Hi everyone, Christopher here. This post is about the fact that SEARCH AND DESTROY VOLUME 1, by Atsushi Kaneko, based on the manga Dororo by Osamu Tezuka, and published by Fantagraphics and Mangasplaining Extra, is getting released tomorrow, July 23rd! It’ll be in better stores everywhere and there’ll be copies at Comic-Con, too. I’ve got a lot to say about that in a second…

But first, I gotta acknowledge that you haven’t heard from us here at Mangasplaining for a bit, as our lives all got REALLY busy, really quickly, and we needed some time to regroup. Chip started a magazine. David’s doing medium-form video content. Deb is the driving force behind a new manga award. I’ve been working on and through a bunch of stuff. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Busy busy. While we’re still posting occasionally on <shudder> social media, putting together a longform coherent thought has proven more difficult than anticipated here on the newsletter. Mea Culpa. Rather than rush back into things and blow another deadline, please know that we’re all working away on new content (and lots of it!) and we’ll start serializing again when everything’s ready to go. We’ve got mystery manga project coming along, Search and Destroy Volume 3 is half-lettered, 6 episodes of season 5 of the podcast are recorded, and we’re just waiting ‘til we’ve got more in the hopper to get underway posting. Thanks for your patience/love/support, we’re excited to get back to making Mangasplaining stuff for you, in addition to all of our other projects.

Search and Destroy is getting a lot of attention.

I don’t actually know where to start on this, it’s been so long and so much has happened, and so much of it has been frankly awesome. I guess we can at least start chronologically, as the first advance reviews out of the gate for Kaneko-sensei’s masterpiece were two starred reviews, one from Publisher’s Weekly and one from Library Journal, and in the publishing world, that’s huge!

Kaneko outdoes himself with this gonzo sci-fi reimagining of Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga series Dororo… It’s a blast of pure cyberpunk energy.

– Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

Kaneko retains Tezuka’s relentless pacing, flair for melodrama, and thematic focus on justice, corruption, and individuality within an oppressive society, while integrating elements of body horror and an increased focus on the unsustainability of societies where vital resources are controlled by a thriving minority, to the detriment of the masses.

– Library Journal, starred review

These came out really early, even for long-lead reviews, because the publication date of the book had to be pushed back due to “printing issues” (again), but I hope some Librarians and Booksellers read those raves and then like… went and placed orders for their collections? Because the book is actually out this week, as I mentioned.

Speaking of Publisher’s Weekly, they also ran this very cool feature article called “Endnotes” on how the book came together based on all (many) of us that worked on the English edition, and it’s nice to see the team credited altogether on the same page.

That’s a hell of a quote from Kaneko. I also gotta shout-out PW and our pal Deb for featuring us in her “indy” manga round-up in the big manga coverage this year. There’s a LOT of talented publishers on these pages, I hope you’re seeking out work by all of them:

Next up, do you remember how I said that Deb is the driving force behind a new manga award? Well those awards are The American Manga Awards, and they’re being handed out August 22nd in New York City as part of the AnimeNYC Convention happenings, and Search and Destroy’s amazing letterer Phil Christie got nominated for best manga letterer!

Congratulations, Phil! You totally deserve it, and we’re all rooting for you to win! 😀

Like the graphic says, you can register to vote now at https://bit.ly/AMA24_vote. If you’re working in the manga field in more-or-less any capacity, including comic and book shop owenrs, agents, and graphic novel librarians, well, please go register and vote! I mean, voting for Phil would be rad, but I really wanna see these awards get off the ground and continue, so any kind of voting would be awesome.

Oh and since we’re talking about it, Okinawa by Susumu Higa, another MSX/Fantagraphics title, ALSO got nominated for best new edition of classic manga(!) so you can vote for that one too.

We’ve also gotten some incredible reviews so far, really marvelous and I’m so grateful. Just this week we were mentioned in the New York Times Review of Books, which is REALLY rare for comics and even moreso for manga, and we’re so glad to have been mentioned there, that should be a huge bump in attention for the book.

“[Atsushi Kaneko] has chosen to adapt Osamu Tezuka’s classic manga DORORO as SEARCH AND DESTROY with the same sense of mayhem he brought to BAMBI AND HER PINK GUN [with a] richly imagined future society and….the balletic choreography of his fight scenes.”

— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

I also want to shout out some of these other awesome reviews:

“Search and Destroy grabs you by the throat with its opening chapter and never lets go.”

― Multiversity Comics

The volume is a complete work of art with Fantagraphics slick production design complementing the overall look and feel. As a fan of Dororo and Kaneko’s punk rock attitude, I was thrilled by the manga and can’t wait for volumes 2 and 3.

― Comicon.com

“A dark, atmospheric take on Dororo, not losing sight of Tezuka’s vision while showcasing intense writing and brilliant artwork by Atsushi Kaneko.”

—SCREENRANT

And I want to thank the following outlets for running excerpts and previews of the book, and reminders that it’s coming soon: they’ve really helped spread the word!

AIPT – Anime Trendz – ComingSoon.net – Newsarama – ScreenRant – Anime News Network – Comics Beat – Anime Diet – Fanboy Factor – OASG

Finally, Deb and I have guested on a couple of podcasts recently, talking about SEARCH AND DESTROY VOLUME 1, our next MSX book Giga Town: A Guide to Manga Iconography, and what it’s like to recommend manga to people who haven’t read much manga before. Please check out: Comic Book Couples Counselling Podcast, and Beyond the Cape Podcast.

So yeah, it’s been a really wonderful few months seeing the positive reviews and press roll in for our suddenly very timely, anti-fascist, pro-bodily-autonomy, dark-but-uplifting(?) SF title. As a reminder, if you’ve read this far and HAVEN’T read Search and Destroy (I literally cannot imagine that), we’ve made chapter 0 and 1 of volume one free to read, and did the same for chapter 1 of volume two.

My sincere thanks to everyone at Fantagraphics including the now absent Jacq Cohen, and to David Hyde and Superfan Productions, for managing this whopping assortment of press for the book. I’ve gotten to share some of it with Kaneko-sensei as we met in Tokyo briefly last month at his gallery show, and he’s pretty stoked about it too. Here he is with some of his art from Search and Destroy at Vanilla Gallery in Ginza.

So yeah, Search and Destroy Volume 1 releases this Tuesday, June 23rd, in better comic and bookstores everywhere, and it’ll be at the Fantagraphics booth at Comic-Con too, if you find yourself there. Or you can order online.

Feel free to let us know in the comments if we missed any reviews or articles, and we’ll happily add’em to the list. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Christopher