I’m a little skeptical about blogging Ichijinsha‘s magazines, namely Zero-sum and Ward ’cause there are many fan sites out there and they definitely have more up-to-date information than what I have right now. You can try to google a series online, and you’d most probably come up with some kind of information.
But, as an avid supporter of all things Ichijinsha (07-ghost, Amatsuki, Di(e)ce, Hi no Matoi and many more), I’m compelled to at least write a monthly report about the publisher. Thus, I’ll just keep it simple and only touch about the latest information there is on their magazine (new series) and new tankouban that goes on sale monthly.
Zero-sum and Ward are both published under Ichijinsha, which also publish other magazine like Rex and four-panel manga magazine, Palette. One of our joint project with Bliss, Hi no Matoi’s published under Ward, which is a bimonthly magazine sold on the shelf every 16th of an odd-numbered month (January, March, May and so on…). Whereas, Zero-sum is on sale every month on the 28th.
Besides that, there’s also Arcana, which is a series of anthology with different themes every four months. The latest issue’s theme is on “school and school uniform”, cover drawn by Karneval‘s mangaka, Mikanagi Touya. Aren’t they afraid it’ll be banned in the future since it’s s**ta… (Tokyo’s trying to ban Evangelion right now, fanboys beware!) You can get really nice high quality Arcana scanlation from Spica Scanlations. They’re a bunch of lovely staffs~!
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CHRONOS-Deep- by Aikawa Yu
CHRONOS-Deep- is a new title in June’s issue of Zero-sum by mangaka Aikawa Yuu. Her other titles include, Wizards Nation which is currently being scanlated by Shinnen, Butterfly, Gokurakumaru and etc. Personally I’ve never read any of Aikawa-sensei’s work to judge anything, hopefully this won’t be a good series, so I wouldn’t have to spend money buying new titles… *stabs herself*
Inorihime wa Sora ni Warau by Kaede Tooru and Mizutani Yuzu
Literary translation of the title, The Praying Princess Smiling to the Sky, Inorihime ends in this issue of Zero-sum. The drawing isn’t my cup of tea, but congratulations to the author and mangaka for successfully finishing this series. Judging from the summary given in MU, this sounds like another Romeo and Juliet story… Hopefully someone will scanlate or at least share the raws for us to judge.
A-presto by Tomine Naruse and Takasato Shiina.
One of the 2 new series in the latest issue of Ward (April’s issue, sold on the 15th of March). I know nothing about Tomine Naruse who I guess is the mangaka of the manga, but Takasato Shiina who is also the author for Harizuki Kagerou Enshimonogatari is famous for her novel series, Kusuriya Tantei Youkidan.
A-presto follows the strange memories of two young men during their childhood, the first chapter started off with them finding a mummy by the beach. Not much info online I could find, but here’s a teaser of the manga’s drawing. It seems the story skips between the characters in their adulthood and their childhood memories. Seems like an interesting title to follow.
Inferno by Rinno Miki
Inferno’s another new series running in Ward by Rinno Miki. This is the same Rinno Miki (凛野ミキ) who did Pikapika Kachiku, Hikari and Meikai Rakugo series. I wonder why does’t she just sick to the same kanji for her pen name, so confusing…
Due to the words the protagonist, he caused the destruction of his own parents before his very eyes, now living only for the sake of his younger sister who’s in a facility. Since then, he avoids any contact with people but a mysterious guy suddenly appears before him, calling him “master” and his life changed forever… maybe not be accurate since the editor’s blog and the site I got the summary from’s really really vague.
Shuushuu Taishitsu by Yoneyama Setsuko
Shuushuu Taishitsu ENDS! Yay! This is more for mioka, since she was so obsessed with this series a couple years back. So now dear, you can buy the manga, you don’t have to hide those tankouban behind other books just so nobody will find them in Kinokuniya anymore. 4 volumes isn’t a lot right ;D?
And finally, Tokaido Hisame -Kagerou- will end in the next issue of Ward. I wonder how the story will end? More Hisame and Itsuki moments?
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New tankouban out this month. Check the complete listing of all Ichijinsha’s books on sale for this month here. Or their sales calender for books out next month too, they don’t have covers yet though…
Amatsuki Vol 11 by Takayama Shinobu.
