There has been a LOT of talk about the future of manga in the United States. Here are a few of the latest entrants:

• Ed Chavez at MangaCast
• Kai-Ming Cha at GenuineArticle
• Erica Friedman at Okazu
• Various manga publishers at expo, at manga.about.com
• Newsarama parts one and two

And if you’re tired of that talk, here are a few other items:

• ICv2 talks with VIZ about their new original comics.
• AltJapan has word from the Otaking, who is unhappy with his current subjects.
• Aaand Omonomono offers up Satoshi Kon on a silver platter.
• 4chan makes the Wall Street Journal. Seriously.
• The finale, for the lulz: guy who’s never read yaoi wonders if it’s the future of gay comics. The answer, as anyone who knows the first thing about yaoi understands, is a resounding NO.

I expect a report comparing and contrasting any two of the above on my desk by 3pm Friday!

Posted by gia in Uncategorized • Comments (3)

I’ve got a few items on the required reading list today, but it was Brigid’s tip over at MangaBlog that made me decide this had to go up today.

Now, my favorite work by Osamu Tezuka is Unico (my first anime ever, prior to my knowing what anime was…or what Japan was, probably). But a close second? Black Jack. And now Vertical has posted a free preview of their Black Jack release (due out at the end of September).

But there’s more to read! And I’m not just talking about my Expo stuff, either:

• Comics212’s Christopher Butcher has a two part, fairly in-depth look at the U.S. manga industry– and make sure you hit up the comments, too.
• For fans of Gundam 00, Gunota Headlines has some details about where the characters are at the beginning of season 2, courtesy of Newtype, Animedia, and/or Animage, no doubt.
• Over at Icarus (NSFW), Simon has links to two excellent pieces: Sporadic Sequential’s 5-point plan for Kodansha’s world takeover (for a chuckle) and Katherine Farmar’s tips for new comics publishers (for food for thought). Also, if there are any VIZ (or other manga publishers) reading this, you should definitely read the comments on Simon’s post for some interesting marketing initiative ideas from Simon and John Jakala.

Keep reading, kids!

Posted by gia in Features, Required Reading • Comments (2)

…Sure seems like it, anyway. ADV may have said they weren’t sure what was going to happen to their Sojitz titles, but FUNimation sure does– I just got a press release (after the jump) announcing that FUNi has been “awarded” the rights to 32 former ADV titles like Kanon, Welcome to the NHK, and The Wallflower.

Yes, I’ll be asking for more details in my interview with Gen, like whether for unfinished series like Kanon and Wallflower they’ll keep the same cast and start releasing where ADV left off or not. (I’d presume so, because frankly it’d be a lot of work to do anything differently, but ya never know.)

But once again– don’t go jumping onto the “ADV is dead!” bandwagon; these are the losses from their deal with Sojitz. They mentioned have 23 licenses that could still happen, and they’re still hoping to push forward with their manga. So: omedetou, FUNi, and ganbatte, ADV!

And of course, feel free to leave even more questions about the whole thing and I’ll do what I can to get them answered. Here’s the full press release, which includes the full list of titles. Continue Reading »

Posted by gia in Anime, Licenses, News, Western News • Comments (11)

Dallas Middaugh has posted to the Del Rey Manga blog regarding Kodansha’s new manga publisher: to keep it short, Kodansha has not pulled any licenses back, and they have new licenses to announce– so it’ll be business as usual at Del Rey.

I didn’t especially think that Kodansha was going to cancel contracts. But the question that remains, really, is more like: what will this mean in terms of future licenses? Will Del Rey continue to have the pick of the Kodansha litter, or will Kodansha hold some of their bigger titles back to publish themselves?

On the other hand, Kodansha could take a more focused approach and publish mostly within a particular genre, which might not interfere with Del Rey Manga at all– it’s hard to say until we know more about Kodansha’s plans.

As soon as I know more, I’ll of course let you know!

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

Remember those pesky rumors that Kodansha had a new US manga publisher in the works– leading to the panic of fans of Del Rey Manga, whose deal with Kodansha gets them a significant chunk of their licenses?

Well, they’re back, and this time with more driving force than a mere anonymous comment: ICv2 reports that the Japanese business news outlet Nikkei had reported on a new US manga publisher from Kodansha. I tracked down the article in question, whose headline is (roughly) “Kodansha: Publishing Popular Japanese Manga in the US Starting in September.”

The article mentions that until now, Kodansha had been licensing the rights to a local publisher (Del Rey Manga), but that Kodansha wants to intensify their overseas operations. The article also notes that since selling manga and magazines in Japan is becoming such a tough game, companies are focusing more attention on the foreign market.

I’ve got an e-mail out to Kodansha International (I called them, but they’re all on lunch break atm). If I don’t hear back I’ll call the Tokyo office when it’s late enough in the day (it’s 2am there). I’ll try and track down what’s going to happen to the deal with Del Rey, as well as the plans for the new publisher (demograhpic, output, etc).

