Starting July 6th, Adult Swim will begin running on Friday Nights, meaning it will now run 7 nights a week.  It will start at 11 PM like most nights.  They have yet to announce which series will be part of the new night.

The first Death Note live-action movie won Le Pegase audience award at the 25th Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film in Belgium.  Death Note: The Last Name came in as the runner-up for the award.

Funimation Entertainment has announced that MyTV Columbus and MyTV Dayton are airing two-hour blocks of the Funimation Channel.  The block will begin Tuesday mornings at 1:00 AM and run to 3:00 AM and show Slayers, Baki the Grappler, and Pandalian.

When Adult Swim aired the final episode of Eureka 7 on April 29th, 4 and a half minutes of footage was cut.  They cut out the opening monologue and most of the epilogue, both of which had the Japanese production credits running through them originally and replaced the opening and closing animations.  The full cersion of the episode was available on Saturday for about 12 hrous on Adult Swim Fix, but is no longer available there.

The editorial department at Monthly Shonen Jump have announced 4 titles that will continue running in other magazines when Monthly Shonen Jump ceases publication.  Claymore was announced previously but Kousuke Masuda Theater Gag Manga Byori, Roario and Vampire, and Letter Bee will also be moving first to Weekly Shonen Jump and then to the new magazine that will be taking Monthly Shonen Jump's place.  No announcements about Mahou Tsukai Kurohime and Passacaglia [Op. 7] have been made yet.

Monthly Comic Birz has announced that the July issue will have the "grand finale" of Peach-Pit's Rozen maiden manga.  Peach-Pit however has made no announcement of this on their own website.  They did however announce the Februrary hiatus due to issues on "the editorial department's side".

Rino Fujii announced that he will be drawing a manga version of the visual novel Clannad.  The manga will be called Clannad: Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de will begin June 21st in SoftBank Creative's Comi Deji+. 

ADV Films has announced that they have acquired the rights to both Air TV and the Air movie.  Both projects had to be acquired from different licensors but ADV managed to get both.  Both versions were inspired by visual novel software that was released by Key who created both Kannon and Clannad.  The first volume of Air TV is set to ship August 14th and the Air Movie will be released later in 2007.

We recieved a press release today about ketchup mania appearing at A-Kon 2007.  Their show will be part of the opening night festivities on June 1st.  You can find ticket information at http://a-kon.com and information as well as music from ketchup mania at http://www.japanfiles.com.

Viz has announced that they will be increasing production of the Naruto graphic novels to 3 volumes per month from September to December of 2007.  This will mean that by the end of December, the US will have up to volume 27 available.  This closes the gap between the US and Japanese schedule, as the Japanese are currently on volume 37. 

Viz also announced that they will be publishing a Naruto Anime Profiles book, an An-Manga color graphic novel for the first movie in Sept, the Uzumaki: Art of Naruto book, Naruto Mission:Protect the Waterfall Village! novel in October, and the fourth Naruto Collector magazine in the fall.

Media Blasters has announced that they are placing the DVD release of Gaogaigar on hiatus for an indefinite period of time after the 5th volume is released.  Supposedly production has stopped on Gaogaigar because of lackluster sales in the US.  However it has also been mentioned that Media Blasters wants the hiatus so they can concentrate on releasing Voltron and that the rest of Gaogaigar will be released in the future.

After a week hiatus, Episode 21 is now available.  Enjoy.

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If you have already subscribed in iTunes, then just hit refresh.  If you haven't subscribed yet, you can subscribe using the link in the right navbar of the main page.  Finally, you can listen to this epsiode by going to http://www.anime-bliss.com/podcast/abp21.mp3 or download it by right clicking on the link above and choosing "save as".  Then you can import it into iTunes as a regular mp3.

The show notes can be found here

DrMaster announced the release of Stray Little Devil Vol. 4 via press release today.  The series is by Kotaro Mori who will soon be working on the manga adaptation of Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, based on the TV series produced by GAINAX.  Volume 4 will retail for $9.95 and Volume 5 will be hitting stores in June.  You can find more information as well as a summary using the link above.

DrMaster Publications sent us a press release today announcing the release of Junk Vol. 2 by Kia Asamiya.  Kia Asamiya is best known as the creator of  Silent Möbius, Martian Successor Nadesico, Steam Detectives and Dark Angel.  Volume 2 has a retail price of $9.95.  The press release also announces that Volume 3 will be released in June.  You can click the link above to read the press release and also find a summary of the manga.

Mobile Suit Gundam MS Warfront 0079 will be the first Gundam first-person shooter for the Nintendo Wii.  Bandai-NAMCO will release the game on July 26 for 7,140 Yen.    The Wii Remote will be used to control the view point, targeting and weapon trigger.  You will also be able to use the remote to control weapons such as the beam saber.  The Nunchuk will be used to control motion, dash, jump, and weapon lock-ons.

Some details have become available about the theatrical release of Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow.  It will be released on June 6th to 160 screens in North America.  Shonen Jump subscribers will be allowed to purchase tickets begining April 27th and everyone else will be able to beginning on April 30th.

