16th December 2010

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A Look Back At 2010 (Part III: July to September)

For the previous entries on 2010: Part I, Part II.

The summer really heated up in the Japanese pop culture world. Here’s what went down from July to September 2010!

July 2010

CMX, the manga imprint for DC Comics, goes down for the count. Someone asked my take on it, so here it is. I first heard about CMX because of the Tenjho Tenge localization fiasco. The fact that they severely edited the content was understandable, but it just destroys the spirit of the work. Although CMX would address this & do less edits, fans still couldn’t get over it. The brand did put out some great old-school shojo titles that many readers enjoyed. But, that ONE moment involving Tenjho Tenge would haunt them forever. Also, DC Comics had the Vertigo imprint (a great line of mature comics that I enjoy). Perhaps they were trying to be “different” from Vertigo & not take on mature audiences.

Anime Expo 2010 took place with many announcements on upcoming series & other news.

The “founding mother” of shoujo manga, Moto Hagio, makes an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con 2010 and receives the Inkpot Award for her works. Fantagraphics released one of her works, “A Drunken Dream & Other Stories”. A fun fact for those who played the hit RPG game, Illusion of Gaia, for the SNES. She did the character designs for that game.

A Florida mother fights her local library for obscene manga that caused her son to go to “extensive therapy”. Her son apparently took some mature-themed manga out of the library without CHECKING THE BOOKS OUT & ANYONE NOTICING. This is parental irresponsibility at its finest. More thoughts posted here.

OneManga would finally pull all their series off the site in fear of the coalition against scanlations. Many fans become disgruntled & frustrated. I just wish there was more emphasis on copyright education, but Japan’s issues on handling intellectual property are very sketchy at best.

Otakon 2010 happened July 30-August 1. Attendance goes up once again as 29,274 people attended the three-day event. Anime still kicks butt in America. A funny incident occurs when someone pulled a fire alarm on the 2nd day of the event and everyone evacuated the convention center. Anime fans run around in confusion, not knowing how to deal with sudden sunlight & fresh air.

August 2010

Military moe manga for the win as the U.S. Military teams up with Japan to educate the country of Japan on the U.S./Japan alliance. More U.S. propaganda shoved down Japan’s throats and utter reminders of the U.S. domination of Japan after WWII? Sounds lovely.

Kuroshitsuji mangaka, Yana Toboso, tells everyone to stop pirating her work. Responses to her blog post flood the Anime News Network forums. Some fans seem to be completely unappreciative of her hard work. Don’t you just love trolls?

Utada Hikaru announced she would go on indefinite hiatus until 2011. In the meantime, bad J-Pop music & K-Pop become more relevant in Japan.

The greatest video game review ever written, courtesy of Tokyo Vice author, Jake Adelstein.

Takashi Murakami’s Versailles exhibit gets protested for being explicit. Here I thought the French love stuff that’s sexual.

Acclaimed anime director, Satoshi Kon, passes away at the age of 46. A grim reminder of how people can leave us so soon. It is also a grim reminder of the struggles the anime industry faces going forward in finding the next, great animator.

One Piece goes on a 4-week break. Even awesome ass-kickers need to stop kicking & start relaxing at some point. On a related note, One Piece Volume 59 sells 1.85 million copies in its first week. They also set a record for first printings with 3.2 million copies. The busts of Nami, Nico Robin, & Boa Hancock overwhelm the masses & smother the busts of Tsunade, Orihime, & others.

September 2010

More digital manga initiatives are pushed as manga titles are launched on Kindle, iPhone, & Nokia Ovi. Square Enix & Crunchyroll also discuss their plans involving digital manga.

Miku Hatsune would make her first U.S. performance at San Francisco’s J-Pop Summit Festival this month. Though it’s more of a digital film than a concert. Just the first step in taking over the world for Vocaloid.

All 12 volumes of the hit shoujo manga, Kimi Ni Todoke, make the Weekly Top 100 Oricon Manga Chart for the week of Sept.20-26. The live-action movie would also makes its debut in Japanese theaters as well. Question: who here thinks “Kimi ni Todoke” is the “One Piece” of shoujo manga in terms of popularity in its respective genre?

Happy 15th Birthday to the Sony PlayStation! You have to admit, the PlayStation did have a huge impact in making video gaming mainstream in the first place.

J-Rock star GACKT voices commercials promoting a new anime project involving the hit seinen manga series, Berserk.

Tokyo Game Show 2010 takes place. The Japanese gaming industry is apparently 5 years behind the West, according to Keiji Inafune. They do love their JRPGs, dating sims, & visual novels. Walls of text for the win much?

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The final part of the 2010 year-in-review is now up! Read it here!

Tagged: 2010JapanJapanese pop cultureJuly to September 2010One Pieceanimemangavideo gamesyear-in-reviewCMXKimi ni Todokesatoshi konanime conventions