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.

Posted by gia in Gossip, JP News, Manga, News • Comments (5)

The Beat has this year’s Eisner Award nominations, which include Japanese names in many of the categories (not always for manga, mind).

But Naoki Urasawa’s Monster was nominated for Best Continuing Series and Fumi Yoshinaga was nominated for Best Writer/Artist for Flower of Life (pictured). I dunno about you, but I’m throwing a goddamn party! It’s about time Yoshinaga got some real recognition here.

Here’s a full list of manga nominations:
- Best Continuing Series: Monster (Naoki Urasawa/VIZ)
- Best Publication for Kids: Yotsuba& (Kiyohiko Azuma/ADV)
- Best Archival Collection/Project: Apollo’s Song (Osamu Tezuka/Vertical)
- Best Writer: Fumi Yoshinaga for Flower of Life (DMP)
- Best Writer–Humor: Brandon Graham for King City (TOKYOPOP)
- Best Penciller/Inker: Takeshi Obata for Death Note (VIZ)
- Best Comics-Related Book: Manga: The Complete Guide (Jason Thompson/Del Rey)
- Best Comics-Related Book: Understanding Manga and Anime (Robin Brenner/Libraries Unlimited & Greenwood Publishing)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories (Jiro Taniguchi/Fanfare)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: MW (Osamu Tezuka/Vertical)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Monster (Naoki Urasawa/VIZ)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Tekkonkinkreet (Taiyo Matsumoto/VIZ)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material– Japan: Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Fuyumi Kouno/Last Gasp)

Also nominated (but not really ‘manga’ per se, from what I can tell): Yuichi Yokoyama’s New Engineering, published by PictureBox.

Posted by gia in Manga, Misc, News, Western News • Comments (3)