There’s also a bit more to read at the Beat.

Posted by gia in Manga, News, Western News • Comments (6)

If no news is okay news, then is any news at all bad news? It’s certainly looking iffy for ADV: Anime on DVD reports on an auction of a bunch of office equipment from a “large video/DVD company” in Houston, ADV’s hometown.

Several of the images give it away as ADV– like the above, which features stickers and boxes from ADV series like Sorcerer Hunters and Martian Successor Nadesico. The auction title on PhotoBucket is “ADVideo” and the auction address appears to be ADV’s warehouse. (It was posted on AOd’s forums by Chris Johnston, formerly of ADV’s Newtype USA, btw.) AoD also reports that some ADV employees have dropped hints about not working there anymore– though ADV did have that booth at AnimeNext and there were certainly people acting as employees, including ADR director David Williams.

So, what does this mean? Could mean anything– layoffs, a full shut down, or maybe just “looking for change in the couch cushions” (as one AoD forum member suggested). It IS worth noting that their website seems to be evading providing info on products: wherever you try to go, all you get is the ads and website feedback form. That could be an accident or something intentional, I don’t know.

I’m going to offer one bit of wild speculation, which is why I’m prefacing it with this little cautionary statement. But FUNimation has mentioned that they have a major “acquisition announcement” to give at Expo. That could refer to a major license, of course, but it could just as easily refer to ADV and/or its catalogue. (Or, for that matter, Geneon’s.) “Consolidation opportunities” were also mentioned in the Navarre conference call earlier this month, although it’s hard to tell if that was volunteered by Navarre’s CEO or if it was in response to a question. So…is it possible that FUNimation/Navarre is planning (or has already arranged) to buy ADV? It might explain why they’d sell off the office furniture, if whatever ADV staff remains was going to be fused with the FUNimation office (or laid off).

Once again: that is entirely speculation on my part, so we’ll see what happens. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything official from ADV until Anime Expo, unless something major hits the fan.

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

So I’m playing around with some new editorial ideas, one of which is what I’m calling “required reading.” If it sounds familiar, I sort of previewed it in my roundup a couple of days ago– I haven’t decided if it’s going to be a regular round-up feature or its own once a week deal.

But see, there are a lot of great blogs out there that touch on matters near and dear to the anime/manga fan’s heart, and I don’t always get to write about them because it’s not especially news-y. So I wanted to create a way for me to do that without doing an individual post for each thing I find. Sometimes there are a half-dozen in a day, and other times there’s nothing.

So, here’s the first edition of the “weekend required reading,” which as I said is tentatively its own feature but possibly something I’ll include periodically in a daily roundup– let me know your thoughts!

The Myth of Supporting the Industry, from Sporadic Sequential. It’s a look at the idea that the industry is trying to guilt its consumers into supporting it. As I said in my comment on the post: I don’t support the idea that fans should support the industry for the industry’s sake, it needs to produce a product people want. But I do think fans should be willing to spend money on the products they enjoy– even if it’s buying the legit version long after they’ve downloaded and watched it. (Or hey, if you want to bypass supporting the US companies but still want to support the Japanese creators, you could always import the DVD from Japan. $_$)

Manga Killed the Comic Book Artist from art school comicking teacher Ryan Cody, who bemoans that most of his students want to create manga– more inspired by Rumiko Takahashi or Masashi Kishimoto than Scott McCloud or Jack Kirby. An interesting debate ensues in the comments, where some people agree and others say that Cody should try to appreciate that American comics don’t appeal as much to the market that his students are a part of these days.

How to Survive as a Small Yaoi Publisher part one and part two. Western yaoi creator Alex Woolfson talks to hentai (not yaoi) publisher about what pleasures and pitfalls a small yaoi publisher in the US might have to deal with– particularly apropos as Iris Print closes up shop, Seven Seas’ yaoi line ceases before it begins, and Drama Queen remains quiet and troubled.

And, just because I love linking to myself: Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer’s Anime. If any of you missed my summer 2008 anime preview when it fell off the front page, there it is in all its glory.

Okay, I’ve got a lot of items here, so let’s get started, shall we?

Anime:

- ICv2 took part in a conference call between Navarre and industry analysts. Navarre has made most of its money via FUNimation, while other subsidiaries are falling behind in sales, CEO Cary Deacon says. FUNi has acquired an even bigger chunk of the market share thanks to the demise of Geneon and the slowing of ADV, of course. Deacon also offered that there are possibilities for further acquisitions within the US anime industry, but that they have no plans currently.

- Gainax has officially announced that they’ll be adapting Shikabane Hime, but we already knew that, didn’t we?

- On the digital distro front, GyaO is going to run Tower of Druaga in its entirety online for free (Japan-only) starting June 14, while Bandai Networks is running the first episode of the original Gundam for free on DoCoMo’s FOMA mobile service.

