Comments on: REVIEW: Harlequin’s revamped manga line; A Prince Needs a Princess by Barbara McMahon and Reiko Kishida

By: Suzie

Suzie — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:19:59 +0000

Wait, I read it wrongly (sorry) :( Actually they do use 2nd hand paper but they don’t color it on purpose. The paper, which is made from scraps of paper like old newspapers, printing offsets etc is originally colored. :)

By: Suzie

Suzie — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:12:17 +0000

They use coloured ink in Japanese manga magazines because they use second-hand paper, so they tint the pages to camouflage the fact they’re 2nd hand paper. Also since the color changes with every story, it makes it easy to remember up to where you read, you don’t need a bookmark =) (since the magazines are big 400 to 1000 pages, they can take a few days to read)

Here is a link where they epxlain it in detail:

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:00:24 +0000

[quote comment="24626"]I’ve seen Harlequin Pink manga for sale at Wal-mart. It’s with the rest of the YA stuff in the book section, not with the adult romance.[/quote]

That’s really interesting! I’ve not been in a real store and looked for them. I wonder if Harlequin has made deals with Walmart and others to stock them that way? Though I know that can simply be the judgment of the store employees. There are bookstores I’ve heard of that misguidedly shelve yaoi in gay/lesbian studies, and I know the publishers didn’t ask for that.

By: Meril

Meril — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:39:06 +0000

Yes, the pink was a definite turnoff in me buying anything out of this line. It bugs me enough in the Japanese magazines. At least when most of those manga are collected, they’re printed in normal black!

I’ve seen Harlequin Pink manga for sale at Wal-mart. It’s with the rest of the YA stuff in the book section, not with the adult romance.

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:32:05 +0000

[quote comment="24604"]Oh hey, slightly OT but I went and bought Train Man on your rec. Absolutely loved it. Adorable! My kids love it too. Gonna get the rest in the series now. Thanks![/quote]

^__^ That’s so great to hear! One thing I love about manga is how it bridges the generation gap. You start reading it and suddenly you become “cool” with the kids in your family and new paths of communication open up. Hopefully you’ll find some other series to share too. Some of the ones I’ll be talking about here might be suitable (though some will not). All will be clearly identified for age groups though.

By: Ann Wesley Hardin

Ann Wesley Hardin — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:53:07 +0000

Oh hey, slightly OT but I went and bought Train Man on your rec. Absolutely loved it. Adorable! My kids love it too. Gonna get the rest in the series now. Thanks!

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:10:35 +0000

Yep. They must have done a study and ended up using some whacked out middle schoolers who wanted to trick them and said “Oh yeah pink ink is cool, especially *flirty pink ink*”.

To be honest, the manga phonebook anthologies in Japan (called phone books because they’re about 600 pages of phonebook style paper) use colored ink for some of their stories. Most are printed in black, but then you come across stories in purple, blue, red, and green prints. They tend to be the lower quality stories in each edition. I don’t know if those pages are cheaper, or what drives that. I find it really annoying though because the print is usually not as sharp, and not as easy to read, so I’d rather not see the tradition continued here.

By: Keishon

Keishon — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:54:36 +0000

Are they serious with the pink? Ugh.

By: Dionne Galace » Blog Archive » Why I Shouldn’t Have a Credit Card

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:12:03 +0000

[...] brooding, glowering tycoon or sheikh looking like Tuxedo Mask. That is hot. Inspired by Jan’s review of a Harlequin Ginger Blossom, I decided to hot-foot it to eharlequin.com and buy a few of my own. [...]