Forum - View topicNew Reviewer.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Uh.. are you just totally ignoring Right Turn Only? Or is that plus the manga reviews not enough? I get that we don't have a whole load of manga reviews, but aside from Viz none of the publishers send out nearly enough review copies to sustain two manga critics. Most of them only send vol. 01s, which means we'd have to pay for the manga and the critic. Many of the manga blogs you read are enthusiasts who buy their own books, which isn't necessarily something we can subsidize right now. Also, I hardly think "not enough manga reviews" is enough to make the site "irrelevant", but thanks for the melodrama buddy. |
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jgreen
 Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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I agree, the idea that the amount of ANN's manga coverage threatens to make the site "irrelevant" is way over-stating it, but as a manga fan, I do wish there were a few more manga reviews here (in addition to Carlo's column, which is, of course, great). I don't think it's a glaring flaw or anything, but I think expanded manga review coverage would help the site be a better rounded one-stop-shop for anime/manga fans.
For what it's worth, as far as getting review copies goes, I've never had much trouble getting review copies of titles from Viz, Dark Horse, Del Rey, or DC*. Granted, they don't just send me the stuff, I have to ask for it, but I get what I ask for more often than not even if it is later volumes in a series. And that's for the comics section of a mostly music-focused website even, not someplace that's dedicated solely to anime and manga like ANN is. And hey, even if you did have to occasionally subsidize/ask the writer to pay for review material, you can get virtually any manga out there from Right Stuf for $8 or less, which is a lot lower buy-in than a half-season anime box set. Just food for thought. * I mention DC because of CMX, but I haven't really asked for much CMX stuff. Their PR people have been more than helpful with DCU and Vertigo releases, though. Last edited by jgreen on Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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Psst. Check out the latest Nina thread. I've left a question for the ANN staff which could possibly help out with this. 
And Hope, congrats. I'll be waiting eagerly for your first official ANN review. Bwaa haa haa! 
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nagato316
Posts: 306 |
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I just had a thought...not that I have a say in what gets reviewed when by whom, but wouldn't it be fitting if we got ANN's newest reviewer to do a write-up sometime soon on the newly-released DVD (in Region 1 anyway) of the Eva 1.01 movie? After all, based on her previous comments and vids, we know just how much she is enamored by Anno's storied franchise!
Once again, congrats on joining ANN as a full-fledged staffer, JO...your road to greatness has taken quite a notable and enviable turn. Today, Anime News Network; tomorrow...The World! *dramatic pause* OF COURSE!! 
Last edited by nagato316 on Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
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Congrats Jesu. I remember listening to that podcast and going, "Jesu should totally apply for that position."
Maybe when you become a big shot reviewer they'll give you your own column and they'll let you break the mold and do video reviews. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Yes, of course I am. RTO is a fortnightly round up of brief snippets (presented in a counter-intuitive straitjacket of a format). It doesn't offer any kind of in-depth critical analysis and, presumably, it isn't supposed to.
If I thought it was enough, I'd not have posted what I posted.
Actually, almost all of the review blogs I visit from time to time are scrupulous about providing footnotes noting the fact that the books in question were provided by the publisher. And while it's obviously true that publishers tend to push first volumes harder than subsequent volumes, a fair proportion of the volumes reviewed on those blogs are, indeed, later volumes - possibly, like jgreen they're being a bit more proactive in procuring them. In any case, many of the first volumes and one-shots critiqued elsewhere courtesy of promo copies aren't being reviewed here. Possibly I'm out of line but it seems to me that if amateur blogs are receiving more review copies from a wider pool of publishers than a professional site with as much traffic as ANN, something's gone wrong somewhere along the line.
No melodrama, Zac, just a failure on your part to read what I actually said in whole and in context. I didn't say that not enough manga reviews would make ANN irrelevant; I said that not enough manga reviews would make ANN increasingly irrelevant to those who come here primarily for manga. Ripping out all the qualifiers in a statement might make it easier to argue with but you end up arguing with a straw man. Unhelpful. I appreciate that anime is the focus of the site (clue's in the name, right?) and there's obviously nothing wrong with that (and I'm clearly not in your target demographic in any case) but I presume I'm not the only one who's here largely for the manga news/views/data and I further presume you want visitors regardless of what they're coming here for. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, my personal take is that I've carried on visiting ANN regularly (and contributing to the encyclopedia etc.) despite having lost interest in contemporary anime (theatrical movies aside) years ago and I've done so specifically for the comics stuff. In recent times that material seems to be increasingly thin on the ground and I've found myself having to spend more time searching elsewhere for the information I used to get here. I think that's a shame. Granted, that could be a flawed perception on my part - maybe the site's the same as it ever was and I've just grown apart from it, maybe most of ANN's readership aren't much interested in manga and it isn't commercially prudent to cater to a few anomalies, or maybe the manga publishers' marketing money isn't sufficient to be worth going after. If so, fine, but don't throw a hissy fit when somebody provides you with the very feedback you've declared yourself open to in the past.
