March, 2008

According to posts on 2ch, PEACH-PIT's popular seinen manga Rozen Maiden, which was discontinued last year in Gentosha's Comic BIRZ, will resume serialization in issue 20 of Shueisha's Young Jump (4/17).

From comics212 comes an interview Alvin Lu, Viz Media's Vice President, who talks about bringing Kazuo Umezu's manga Cat-Eyed Boy over to the U.S.

Celebrating Shonen Sunday's and Shonen Magazine's 50th anniversary, Kodansha an Shogakukan are collaborating on a variety of special features.

In order to keep the English fans up-to-date on the special features and events, Rumic World has created a special page to keep track of everything that's coming out, as well as translations of the press conference and others.

GB Shuppan has released the first issue of a full-color bishoujo manga anthology titled Comic Comomo (コミック小桃) on March 20th. Due to various circumstances, the magazine's release date was delayed from February 20th to March 20th. The magazine contains adult content and is aimed at males.

A Comic Comomo "volume 0" was released during last winter's Comic Market 73.

Libre Shuppan and MediaWorks are launching a new yaoi light novel label titled B-Prince Bunko on April 7th.

According to the report, publication planning and editing will be handled by Libre Shuppan, while ASCII MediaWorks will handle publishing and the novels will be sold through Kadokawa Group Publishing.

Source: LightNovel.org

According to ANN, Square Enix has sold over 30 million copies of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist manga in Japan:

The promotional sleeve wrapper on the 19th volume of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist manga announced that the series has sold over 30 million copies in Japan. Arakawa began drawing the "dark fantasy" manga in Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine in 2001, and Viz Media has been publishing the manga in North America.

The first Anime Blog Awards is now underway:

The Anime Blog Awards is a bridge to highlight the best blogs in their various genres. We hope that the awards can celebrate the excellence of great anime blogs within the anime blogosphere. We also believe that this award will fulfill its desire to promote new or excellent blogs that should be given more attention.

To vote for your favorite blog, you need to own or contribute to a blog yourself. Nominations will end on April 22nd. Included in the award is a category for manga blogs. Go here for more rules.

According to an article from the Associated Press, Borders announced on Thursday that it may put itself up for sale:

Shares in Borders tumbled more than 39 percent as the nation's second-largest bookseller said it was considering options including the sale of the company or certain divisions, and that it had lined up $42.5 million in financing to help it keep running through the year.

Borders cut back on its graphic novel division early last year after the departure of Kurt Hassler.

The top 15 manga (February - March 08) in France according to BdZoom:

  1. Naruto (34)
  2. Death Note (8)
  3. Samurai Deeper Kyo (37)
  4. Satan 666 (14)
  5. Naruto (33)
  6. One Piece (41)
  7. Bleach (25)
  8. Mär Omega (1)
  9. Death Note (1)
  10. Naruto (1)
  11. Sugar Sugar Rune (7)
  12. Death Note (7)
  13. Death Note (2)
  14. Naruto (2)
  15. Naruto (32)

From Icarus Publishing's blog comes a preview (NSFW) of the adult manga that are shipping in April 2008 based on Diamond Previews.

Tokyopop has launched a "I-Manga Music Video Mash Up Contest," which asks its participant to remix scenes from two of Tokyopop's more popular manga into music videos.

The winning video will receive an Apple Video iPod packed with Tokyopop music and all of the i-manga webisodes, as well as being featured on the TOKYOPOP TV YouTube page. The contest ends March 23rd, rules can be found here.

From About.com:Manga comes an interview with Madeleine Rosca, artist of Seven Seas' Hollow Fields and recipient of an honorable mention in Japan's First International Manga Awards organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One of the Biggest Talents of Anime and Video Games Comes to Nation's Largest Convention

Anaheim, California (March 20, 2008) ‹ Famed American voice actor and writer David Hayter is the latest addition to the hottest line up of Anime Expo® 2008 Guests of Honor for the highly anticipated 2008 convention July 3-6, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. More information can be found on the website www.anime-expo.org.

Read More »

The following manga appeared on the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending March 16th:

ANN reports that Shueisha has launched Ultra Jump Egg, an online spinoff of its Ultra Jump manga magazine:

The website has begun serializing the first manga installments of Rabian Ekusutasu by Toshiki Inoue (Galaxy Angel anime) and Mario Kaneda (Girls Bravo), Neko-Kyuu9 by Kaishaku (Steel Angel Kurumi), Hana-Yome Han by Yukimaru Katsura (Air, Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~), 9-Shinohara's manga adaptation of Ishio Yamagata's Tatakau Shisho to Koi Suru Bakudan light novels, Saikyō Mahō Shōjo Akira by Rco Wada, and Bunka-bu o Ikutsu ka by F4U.

Manga romances to be available to cell phone and Internet users

TORONTO, March 20 -- Harlequin Enterprises Limited, the global leader in series romance and one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction, announced today an agreement by their Japanese operation, Harlequin K.K., to provide digital manga content to SoftBank Creative of SoftBank Group, one of the largest providers of cell phone services in Japan.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080320/NYTH007-a )
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080320/NYTH007-b )

Read More »

Brazilian manga publisher JBC Publishing has licensed two new titles: Hellsing and Train Man. No information regarding the price and release formats has been released so far..

Source: Papo de Budega

According to Mangaoh, Kadokawa Shoten will be releasing a book titled Type-Moon Ace on April 21st that will feature many Type-Moon-related works. According to the book's description, there will be 2 Fate/zero comics, as well as a manga titled All Around Type-Moon that will feature all of the female Type-Moon characters.

Type-Moon Ace will come with extra goodies, such as the Fate/zero CD case and the Type-Moon school calender.

Source: New Akiba

Japanese manga publisher Hakusensha will be launching a new josei manga magazine titled Jossie on April 8th. According to Hakusensha, Jossie will be an "brand-new happy romance manga magazine."

Fusosha is also launching a new josei magazine. The first issue of the new magazine, titled Malika, will be released on April 28th.

Source: Ultimatum

Gardena, CA, March 19, 2008 - Digital Manga Publishing, one of the industry's most innovative manga licensing and publishing companies, has announced the debut of five new novels under its Juné imprint for Fall 2008!

Read More »

According Mainichi Daily News, McDonald in Japan is conducting a campaign from March 17 to April 3 (to promote its upcoming line of "over-sized burgers") that will have customers appear in the manga Dokaben by Shinji Mizushima:

Those who access a special site from their mobile phones or PC can play a game, with winners entitled to enter the draw to become a character in a "Dokaben" story drawn by Shinji Mizushima for Shukan Shonen Champion manga magazine.

Via: MangaBlog

ICv2 has released the February 2008 top 100 graphic novel sales estimates and the top 300 comics sales estimates based on Diamond Indexes and Publisher Title Data. Also from ICv2 is an analysis of the trends in December based on the graphic novel sales chart.

In order to provide better coverage of the upcoming Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF) 2008, Anime News Network has launched a new "Japan Blog":

Read More »