According to the editor’s blog, besides the limited edition, they’re also selling an extra cover just in Animate store in Japan. Talk about cheating your money… Everybody had a gender change here, female Toki is so cute!
Even though I buy this manga myself, I’ve only collected the normal edition. So, is Amatsuki a good title? If you’re one who likes good art, pretty characters and interesting composition, Amatsuki is like a mini artbook which comes in black and white, B5 size. Story wise, the world Takayama created in Amatsuki is really interesting (even though the time period’s suppose to be during Edo), but somehow I feel the lack of character development, and everything just moves in a really chaotic pace… It’s just my personal opinion though…
di[e]ce Vol 5 by Saki Otoh and Yamamoto Kana.
If you’re homophobic and can’t stand even one inch of slash, I advice you to move away from this manga since it’s oozing with testosterone. MEANING, every single main character in there you have are beautifully drawn males which will never ever exist in real life. NEVER! Enough said, I lied, but I won’t spoil for you, there will be a female(s) character, you’ll just have to read. di[e]ce takes reference from chess game, and that the main character, Kazuki in an evil twist of fate has to wage war with his best friend, Haruki. Both somehow were born in the same day, date, time, face, everything; but ended up being mortal enemies. Did I make it sound cliche? ;D
Sai no Kami vol 03 by Ueda Shinshu
Anybody read Dawn -Tsumetai te- by the same mangaka? I never read Sai no Kami since I don’t really fancy the drawing.
#000000 – Ultra Black – Vol 05 by Kisaragi Yoshinori
This is in fact a very interesting manga to read. Iskultrip Scan‘s scanlating this though, unless anybody out there will help the group out, it’ll be impossible for us to read the rest of the series… They already have the volume translated, just need a dedicated editor to help them out. Same problems we’re facing in our group too, but at least we’re slowly picking up the pace now.
Tousei Gensou Hakubutsushi vol 01 by Katayama Shuu
I’m a big fan of Katayama-sensei’s Ransetsuki series which is being scanlated by Bliss. I’m so glad Hyper Parfait decided to scanlate this series and they’ve already finish scanlating volume one.
Shirogane no Ou – Fenrir Craft vol 02 by Aoto Takane.
Storm in Heaven‘s planning to scanlate Shirogane no Ou, I wonder if they’ll pick up Renrir Craft too?
Starry☆Sky ~in Winter~Anthology
I’m a sucker for anything Kazuaki related. Even though she didn’t draw anything in the anthology, I guess she’s fairly known for her illustrations and character design work for Sta-ska. Sta-ska anime’s coming out this year too… Sta-ska’s an otome game created by Honeybee. The series comes out in four different seasons, so you get to pick one out of the three guys in one series to be paired with, and if you play all the 4 series; spring, summer, autumn and winter, you’ll technically get four guys. Talk about being a flirt…
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Phew that was long, hope I didn’t bore anyone to death.
Quick links and reference I got from:
Ichijinsha’s main page: http://www.ichijinsha.co.jp/index.html
Zero-sum: http://ichijinsha.co.jp/zerosum/index.html
Ward: http://ichijinsha.co.jp/ward/index.html
Zero-sum editor’s blog: http://ameblo.jp/comiczerosum/
Natalie news: http://natalie.mu/comic/news/29145
~cheezy
Interesting post on Ichijinsha series *_* Some info I haven’t known of before, thanks!
Among the new series, A presto and Chronos Deep got my interest the most *_*
I haven’t read Tsumetai tei…. yet… but the later chapters of Sai no Kami seem cool~
I hate otome game based series but… the art on Starry Sky is really pretty *_*
Glad you enjoyed Tousei xD I liked Ransetsuki too… but I was more of biased to a certain character on that series, haha!
Thank you for reading XD
A-presto sounds like an interesting read, hopefully raws will be up soon, tankouban will take ages before it’s released (next year…?) I don’t really fancy otome game either, since most plot are just so mary-sue…
I enjoyed reading Tousei Gensou very much. I’m glad you guys picked it up. ;D
A-presto sound very interesting to me. I hope the raw will be out soon.
I kinda hate otome game too, but I’m start to worry how the anime will turn out since its a ona and ona seem be about 5 mins or so.
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