…For educational purposes, I’m sure. According to the Mainichi, Meiji University in Tokyo is starting a “Manga and Subculture Library.” And how better to start a library like that than by purchasing the late Comic Market co-founder Yoshihiro Yonezawa’s doujinshi collection? Yonezawa– also a prolific manga critic –passed away in 2006 at the age of 53.

Unfortunately the article doesn’t say anything about how many books and doujinshi he had, but I bet it was a lot.

No, seriously, look: first, there were those Mangaka Association awards I posted about before. Then…

- The 32nd Kodansha Manga Awards, with Moyashimon taking the top prize (best general manga), among other familiar names (Shugo Chara! Woot!)

- The 12th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, with ¥2 million going to…Moyashimon! Hmm. I’m detecting a pattern here.

Right then, moving on to the rest of the news…

Anime:
- The sequel to MS Gundam IGLOO will be an OVA, says Moon Phase. Shown above.

- This is only barely anime-related anymore, but 4kids isn’t doing too well and I thought you should know. And yeah, I know a couple of you are snickering in the back row there.

- Anime on DVD thinks it knows FUNimation’s next licensing announcement. I’m convinced!

Movies:
- TokyoGraph is on a roll; they’ve confirmed a sequel film to the manga-to-live-action-movie Crows Zero. The sequel will be directed by the original’s helmer Takashi Miike, and Shun Oguri returns as the lead, Genji Takaya.

- TG also reports that Jin Akanishi, a member of the popular boy band KAT-TUN, is taking on his first voice acting role…as Speed in the Japanese dub of the new Speed Racer flick. Hmm.

Conventions:
- Girls rule, boys drool! Alafista reports that women outnumber men at the enormous Comiket doujinshi events, 57% to 43%. There are a lot of other interesting tidbits of info in the article, such as the fact that 71% of the doujinshika are women, and the average attendee is 2-3 years younger than the average circle member.

- FanimeCon is not only running a charity auction this year, they’ll also match all donations. Sweet!

Posted by gia in Features, Roundups • Comments (1)

So, in episode seven of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, a few of the class (and sensei) wound up at one of them GIANT DOUJINSHI CONVENTION thingers. (Natsu Comi.)

It feels like I’ve seen a LOT of Comiket eps in anime lately, and that’s not including the occasional show where doujinshi is a significant part of the plot (e.g. DoujinWork).

There was, of course, plenty of Comiket in Lucky Star. And even Darker than Black paid homage to the world’s biggest comics convention. Admittedly, this isn’t a TON of samples, but it still feels like considerably more than I used to see– while the con would pop up in comics-centric series (like Comic Party and I might even add Genshiken to that category), it’s now popping up in series where comics and doujinshi have absolutely NO role, like DtB and Zetsubou-sensei.

Am I way off? (Or am I forgetting other Comiket eps?) Anyone? Bueller?

Posted by gia in Anime, Gossip, JP News, Misc, News • Comments (3)

Canned Dogs reports on something interesting that went down at Comiket. A while ago a group of anime fans arranged a demonstration called the Akihabara Liberation Demo, in which otaku were proclaiming their pride in their hobbies. But apparently the group has some ties to an extremely left-wing group, causing some fans to criticize the demonstration online.

This eventually led to some less-than-peaceful discussions, including what is effectively a death threat to a Comiket staffer. As a result, the security at the convention was stepped up a bit. It looks like nothing major happened, but one (underage) photographer WAS stopped, and apparently he had been hired (unknowingly) by someone related to the group.

Interesting! For some reason this makes me imagine a group of otaku at Tokyo Big Sight performing West Side Story-style dance fights.

Posted by gia in Cons, Gossip, JP News, News • Comments (3)

First off, I guest-starred on Japanator’s podcast again this week, mostly talking about San Diego Comic-Con announcements, cowbells, and other goofiness. You can check it out here. I really need to learn to speak a little slower.

I actually spent most of the day cleaning (!), but there was a bit of news here and there:

Probably a fair few of you already know that NatsuComi, a.k.a. the Summer Comic Market, starts in a few hours in Japan. (No doubt some otaku have already been in line for ages…)

According to MantanWeb, extra attention is being paid to a particular group this year: fushoshi, the yaoi fans. Given that boys love makes up a pretty significant chunk of doujinshi to begin with, it’s hard for me to fathom what even more attention would be like, but there you have it. Still, the fujoshi focus these days is undeniable. Consider: not one but two live-action films based on BL series are announced within a couple weeks of each other? Yyyeah.

The event promises to have about 500,000 attendees this year (and you thought San Diego Comic Con was big?), running from the 17th through the 19th at the Tokyo Big Sight, with people buying doujinshi, pimping new anime, cosplaying, etc.

Here’s hoping for some fun coverage to pop up. And for me to be able to attend soon. ♥