EDIT: I’m not quite sure why this fell off the page O.o so here it is again. But now it’s like, a whole DAY OR TWO OLD. Yipe.

So the word on the NYAF streets is that Bandai Entertainment has the Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo film, but that hasn’t been confirmed just yet– actually, the panel hasn’t started yet. We’ve still got a couple of minutes.

Here we go! Rob Napton and Ken Iyadomi, as usual, are running the panel. There’s a Geass trailer, with dubs, and you can catch the dub cast list in the comments on this Japanator post. JYB as Lelouch makes me die a little inside, but my body will continue to live on, a broken and empty shell. (Not really.)

Rehashing all those Geass announcements. The new Geass site is supposed to be launched tomorrow, too. The URL is (or will be) http://code-geass.bandai-ent.com, which currently only forwards to Bandai’s regular site.

Lucky Star cast list, I can’t type all that fast but I already mentioned that the Haruhi voice actress (Wendee Lee) will play Konata and that the Taniguchi voice actor (Sam Riegel) will play Minoru Shiraishi.

Haruhi blooper reel, which is supposedly for 18+ ears only. Oops. Kyon going Whatchoo talkin’ about Willis? makes me die a little bit more inside.

Nice note to end on: “Maybe I’m just an animated character on a screen, and you people watching need to go outside and get a life!” Thanks, Crispin.

Now for the traditional run of trailers for Bandai Entertainment titles like Flag and Haruhi and stuff…

…There are a LOT of trailers…

There it is! Yup, they have Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, aka The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, the 2006 film sequel to the Tsutsui Yasutaka novel. There will also be a limited theatrical release in 2008, but no promises on locations except LA and NYC, natch.

They haven’t yet decided whether the theaters will see subbed or dubbed version, but they are considering both, which makes me very very happy.

They’re trying to negotiate to get Gundam 00 for the US, but no deal yet.

The standard are-you-licensing-Geneon-titles question, answer being “we wish.”

Rob Napton likes the Cowboy Bebop dub, and of the shows that they really wish they’d gotten to license are Gunbuster and they’re still waiting to see how the download stuff goes before they make any real commitments on that front. They’re still working out their next-gen strategy as well.

Lucky Star is going to have a release similar to Haruhi’s with extra stuff, including a chocolate cornet for the first volume limited edition ;)

I’m really hungry.

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Now THIS one I’m curious about. John O’Donnell says he’s going to do something that’s never been done at an anime convention, and he’s been to plenty of CPM panels. But not until 4:30pm. Makin’ me wait, bah!

They handed out red bags, which we’re required to have to be “full participants” of the panel, hmm!

First off, they ARE NOT dead, they are still recovering from all their various issues. They have no NEW titles but they’re working on making older titles more accessible.

He’s talking about Geneon, FUNimation, and ADV competing over certain titles, and Geneon’s demise as a result of said competing driving up the prices.

Lots of financial talk, including the housing market and gas. Hmm.

Now they’ve brought up Be Beautiful, their yaoi division, which I already talked to him about.

Hmmm, I suspect that they’ll be giving away a bunch of the stuff from their booth so they don’t have to take ‘em home– he mentioned that the booth not being open after this panel is why we’re doing a “thing” at 4:30.

Yup! Gotta go catch some swag. ;) Seeya!

KuronoK owns my soul by attending the Del Rey/Marvel announcement panel while I’m here in Bandai Entertainment, and he says Del Rey will be making both an X-men and a Wolverine manga for ‘09. The X-men artist is Anzu, and both are written by Americans, and….X-men will be a shoujo?

…Yeah, I’m texting him back.

He says yes, and Wolverine will be more shounen-ish and written by “the wasteland guy.” Uh, T.S. Eliot? No, probably not. Maybe one of the guys who made the computer game? Hmmm.

Nope, D.C. graphic novel– it’s Anthony Johnston. Raina Telemeier and Dave Roman are writing the X-men manga. Each manga will be two volumes long.

Looks like that’s about it for the news there. Thanks Kuro!

Edited to add: here is the official description of the X-Men manga:

It’s the X-Men as you’ve never seen them before, with the storyline fashioned as a private school shôjo comedy. (Shôjo manga is aimed at girls and often covers popular subjects such as comedy, romance, and drama.) As the only girl in the all-boys School for Gifted Youngsters, Kitty Pryde, a mutant with phasing abilities, is torn between the popular Hellfire Club, led by flame-throwing mutant Pyro–and the school misfits, whom she eventually bands together as the X-Men.

Drama Queen is mainly a yaoi publisher, but they also publish some manhwa and are opening up a line of romance and action (non-BL) manhwa.

