Alrighty folks, here’s a manga item I thoroughly missed out on: yaoi publisher Drama Queen, who also publishes some shoujo titles (mostly manhwa), apparently declared at Otakon that they’d be branching out to offer an action line, starting with the manhwa title Spam Mail Hunter.

Now look. I love Drama Queen. I know several of their staffers and they love what they do and they do it really damn well. But it does seem a little odd to branch out at a time when they’ve had trouble getting books out on-schedule. Though they’ve always been worth the wait, which I guess is really the more important part.

Yes, folks, I’m calling this a RUMOR. Between the flippant comments about cellmates and sore rears in Dattebayo’s press release, the fact that none of the big sites covering the con - ANN, Japanator, Anime on DVD, etc. - have mentioned any such arrest, and that all of the blogs I’m finding seem to only parrot information from the aforementioned press release - in other words, no one seems to be claiming to have actually BEEN there. Not to mention Dattebayo has pulled pranks before.

That said, according to the release, five members of the Dattebayo were arrested a mere three minutes before their panel on fansubbing was supposed to occur on Saturday. According to DB’s website, they were due to be arraigned Tuesday but it got rescheduled to today (*cough*), and the staff pled not guilty to charges only described as having “stemmed from the illegal reproduction of copyrighted works.”

So yeah. PROBABLY not true, in my opinion.

Just a few tidbits:

Edit: As KyaatheCatlord pointed out, the reporting of this news may have been a bit early.

Okay, time to take a bit of a nostalgia trip: remember Sailor Moon? I’m sure a couple of you join me in remembering it fondly as your “gateway anime,” right? And you may even remember that TOKYOPOP released the manga, waaaay back when it was called MixxZine.

MoonKitty.net reports from Otakon that TOKYOPOP will be releasing, or re-releasing, the manga. It’s a little unclear because there’s actually a new, slightly altered version out in Japan, so they we’re not yet sure if it’s that version or simply a re-release of the original.

Still, it’s kinda neat, no? All those fun baddies and lesbian subtext…oh yeah, baby.

Okay, I finished the last damn Harry Potter book, so let’s get back to business.

Japanator, if you hadn’t noticed, is my source of choice. (Bias because of Professor Oak, a.k.a. Dale North, a.k.a. former animeOnline coworker? Probably!)

Aaaand next up on their roster is the Geneon panel. Apparently everyone was so busy wanting to drink that no one announced anything new, but they have some good pics of the Saiunkoku Monogatari box, which is considerably more attractive than the actual series.

Since that’s fairly unexciting, here: lesbian smut!

The ever-so-kind Dick McVengeance of Japanator is currently sitting on on FUNimation’s Otakon panel, and has quite nicely informed me of the newest licensing announcements.

First up: Sasami Mahou Shoujo Tai (Sasami Magical Girl Club, a spinoff from Pretty Sammy, which was a spinoff from Tenchi). And…

Ouran High School Host Club! At last! I know I, and a lot of others, have been wondering why no one’s announced this title. And it was acquired some time ago - even at New York Comic Con in February, VIZ mentioned that someone other than them had nabbed it. No clue what took ‘em so long.

Tangentially related: I’ve started a thread on the new forums for Otakon. ♥

First off, let me just say that I’m utterly depressed that I’m not at Otakon myself, liveblogging this.

That said, ANN just got in the first licenses of the con, ADV’s: Venus Versus Virus (pictured), the King of Bandits: Jing in Seventh Heaven OVA, and Moonlight Mile (why do I feel like this was already announced on ICv2 or something? Maybe I’m just on crack).

Certainly, less exciting than their AX announcement of Gurren Lagann, but not bad. I thought VVV was kinda meh, though, personally.