What to look out for in November 2007
by Chad Boudreau

It's been more than two years since we published a manga edition of Hundreds of Pages of Huh. It's a shame that we've been neglecting the manga fans because there are more of you than there are mainstream comics fans. So, without further ado, here are my picks for the manga to watch out for in November 2007.

10. Dorothy of Oz volume 1
Udon Entertainment
by Son Hee-Jun

Udon is perhaps best known for its line of Capcom line of manga, but as of May 2007 Udon expanded its horizons and its roster with a number of manhwa (Korean) properties. I've found a number of enjoyable manhwa titles over the years, including Shaman Warrior, Nambul: War Stories, Full House, Couple and Priest, so I'm always hopeful when more manhwa becomes available in North America. Dorothy of Oz sounds nothing like the manhwa I've read to date. This one is a comedy, perhaps skewing to younger readers, in which the much loved Wizard of Oz gets turned on its ear.

9. Love Attack volume 1
Tokyopop
by Shizuru Seino

Love Attack is the latest release from Tokyopop from Shizuru Seino, creator of Girl Got Game and Heaven. This seven volume comedy tells the tale of the love between the roughest girl and guy in school. Romance and comedy abound as the two try to make their romance work even as they continue to get into senseless trouble. This sounds like shojo that will appear to a younger, teen audience, but we don't discriminate here at ComicReaders.com.

8. Naurto volume 25, 26 and 27
Viz Media LLC
by Masashi Kishimoto

Naruto is the manga property to beat. It's everywhere: both the manga and the anime are hugely popular in North America and there's no end in sight. Viz capitalizes on Naruto's popularity by releasing three new volumes in December. There's not much more to say. You either love it or you love it.

7. Azumanga Daioh Omnibus Edition
ADV
by Kiyohiko Azuma

DC Comics and Marvel Comics have been collecting fan favorite and pop culturally important series in fat editions for some time now. It's a great idea-- older stories collected in one volume or a series of volumes made available at an affordable price. The manga world clues into this concept and thus we get Azumanga Daioh Omnibus Edition, collecting popular series into one 682-page edition that retails at $24.99 USD. This is the humor and wonder of teenage life as seen through the eyes of a group of girls.

6. Gunsmith Cats: Burst volume 3
Dark Horse Comics
by Kenichi Sonoda

Dark Horse had a number of manga on their roster before manga was a popular culture phenomenon in North America. Those titles were most often published in flipped format, that being left-to-right reading as per the North American way. When manga finally became a widely loved and respected medium here in the West, Dark Horse decided to re-release some of these older titles with new editions printed in the Japanese right-to-left format. One of these titles was Gunsmith Cats. It's a classic, sexy, action-packed series now available with the art untouched. Volume 3 is out in December.

5. Uzumaki volume 2
Viz Media LLC
by Junji Ito

Scenes from Junji Ito's Gyo still haunt the dark corners of my mind, which is why I wanted to include Uzumaki on this here installment of Hundreds of Pages of Huh. A small fogbound town on the coast of Japan is cursed. The spirit doesn't have a name or body, only a shape: uzumaki, the spiral. The townsfolk are obsessed with spirals, and the result of this obsession is a slow transformation into something not human, leading to a gruesome, realistically-depicted death. Uzumaki is a three volume manga.

4. Parasyte volume 1
Del Rey Manga
by Hitoshi Iwaaki

One of the first manga I reviewed for comicreaders.com was Parasyte volume 1, which I discovered high up on what was ComicReaders' one and only manga shelf at the time. This was shortly before manga really took off with readers in North America, as evidenced by the one shelf and the fact Parasyte volume 1 was covered in a thin layer of dust and was actually out-of-print from the publisher, Tokyopop. Also, the volume was printed in the flipped left-to-right format and featured poorly translated English sound effects.

I enjoyed that first volume and it has stuck with me all these years. Imagine then the smile that came upon my face when I learned Del Rey was republishing the eight volumes series. The fact that Parasyte has been optioned for a feature film from the director of The Grudge is likely part of the reason why it is being offered again, but that's fine by me. I can finally see this story in its entirety.

3. Noise
Tokyopop
by Tsutomu Nihei

I first read the name Tsutomu Nihei in Dana's review of Wolverine: Snikt!, a miniseries that was light on dialogue and heavy on environment and atmosphere. In his review, which is now several years old, Dana wrote Nihei's manga work Blame! and Noise were not yet available in English. Fast forward a few years and Blame! is available and popular, and come December so too is Noise, which is, in fact, a prequel of sorts to Blame!. Blame! has been called "action packed, bloody and cerebral to the core (Play Magazine)" so we should expect the same of Noise.

2. The Other Side of the Mirror volume 1
Tokyopop
by Jo Chen

Jo Chen is the fantastically good cover artist for Runaways and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but she is also a comics creator. The Other Side of the Mirror is a two volume series created by Jo Chen first published in China. It is now available in English for the first time thanks to Tokyopop.

A teenage girl runs away from home and finds herself employed in the world's oldest profession only to fall in love with a young man whose own life is as bleak as hers. That's me paraphrasing the Tokyopop press material. Some online writing I found suggests that The Other Side of the Mirror is serious stuff.

1. Blood+ volume 1
Dark Horse Comics
by Asuka Katsura

Blood+ is set several decades after the events in the popular Blood: The Last Vampire anime. Amnesiac Saya Otonashi lives as a seemingly normal high school student with her adoptive parents. The only hint of her former, violent life is horrible nightmares that plague her nights. When the Chiropterans-powerful shaping-changing creatures who need and crave blood-threaten humanity once again, Saya's abilities begin to reawaken.

I've heard Blood+ the manga is much faster and more enjoyable than its TV counterpart. I've also heard the manga diverges from the TV storyline, adding more depth to Blood+ and building further on the Blood mythos.