While TOKYOPOP movie projects remain in a sort of limbo– announced, but with no specific details like cast or dates –VIZ continues their slower but firmer roll into the movie industry, with Variety now reporting that the new office, VIZ Productions, has brought on former Amblin and Dreamworks executive Jason Hoffs to liaise between Hollywood and VIZ’s Japanese overlords, Shogakukan and Shueisha.

In the article, Hoffs notes a few specific titles. He doesn’t say that they’re being made into movies for sure, but it’ll give you a sense of some of the possibilities…not that many of them are surprising:

• Naruto
• Bleach
• Death Note
• InuYasha
• Monster
• Vampire Knight

Now, it’s kind of tough for me to imagine lengthy series like Naruto, Bleach, or InuYasha– or the complex tapestry of awesome that is Monster –being made into a single live-action movie, and I’m also not sure if the movie studios would be confident enough to commit to doing a series of movies. I suppose an arc or two from Naruto or Bleach would be doable in a single movie, though.

And I don’t have a hard time imagining movie studios liking the concept. First off, manga is big with that ever-desirable market of pre-teen and teenage kids (mm, delicious disposable income). Second, do we really have any good action movie series right now that are geared more towards that young audience? Maybe it’s just because of my own age, but it seems like The Mummy and the latest slew of comic book movies are much more designed for the 20-30 crowd.

And third, let’s face it: they’re probably getting tired of the endless adaptations of young adult fantasy that are being churned out in hopes of catching the Harry Potter crowd. It’s not hard to imagine that tween-friendly shounen action flicks might be the ever-sought “Next Big Thing.”

Which brings us to Vampire Knight, a darker-themed series but still very much aimed at tween girls. I mean, The Twilight Saga is doing pretty damn well– why not VK? But since Twilight Saga is already being adapted into movies, might it be too late for VK to hit the mainstream market without seeming like a knock-off (even though VK started before Twilight– barely; January 2005 versus October 2005, respectively).

…Well, that’s all speculation on my part. No doubt we’re ALL looking forward to hearing whatever official news we get in the future.

Well, I suppose it’s not all that unexpected: Sankaku Complex reports on word that a single-episode OVA (or perhaps we should be moving to the new terminology, OAD? Which, by the way, stands for “Original Animation Disc,” I believe, since a few of you asked) of InuYasha is in the works, titled Kuroi Tessaiga (”Black Tessaiga”).

Now, that doesn’t sound like the ending of the InuYasha manga to me. Sankaku Complex also suggests that it seems unlikely that a series as popular as IY might get only a single episode OAD. So perhaps this is merely a test to see if the anime can make a comeback in Japan, where the anime ended about four years ago?

So last night I came across an article on ComiPress about a scanlation group that claimed to have received a phone call from InuYasha supervising editor Ian Robertson and they discussed various errors throughout the manga’s releases as well as the fact that the manga is printed flipped (read left-to-right, western-style).

I found it especially interesting since I had considered doing an article on this alleged letter from Robertson to the writer of an open letter to VIZ regarding the same issues. I wound up not doing the article because the recipient’s credibility was somewhat questionable, but now I can’t help but wonder…

In the scanlation group’s post Robertson apparently mentions that he’s not allowed to make posts on message boards without permission from VIZ; is he allowed to discuss these problems with scanlators and say that he’ll read the scanlations to get tips on what to fix and how? And if not, is it a sign that Robertson is really frustrated with VIZ’s decisions on InuYasha?

Granted, I could be seeing more than there actually is here; it might be totally allowed. Or it might have even been approved, since it reflects well on VIZ and makes them look like they really listen to fans.

On the other hand, none of this correspondence has been confirmed by VIZ or Robertson yet, as far as I know (I have an e-mail out to Robertson). But these are two separate entities, I’m fairly certain– especially since they said conflicting things (the Adult Swim poster says that InuYasha is going to get un-flipped even though the letter he posted says nothing of the sort; the scanlation group’s post says that Robertson can’t even make that decision), so I’m disinclined to think it a hoax.

I’m really not sure what to make of this– or whether to really make anything.