33:51 - Hoshin Engi sequel slated for April 26th (Mention Hoshin Engi digital release)
36:50 - The Promised Neverland reaches its turnaround point 
40:20 - Masashi Kishimoto’s newest work confirmed as serialization 
42:43 - Jump SQ Crown manga ends, Jump SQ Rise launches in April 
44:00 - Monthly Tezuka mix manga magazine launches in April 
46:30 - Mashima teases details about his next work
50:30 - New Mob Psycho 100 spinoff manga about Reigen 
52:44 - Gengoroh Tagame's new manga
53:44 - Chiho Sato publishes first boys love book
54:48 - Revolutionary Girl Utena receives its 3rd new chapter
56:22 - Yusuke Murata draws Back to the Future manga
58:58 - Yuki Kodama’s new manga 
59:30 - DMC mangaka launches new manga in April 
1:01:07 - New Ninja Slayer manga launches of April 19th 
1:01:54 - Sword Art Online Progressive manga begins “Part 2” with new artist 
1:03:06 - Boogiepop light novel series receives 2 new manga adaptations
1:04:42 - A new Slayers novel is on the way! 
1:05:52 - Sound! Euphonium gets new novel in April 
1:06:30 - WataMote's writer breaks their arm in bicycle accident
1:07:30 - Yotusba&! receives its first new volume in 29 months! 
1:07:43 - Crunchyroll removes catalog chapters of Kodansha titles and adds new Crunchyroll simulpubs 
1:16:36 - Viz Media’s Upcoming Graphic Novel Releases
1:21:45 - J-Novel Club’s latest licenses
1:27:39 - Yen Press’ latest licenses
1:29:19 - New Kodansha USA digital licenses
1:33:36 - Cross Infinite World licenses Mia and the Forbidden Medicine Report 
1:34:43 - Seven Seas' Latest Tidal