Miraisyounen has debuted a new magazine called Moe Star - short for Moero, Stardom on April 20th.  This bimonthly magazine freatures both manga and novel serializations as well as illustrations and CG art lessons. 

Alchemist has also announced that it will be publishing a new online novel magazine called Shonen Alchemist on May 1st.  The first "issue" will include four serialized novels in a monthly blog with one of the novels getting a new installement every week.

Funimation is promoting Beck, the first volume of which comes out July 12th, with a "Summer Tour".  The tour kicked off this past weekend at Anime Boston and is also scheduled for Anime Mid-Atlantic and Anime Expo.  Any convention is encouraged to request a Beck Summer Tour screener DVD and downloadable promotional kit (which includes posters and graphics) from Funimation.

You can find more details about tour locations and the series at www.beckanime.com

On May 24th, the New York Public Library Celeste Barton Education Center will be holding a class on the formal collecting of manga.  The class is part of a series called "More Than the Sum of Its Parts: Collectors and Collections.  The manga collecting class will be repeated on June 28th and July 19th.  The class is available on a first-come, first-served basis.  More details can be found at the NYPL website.

Anime Expo 2007 has announced that Tetsuro Araki and Masaru Kitao will be Japanese Guests of Honor at their convention.  Tetsuro Araki is best known as the director of the television version of Death Note and Masaru Kitao is the character designer.  The convention also announced that they will be premiering both of the Live Action Death Note movies, "Death Note" and "Death Note: The Last Name", in 35 mm. 

In the June issue of Young King Ours+, Shonengahosha announced that the manga magazine would cease publication immediately.  Young King Ours+ has been running "Locke the Superman", "Holy Brownie", and "Hellsing: The Dawn".  Several of the series in the magazine will complete their runs in their next compiled volumes which are scheduled to be released between June and August.  No reason was given for the sudden cease in publication for the magazine.

I have posted my reports from Anime Boston 2007.  You will find them linked at the top of the main page, as well as below.

Overall Convention
ADV Premiere
Geneon Industry Panel
Bandai-Visual Industry Panel
Beck Listening Panel and Beck Premiere

I have posted my pictures from Anime Boston in our image galleries.  You can find them here or by going to the Convention Photos section of the image galleries and then clicking on Boston 07. 

My convention report is coming soon.

The Japanese Rock Band Swinging Popsicle will be performing at Anime Mid-Atlantic in Richmond VA June 15th - 17th.  They will then be performing at a show in NYC at The Knitting Factory on June 19th.  They will also be signing autographs after the show on June 19th.  You can find tickets for the NYC show at www.myspace.com/swingingpopsicle or at www.knittingfactory.com.

You can see the full press release here

Despite being marked as uncut, Legend of the Pervert from Kitty Media, it was reported by Anime On DVD that 6 to 7 minutes were removed.  Media Blasters has since stated that they felt they needed to remove a scene where the characters were obviously underage and that the addtion of the "uncut and uncensored" text on the case was a mistake.    The title however was priced at $19.95 instead of $29.95 to reflect this editting. 

Source: Anime News Network

Trans World Entertainment Group, who owns Suncoast, Sam Goody, Coconuts, Straberries, Wherehouse, and FYE, has named Geneon Entertainment Independent DVD Vendor of the Year for 2006.  Geneon was chosen because of their methods for driving catalog sales.

I have a quick minute while I'm waiting for the Geneon Panel to start so I thought that I would update everyone on what has been announced so far.  So far two of the biggest companies have had panels and overall it has been a disappointment.  ADV only announced one title and Funimation made no new announcements at all.  I will be hitting Geneon and Bandai Visual this morning and I'm hoping for something more from them.  Here is what happened at the other panels though.

ADV Films:
The panel yesterday was their "premiere" panel.  Their real industry panel is actually today, but David Williams made it sound like the announcement made yesterday was their only one.  They announced and showed the first episode of Innocent Venus.  In addition they showed two other first episodes to already announced series.  They showed the first episodes of 009-1 and Ah! My Goddess Season 2, which was the only one that really interested me.

Funimation:
Funimation talked about a lot of their industry stuff and there planned releases for already announced properties.  They didn't announce anything new.  They did say that the Second Season box set for Dragonball Z would be hitting stores May 22nd.  They also revealed the Beck Art Box which will be shaped like an amp.  I talked to Greg Ayres later and he said it would be made of a material similar to the Negima box but with metal on the front for the grill and it will say "Beck" where it would normally say "Fender".  The first volume of Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE will be released May 22nd.

They gave a few more details about One Piece also.  THey will be picking up the series initially at episode 144 and continuing there to fulfill Cartoon Networks order.  The series will be editted a lot less but there will still be edits to comply with FCC regulations.  Also Toei has requested that Funimation keep using the names that Viz does in the manga.  They will be producing 13-episode uncut box sets at a rate of 2 to 3 per year starting with episode 1.  They will be completely redubbing the series, but made no announcements as to who.  They said that there will be a major announcement at Anime Expo.

