News

Cathy Yardley, a writer of women's fiction (a genre known in the publishing industry as "chick lit"), has signed a deal with Thomas Dunne Books for Turning Japanese, a novel about a half-Japanese, half-Italian American manga artist who "wins a year-long internship at a Tokyo manga publisher." Yardley herself is an American of Vietnamese and Irish decent who has previously written stories featuring characters of Asian or half-Asian descent. Her profiles and interviews describe her as a manga and anime fan who researched her book in a trip to Japan in 2005. Source: Sharon Cullars' Publisher's Lunch report via MangaBlog

No anime among top ten programs parents want to show children

Follow-Up: Xinhua reports that a Chinese publisher of the Death Note manga is defying Beijing's municipal ban of what the Chinese city calls "illegal terrifying publications." An unnamed Hualing Publishing House spokesperson told Xinghua that "I want to make it clear that we have official approval to publish, and we will continue to do so." However, Searchina reports that public relations department of Shueisha, the official Japanese publisher, responded by saying, "Those are the so-called 'pirated versions.'" The department adds, "Since our company has absolutely nothing to do with them, we have no comment."

Team AVCon have opened preregistration for AVCon07: The Rock Show. Tickets can be purchased online and are also avaliable at Shin Tokyo and Pulp Fiction Comics.

Follow-Up: After Viz Media announced in April that Shojo Beat magazine will excerpt and translate Osamu Tezuka's Princess Knight, ANN readers noted that Kodansha had published six bilingual volumes of Princess Knight in Japan. Shojo Beat Editor-in-Chief Marc Weidenbaum points out that Kodansha translated the revised version of Princess Knight that Nakayoshi magazine published from 1963 to 1966. He adds, "That's a decade after the original Tezuka Princess Knight, which ran in Shojo Club magazine from 1953 to 1956. And it is this original, 1953 version that we are excited to publish in Shojo Beat in the July 2007 [issue], marking the magazine's second anniversary."

Item mislabeled as "Sailor Moon Sailor Stars: The Complete Official Boxset"

Talent drain, stagnant DVD sales forcing studios to consider innovative partnerships and arrangements

Keisuke Itagaki garners two spots with Hanma Baki, Garōden

Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal has won the 2006 Eagle Award for Best Manga, as nominated by website submissions and voted by attendees of the 2007 Bristol International Comic Expo in the United Kingdom. The awards ceremony was on May 12, and the other nominees were Death Note, Naruto, Priest, and Battle Royale. The Eagle Awards organizers describe their awards as "the comic industry's longest established awards." (The Kirby, Eisner, and Harvey Awards began in the middle of the 1980s, after the first Eagle Awards in 1976.) Source: Comic Book Resources via MangaBlog

Bandai Japan's website for its Treasure Gaust toyline has announced that the anime tie-in series will debut during TV Tokyo's OhaSta ("Good Morning Studio") kids variety program on June 11 on Mondays at 6:45 a.m. The toyline has kids using Geiger-counter-like devices to hunt for creatures called "Gaust" (a combination of the magnetic flux unit "gauss" and "ghost") in the form of electromagnetic fields in everyday life. Similar to Pokémon, Treasure Gaust will spin off a Treasure Gaust: Gaust Diver Nintendo DS game in Japan on July 5 in two versions, "Crimson Red" and "Deep Blue." Source: Moon Phase

Mamoru Oshii is writing a live-action film for Battle Royale II: Requiem director Kenta Fukasaku and Toei. The tentatively titled Rebellion: The Killing Isle will star an unnamed Japanese actress as an Asian refugee leader fighting the police of a near-future Japan. In addition to his Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor credits, Oshii co-wrote The Red Spectacles and Stray Dog live-action films. Fukusaku, the son of the first Battle Royale movie's director (Kinji Fukusaku), directed the Sukeban Deka movie remake. The movie will also feature Taiwanese actor Dylan Kuo and Korean director of photography Kim Sung-bok. Source: Screen Daily

The May issue of Shinkoshan's Wings magazine has ended Mineko Ohkami's Dragon Knights manga. First serialized in 1990, the manga has twenty-five volumes in Japan so far. Tokyopop releases Dragon Knights in the US. On the other hand, Akita Shoten's Champion Red Ichigo announced the June 5 launch of Vita Sexualis, a new manga from My-Hime and My-Otome creator Hiroyuki Yoshino. Tatsuto Higuchi, who wrote the My-Otome manga, will also work on Vita Sexualis, and Kenetsu Satou, who drew both previous manga, is set to continue as the artist. Source: Wings and Champion Red Ichigo via Comi Press

Akira, Honneamise, Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor discs to get English dubs/subs

Hong Kong bootleggers caught with over 40,000 pirated DVDs

Animania has a report on their latest Melbourne event avaliable on their website.

Manifest will be having a stall at Japan Festival 2007. The event is on Sunday the 20th of May at the Box Hill Town Hall and TAFE.

Production I.G has posted the third part of an English-translated interview with director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor: The Movie, Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer) on the Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters section of its website. Tachigui is his hybrid live-action/animation ("superlivemation") film in which his animator friends play characters who freeload off street food vendors.

Ultimatum reports that the latest Haruhi novel and the tenth volume of the Ghost Hunt manga has been delayed in Japan. A note on Kadokawa's website has confirmed that Suzumiya Haruhi no Kyōgaku (The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya), the ninth sequel to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya light novel that started the franchise, has been pushed from June 1 to an unlisted date "due to various circumstances." The tenth volume of the Ghost Hunt paranormal detective manga has also been delayed in Japan from May 25 to an undetermined date.

Follow-up: Chara*Mel, Ichijinsha's new Japanese magazine on game and anime bishōjo characters, has unveiled its mascot character "Mel" as designed by Kōsuke Fujishima (Ah My Goddess, Sakura Wars), and announced that she will star in a serialized novel. The Mel the Quasar serialization takes place in the near future and will begin in the first issue of Chara*Mel, which is scheduled for June 25. The magazine will also feature the Tōhō Bōgetsushō: Cage in Lunatic Runagate novel serialization. Tōhō Bōgetsushō is the latest spinoff based on the Tōhō Project shooter games from dōjin software creator ZUN. Source: Saikin Anime Jōhō

The Viz website for the Death Note suspense anime television series briefly included a link to an English-dubbed trailer on May 10. The site has since removed the front page link to the trailer, but the trailer video is still hosted on the site. The English voice actor of the lead character, Light, apparently narrates the video. May 10 was the official debut of the English subtitled version on Direct2Drive. Thanks, Starks.