Moon Phase has the word on an anime adaptation of Kurozuka, Baku Yumemakura and Takashi Noguchi’s 2002 manga about a pair of immortals named Kurou and Kuromitsu who fall in love and, over the course of a thousand years, fall apart again. (Apparently the manga is an adaptation of Yumemakura’s novel; he also wrote the Onmyouji series, about Abe no Seimei.)

The announcement was made on Animax’s website, which also mentions a date for Kurozuka and for the previously announced Ultraviolet: Code 044 anime: July 1st.

Aaaaaaaand in this corner, we have Slayers REVOLUTION! Moon Phase’s link has an image that tells us nothing about the new series (at first I was like, “Sylphiel’s coming back? Shit!”). The images are actually the first few covers for a re-release of the Slayers novels by Hajime Kanzaka. Do want! *scours Amazon for the Tpop releases in the meantime*

The novel Bakemonogatari– written by NisiOisiN, who wrote the xxxHOLiC and Death Note novels as well as the Zaregoto series, which is part of Del Rey’s Faust project, and who I’ve heard 2ch’ers suspect is merely a pen name of Death Note creator Tsugumi Ohba –may be snagging an anime adaptation, according to Moon Phase.

The novel is actually a two-volume series of five short stories that apparently feature a lot of otaku in-jokes, although of a more classic nature than, say, Lucky Star’s constant Haruhi references. The general plot is that a nice guy meets a tsundere, hinjinks ensue, etc, but with a few twists…he’s apparently an ex-vampire, for example.

The title, by the way, is a play on words– “bakemono” being monster and “monogatari” being story, they’ve been fused to translate roughly, I suppose, to “Monster Story.” (Perhaps more appropriately…MonStory?) Anyway, apparently the second printing of the second volume included a seal announcing the anime.

Heard back from a T-pop rep on the Kino no Tabi cancellation et al. Apparently it’s all not true; Kino no Tabi has not been dropped and Slayers 9+ is not being published at this time. Apologies for the error, but hey, it’s good news for you Kino fans!

According to the official website for the Vampire Knight anime, a new original novel within the series’ world was released on the same day as the 7th volume of the manga (April 5th).

The novel features Aido-senpai (as opposed to the actual main characters), and the novel’s title is Vampire Knight: Ice Blue no Tsumi (or The Sin of Ice Blue). It was drawn by Vampire Knight mangaka Matsuri Hino, and it looks like the writer was Ayuna Fujisaki, who wrote screenplays for the ARIA anime (all of ‘em), the composition for Night Wizard, and also the second episode of Saiunkoku Monogatari.

Sooo. Do you guys wanna start sucking up to VIZ, or shall I? (Although given that it only took two releases for Vampire Knight to become one of the top properties of ‘07, I doubt they would even consider NOT publishing it…)

The Anime Chronicle had word– but oddly, deleted it –linking to a report from Slayers News that notes that a manga of Slayers Revolution is in the works. The manga will be drawn by Issei Hyouju, best known for the manga Armored Core Tower City Blade, and it’ll run in Dragon Age starting in May.

Yipe, that’s soon! I think they mean the issue coming out in May, not the “May issue,” since the May issue just hit stands yesterday and there’s no mention of Slayers being in it.

Some of you may remember that I reported on the strange matter of Yaoi House, a western BL publisher whose owner surrendered all her shares to the shareholders. On that thread I’ve received a couple of comments from a Rev. Tyler Grosset, who is a shareholder and now Yaoi House LLC’s web services head.

The company has (re?)launched its online shop, where you can buy individual books or a regular membership subscription for access to chapter-by-chapter updates of all of the company’s works. They’re also looking for more authors, so if you have a BL novel in you, you might consider getting in touch with them (although writer guidelines and whatnot don’t seem to be available on the new site yet).

Moon Phase links us to this blog entry, which features an image from Dengeki Bunko announcing that the incredibly popular Toradora! light novels are being made into an anime.

In Toradora!, our hero is Ryuuji Takasu, who looks like a delinquent even though he’s not one, which makes it hard for him to have friends. On his first day of school he’s glad to be in class with his best friend and his crush, but then he literally runs into his new problem: Taiga Aisaka, a young woman who takes an instant dislike to Ryuuji but turns him into her servant anyway (*cough*).

Shounen romance? You betcha. No studio or air date info yet.

Got a new press release from Juné announcing five new yaoi novel licenses:

• Passion - Forbidden Lovers by Shinobu Gotoh and Shoko Takaku who, yes, also did the manga.
• The Guilty by Katsura Izumi and Hinako Takanaga– Takanaga illustrations? Yes please! It’s also allegedly “reminiscent of Love Recipe,” which is funny since a title like The Guilty doesn’t match up with a wacky comedy like Love Recipe at all in my head.
• All You Need is Love by Jinko Fuyuno and Noboru Takatsuki. No licensed titles from either of these, but apparently Takatsuki has done a bunch of work for boys love eroge like Silver Chaos and Fuyuno is pretty proliferate.
• Dark Walker by Hikaru Yura and Hirotaka Kisaragi; no talk about the creators, but it sounds like a supernatural romance to me (vampires plzkthx?).
• Secret Moon by Siira Gou and Sato Tomoe, more newcomers to the US BL industry. And hey, this one DOES feature a vampire. Score!

The Yomiuri reports on Japanese mystery novelist Jiro Akagawa’s 500th novel being published. Which of his novels is actually the 500th is debatable, though: one critic says it’s the recently-released Draculajo no Butokai (The Ball at Castle Dracula); Akagawa himself says that the novel Mikeneko Homuzu no Sawakai (Calico Cat Holmes’ Tea Party) is actually the 500th.

Either way, holy SHIT that’s a lot of goddamn books. 10-20 a year, according to the Yomiuri’s count. And then there are two other novelists in Japan who have written 432 books. What’s up with these workaholics?