Just wanted to let you know that as was announced just now, I’m going to be reporting for theOtaku on weekdays starting tomorrow. But don’t worry, I’ll be reporting here too - there’ll just be a lot of fun cross-posting going on. Plus theO’s focus is a bit more on games and general announcements, so I’ll be talking about a lot more specific stuff here.

If you didn’t already know about it, theO is a pretty groovy site, one that has a heavy focus on user-submitted content like fanart, wallpapers, and cosplay photos - good stuff all around, so even if you keep up with me here, I recommend checking them out as well. I’m told that they’ve long wanted to have someone offering a bit more focus on their main news/updates page, and I’m happy to oblige ♥

Looks like meme-fan-favorite manga Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji (roughly translates to Record of the Gambling Fallen Angel, Kaiji) is going to get an anime, or so says Ultimatum Talk.

The manga is by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, who is well known in certain image boards fan circles for creating the mahjong manga Akagi. Meanwhile, Kaiji is apparently well-known for its depiction of gambling addictions, even if the art’s a little different from what manga fans are used to.

CMX announced a few new licenses, as well as confirming Crayon Shin-chan:

According to Ultimatum Talk, an anime is being created based on the manga Noramimi, a Doraemon-esque manga set in a world where families have their own mascots, who sort of babysit and entertain the kids. Unfortunately, the titular Noramimi thinks he’s an ogre and isn’t very popular, so he stays at the agency that places mascots with families. He hopes that one day, a family will adopt him. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that one does.

(Awhoops, this was supposed to go up last night. What happened?)

The ADV panel (see liveblog thread) started out with just trailers, then talked about ADV manga a bit. They’ll be announcing some new licenses over the next few months, and they’ll also be collecting Azumanga Daioh into an omnibus edition which will come in a larger trim size, which is pretty groovy.

Jumping back to anime, ADV plans to start putting out much of its new anime in a monthly fashion, starting with Air TV.

Then they announced the film Appleseed EX Machina, which is pretty interesting giving FUNimation’s announcement of Vexille by the team behind the original Appleseed flick. They also plan on putting out a bundle of a bunch of their movies, and that’s pretty much it for ADV announcements.

Edit: Just to clarify, ADV is doing production work on Appleseed EX Machina, i.e. the dubbing - Warner Home Video still presumably has the rights.

Del Rey (see liveblog thread) opened with their new announcements (after some stalling while they got Power Point working), their favorite being Fairy Tail, by Rave Master’s Hiro Mashima.

More exciting to me is Hell Girl (a.k.a. Jigoku Shoujo), whose very attractive but decidedly episodic anime has been licensed by FUNimation. i’m hoping the manga is a little cooler, though the art style looks a bit less to my liking.

More exciting to many of YOU is probably Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the manga based on the very popular DS game. (They’re hoping to have the first volume out around the same time as the next game.)

And finally, Me and the Devil Blues, a manga about the blues singer Robert Johnson, who allegedly sold his soul to the devil to get his blues skills. (In this version, of course, that really did happen).

They also announced a couple of novels: Dark Wars, a continuation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Vampire Hunter D author Hideyuki Kikuchi; and Psycho Busters, a novel by GetBackers author Yuya Aoki, which they also have the manga for.

Aaaand an OEL manga announcement…Yokaiden, a manga by Nina Matsumoto, who you may remember as “spacecoyote” - the artist behind the amaizngly popular “manga Simpsons” fanart.

You want more? How about a manga adaptation of Terry Brooks’ Dark Wraith of Shannara, with art by Edwin David and adaptation by Robert Napton.

I dunno about you, but I’m exhausted just typing all that.

All of FUNimation’s SDCC announcements (see liveblog thread) were movies this time around, and three of the four were live action.

But the biggest news for most anime fans is that they’ve licensed the upcoming film Vexille, the CG-animated film by the team that did the film of Shirow Masamune’s Appleseed. (Did you know that Paul Oakenfeld did the soundtrack for Vexille? ‘Cause I’m not sure I did.)

Also announced are two samurai flicks, Kaze Hana and Love and Honor, as well as the lavish $30 million Japan-Mongolia production of Genghis Khan.

Other than that, the only real news is that the second Cased Closed film will be out in winter, and the One Piece OP and ED have been dubbed. And now, I shall scoot off for Del Rey.

Alrighty, I’m waiting on the FUNimation panel, starting at 2:30 PST (forum thread is here, and I’ve been told that they will announce something significant, so they’ll have a solid trifecta of series from the three big summer cons). In the meantime, here are a few items making the blog rounds:

Publishers Weekly reports that Dark Horse has managed to convince CLAMP to create an original manga for them.

The series will begin in 2009 and be issued in a new format they’re calling “mangettes,” which are 80-page novellas issued every month. So, more of one story than you get in a traditional monthly publication in Japan. They will collect every the “mangettes” into traditional tankobon every few months.

There’s absolutely no word on the content of the new series (there’s a picture, but I think it’s just some CLAMP self-portraits, not new characters, though I could be wrong). But I guess they figure, “it’s CLAMP, who cares?” Still, a very interesting move by CLAMP. I wonder how they got connected to Dark Horse in particular?