I have a youtube channel (under The Questyen) where I post hauls and reading logs and I just did a complete collection video since I hit 2000 volumes a month or so ago. Cross Game was amazing. Moved right into one of my favorite series of all time list.

How is Cross Game? Good for baseball fans?

I have zero interest in baseball and loved it so hard for me to say. It's one of my favorite sports series of all time but also one of my favorite romance & slice of life series. It just does everything well.

Renowned manga creator, illustrator, and designer Leiji Matsumoto passed away on February 13 due to heart failure. He was 85.

http://4NN.cx/.195093

Really saddens me to hear this. Fucking LOVED his artstyle and the characters he created.

Wow.

I'm really glad that Seven Seas put out his classic Harlock manga, one of my favorite stories as a kid.

Everything I read in February:

Brian Hibbs put up his yearly look at the bookscan numbers, which are basically his look at how comics/graphic novels/collections are selling to book stores as reported to NPD bookscan:
https://www.comicsbeat.com/tilting-a...-house-marvel/

Doesn't include stuff like monthly comics or Scholastic Book Fairs, and he manually curates the list to look at only what he considers sequential art (so like Dog Man is in but not Dork Diaries or others that are more like books with some pictures) Like the past few years, manga just dominates (well manga and Dav Pilkey), and Viz dominates manga. It's an interesting read (at least IMHO). The vast majority of the the top titles are manga titles you can find at Target, so either Target (and Walmart) is greatly influencing this list or Target just buys the top sellers, making them even more of a top seller.

And the numbers for Marvel (at least published by Marvel) are abysmal.

Everything I read through in March:

Nichijou 15th Anniversary Manga Box Set (Volumes 1 - 10)

$61.99 @
$61.99 @ https://target.com/p/nichijou-15th-a...t/-/A-85338446

Trigun Deluxe Edition Hardcover – December 5, 2023: $29.99 (40% off)
Trigun Deluxe Edition collects Trigun Volume 1 and 2 in a beautiful hardcover featuring nearly 700 pages of Yasuhiro’s Nightow’s signature creation, collected for the first time in its original oversized format!

This Deluxe Edition features:
- The original 7" X 10" page format.
- Faux leather cover with foil stamping and burnishing.
- A bookmark ribbon.

Everything I read in May:

Everything I read in June (Pride Month focused):

My 10 favorite manga (completed) I read in the first half of 2023 (Jan-June)
1. Cross Game by Mitsuru Adachi (easily the best sports, slice of life, and romance manga I've ever read)
2. Beastars by Paru Itagaki (fantastic characters and world building along with a unique art style)
3. Talk to My Back by Murasaki Yamada (early 80's masterpiece with a glimpse into a suburban Japanese mother and wife)
4. Shuna's Journey by Hayao Miyazaki (beautifully watercolored with the same feel as a classic Studio Ghibli film)
5. Run Away With Me, Girl by Battan (one of the best yuri series I've ever read with believable characters and wonderful artwork)
6. Inside Mari by Shuzo Oshimi (if you've read any Oshimi works you know he is a master at weirdness and making you uncomfortable and he is at the top of his game in this body swap mystery story)
7. The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio (released in 1974 this is one of the earliest BL manga about a German boarding school where one of the students has just commited suicide)
8. Tokyo Tarareba Girls by Akiko Higashimura (beautifully drawn story about a group of 30 year old women trying to get married before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics)
9. Sweet Poolside by Shuzo Oshimi (a crazy Oshimi one-shot about a girl with too much body hair and a boy with none)
10. Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya (I went into this one pretty blind and it's a really well done high school romance with characters possessed by the Chinese Zodiac)

https://help.crunchyroll.com/hc/en-u...e-discontinued

Crunchyroll Manga to be discontinued

In our continuous effort to provide fans with the best experiences surrounding their favorite series, we will be sunsetting the Crunchyroll manga application on December 11 for both web and mobile platforms.

However, we have some exciting news for fans who are eager to embark on new manga adventures. You can explore the vast world of manga by visiting the Crunchyroll Store which now offers more than 17,000 manga titles spanning various genres. Read before you watch the biggest titles including SPY x FAMILY, JUJUTSU KAISEN, Attack on Titan, and Chainsaw Man, while collectors can add complete classics to their libraries like Wotakoi Love Is Hard for Otaku and Battle Angel Alita.

We want to assure you that this is not the end of our journey together. We are constantly working on bringing you more content and products to enhance your anime experience. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to providing you with even more exciting experiences in the future!

I just bought KonoSuba novel on Amazon Audible from Yen Press, this is awsome each main character is read by there own voice actor unlike Spice and Wolf, or Sword Art Online were one voice reads each volume.

