By Billy Aguiar
(to learn more about me, check out this recent blog entry)

I have extensive comic and manga collections, and have been attending the San Diego Comic Con for at least 6 years in addition to anime/manga conventions.  I have seen manga and anime become an ever greater part of the San Diego Comic Con experience over that time.  But also during that time Comic Con has become a greater part of Hollywood's promotion plans for television and movies, helping to inflate the convention to far larger than any other US anime/manga or comic convention, with an attendance this year estimated to be greater than 140,000.

Last year San Diego had many manga guests, ranging from Kazuo Koike -- a creator of the classic manga Lone Wolf and Cub -- to Rurourni Kenshin's creator Nobuhiro Watsuki.  But unlike traditional anime and manga conventions, San Diego Comic Con in general does not invite guests, instead relying more on exhibitors to bring them.  So after last year's year of plenty, this year's only high profile manga creator was Arina Tanemura, creator of Gentleman's Alliance and Full Moon o Sagash*te.  Viz, who brought her to support those two titles they are releasing, also announced at the show that they would release some of her earlier works.  I am sure that there were probably other creators there, along with a whole slew of TokyoPop's original manga creators from the US attending (M. Alice Legrow of Bizenghast, for instance, won an award at the Masquerade), but Tanemura was the largest name for manga fans at the show.

But the show itself is monstrously huge.  The exhibit hall was so large, for instance, that all of Otakon's convention space, the second largest US anime/manga convention, would probably fit into it.  And imagine that area was as crowded as the fire marshals would allow.  Then you add in viewing rooms that start with with one with seating for 6,000 all the way down to standard size panel rooms.  Not all of the exhibitors are publishers and stores, with an array of computer game companies, television networks, and Hollywood production houses hosting booths with giveaways and stars of screen and film all attracting crowds.  But with few exceptions, almost every US publisher of manga had a presence there, and I recognized a half dozen stores that I normally see on the anime/manga convention circuit.  There were panels, especially for some of the larger mass media events, where the line to get in formed hours in advance, but the three rooms showing anime were easy to get into.  The anime was not shown in multi-episode blocks, only a single episode at a time, so it was aimed more at sampling anime shows.

Since there are so many high profile events, the anime/manga related panels were actually fairly easy to get into, and because of the importance of San Diego Comic Con many manga publishers timed announcements to the show.  In addition to the Viz announcements of several new series by Arina Tanemura, they also announced the acquisition of Slam Dunk! and the plan to publish BIG format books that group three normal sized collections into one.  CMX Manga announced that they had the Crayon Shin-chan manga license, making sure to stress that they were planning to only translate so it would correspond with the anime without editing it.  CMX also discussed their recent partnership with FlexComics, with them both now under the DC Comics banner.  Flex Comics is a Japanese manga publisher that serializes their titles on the web and for mobile phones, with the first and most recent chapters available for free and later published in collections.  Dark Horse Comics, one of the earliest companies to publish manga in the US, announced that CLAMP was doing an original series for them.  TokyoPop had a busy booth, signing up new members for the TokyoPop 2.0 website along with almost continuously running panels there.   Lastly, Yen Press made their first public appearance at the show, announcing that they had taken over Ice Kunion's catalog and they are planning to complete those series. They also announced their plans to launch a new anthology magazine by this time next year, which would feature a new series by Dramacon creator Svetlana Chmakova.

Plus, virtually everyone announced more yaoi titles.  But really, that was no surprise.

San Diego Comic Con is a great convention, but for people who are strictly interested in anime/manga one could hit all of interesting booths in a single day.  Though considering the crowds, getting things done quickly on the exhibitor floor is nearly impossible.  But the pull for for manga fans to attend the show just was not as strong as last year.  Last year was a can't-miss year due to the number and importance of guests, while this year, unless you are a fan of Arina Tanemura or one of the original TokyoPop titles whose creators attended, there simply was not as much of a draw.  Considering the crowds and the difficulty of attending, with all multiple-day passes and most single-day passes selling out prior to the show, it would have been hard to justify attending this year solely for anime/manga reasons.  While it is a great show which can keep you busy for all of its days and and still leave you feeling that there was more to see, its focus is too wide.  In 2008 it may have as many manga guests, or even more, than the 2006 show, so it is convention that you cannot ignore -- but one that you have to keep an eye on to see who is attending.  And if you are interested at all in television, movies and comics, this is the only show to attend.

To read reviews of some of the titles mentioned above, be sure to check out ProsperosManga.com, a review website that I contribute to that is updated Tuesday and Thursday and already has over 200 reviews.