No need to apologise for liking what you like and please accept my apologies for clumsily derailing your congratulations thread - I probably should have started a new thread or PM'ed Zac or something rather than making my point here. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16970 |
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Well congrats Hope. You certainly have the wit and are very eloquent and well versed when doing your own podcast/reviews so it's easy to see why Zac would be impressed and want you as a reviewer. Plus it's also a smart business move to stamp out competition. I mean we can't have a normal poster taking away fans and readers from the site's actual reviews with her own in the forum right lol? Now you're property of ANN so you're bringing fans to their reviews not from them heh. I'm just joking around. You definitely deserve it especially since you've already pretty much been doing the job itself for fun on your own time. Good luck and I look forward to your first official review. Especially to how many people you can get to rage and hate on you for being incompetent for not supporting their shows and giving them a good enough review of their show. Don't disappoint us heh.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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In the past we were on mailing lists and multiple volumes would just get sent to Carlo, who I know doesn't have time to review everything that gets sent to him. If it's a matter of having to request volumes, we can do that, but I'd need to hire a new manga-only critic and set up those relationships for them so they can request what they want. Right now I do not have a dedicated manga-only critic - Carlo gets tasked with doing anime from time to time. So I'd need someone whose lone job is manga. Which may be doable, I just need to check the budget. Actually, the ideal thing would be to move Carlo to manga-only AND hire an additional critic just to get things moving in that regard.
Nope, it's just not something I seriously pursued. Not only that but with only one critic who covers manga and also does a bi-weekly column, there's no way we'd have the staff to cover all that material. Again, I'd need another critic.
More manga coverage (which is, simply, more reviews at this point) has always been in the back of my mind. It's always been a goal, just not one that gets pushed to the forefront often enough for me to have made a dent in it yet. But your comments have me thinking about it, for sure. So I do appreciate the feedback... ...even if you don't seem to realize that being quite this condescending and insulting:
is really not at all helpful when you're trying to get me to listen to your feedback. I have enough angry little dorks picking fights with me over trivial crap; you're a smart guy, and you've been here long enough to know that I dismiss people who come at me like this, and with good cause, because most of them are just being dicks. You've given me some good feedback here, but if you want me to really listen to you, maybe scrub some of the condescension off and please spare me your accusations of "throwing hissy fits" when all I did was respond to what I felt was unnecessary hyperbole. Then we can excise these paragraphs of pointless back-and-forth and actually create a decent feedback loop where your advice is actually helping the site rather than just taking pot shots at me. Doesn't that make sense? I'll be talking to my boss about potentially bringing on a new manga critic this week. Thanks for the suggestion. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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More reviews (and more timely reviews) would be wonderful - and much appreciated. Aside from reviews, the occasional broader piece would also be appreciated - I've yet to read an in-depth, insightful look at Viz's ground breaking move into online manga magazines (plenty of interviews with Ikki editorial staff but nothing with any real substance to it), for instance - and it would be nice to get some manga-related guests appearing on ANNcast once in a while (Jason Thompson, Frederik Schodt, Shaenon Garrity, Carl Gustav Horn, Toren Smith...more suggestions available upon request).
You didn't like the hissy fit thing, I didn't much appreciate the accusation of melodrama, we're every bit as condescending as each other (you sure you aren't English?)...let's call it a wash and forget about it.
That's exceptionally good news. Thanks. |
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jgreen
Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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Hey Zac, you posted a few related questions on Twitter, and since I'm not on Twitter, this seems like as good a place as any to respond to them.
If you really want to get the pulse of the manga review community, the best place to start is Brigid Alverson's MangaBlog: not only are Brigid's reviews generally very good, but she also compiles a daily list of links to some of her favorite reviews, from both pros and amateur bloggers. (She links to Anime News Network pretty constantly, too, including RTO!.) It can be almost overwhelming to start digging into because there's so much information there every day, but her blog is a fantastic resource.
