Harlequin manga special on emanga.com

I don’t usually run press releases, unless I think the press release is INCREDIBLY AWESOME! I am very excited to see new Harlequin manga coming to emanga.com!

image001

Come celebrate with us!!

It’s a Harlequin Holiday on eManga.com!

Gardena, CA. (December 5, 2013) Digital Manga Publishing Inc., one of the industry’s most unconventional and innovative publishers is proud to announce the latest news with partner SB Creative Corp., distributors of the Harlequin romance manga series of books. Harlequin is one of the world’s leading publishers of books for women and since 2011, eManga.com, Digital Manga’s own online ebookstore, has digitally distributed over a hundred Harlequin manga titles from SB Creative Corp.’s digital library.

Now, for this holiday season, eManga.com brings to all avid fans of manga romance, 30 BRAND NEW Harlequin romance stories. Starting from December 5th, we will be releasing 10 new titles each week on eManga for online streaming at the amazing price of $4.99. Some of the new titles include The Most Coveted Prize, a narrative about an aristocratic young lady who is wooed by a devilishly handsome billionaire, not knowing his ulterior motives of revenged. Along with Raintree: Haunted Vol. 1, the thriller romance about detective Malory, her shady but handsome partner Gideon Raintree, and the homicide they have to investigate. With the holidays are just around the corner, what better way to spread the joy and manga love than by gifting one of our newest titles? They’re sure to be a great stocking stuffer for devoted fans and for new fans alike.

Harlequin K.K. is based in Canada and started off in 1988 by translating hundreds of their romance novels for the Japanese young and hopeless. Later on, their titles were recreated with the magical imagery of manga art. Then through their collaboration with SB Creative Corp., Harlequin started translating their manga titles into English and other languages, so that readers everywhere could enjoy their stories.

Some of their classic titles include Amber by Night, the story of a woman living a double life as librarian by day and seductive waitress by night. As well as The Apartment, the story of a young flute player who is trying to survive on her own without her wealthy inheritance or her overbearing mother. She thinks she’s found her dream apartment until she wakes up the next day to find another renter in her home sweet home! You can find these titles and more from Harlequin on eManga.com.

eManga.com is Digital Manga, Inc.’s own one stop online ebook shop for manga and comics since 2008. They provide a variety of manga and comics to read online and download at the convenience of our customers. Together with our partners and published creators, the platform is an ever growing establishment centered on continuously offering customers with the best electronic manga experience. With a collection of over 2000 eBook titles that is still growing, releases in all genres coming to you every day, and with an updated online eManga Reader equipped with features to make your reading experience that much more enjoyable, eManga is the answer to fill your holiday shopping needs—You can send ebook gifts from eManga to your holiday recipients too! Send a Harlequin title as a gift and be sure to write a review for your favorite Harlequin titles too!

Giveaway Winner!

The winner of my 5 Volume 1 Giveaway is Justin, commenter #4. Congrats!

I asked what people would most like to give or get for the holidays and a variety of series were mentioned, just in case you want some additional ideas for manga related gifts:

Alice in the Country of Clover
Drunken Dream
Heart of Thomas
Black Jack
Nausicaa
Sunny
Thermae Romae
Chihayafuru
Bunny Drop
Soulless
A Bride’s Story

Pre-Holiday Giveaway: 5 #1s

I’m giving away 5 first volumes of various manga series!

You can win:

Voice Over! Seiyu Academy #1
Tiger & Bunny #1
The Beautiful Skies of Houou High #1
The Empty Empire #1
Alice in the Country of Clover #1

Just leave a comment here mentioning any manga you would most like to get (or give) as a holiday present for entry.

Edited to add:

All 5 volumes will go to one winner, selected at random.

Giveaway will be open for 1 week, will announce the winners on Monday in 8 days.

Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast

I am very excited about the Yumi Tamura Manga Moveable Feast happening this week! Basara is one of my favorite manga, and I would love to see more work by Tamura translated into English. I’m planning on getting back on my Basara reread campaign that I let lapse previously, but I thought I would do a mini-roundup of some of my previous posts that covered some of her works.

Chicago – complete with cello technique critique!
Basara 1 and 2
Basara 3 and 4
Basara 5 and 6
Basara 7 and 8
Basara 9 and 10
Basara 11 and 12

I feel like I’m going to spend a portion of this week vainly wishing that someone would license Tamura’s 7 Seeds for English publication, but I will also put my slightly mournful feelings aside and dive back into Basara, which is always a rewarding reading experience.

Goodbye JManga

Well, I’ve been wondering why JManga seemed to be spinning its wheels a bit in terms of new releases, and I got my answer today when the notice was posted on the site that the service was going to be terminated. It is really too bad, because they were a unique outlet for niche manga, but as much as I would like to think that there are thousands upon thousands of North American manga fans wanting to read obscure josei manga and manga about train station bento boxes, maybe there are only about fifty or so people willing to pay for it.

Jmanga gave me review points, which I greatly appreciated. I did sign up and pay for the service at the beginning, but at launch time there wasn’t enough content on there to keep me busy. While I greatly enjoyed the few series from Jmanga I was able to read, it was only in more recent months that they started releasing more titles in the genres I enjoy from publishers like Ohzora and Shueisha. Some people have pointed to a lack of support for iPads as one reason why they didn’t subscribe more to JManga, and the titles I read on JManga I read because I was so interested in them that I was willing to read them in my browser, which isn’t really my preferred viewing methods for digital comics.

Jmanga was an ambitious effort, and it is unfortunate that it is shutting down. I imagine this will have a chilling effect on digital manga distribution in the future. I’ll always be delighted that JManga gave me a chance to read the last volume of a josei series that I thought I’d never get to finish, Walkin’ Butterfly. Jmanga had some fun Harlequin and romance manga, and it enabled me to read Est Em’s manga about Centaur Salarymen. Those were some great reading experiences, and I’ll miss Jmanga for what it was and what it had the potential to be. I’m going to be rereading some of my favorite titles before the site goes dark.