What the fuck is up with Viz Media‘s incredible slacking lately? While many of their titles come out on a bimonthly basis, or a triannual basis (for those manga that are serialized in Shonen Jump magazine), they’ve got popular properties that they’ve seemingly thrown to the wind. Take two that I just happen to read: Hikaru no Go and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Now, Hikaru no Go used to be serialized in Shonen Jump, so the collected volumes came out every few months to collect the chapters that had been released. However, a few months ago, its serialization ended, likely due to declining popularity. The volumes are still on a long schedule, though. If the book’s not doing so well on the popularity front…how about getting the remaining volumes out on a regular basis to drum up interest? The US release of the Hikaru no Go anime was cancelled after only half the series was released on DVD, so future prospects are admittedly looking grim.

With Fullmetal Alchemist, the situation’s even worse. This is a series that’s remained very popular, and the volumes used to come out bimonthly. Starting last fall, Viz shifted to a longer schedule, for some unknown reason. Volume 16 came out in March of 2008…and Volume 17 isn’t due out until at least October! That makes no sense whatsoever; what’s causing these ridiculous delays? The series is popular, but this now semiannual schedule is going to tank it. I know the series was catching up to the Japanese releases, but there’s still a disparity present.

These dead stretches are only going to cost the company readership. You know things are getting bad when you can barely remember what happened in the last volume, because it came out six damn months ago.