New York Comic Con

CMX

As it has since launching, CMX continues to pursue a fairly large quantity of shorter manga series, rather than throwing their lot in with longer multi-volume works. Currently and in the immediate future, these include titles such as Ken Saitō's four-volume shoujo series The Name of the Flower, Izō Hashimoto and Tomoshige Ichikawa's Fire Investigator Nanase, and Jihai, a three-volume science fiction tale by Toshimi Nigoshi, the author of CMX's The Flat Earth Exchange.

March brings the first volume of Mikase Hayashi's March on Earth, a two-volume story of a young girl who was raised by her older sister after her parents passed away and is now being faced with having to do the same for her nephew after the older sister herself dies. On the schedule for April are the first book of Mai Nishikata's five-volume Venus Capriccio romance manga and the one-shot Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, a manga take on the Japanese biographical motion picture that Funimation holds the North American license for. The two companies will work together to cross-promote both the film and the manga volume.

Yūsuke Aso's two-volume light-hearted science fiction/adventure The King of Debris, is set for May, along with Natsuna Kawase's The Lapis Lazuli Crown, the first solo work of a creator who started her career as an assistant to the artist of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeane.

June will see the first of an eventual three volumes of Ballad of a Shinigami, based on the light novels that are available in the U.S.from Seven Seas. And CMX's final upcoming series will be Yunosuke Yoshihara's Broken Blade, their first work in the giant mech combat genre. Both King of Debris, Lapis Lazuli Crown, and Broken Blade have already appeared, linked to CMX, in the listings of online retailers Right Stuf and Amazon, but this is the first time that CMX has formally mentioned them as being licensed.

There were almost no audience questions asked as the panel, one of the last for the night, came to a close. One interesting note that the panelists were able to make, however, had to do with Tenjho Tenge, one of CMX's longest series. Although there are no firm plans yet, s other publishers, such as Viz and Tokyopop have done, they will consider re-releasing it as a set of omnibus books that collect up to three individual volumes.