Happy weekend, everyone! I hope you’re all nice and warm, especially if you live in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region like me and are currently enduring a snowpocalypse. When the snow’s coming down this fast and hard, there’s not much you can do except hunker down and wait it out. Perfect time to curl up with your favorite manga!
Speaking of your favorite manga, let’s talk about why it may or may not get an anime adaptation. Chances are you’ve discovered at least one manga through an anime. I certainly have — that’s how I descended into the unrelenting torture that is sports manga. (Thanks for that, Kuroko’s Basketball, thanks.) The reality is that anime is primarily intended as a vehicle to boost sales of the original work. It’s great if it does well on its own, but that’s just icing on the cake. That’s why we often get series that last only one season and end in an awkward place. I’m looking straight at you here, Claymore.
And while we’re on the topic of sports manga, congratulations to volleyball series Haikyu!! for winning the 61st Shogakukan Manga Award’s shounen category. The earnest high school romance My Love Story!! won the shoujo category as well.
In other award news, the 2015 Manga Taisho Award nominees have also been announced. These titles are selected by bookstore workers rather than publishers, so there’s a little more variety than what we typically see. Included on the list are new favorites A Silent Voice and Monthly Girl’s Nozaki-kun, but what caught my eye are Kasane and Ballroom e Youkoso. Dark, psychological examinations of beauty? A sports manga about ballroom dancing? Gimme!
Loyal CLAMP fans will be excited to hear that Tsubasa: WoRLD CHRoNiCLE will soon be concluding. I say that because, as longtime CLAMP readers can attest, the mangaka superteam has a track record of leaving series unfinished. X, why. But at this point, I think we might be at more series completed than not, right?
https://youtu.be/zR24e9sWmV0
I don’t even know where to begin with this one: in an effort to sexify the Prius, Toyota has launched a campaign that transforms car parts into cute manga characters. There are forty different characters belonging to the Prius! Impossible Girls. They don’t even have names, y’all. They’re just identified by number and relevant car part — like Prius! Impossible Girl No. 2, the Hybrid Transaxle or Prius! Impossible Girl No. 5, the Triangle Silhouette. I guess it can be hard to come up with that many different names but if Kubo Tite can do it, anyone can.
