Happy 4th of July for all you US residents/citizens/whatnot! I'm currently at AnimeExpo 2008 in Los Angeles, CA (USA)! And yet I'm still dedicated for this site...

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PS: If anyone wants to meet me at AX (I'm attending all 4 days), pm me here and leave something like a cell # so that I can locate you within the crowd of 40,000+ people

First, I realize I'm late (again) with the poll. Second, I'm lazy. So here's the easiest poll I could think of within 10 seconds. Just choose your favorite console! (I realize there is no choice of PC or "none". I did that for a reason)

You can discuss this poll on this thread: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=6308
No flame wars please...

Previous Poll Results:
Question: How unrealistic/cliched do you like your manga?
Choices:
Completely realistic and none of those stupid cliches - votes: 300 (3.6%)
It has to seem real, but cliches DO happen in real life all the time! - votes: 1387 (16.9%)
I don't mind some silliness, but the story had better be original - votes: 3764 (45.7%)
Anything goes for me - votes: 2110 (25.6%)
I like my manga as wild and fantastical as possible - votes: 670 (8.1%)
There were 8231 total votes.
The poll ended: June 29th 2008

I guess most of us are expecting some kind of fantasy to happen (hey, it's manga we're talking about), but we love the original plot sequences. Not too many people like the extremes

Sorry for the REALLY late poll this week...I woke up late, had to take a car trip to my grandma's house for lunch (40-ish min drive), then went to a pool birthday party for twins that I know. Busy busy busy~

Member rabookal has suggested this new poll for us! Basically, do you like your manga to mimic real life? Or do you prefer the outrageous and impossible events, including all the cliches like "punk boy falls in love with beautiful princess of the school and actually gets her" or the typical "average male surrounded by tons of girls"...Anyways, you get the point...

Discuss your views on our forum: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=6184

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Select the choice that best represents your feelings
Choices:
Manga > Anime - votes: 4143 (40.7%)
Manga < Anime - votes: 304 (3%)
Manga = Anime - votes: 619 (6.1%)
Depends on the series - votes: 5107 (50.2%)
There were 10173 total votes.
The poll ended: June 21st 2008

As you can definitely see, many people think manga is better than anime (as to be expected as this IS a manga-orientated site). I'm interested to know what would happen if we repeated this poll on our anime side...
But the clear winner is the poll of the choice that it really depends on the series. Some things just show better using animation, whether that be story, fight scenes, kissing scenes, you name it. As for manga, you usually got the original story line without fillers, a lot of room for length and development, among other things.

silverado writes: *MangaMeeya belongs to one of the most popular tools among manga readers. The newest version of MangaMeeya has appeared yesterday on a news site.

Features:
-New: Supports imbracted archives (archives within archives)
-Read Image albums ( Mangas, Comics, or any picture/photo album) in RAR (CBR) or ZIP (CBZ) formats, including password protected ZIP or RAR archives
-Read all common picture formats ( BMP, PNG, GIF, JPG), and can be used a standalone picture viewer
-No installation required
-Extract ZIP and RAR archives

This tool can now be found on here:
http://www.mydailymanga.com/?p=401*

srhisey writes: I ran across a spanish blog site, and with my limited spanish skills determined that [sitelink=authors.html?id=152]Moyoco Anno[/sitelink] was retiring or something. Panic stricken, I rushed to her blog and with online translation services, found that she indeed took hiatus in March due to illness.

To all you men out there, have a happy Father's Day!

And for those of you looking for a present, here's a great gift idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HjQEceCDxw

[color=red]New Mascot Chosen!!!!!!!!![/color]
I am happy to announce that we now have a new mascot!
(Read further for some details of WHAT we're gonna do with this winner! Including official MangaUpdates t-shirts!)

Blakraven66's entry of "MAD J. MU" won by a huge margin (just see the numbers for yourself: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=5823). And now, the winning entry on display!
[img]http://www.mangaupdates.com/poll_images/fullsize/p35.jpg[/img]

And for his personal background info:
Name: MAD J. MU (the name comes from the first letter of the first names of me, both my parents and my four little brothers + MU as the last name)
Work: Drawing on MS paint with mouse - 8 minutes, Coloring on Adobe Photoshop CS2 - 15 minutes
Inspiration: Gir from Invader Zim
Character design goes to my little brothers (yup, they're twins) anima-xiii from DevArt
How represents MU: loves manga to the point of insanity, He is what he is because he was made from different parts just as the MU community is made up of different people
Example:
[img]http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii246/blakraven66/MU2.jpg[/img]

Now, I bet you guys are wondering what we're gonna do with our new mascot, eh? Hopefully within the next 2 months, we will have a new site design that features this mascot! (possible color changes though...). So just hang in tight and you'll be seeing this baby everyone soon~

And maybe some of you remembered, but we are getting t-shirts for MangaUpdates! They will of course feature our winner~ More information on that later though...(Personally, I'm hoping they'll be ready in time for AnimeExpo in early July, but that's probably not gonna happen 🙁 )

Edit: To clarify, we will be selling the t-shirts online. The part about AnimeExpo was my hopes that they be ready by the time of AnimeExpo, which is July 3-6

Well, seeing as this IS a manga site...I'm kinda expecting biased answers, but oh well. Let's see how it goes!

Come and discuss it on our forums here: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=6080

Previous Poll Results:
Question: When do you tend to read manga?
Choices:
24/7, except for eating and sleeping - votes: 1022 (11.6%)
During the day (at school, work, etc) - votes: 443 (5%)
After I come home (from school, work, etc) - votes: 3148 (35.7%)
In the middle of the night when it's nice and quiet (and no one's watching...) - votes: 1146 (13%)
Only when I have time - votes: 782 (8.9%)
Random times when I get the "urge" - votes: 2267 (25.7%)
There were 8808 total votes.
The poll ended: June 14th 2008

Results are what I expected from a typical audience. Not a lot of us can do our favorite things 24/7...Still though, you get that "urge", but there's no manga near you at the time! What happens then? 🙁
Still though, quite a lot of people like to read manga at the dead hours of the night. Maybe they just like the horror stuff and want a scare, haha

Anonymous writes: *In two consecutive issues, two series were abruptly ended in Shonen Sunday. In Issue #26, Marine Hunter ended with a total of 49 chapters and in Issue #27, Dive!! ended with a total of 48 chapters.

Also, a translated spoiler from 2Ch, http://sanzaki-kojika.livejournal.com/24881.html , about InuYasha reads that chapter 558 will be the last chapter, meaning that InuYasha will end in Issue #29, June 18th, after a 12 year run.*

It's Saturday, and time for a new poll!
Question: When do you tend to read manga?
This lovely poll was suggested quite a while ago by our member b1ue_wishes.

You can discuss this poll on our forums at: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=5956

Previous Poll Results:
Question: How often do you check websites (such as this one) for new scanlated manga releases?
Choices:
Constantly at least every hour (either manually or using an RSS feed or other automated method) - votes: 941 (11.4%)
Many times a day - votes: 4237 (51.3%)
Once a day - votes: 1757 (21.3%)
Maybe once a week - votes: 419 (5.1%)
I check whenever I remember - votes: 901 (10.9%)
There were 8255 total votes.
The poll ended: June 7th 2008

A majority of us fans check quite often for new releases...Glad you love our site!