Requiem for CMX

CMX, one of my favorite manga publishers, is dying. 

To mourn their passing, I'm taking a trip down memory lane to celebrate all the good times CMX brought me.  I made some lists.  Shut up; it's soothing. Connie over at Slightly Biased Manga did the same thing in an angry, funny, well-written post that includes more than bare bones summaries of some of her favorites.

What do my lists tell you?  (Aside from the fact that I am an indiscriminate, omnivorous reader, which you may already know, and the fact that I was too saddened [actually, just in too much pain] to do all the links, though I may try to fill some in later.)

1. CMX has made me very happy over the last six years.  I was slowly (as my budget allowed) collecting a LOT of their series, and I am heartbroken to see them summarily ungently kicked into that good night.
2. You should buy any of these titles that interest you before they're gone. 

What don't my lists tell you?  Which ones I've talked about in "What I Read" posts.  Most of them had at least some CMX.

Complete Series I've enjoyed at least part of

• Astral Project: Trippy.
• Battle of Genryu: I really wanted to know what was going to happen next.
• Canon: A little shojo horror from a master of it. A lot of reversals in such a short series.
• Chikyu Misaki: Cute and sometimes creepy. The baby loch ness monster thing was just irresistable, and you had to love the guest starring role featuring WOlverine.
• Cipher: THe 80s will never die! Just a treat the whole way through, even when it was pretty dark. If you liked Fame back in the day . . .
• Deka Kyoshi: I really did like this one for its ability to go to very dark places that kids sometimes have to face unprepared because no one will talk to them about certain situations.
• Devil Does Exist: Snotty, bratty, and fun romantic comedy with very stylish artwork.
• Dokkoida?!: Dumbest superhero costume ever; silly and stupid and fun series.
• Emma: Beautiful in every way.
• Empty Empire: I still wanted to know what happened next.
• Flat Earth Exchange: In the end, I really did enjoy it.
• Gals!: SuperGALS! forever! Like the anti-afterschool special.
• Jihai: Short, sweet sci-fi trilogy about what we do to make the most of the time we have. And stuff.
• Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne: Tanemura. 'Nough said.
• Key to the Kingdom: Really underappreciated gem of old-school, straight-fantasy. Great stuff.
• Kiichi and the Magic Books: Quirky, sad, wonderful.
• King of Cards: Yeah, why did they license this? It wasn't because Tateno was famous here (that came later), but I thought this series was a hoot because of the versatility it showed.
• Land of the Blindfolded: Sweet, sometimes sad romance with some supernatural touches.
• Lapis Lazuli Crown: Fun, quick shojo goodness.
• Lizard Prince: Yeah, kind of adorable and quirky and relaxing.
• March on Earth: Yes, there was some melodrama, but there were these transcendent moments that made it worthwhile.
• Monster Collection: Trashy, violent, fanservice in its quirky fantasy version.
• Moon Child: Out of this world. Literally. And that ending. Like a roller coaster in a dark building.
• Name of the Flower: Sad, quirky, tender story about how we can't save each other sometimes.
• Omukae Desu: Weird and wonderful.
• Oyayubihime Infinity: Fate, destiny, tattoos. Really fun.
• Palette of 12 Secret Colors: Breezy, lovely, quirky, wonderful, like most of this author's stuff.
• Penguin Revolution: Cheerful and genki and adorable.
• Pieces of a Spiral: Wanted to know what happened.
• Recipe for Gertrude: Adored this quirky, category-defying work of weirdness with its somewhat detached heroine and its odd moments of tenderness and humor.
• Seimaden: Dark love story fantasy. Cough You Higuri Cough.
• Sword of the Dark Ones: Violence, swords, angst, shorter than Berserk.
• Tears of a Lamb: Kind of a psychological vaguely relational school drama.
• Tenryu: The Dragon Cycle: I like the artist. Her characters are delightfully cranky on a regular basis.
• Tower of the Future: Fan of the artist, but I did like this story's quirkiness.
• VS (Versus): Bring on the music melodrama!
• Young Magician: Dark, dark fantasy where very bad things happen.

Incomplete Series I've enjoyed at least part of

• Apothecarius Argentum: This one hurts.  Sort of classy and classic and restrained and just great.
• Ballad of a Shinigami: Quirky short stories about a little Shinigami and the people she meets.
• Broken Blade ?: Shonen mech fantasy magic world political drama love story war thing. Very nice.
• Crayon Shinchan: So very, very wrong. I had to babysit a kid like this once, so I know they exist.
• Fire Investigator Nanase: I was curious to find out how it all turned out.
• From Eroica With Love: Ridiculous, hilarious, highly inappropriate.
• Gon: Astounding and brilliant. No text, just things that would make the Nature Chanel seem benign and boring.
• I Hate You More Than Anyone: Funny, twisted romantic comedy.
• Musashi Number Nine: I am a sucker for teenage spies.
• Swan: Oh, dear.  I loved this one.
• Two Flowers for the Dragon: I wrote about this delightful title once.
• Venus Capriccio: Cute and breezy romantic story with a slight twist.
• Venus in Love: I kind of adored this melodrama-free slice-of-romantic-life college story.