So far they’ve just been talking about titles they’ve had for a while, like DVD, Audition, etc., hence the quiet ;) Oh yeah, and Peter Panda, too, which I think is one of the more anticipated of these titles, first of four volumes due out in early ‘08.

Next up: Spam Mail Hunter, about a group that hunts humanoid spam mails. Now THAT’S terrifying.

They do hope to expand this manhwa line to include manga that is not BL, but nothing just yet. They have a deal in the works with “the mothership” (a manga monolith in Japan, apparently), but nothing announceable yet. She mentions VIZ as well– so it’s Shueisha or Shogakukan. Here’s hoping! Yaoi fans would get a kick out of that, because that would open up the possibility of Shueisha/Shogakukan yaoi manga, which VIZ basically has the rights to by default but will never ever publish.

They have more titles licensed than they’re announcing, but they’re waiting until everything is set 100% in stone for when they can get them out. (For those unaware, they’ve had problems in the past getting books out on time with their BL books.)

Oh, and they’re releasing a giant hardcover 5lb artbook for Audition, too. Oof.

Ooh, look at all those caps. TOKYOPOP is wet in the panties about Gakuen Alice of course, which they’ve been pushing the hell out of for a month already. They’re also pretty excited about the Gothic & Lolita Bible “mook” (magazine + book), which they’re putting out quarterly and which will be in the art and fashion section of your local bookstore, NOT the manga section. Hmmm.

Now they’re talking about Manga Sutra, a.k.a. Futari Ecchi, woot woot. The first two volumes come together in one giant volume. The first five volumes will come with recipes, the first being for an aphrodesiac cocktail. Uh…right. Also they’ll be doing some promotions with Kimono Condoms, and the books will have some features with She Comes First author Ian Kerner. Barnes & Noble isn’t taking the book, and they’re not sure about Borders, but comic book shops will have it as well as Amazon and whatever other online shops will take it. And it’ll come with a box and shrink wrapped. $19.99 for the first two volumes in one, and they’ve only licensed the first ten books (there are 33 in Japan), which will be released in 5 sets of 2.

Two new announcements– manga based on popular anime. First, Kyo Kara Maoh the manga. They’ve worked with the artist before; she did their Blu yaoi title Shinobu Kokoro. First volume is due around September or October.

Also the Fate/Stay Night manga. Woo woo, or something.

Scrapped Princess novels MAY have been postponed indefinitely, but the person here isn’t sure.

They want to do an omnibus edition of Sailor Moon, but apparently Kodansha and creator Naoko Takeuchi aren’t thrilled with the idea, so they’re continuing to push it. They’re doing more “bind-up” omnibus-type editions of various manga in the future, it sounds like.

They’re also putting out an early series by the creator of Fruits Basket, a slightly more mature title called Genei Muso, probably to be released as Phantom Dream or Phantom Illusion. There’ll also be a Fruits Basket sticker book, but no artbook.

ANd now they’re giving away these giant copies of the Warcraft bind-ups. Eep.

We’ve just gotten the usual presentation of TOKYOPOP’s iManga, and that’s pretty much it. Have I mentioned that my butt seriously hurts from all this sitting?

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Well, ADV says it has a lot of stuff to cover, so here’s hoping for some big announcements! Can they beat the current top, the Geass Adult Swim/manga coup from Bandai Entertainment? Time will tell!

(Speaking of Bandai Entertainment, I just heard that they ARE using Wendee Lee to voice Konata and the guy who played Taniguchi to play Minoru Shiraishi in Lucky Star. If you know what I’m talking about you’ll get why that matters.)

They’re putting out a thinpack box of Jing King of Bandits coming out in January. Here’s a trailer for Blade of the Phantom Master (Shin Angyo Onshi, if I caught those words fast enough).

And here’s Venus Versus Virus in all its vaguely shoujo-ai/horror/gothic lolita glory. Cute tagline: “If you can read the brochure, YOU’VE GOT PROBLEMS.” Kinda wish I’d liked the series better, but I can’t fault the visuals much.

I spy a frame of Magikano at the end here, so I assume that’s the next trailer. I wonder if they’ll have one for Gurren Lagann?

They’re addressing that they’ve cut back on the number of extras for first-release discs, largely due to time constraints and survey results.

Next up, Tokyo Majin, which is one I’d actually like to get around to seeing, since I missed it the first time around. Hmmmm…will have to eyeball Netflix. Blah blah blah yes they have both seasons etc.

