Hi everyone! Vernieda here with another edition of Shinbun Saturday, bringing you this week’s highlights in manga news. The weather here in the Mid-Atlantic has been teasing us with brief glimpses of the sun, providing a timely reminder that it’s supposed to be spring and that summer is only a month away!
And you know what this summer means? The Summer Olympics! I’m a big fan of the Summer Olympics. Gymnastics, swimming, rowing–I love it all. What about you? What are your favorite sports? Even though Rio de Janeiro is the host of this year’s summer games, Tokyo will be hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics and they’re already in full-fledged planning mode. This includes promoting the Summer Paralympics, which Tokyo is also hosting. And how are they promoting them? By using original art by mangaka!
https://youtu.be/RgEzbEQ5HfY
Yes, that’s Fairy Tail‘s Hiro Mashima drawing the art for goalball.
After a multi-year hiatus, HunterxHunter has resumed serialization. Which is awesome! Unfortunately, we’re now receiving confirmation for the reason behind mangaka Togashi’s many breaks. No, it’s not because he’s lazy or even because he hates Weekly Shonen Jump editorial as the fandom likes to say. It’s because he has horrible back pain. Oh man, save him. The brutal schedule of a weekly shonen manga cannot be good for his back.
In award news, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize unveiled their list of winners. Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! shared top honors with a manga about a ukiyo-e woodblock print artist. What’s even cooler is that the Special Prize went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. On the more commercial side of things, Kodansha also announced the winners of the 40th Kodansha Manga Awards. The winner of the shonen manga territory was DAYS, a sports manga about soccer, of which we’ll be seeing an anime adaptation later this year. Sports series, taking over the anime and manga world! Embrace it.
Finally, have you ever wondered about the history of tentacle porn? Here’s a video all about its history!
In a nutshell: tentacle porn is the result of Western imperialism. So before the West–and in particular, the U.S.–talks about how weird tentacle porn is? Maybe they should look in a mirror and reflect.
And that’s it for this week. See you next time!
