VIZ issued a press release a little while ago announcing that those who buy a Death Note tee or DVD at “select” Hot Topic stores will get free tickets to showings of the Death Note live action flick. Hot Topic will also be hosting some signs and other promos for the event.

I haven’t yet seen a list of the participating Hot Topic stores (though admittedly I’m in a bit of a rush, not to mention that slow airport internets are SLOW), but here is Hot Topic’s mention of the plan.

So, here we are in the U.S. waiting to get our hands on Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys manga– which VIZ won’t release until after Urasawa’s Monster is finished –and meanwhile, NTV is off selling the movie trilogy to other countries. Megabox bought the Korean rights and plans on it being the biggest Japanese series ever to hit Korea; buyers have also acquired it for Hong Kong and Taiwan (bought by Golden Harvest), Thailand (M Pictures), and Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei (Encore Films).

Which, of course, begs the question: who’s gonna score it in the US? VIZ, with the manga license plus their movie picture distro, seems like the obvious choice…but they haven’t yet put on a theatrical release of more than a few days. So maybe NTV is going to look for a more mainstream distro? Then again, maybe not; they seem content with VIZ doing the Death Note movies, which were also major sellers for them in Asia.

According to World Screen News, VIZ has announced a new licensor of Death Note– The Northwest Company, a manufacturer of home decor items. Yes, now U.S. and Canada-based fans can buy Death Note pillows and throw blankets…you know, the ones that aren’t imported or knockoffs. This looks like TNC’s first anime merchandise, but I guarantee if you’ve ever set foot in a Hot Topic, you’re familiar with their wares. For some samples, try their Pirates of the Caribbean swag.

I just hope they make an L dakimakura. WOULD TOTALLY WANT!

When I was looking for art for that NPR Death Note article, I came across this really awesome cosplay shot, taken back in October, at Poxline. As far as I can tell it hasn’t been passed around by the blogs much, so…let’s get it goin’!

I hereby call for a doujinshi based on the concept: “Beatle Note.” Anyone whose name is written in the notebook grows their hair out long, marries Yoko Ono, and then gets shot five times in the back.

By the way, the NPR segment on Death Note is now online, and it’s a nice, positive piece. No real talk of the varying controversies, and “critic-at-large” (…) John Powers pretty much faps all over it. I especially love the part where he says that Death Note is “a show for brainy kids.” All in all, some positive coverage for a show that unfortunately tends towards the less positive.

FYI, today’s episode of NPR’s WHYY show will include a segment on the Death Note anime, according to the official page. Audio for the show will go up at 3pm EST. I think I’ll be running around scoring a new coffee table at that exact moment, but I thought I’d give y’all a heads up. ♥

I’m not exactly sure what will be discussed– just the show itself, or some of the controversy surrounding it (i.e. all those kids who get in trouble for making their own death notes)? Hm~!

Just got a press release from VIZ– apparently the first live-action Death Note flick is going to hit theaters nation-wide…but only for two days. Those two days are May 20 and 21st, and they’ll run at 7:30pm whatever the local time is.

So the big question is: where? How many theaters? It’ll be over 300, and advance tickets go on sale April 18th through 20th on ShonenJump.com. Regular tickets will be available starting April 21st on event partner Fathom’s website, which is also supposed to have a complete list of locations, but I don’t see one yet. Still, with 300 theaters, odds are good there’ll be one at least within an hour or two of most fans.

I dunno about you, but I’M excited.

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.

A pair of sixth-grade boys were not merely reported or suspended, no, the Gadsden Times reports that they were actually ARRESTED for their notebook of “terrorist threats”– a “death note”-type notebook, of course. No evidence around that the kids were actually planning to harm their fellow students, but the two have been indefinitely suspended pending the juvie court’s word.

So, protip to end all protips: remember the part where Light hides the hell out of his death note? Yeah, do that. Because as cool as the manga may seem, it’s soooo not worth suspension/arrest over, and people are really paranoid right now.

No, no, not another “kid with a Death Note in school” story– an editorial on Shanghai Daily about the Chinese government’s recent ban on the sale of all horror and supernatural films. (Wait, seriously? Does that mean Harry Potter is banned too? WTF?) The article makes mention of last year’s Death Note ban.

If it seems random, I do remember a Chinese friend telling me that there’s a belief that when the population gets interested in ghost stories, it means the current regime is about to fall or something like that…but it still seems a little absurd, doesn’t it?

Still, the “sale” of horror/supernatural flicks doesn’t appear to include the download of such films, since one interviewee says that “we’ll just download our movies from the Internet.” Good times.

Follow-up to the earlier article: the boy who was buried in the sand head-first by his friends who were insipred by Naruto, Codey Porter, has died.

The good news is that it looks like no particular backlash against Naruto is in the works; even the Seattle PI’s article notes that accidents like this have happened in the past, such as when kids would jump off a roof while wearing a towel as a cape and playing Superman.

I guess that means we can go back to worrying about Death Note now…