I would LOVE to see more manga reviews on the site. And like Moomintroll pretty much hit it on the head when he said, "More reviews (and more timely reviews) would be wonderful - and much appreciated." I think mid-series volume reviews are not only a good idea, but they're absolutely necessary. Manga is a much different beast than anime is. Anime is a large group of people working together over a very short period of time, while manga is typically one artist working on the same story over a period of years. Any artist is bound to develop in both good and bad ways over a span of years and it's vital to one's understanding of a series to know if this series that started badly found its footing after a volume or two, or if this series that started out with a bang blew its wad too early and turned dull and repetitive. I mean, could you imagine someone basing whether or not to follow Oh My Goddess! or not based on a review of only the first volume, with its hackneyed story and kinda terrible art? Or judging the entirety of Dragon Ball based on the virtually all-comedy first volume? That being said, I don't know that it's necessary to cover every single volume of a series, but to at least check in periodically. First volume reviews are good for the diehard, gotta-have-the-new-stuff-the-second-it-comes-out type of fans that want to know about the latest and greatest, but periodically revisiting a series is a good way of nudging more casual fans, people who maybe bought the first few volumes of a series then drifted away but wonder what the series developed into. Another pitfall in reviewing every volume of a series is, well, not a lot happens in every single volume of a series, and you can end up with some very repetitive reviews where the writer is struggling to come up with something new to say. That's where multi-volume reviews in the middle of a series are good: it both gives a better overview of the series as a whole, and it brings the review up to date to where even people who are buying every new volume will want to read about the latest one. Just as an example, when I was reviewing Suzuka, I reviewed the first volume by itself when it came out, and concluded that it was enjoyable, but my general impression was that it was a blatant ripoff of Love Hina and the fanservice was a little excessive. Then a few months later, I checked back in with volumes 5-6 to show how the book had outgrown its earlier shortcomings and became a very engrossing romance story for male readers. I think that development is an important thing to point out, because vol. 1 only hinted at the potential that was realized by vol. 6. (And as to why I chose just volumes 5 and 6, I reviewed 4 for Protoculture Addicts. That review could be included in this chronology as well, and help support a nice, broad overview of the series.)
There are quite a few manga reviewers that I see freelancing across different publications, including Alverson, David Welsh (who reviews manga for both Comics Reporter and Precocious Curmudgeon), and Johanna Draper Carlson and Ed Sizemore (who I believe both write for Publishers Weekly's Comics Week in addition to Comics Worth Reading). They are out there. |
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TheTheory
 Posts: 1029 Location: Central PA |
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Congrats, Jesu. Good to see a stand-out forum member graduate to the big time. A toast to your continued success!
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Ian K
 Posts: 250 |
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JO, congratulations! I've been enjoying your video reviews for some time, and am looking forward to your first ANN review.
Just so there's absolutely no confusion, you're planning to continue the video reviews, right? Are you thinking about switching to a bi-weekly format or otherwise reducing the workload so as to not stretch yourself too thin? Edit: All my questions have been answered Last edited by Ian K on Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar Posts: 16970 |
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Seeing as how I'm not that big on Twitter I'd rather respond to this post here. I would love to see more manga reviews. I mean to me Anime news network is all about the ENTIRE world of anime. Arguably while different mediums anime and manga are still related and fall into the collective world of "anime." I mean you guys now have more extensive con coverage right? The video portion of this site has sky rocketed in the past year. Why not raise the manga aspect of the site as well through more reviews? I think Carlo does an outstanding job and his RTO column is already widely known. So my suggestion is simply switch him to manga only since he is so well known for it, and good at his job, and get the extra reviewer for anime so you don't need to have him double dip. If I am not mistaken Theron double dips himself so if Carlo was 100% dedicated to manga only would that eliminate the need for anyone else to double dip? A second manga only review would be nice but only you can answer if your budget can handle that. I would at least make Carlo manga only and if he can handle it (as in the work load) load him up with title after title. As for the titles themselves I would love to see volume 1's of series reviewed if nothing else. Maybe what you could do is have manga series reviewed in groups of 2 or 3. Have someone review 1-3 volumes at once and do a sort of group review for the series instead of singular ones per volume. I would think that would be easier then reading all 3 and doing individual reviews for each but yet all the volumes are still being reviewed so it's a win win situation I think for both readers and staff. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4830 |
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Getting back to the original topic, this is fantastic news. Big congrats, JO; I've loved every one of your video reviews (though I've sadly fallen several weeks behind), and your posts (particularly in that huge Eva thread) always contain a lot of great insights. I can't wait to see your first stint on the front page.
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rainbowcourage
 Posts: 1216 Location: what is commonly known as "hell week" |
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Wow, I can't believe I missed this. Allow me a moment of nostalgia...
I remember Jesu when you first wandered into the forums, just a little thing...*sniff sniff* Actually you pretty much blasted your way in and you've been here ever since! I am so excited about this. I'll be reading every one and supporting you all the way. Yahoo!! |
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