Yep! These past few days have seen me up to my eyeballs in Judo, specifically.. The Olympic Judo competition being held in Beijing! As a result I haven't been keeping up with the various blogs and newsites I usually follow. In fact I'm even sacrificing anime watching for it! I'm missing tonight's episodes of Gurren Lagann and Now and Then in favor of getting some blogging and message boarding done before I settle in for Olympic stuff.

Who knew I was such a sports buff? I'm not, I just really enjoy watching the Olympics. Plus I'm on a bit of a Judo kick after watching a fantastic MMA match that featured a heavy use of Judo in it.. anyway.

Manga Recon's going through some changes, and one of them has been the introduction of the Manga Mini's as a weekly item instead of a monthly one! It kicked off this past Friday, Manga Mini's 08/08/08, with reviews of Antique Gift Shop, Her Majesty's Dog and more! In addition, newcomer Michelle Smith cranks out a review of Slam Dunk! vol. 1. There are, of course, more reviews, news items and more, so make with the clickee!

Elsewhere Otakon was taking place annnnnd... nothing came out of it that really interested me. This is happening alot and I'm starting to wonder if I'm burnt out or if my tastes are simply too narrow? Seriously, the only tidbit that really caught my attention was the news that Ninja Scroll 2 is still in the pipeline just.. not very far along in it.

There are some interesting things happening on some message boards though. An on-again-off-again thread on ANN, OEL Manga Jumping the Shark, has heated up recently and taken some rather odd turns. It's a step away from descending into a flame war and is kind of amusing to read.

In their Talkback section, the response thread to the news of Manga not dominating the July Graphic Novels sales chart leads to a weird discussion about superhero comics and people's perception of the American comics scene as a result of it.

In non-message board flame war happenings.. Manga Village is undergoing some changes of its own as well! The full info can be found in this entry at Manga Xanadu and include a shift to daily reviews rather than weekly, plus a new monthly colum and more. Go take a looksee.

That's it for now, hopefully either some more interesting news will pop up or I'll get over my manga/anime ennui soon.