VIZ has a big announcement on the way, and apparently it involves Kubo– as in Tite Kubo, creator of Bleach.

Gonna hazard a guess and say Kubo is probably going to be guesting at a convention, and I’m gonna go even crazier and say it’ll probably be Anime Expo. It could be Otakon, but let’s face it, California is closer to Japan and VIZ is in California as well, albeit the northern half. I suppose it could also be New York Anime Fest– VIZ did have a reasonable presence at NYCC and is, of course, very involved with the Kinokuniya store there –but it seems a little early for that.

Time will tell!

World Screen News reports that VIZ Media has worked out a deal to release Death Note and Bleach– both anime and manga –in Italy and Germany with The Licensing Machine, a division of Panini Comics, a European comics publisher that also translates and publishes licensed works, e.g. manga.

Last time I went to Italy I kept seeing Kodomo no Omocha on TV. The time before that there was this really popular music video for a song called “Regina del Celebrita” by a group called 883, and the video featured an anime chick who was, by the way, oddly reminiscent of Lum. (Hey look! YouTube has it!)

Anyway, my point is, I look forward to crazy-ass Italian dubbing of Bleach and Death Note next time I find myself in Rome or something.

According to Anime Nation, VIZ will be soliciting both the anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster and the anime of Hunter x Hunter at an upcoming conference, which proves once and for all that they have a license for them (it’s long been speculated, especially since they have the manga versions of both, but no official announcement ever came). They hold the master U.S. licenses for each, but this announcement doesn’t necessarily mean they’re planning to distribute either title– it could depend on whether they get on TV.

That said, they’ll be soliciting the show at the National Association of Television Programming Executives conference– and yes, that is the same NATPE that has been suffering from the writer’s strike in Hollywood. Will their desperation for new content that doesn’t require them to hire writers make anime look like a better bet? Hard to tell, but Monster in particular could be an excellent experiment; it’s suspenseful and adult and more likely to interest, say, the 24 crowd than Hunter x Hunter.

Of course, they’re soliciting other titles as well: Bleach (…already on cable), Blue Dragon, Buso Renkin, Death Note, Deko Boko Friends, Honey and Clover, Nana, and Naruto.

Of these, I think Monster has the best odds of being picked up during or around primetime for the reasons I mentioned above; Death Note would also be a possibility. The rest are either likely to be picked up for the after-school crowd or might be tricky for non-anime-fan western audiences to pick up on (Honey and Clover, for example– if *I* was weirded out by the 18-year-old-who-looks-12, it would probably throw off plenty of potential watchers who aren’t used to anime. I suppose Nana is a possibility; I haven’t watched enough of it to really be sure).

So, just finished up the last episode of Claymore. Without giving too much away, they’ve left it open for a second season, but of course it’s not continuing immediately.

Which is amazing! I mean, this is basically a shounen show..except with more chicks, and a bit darker and more violent. Can you imagine what would have happened if Naruto or Bleach had simply ended and then started back up again later, instead of a bunch of filler crap being produced? (Not that you could really do much by way of filler in Claymore, since there isn’t a lot of opportunity for comedic relief…in-character, anyway.)

I guess we’ll see exactly what happens when Claymore returns…and I’m pretty confident it will.