VOTE: SEARCH AND DESTROY
You can help us win an American Manga Award! Plus Tezuka doc, Wandering Cat's Cage, and more.
Hi all, Christopher here. It’s weird to write one of these when I have so many things to say and it’s been a while, but I can’t say everything in the same email because it’d be 5000 words. So let me say instead: I’m so happy to be writing to all y’all reading here, it’s been a while, and the machine is slowly starting to wind back up for Mangasplaining and Mangasplaining Extra.
Today I’m here to tell you about three things:
Search and Destroy is nominated for the American Manga Awards!
There’s a Tezuka documentary coming out and I think S&D fans will dig it
Our next book, Wandering Cat’s Cage by Akane Torikai, is coming soon!
So let’s get to it. Next week (really, though) we’ll talk about some more cool stuff.
VOTE: SEARCH AND DESTROY
Just a few weeks ago we were delighted to receive the news that SEARCH AND DESTROY by Atsushi Kaneko, based on the manga Dororo by Osamu Tezuka, was nominated for “Best Continuing Manga Series” at the American Manga Awards. We’re very thankful for the nomination, and I speak for the entire team of Kaneko-sensei, translator Ben, and letterer Phil, when I say “I hope the third time’s the charm.” :)
We need your vote! Voting is now open for professionals working in and around the manga industry, and we’d love for you to vote and we’d love it if you’d consider voting for us.
What does “manga professionals” mean in this context? Well it looks like a LONG list of folks are eligible to vote, including Editors, Publishers, Translation & Localization professionals, Lettering professionals, Design and production professionals (print and digital) and more. And according to the website, “Owners and managers of comics shops and bookstores, comics historians and educators, literary agents, and graphic novel librarians are welcome to apply to be voters for these awards.”
Looking at our broad range of subscribers I’d say a TON of you are eligible, so please head over to the website to vote (or register to vote) ASAP, as voter registration closes on Monday, July 20 at 5:00 pm ET. If you’re already registered, then please vote before the voting period ends, on Monday, July 27 at 5:00 pm ET.
https://animenyc.com/american-manga-awards/nominees/
Speaking of awards, we actually received a pretty cool honor earlier this summer! Translator Ben Applegate and I attended the inaugural comics awards for the ALA GNCRT (American Library Association Graphic Novel and Comics Round Table), which honored SEARCH AND DESTROY as an honoree (runner-up) for Best Series for Adults. Kaneko-sensei even provided this quote which ran on screen at the awards and in the virtual program guide:
He also sent a video but I’m not sure if we’re allowed to share it here. I’ll check and get back to you. But it was a really lovely night and I’m happy we could be a part of it.
THERE’S A NEW TEZUKA DOC - HERE’S AN EXCLUSIVE CLIP!
In other Tezuka-related news, there’s a crowdfunding campaign for a new documentary that’s going live any minute now called TEZUKA! GOD OF MANGA. The doc features a ton of interviews with folks who will be familiar to Mangasplaining listeners, including Katsuhiro Otomo (AKIRA), Go Nagai (Devilman), Toshiyuki Tomino (Gundam), and Naoki Urasawa (PLUTO) among many talented others. You can check out this Kickstarter campaign here.
Some of our friends are working on promoting this documentary and they set us up with an exclusive preview clip to share with the Mangasplaining audience, and it features Frederik Schodt, author of Manga! Manga!, which we covered on one of our more recent episodes. Schodt is also the translator of Phoenix which we infamously covered in a weird but fun podcast episode early in our run, and which is getting a new edition next year(!). Frederik Schodt is also someone who worked closely with Tezuka back in the day, and so he’s got some pretty deep insight into the man/God, which he’ll share in this documentary. Please enjoy this 2-minute preview of the doc:
I like that Schodt mentions the Tezuka Museum in Takarazuka, I really love that place. So much memorabilia dedicated to a cartoonist—warms the heart.
Go check out the Kickstarter now, it seems like there are some pretty cool rewards… in addition to the reward of getting an interesting new documentary. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tezuka/tezuka-god-of-manga?ref=dj81ze
WANDERING CAT’S CAGE IS COMING SOON
Our next print book is finally, FINALLY almost here. Wandering Cat’s Cage by Akane Torikai, is making its way to bookshops this fall courtesy of Takumigraphics and Fantagraphics — on October 27, 2026 to be precise. As you can see in the above photo, the advance copies are actually printed, it’s actually happening!
I have to confess, the delays on the book mainly lay at my feet as I wanted to make sure to really put in some extra work to make it something special. I’m pretty confident it’s going to be one of the best packages of manga to come out in 2026, matching the fantastic story crafted by Torikai-sensei, translated by Jocelyne Allen, lettered by Sara Linsley, and edited by Debora Aoki and Kristy Valenti, with a pass and a polish by me.
As mentioned the book is due in bookstores on October 27th, 2026, and you can pre-order it wherever there are books including Fantagraphics, The Beguiling, Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.
For those of you new to the newsletter, here’s what the story is about:
In Akane Torikai’s Wandering Cat’s Cage, it is the near future. Only a few women are still able to menstruate, and even fewer men will be born to them. Reproduction is limited to medical intervention controlled from on high, and the structures and lives of the past hold no weight: they are only hinted at through the remaining scraps of a world that no longer exists.
Life can be good, though, if you fall in line, and the women of The City live bright, happy, tightly controlled lives. But complete obedience isn’t for everyone. For the women across the river, who live in a rundown shantytown, viewing the opulence of the city from afar each night, life is different. It is humble, and often dangerous, but it is free.
It is here that Sanada, a young acupuncturist, lives with the mysterious Reiho, the only male she’s ever met, and who sells himself to the rich women who sneak across the river for something they’ve never experienced …The two form a small “family,” taking in other young women ousted from the city. But a real, living, breathing male might be too precious to leave to the shabby streets.
When Reiho is kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to the breeding program in the city, Sanada must join with the other outcasts to try and rescue him, and learn the difficult truths of love, self-actualization, society, community, safety, and the future itself.
The TL;DR is “A reverse Handmaid’s Tale set in South East Asia with gorgeous art.”
Subscribers can still read the story online for a little while longer, so start at the free chapter 1 to get a sense of what it’s all about.
Thanks to everyone for their patience and support while we put this book together, I can’t wait to see a copy and share photos of the books when we get them! :D
Okay, that’s this week’s three things to talk about. Thanks so much for reading!
Before I go I will say, btw, that I wanted the Takumigraphics title above On Their Frontlines to be an MSX book, but we moved a little too slow on it and Fantagraphics had already acquired it! It joins the list of “honorary” MSX titles for me, and I recommend you throw a copy in your cart if you’re up for a particularly devastating read.
Christopher Woodrow-Butcher