Series I never had a chance to enjoy even part of (but wanted to)

Classical Medley, Diamond Girl, Go Go Heaven!!, Go West!, Kikaider Code 02, King of Debris, My Darling! Miss Bancho, Oh! My Brother, Steel Fist Riku, Stolen Hearts, Suihelibe!, Tale of an Unknown Country, Teru Teru x Shonen, Time Guardian, World I Create, Any of the new ones with one volume out.

Here are some other announcements and reactions.  Excuse me while I go cry.

Do you have any CMX series you're going to really miss?

Out of order publishing

For the record, I'd like to thank Yen Press, Tokyopop, ADV, Funimation, Geneon, and Viz for publishing things I can ponder, discuss, and complain about.

Apparently, some "fans" complain that they don't want to buy the same thing more than once.  Putting aside the question of how many versions of Evangelion (or DBZ) they have bought and trusting that their memories are so good that they can't stand the same content even in different forms (manga vs. anime vs. light novel), I would like to muse about this.


I've often wondered why publishers slavishly put things out in order even when the first X volumes are retreading the already released TV or manga series.  Take, for instance, Beck.  The anime was not completely slavish to the manga, but I know that as soon as the anime came out, there was a big market for the manga that picked up the story where the anime left off.  For whatever reason, Tokyopop didn't take advantage of that situation, and now . . .  Other (less law-abiding) citizens probably just read scanlations, even if they had intended to buy the manga because now it isn't available legally and may never be again.

Haruhi would be a great example.  After that first TV series was released with no sequel in sight, and the novels got licensed, I was surprised that the first novel was published first by several months.  I would think more of the fans might have been willing to plunk down cash for volume 2 or even volume 3 of the original novel series because it was stuff they hadn't seen/read yet.  Maybe that's not a good example because I think Haruhi is selling decently (even the manga, which most reviewers aren't too fond of, even though it's the same thing) because, you know, it's Haruhi.

Trinity Blood would be a bad example.  What with the two different series and the different story order and the different everything, this series did have to be published in order, but it's coming out so slowly, I wonder if those who liked the anime when it was broadcast and first sold possess the will-power to be patient.  Then again, maybe illegal light novel translations are scarcer online?  I don't know . . .

Another example that comes to mind is Kieli.  The manga covers the first light novel's contents pretty thoroughly.  Publishing the second light novel first might have been a better idea to keep the buzz and the story going after the Kieli manga made some popular lists.

I do love Kino no Tabi, and by the time the first light novel came out, it had been a long while since I saw the anime.  I didn't mind the retread of the content because that translation was awesome, and the nuances of what can be done in prose vs. what can be done in film made it well worth reading more than once.  Other people were probably just wanting the light novel volumes that picked up where the anime left off (or left out).

Kodocha (where the manga came out way before the [incompletely released] anime) and Kyo Kara Maoh (where the anime was released way before the manga) also come to mind.
It seems to me that in most series--especially an author's first series--the storytelling gets better as the story goes on and the artist/writer gains skill, so it seems to me that publishing later volumes might also help pull in people who might have been turned off by, say, the early (I hope) clunkiness of Spice and Wolf.

It may be that the American publishers/localizers don't get to make these choices.  I've heard some people say that the Japanese companies selling the licenses often have stringent contract requirements that make little sense in the American market.  Maybe this is one of them.  But if companies do have flexibility here, it might behoove them to take advantage of cross-marketing opportunities and give the whiner "fans" less to whine about by providing them with what they claim to want sooner.

Of course, as some have pointed out, some of these "fans" just want any excuse not to actually put their money where their mouths are (be it "bad" covers, "poor" translations, offensive back cover summaries, or whatever they're complaining about these days), so no matter what a publisher does, some fans just won't pay.  But I do like the idea of cutting their feet out from under them whenever possible. 

To be fair, there are fans who genuinely don't like retreading the same territory (though I can think of a lot of reasons why it's worth it to buy the Monster mangaand anime,) who would actually plunk down the money if, say, volume 13 of Beck came out the month after the DVD release ended.  I'd like to give them a chance to do so.

Any insights, knowledge, or arguments for, against, or about these ideas?