So far in volume one there is Kasama, Megamin, Darkness, and Auqa. I just started so I'm sure there's more. I really want to buy the Audible books Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation but it's about $20 a Novel I'm going to have to buy them slowly, for now I already bought the three KonoSuba volumes that are already out.

KonoSuba's English voice cast I presume?

yes the animes cast

"Mad Max" director George Miller presenting an illustration of Furiosa by "Fist of the North Star" artist Tetsuo Hara.

"Mad Max" was the inspiration for Tetsuo's manga and they met for the first time over 40 years after the release of their works.

https://wwws.warnerbros.co.jp/madmax...ws_240528.html

Spider-Man rogue Doctor Octopus faces his biggest challenge yet—living life as a middle school girl in Japan!

After a battle with Spider-Man, the evil genius scientist Doctor Octopus falls into a coma. When he wakes up, his consciousness is in the body of Otoha Okutamiya, a regular kid in Tokyo! Thus begins the strange new life of Spider-Man’s biggest rival…as a schoolgirl!

I just bought the Audible book "your name" from Amazon, one of the readers is Stephanie SHEH who is the voice of Mitsuha in the anime film. I like Audible books from Yen Press becouse they usually have voices from the animes. My Favorite series is Konosuba.

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/ann...manga-app-2025

Crunchyroll to Launch New Manga App in 2025

Crunchyroll announced today during Sony Group Corporation’s CES 2025 press conference that a new digital manga application will join the service as a premium add-on, slated to launch later in 2025. The app will launch as a standalone, called Crunchyroll Manga, on iOS and Android with web browser support planned for the future. Crunchyroll Manga will first launch in English in the United States and Canada, with other language options planned.

Stay tuned for a list of titles and publishers in the future.
Announcement was made at CES 2025

I bought the first Novel "Secrets of the Silent Witch" I don't read many novels at all KonoSuba Audible Novels is the only one I have been keeping up with.
The following might contain spoilers
Anyway I am about halfway through the first Novel and it explains more then the anime for example how Monica is a Noble, "Count of Magic", and House Kerbeck is one of the top five Noble families.
I hope Yen Press releases a Audible Novel for this, for now I have Kindle on my Samsung phone reading it to me,

Secrets of the Silent Witch

The novels will get an audiobook release starting in November!
https://yenpress.com/titles/97988554...nt-witch-vol-1

ALSO

Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense

The novels getting a audiobook release starting in February.
https://yenpress.com/titles/97988554...-defense-vol-1


I just bought the the rest of the novels of Secrets of the Silent Witch on Kindle.

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/ann...su-kaisen-more

Crunchyroll Manga Sets October 9 Launch with Multiple Major Publishing Partners

Hit titles from VIZ Media, Yen Press, Square Enix and more kick things off!

It’s time to build your reading list! Crunchyroll announced today that its new premium add-on, Crunchyroll Manga, will officially launch across iOS and Android in the United States and Canada on October 9. It will bring hundreds of titles from leading publishers together to make manga even more accessible!

The ad-free experience will include hit titles from leading publishers AlphaPolis, COMPASS, Square Enix, VIZ Media, and Yen Press, with additional partners like Shueisha and J-Novel Club to follow.

Launch titles include One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, My Dress-Up Darling, The Summer Hikaru Died, Lycoris Recoil, Delicious in Dungeon, Sasaki and Miyano, Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy, Maiden of the Dragon: Falling for the Demon’s Lies, and many more, spanning multiple genres.

The Crunchyroll Manga app, which will be available as a separate app from the flagship Crunchyroll streaming service, is powered by Link-U Group, one of the leading digital manga service developers in Japan.

Crunchyroll Manga will be available for Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan subscribers ($15.99/month) at no extra cost, and will be available on iOS and Android at launch, with the web reader following on October 15. For all tiers, the manga service will be available as an add-on, with pricing as follows:

Crunchyroll Fan + Manga – $11.99 USD / $15.49 CAD per month (includes Manga add-on at $4.00 USD / $5.50 CAD)

Crunchyroll Mega Fan + Manga – $15.49 USD / $17.49 CAD per month (includes Manga add-on at $3.50 USD / $5.00 CAD)

All tiers of Crunchyroll Manga will offer unlimited ad-free reading across mobile and web, the ability to download chapters for offline viewing, light and dark mode settings, and the ability to build a personalized reading list with curated recommendations.

From day one, fans will be able to start reading hundreds of chapters from hundreds of titles, with fresh chapters to come as the library grows alongside their favorite series. Please note that titles and services available at launch may be subject to change.

And for fans headed to New York Comic-Con next month, Crunchyroll Manga will take center stage at the Crunchyroll Booth (#1643), featuring hands-on demos and panels inviting fans to check out select titles and explore the stories that inspired their favorite anime. For more on Crunchyroll at NYCC, you can head here.