manga – ACHUKA Children's Books UK

ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 Mar 2021

Fifteen-year-old Yuki is struggling at school with her confidence, and goes to Japan to stay with her grandfather, a well-known manga artist with whom she is very close. But during her visit, the 2011 East Coast Earthquake and Tsunami take place and her beloved Grandpa is lost.

Interwoven with Japanese folk tales, modern-day ghost stories, and the creation of her very own vibrant manga hero, Yuki finds the courage to overcome extraordinary odds and take her first steps into the world that lies beyond catastrophe. With powerful, emotional manga from Japanese manga artist, Chie Kutsuwada, this is a highly-original coming-of-age story from the relatively new imprint, Guppy Books.

We recommend this interview with the author on Tripfiction.

Click here for a selection of pages and panels from the manga element of Tsunami Girl.

Viz Expands Its Digital Manga Program to Kindle

Viz Media, the largest manga publisher in the U.S., has been aggressive about marketing their titles digitally (which makes sense when you realize that some of their series run to over 50 volumes). They launched with an iPad-only app, then expanded to iPhone, the web, Android, Nook, and Kobo, and today they announced that they are making their entire digital catalog, about 1,500 volumes right now, available for the Kindle, including Kindle Fire and Paperwhite, as well.

The press release says most titles will be priced at $6.99 per volume, and today was the day that Viz raised prices in their own apps as well, mostly from $4.99 to $6.99. (I talked to Viz’s Gagan Singh about that a few weeks ago.) But Amazon being Amazon, they are actually pricing most books at $5.59 per volume, so they are underselling Viz at the moment…

Viz is also syncing its schedule so that titles in the Kindle store will be published nearly simultaneously with the print editions. (There was no mention of whether they would be released on other platforms at the same time.) This means Viz will be releasing its manga in digital at the same time as print and at a lower price, a strategy that folks in the Western comics world claim will kill the business.

via Viz Expands Its Digital Manga Program to Kindle.