Manga:

- On the Borders front, they’ve sold off their storefronts in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, says ICv2, and MangaBlog’s Brigid checks out a local Borders and learns that they’re doing pretty well selling manga.

- Speaking of Brigid, she’s posted a press release from DrMaster announcing their acquisition of the man hua Divine Melody, by Real/Fake Princess creator I-Huan.

- Tiamat talks about Seven Seas Entertainment, and she doesn’t think the outlook is good for the young publisher, which has been pretty quiet since their enthusiastic announcements back at Anime Expo ‘07.

- More TOKYOPOP news: they’ve set up shop with Big Tent, which will handle the worldwide licenses for I Luv Halloween, Princess Ai, Bizenghast, Dramacon, and Van Von Hunter. Of course, it’s not the news we want– an announcement of what manga Tpop will (and won’t) continue publishing.

- Comics distributor Diamond is in the dog house with Chris Butcher, who notes that even though Diamond lists the first four volumes of Vagabond as “out of stock, no backorders,” they’re completely available to retailers– through Simon and Schuster.

Music:
- Singer/songwriter Masaaki Endou has released an anime cover album, which will feature, among others, the OP from GaoGaiGar, the Power Rangers theme (not an anime, but I suppose we can allow it), the Stellvia theme, and a slew of others.

- When do I get to report on a Cyndi Lauper tribute album on an anime blog? When Jpoppers Puffy, Chara, Tommy february6, Sowelu, Nana Kitade, and others are involved in the project. Yeeeeah.

- Singer Ayaka (she sung “Okaeri,” the theme for the currently-running Absolute Boyfriend drama) will be singing the theme for Mamoru Oshii’s Sky Crawlers– or rather, she already has: it’s “Konya mo Hoshi ni Dakarete,” from her album coming out later this month. It was originally going to be an image song, but Oshii decided it meshed so well with his work that he’d make it the official theme.

Games:
- We now have a date for the Haruhi Wii game (which comes with that figure I posted about yesterday): it’ll hit stores November 27th.

Posted by gia in Features, Roundups • Comments (1)

Over the evening I just got word on this from the Boys Next Door girls, and then Brigid mentioned it today over at MangaBlog: apparently a new yaoi publisher called Yaoi Generation, who will be at Yaoi-Con (and, according to BND’s Cynbaby, possibly at Otakon as well).

GloBL comic writer Tina Anderson and blogger/writer/editor Kethylia trade speculation, including the possibility that Yaoi Generation is being established by Yaoi Press (the company is based in Fremont, CA, where Iris Print’s Kellie Lynch lives and now works for Yaoi Press) or DrMaster (also based in Fremont).

I’m a bit skeptical on the YPress idea– I didn’t get the sense that Lynch was especially interested in doing the licensed manga thing, and I’m not sure why Yamila Abraham would launch a whole new company for that when Yaoi Press has an established reputation and sales. As for DrMaster, I suppose it’s entirely plausible.

A whois on the domain shows that the registrant as a “Thuy Duong.” I can find plenty of Thuy Duongs online, even ones in Fremont and ones who are into manga, but I can’t find any that seem particularly affiliated or connected with the industry, so I guess that’s mostly a dead end.

I suppose only time will tell. I’m shipping out an e-mail, though I don’t know if I expect a response. But if I bump into them at Otakon I’ll certainly get the details!

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention– do look around their site. They talk a bit about what they’ll be up to, including publishing “Yaoi mangas, English edition” and a bi-monthly magazine, plus merchandise. It looks like they’ll be going for Internet sales only, with no mention of trying to get books into brick-and-mortar shops (though the online versions of real shops like Barnes and Noble and Borders’ websites are mentioned).

Posted by gia in Gossip, Manga, News, Western News • Comments (9)

Some of you may have been following the comments on my post about TOKYOPOP’s split, which now include two Tpop employees who were among the ~39 to get axed. One of them tells us that the layoffees got no prior notice. Frankly, the whole thing sounds like a giant round of SUCK for most of the people involved.

The removal of one employee, midorihebi, is at least mourned on the forums of BLU, TOKYOPOP’s yaoi line, by remaining Tpop employee Shounen Ai Samurai, who also talks about what all this will mean for the BL titles:

This is a very unfortunate situation for us all and I’m close to tears right now just thinking about how I won’t have Midorihebi here to help me out any more. She’s done an awesome job the last 6 months or so checking the BLU emails and always being there to support BLU. She was so looking forward to representing us at Yaoi-Jam but those plans have been canceled now and Yaoi-con plans are also up in the air. Times are very tough right now and with problems in the bookstore industry, we’re facing a lot of challenges. I don’t know exactly how things will end up right now but I would expect some changes in the BLU release calender. Hopefully the changes will be minimal. We have had a lot of success selling our books on Amazon so I want to thank you all who support us even when you can’t find the books in stores.”

(Via Kuri.)

Posted by gia in Manga, News, Western News • Comments (1)