San Diego Comic-Con International 2009

CMX Manga

Panelists: Asako Suzuki, Jim Chadwick, Larry Berry, Chynna Coston

CMX began their Sunday morning panel by passing out sample manga and announcing that the author of the new Batman manga, Yoshiro Natsume, will be signing copies of the manga at the DC Comics booth after the panel. The presentation then continued with introductions of upcoming titles for CMX.

In the action and shonen genre, the new titles include the martial arts fantasy The Battle of Genryu: Origin (which Berry called "Tenjo Tenge light"), supernatural cop drama-comedy Deka Kyōshi by Tamio Baba, the mature historical adventure Rampage, and the and the suspense tale Shisso Holiday.

In the shojo genre, new titles include the shojo fantasy A Tale of an Unknown Country by Natsuna Kawase, Oh! My Brother by The Name of the Flower author Ken Saitō, The Lizard Prince by Ballad of a Shinigami author Asuka Izumi, the single volume magical romance The World I Create, romantic comedy Stolen Hearts, My Darling! Miss Bancho, a crazy romantic comedy by Mayu Fujikata where a young girl becomes the boss of a gang of men, and Diamond Girl, a sports manga about a girl who has a mysterious talent for baseball.

Other titles announced for mid 2010 include Polyphonica: Cardinal Crimson, based on the light novel series of the same name in which students have magical powers tied to their musical abilities, Nadeshiko Club, a comedy shojo manga about a home economics class, and the comedy story Nyankoi! which depicts the life of a boy who can hear cats speak.

The panel then moved on to announcements for titles with release dates far in the future. The first was the Nari Kusakawa fantasy title The Phantom Guesthouse, followed by tarot fantasy Tableau Gate, and the mature title 51 Ways to Save Her,which depicts a pair of friends attempting to escape the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.

Suzuki advertised the CMXtra website for the label before the panel moved to Q&A. In response to a question about the popularity of their releases, everyone on the panel expressed confident in the manga the company has licensed. "We have a lot of titles you may not have heard of, but we believe in the titles and know that you will enjoy them," said Suzuki. In response to a question related to the genres that CMX publishes most, Chadwick admitted that CMX has produced a lot of shojo titles lately, but that they release titles mainly based on when licenses are acquired. "We don't aim for a genre intentionally," said Chadwick. In response to a question concerning original content by North American creators, Suzuki and Chadwick both admitted that they aren't actively seeking titles but would prefer to establish "editor artist relationships" to create comics if they ever decided to invest in North American talent.