Now Wallflower. Which, by the way, I did a cover story for the December issue of Anime Insider about. GO BUY IT! The trailer is hilarious because they called the boys “bi-shounen” (like bisexual). Hee. ♥

They call it their biggest 4Q release, which is surprising to me because I don’t think it was that big in Japan– but it is Nabeshin, I guess, so whatever. First of six volumes comes out Monday. Which is tomorrow!

Moving on to “one very confused boy” and a number of beautiful girls…Kanon.

By the way, KuronoK just won two DVDs for predicting the new series and having a subscription to Newtype USA. Bastard! I’m surrounded by Key fanboys, by the way, those sappy dweebs.

Now Project Blue Earth SOS, which they promise major word-of-mouth on. Oookay.

Please please please, it’s…oh, damn. Moonlight Mile. They said February and got me all excited. GIVE ME GURREN LAGANN!

They say many of us will have trouble finding the next show on YouTube in “a week’s time,” and I think this is it…is it…IT IS! Gurren Lagann!

Good trailer, no dub voices in it– just a voice-over. It’s actually a pretty cute trailer– a “generous portion of that Gainax bounce,” eh? Also, really really really long fine print at the end. It’ll have a special feature in Gurren Lagann, so I’ll need to go high-five Todd for snagging that.

“Let’s just say that people have said that all these fansubs and illegal things have served a purpose…we listened,” and something about having some Gurren Lagann to share soon. Hmm! Meanwhile, the first of six DVDs hits streets in February.

Blah blah Byousoku 5cm. Blah blah blah Devil May Cry, bonus features, IGN, etc.

Someone just asked about the Eva movies. They apparently release it in the US in their dreams every night. But no announcements yet.

ADV has not secured any titles from Geneon.

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Oh yeah, stuff besides that whole “manga is over” thing happened at ICv2. According to Myriad Issues reports that there was much discussion of fansubs, with more and more people jumping onto the Sevakis bandwagon of proactive replacement of fansubs rather than lawsuits (Rob will back me up that I’ve been saying the same thing for a year! Ah, to be Justin Sevakis).

Rich Johnson of Yen Press apparently came out and said that manga scanlations help book sales instead of hurting them– I’m guessing a significant portion of this is due to the fact that your average manga is half the price or less than your average DVD and usually contains more actual content.

Aniplex USA, the American arm of anime producer Aniplex Japan, is running a panel and just announced the anime of Persona, presumably the upcoming anime sequel to the Persona 3 PS2 game. Yup, just watched the trailer– it’s Persona -trinity soul-, airing in Japan starting this January.

Now they’re talking about the Kara no Kyoukai movies (Garden of Sinners, based on Tsukihime writer Kinoko Nasu’s novel). Each chapter of the book will get a movie, so there will be a whopping total of seven flicks.

After another trailer, they’ve moved on to another short trailer that was apparently made for Anime Expo. I didn’t catch the name of what it’s about, but it appears to be a ninja-type guy fighting soldiers. It looks like it’s going to be made into a series or movie but they’re not sure yet. And that’s pretty much it.

KuronoK just asked about fansubs, and the Aniplex woman (whose name I didn’t catch) says that as far as fansubs helping the sales, that’s great, but that they do cut into the sales when people use them instead of buying the DVDs. All of which we kinda knew. But she’s impressed by the Gurren Lagann cosplayers.

I asked a follow-up on whether the company has any plans to find a way to shorten the time between JP releases and US, and her response is that it depends on the licensing situation and also if Japan is still in the middle of the production, the master copies aren’t as readily available, which is an interesting point I hadn’t thought of before. Though it seems clear that people can work from copies of the TV broadcast. Anyway, she says it’s a possibility and she thinks it’s a real solution to the fansub issue– a fact everyone seems to have suddenly noticed since that Sevakis editorial…

Two people have asked about trying to get a live-action Fullmetal Alchemist film. It looks like half the room is for the idea, and half is against it. I’m not especially into the idea. Oh, and by the way, they DON’T have any plans for it.

That’s more or less it, and now I’m going to go die for the evening, I think.

I dunno how ANN missed this, but I talked to Rob Napton from Bandai Entertainment just now and he said that at the Code Geass panel they also announced the acquisition of the manga. Of course, there are about six trillion Geass manga– the ones they’ve got are the main manga adaptaion, plus the two AU side stories Nightmare of Nunally and Suzaku of the Counter-Attack. They also nabbed the light novel series.

That leaves the short-story manga anthologies (by various mangaka) unlicensed. There are two lines of these anthologies, one for girls and one for guys.

Posted by gia in Anime, Licenses, Manga, News, Western News • Comments (2)

It’s true.

Posted by gia in Anime, News, Western News • Comments (5)