News

On Monday, anime production and distribution company StarChild announced that the manga series Minami-ke (The Minami House) will be made into an anime. The manga, which is currently serialized in Weekly Young Magazine, follows the everyday lives of three sisters who live on their own and the problems they face in everyday life. The manga was created by Coharu Sakuraba, whose previous work includes the elementary school comedy Today in Class 5-2. Source: Saishin Anime Jōhō

Popular manga to become live-action drama for second time

Comic Party and Murder Princess artist Sekihiko Inui announced at FanimeCon 2007 that he is starting Ratman, a superhero parody manga. Kadokawa's Monthly Shonen Ace has a four-page preview in the current July issue, and the series starts in the August 2007 issue (on sale June 26). Inspired by American comics, Japanese special-effects shows, and Pixar's The Incredibles movie, Ratman depicts a boy who wants to be a superhero, but gets drafted into a supervillain corporation instead. Tokyopop published Comic Party, and Broccoli Books publishes Murder Princess.

Japanese singer-songwriter Izumi Sakai, better known as Zard, died on Sunday of a brain contusion after falling three meters (10 feet) off the landing of a staircase at the Keio University Hospital. She was undergoing treatment for cervical cancer. Sakai, whose real name was Sachiko Kamachi, was 40 years old. The ex-model wrote and performed theme songs for numerous anime projects, including Slam Dunk, Yawara! Special - Zutto Kimi no Koto ga…, Dragon Ball GT, Chuuka Ichiban!, and Detective Conan (Case Closed). Thanks, John. Source: Asahi

On Friday, June 1, Mamoru Oshii's "superlivemation" Tachiguishi Retsuden (Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters) will have its Portuguese premiere, within the film program of the State of the World Cultural Forum. The forum promotes itself as a "place of delivery of all that is 'new' in the cultural context, created through a series of discussions designed to devise a complementary programme of performances, exhibitions and cinema sessions, featuring the state of the world we live in." All showings will be held in Lisbon, at the headquarters of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Tachiguishi is scheduled for 9:30 p.m.

Company chairman accused of assaulting 16-year-old girl interviewing to become a voice actress

Exhibition, manga-writing contest, seminar highlight Japanese popular culture.

The Medallion's Gordon Chan to direct

The inaugural New York Anime Fair, being held at the Jacob Javitz Center in NYC on December 7-9 needs a mascot.

American shōjō manga expert Matt Thorn scheduled to deliver a speech at Japanese symposium on pop culture

Production I.G's English-language website for Le Chevalier D'Eon added an exclusive interview with Kyoji Asano, the series' animation director. In it, Asano talks about the ways in which Chevalier differs from most other I.G series and shares his thoughts on expressing the personalities of the four main characters of Chevalier through their facial expressions. Talks with 11 other members of the Chevalier production staff, including chief writer Yasuyuki Muto, character designer Tomomi Ozaki, and producers Toshio Iizuka and Mariko Seto have been added to the website throughout the year.

Featuring Mari Iijima, Fire Bomber, new Macross project's heroine and trailer

Bandai Entertainment announced at FanimeCon 2007 that it will release CLAMP School Detectives on DVD in North America. The 1997 television anime series was one of the four licenses of Bandai Entertainment's founding videotape lineup in 1998, but it has been the only one of the four without a DVD re-issue until now. The light-hearted comedy features three elementary-school-aged detectives at Clamp School, the elite all-grades campus unique to the story worlds of the female artist quartet CLAMP.

Bandai Visual USA announced at FanimeCon 2007 that it has licensed the Gunbuster vs. Diebuster: Aim for the Top Gattai Movie for release in North America. The 2006 movie "combines" (the English translation for the Japanese word gattai) footage (with some enhancements and new additions) from the original 1988 Gunbuster: Aim for the Top! space adventure video series with the 2004 Gunbuster 2: Aim for the Top! video series. Both video series had been licensed by Bandai Visual USA. Update: Bandai Visual USA says its DVD release will include the same Noriko and Nono figures the Japanese version did. It is working on a possible theatrical release. Thanks, Kimidori.E

Shochiku has made available a 90-second teaser trailer for Piano no Mori here (500kbs). The Madhouse animated movie, based on the eponymous manga, will be released theatrically in Japan on July 21.

SKIN—the freshly minted J-rock group featuring Yoshiki, Gackt, Miyavi, and Sugizo—is scheduled to debut at Anime Expo in 2007. More details are forthcoming.

Anime Expo, Bandai Entertainment, and Kadokawa Pictures USA have announced that the three main Japanese voice actresses and singers of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya comedy anime will appear and perform at Anime Expo 2007. The Guest of Honor appearances of Aya Hirano (Haruhi), Yūko Gotō (Mikuru), and Minori Chihara (Yuki) is part of the "SOS Brigade Invasion Tour" campaign. The three will perform live at 4:30 p.m. PT on Saturday, June 30 at the Long Beach Arena in California. The concert will also include the winners of the Haruhi Dance contest.

Viz Media announced that it will show the first Naruto film, Naruto The Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, in Canadian theatres on one day only, Saturday, June 23. Advance tickets are scheduled to be available today for C$8.95 (children) or C$9.95 (general admission) plus tax at www.cineplex.com and at Cineplex Entertainment theatres. The announcement includes a list of 33 participating theatres. Viz had previously announced the one-day showings in American theatres.

The "Shōjo Manga! Girl Power!" traveling exhibition opens at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Gallery in Minnesota today, May 25, at 7:00 p.m. CT. Associate Professor Masami Toku of California State University, Chico and other directors assembled the work of 23 artists from Osamu Tezuka and Riyoko Ikeda to CLAMP and Fumi Yoshinaga. MCAD's exhibition is open until June 29 and is subtitled "East and West" to reflect the addition of local and Western artwork. Thanks, Sara Pocock.