I will be writing up fuller reports of these panels Sunday night or Monday morning, but I wanted to keep everyone in the loop on what is happening. I will also be posting reports of other con events for those interested at that time.

I just wanted to remind everyone that Anime Boston starts tomorrow.  I will start trying to post updates from the convention when I can, but time will be limited and my laptop only has so much battery power.  At the very least, expect a full report to go up on either Sunday night or Monday morning.

Matthew Fox, the main lead in Lost, is in negotiations for the part of Racer X in the upcoming Speed Racer Live Action movie.  It is also reported that Kick Gurry is a possibility for the role of Sparky, the mechanic for the Mach 5.

Manga-ka Kaoru Shibayama passed away on April 14th of heart failure at the age of 43.  She was known for several series she did for Monthly Shonen Jump including "Rival", "Chara!", and "Giri Giri Purin".  She was most recently working on "Mugen Shojo Dreamer Angels" which was set to appear in Bimonthly Comic Valkyrie.

The 2007 Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival will be showing Paprika on Friday April 20th at 9:30 PM.  It will show at the Oak Street Cinema in Minneapolis.

Paprika will also open in New York City on May 25th and in Los Angeles on June 1st.

The Appleseed EX official site has posted the release date for the Appleseed sequel movie.  Ex Machina will open in Japan in the Fall of 2007.

In a press release we received today, Dr. Master announced their release of Lunar Legend Tsukihime Volume 4.  You can find a plot synopsis inside the press release or on the index page.

We recieved a press release today from Dr Master announcing their newest release, Puri Puri Volume 1.  The retail price of this volume is $9.95.  The release also mentions that volume 2 will be released in June of 2007.  You can find a plot synopsis in the press release or by visiting the index page.

Anime Boston has announced that they will have multiple industry premieres this coming weekend at their convention.  Currently scheduled are Highland: Vengeance from Manga, Peach Girl and Beck (I will definitely be at the Beck premiere) from Funimation, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya from Bandai, and Ah! My Goddess TV Season 2 from ADV Films.

Anime Boston takes place April 20th-21st at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.  Anime Bliss will be there and will be reporting throughout the weekend.

Both of the Death Note live-action films have been scheduled to make their US premiere at the Newport Beach film Festival.  The first Death Note movie will show on Saturday, April 21st at 8:30PM and then again Tuesday, April 24th at 4:00PM.  Death Note: The Last Name will show on Sunday, April 22nd at 8:30PM and then again on Wednesday, April 25th at 4:00PM.

Viz Media has announced that they have the license to distribute the Blue Dragon anime series in the US.  The series is based on the XBox 360 game of the same name.  Viz has the television, DVD, and merchandising rights to the anime series.  This is the most recent anime and game that Akira Toriyama has been involved in, and possibly his last.  The game will premiere in the US on August 15th, no date has been set for the series however.

ImaginAsian Entertainment has announced new titles for iaTV and DVD release.  Orguss, Nobody's Boy Remi, and Cat's Eye season 1 will all begin airing on iaTV on June 5th.  They will be showing subtitled when they are broadcast on Monday - Friday.  The DVD releases of each series will follow in a made to order system.  You will be able to order the first volume of the series for $12.99 with later volumes costing $9.99 and being released monthly.

Paprika will be screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 24th at 7 PM PST.  The screening will take place at the Regency Lido Theatre.

Anime Expo 2007 has announced ORESKABAND as their first Japanese Guests.  ORESKABAND is the "entertainment ska rock" band composed of a group of 18 year old girls from Osaka.  They consist of TOMI (bass and vocals), TAE-SAN (drums), SAKI (trumpet), MORIKO (tenor saxophone), LEADER (trombone), and IKASU (guitar and vocals).  They are known for playing "Pinocchio" as an ending theme to Naruto and "Tsumasaki" as the ending theme to Bleach.

Anime Expo 2007 will be taking place June 29th - July 2nd at the Long Beach Convention Center in California.

It has been announced that Christina Ricci has officially signed on to play Trixie, Speed Racer's girlfriend, in the live action Speed Racer Movie.  This leaves the part of Racer X as the only unconfirmed role to be filled.  Warner Bros. has also confirmed that May 9th, 2008 is the planned release date.

Funimation has revealed that they have obtained the broadcast and DVD rights to One Piece.  The license was originally owned by 4Kids who recently announced that they were dumping it.  Funimation has plans to release the series uncut and add a subtitled version.  They have announced that they will begin with episode 144, which is where 4Kids left off, but some mention has been made about the possibility of rereleasing the original episodes as well.  No further details, including whether the original dub cast will be kept, have been made available.

The Funimation channel has clarified that Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie, which we previously announced as airing on the Funimation channel, will instead be only available on their Video On Demand station.  Their first movie in their new movie block will be Roujin Z which will show on May 5th.

Digital Music Group has announced that they have acquired Gigantor and will be adding it to it's Kids Digital Release Lineup.  Previously Gigantor has been released on DVD by The Right Stuf International and shown on Adult Swim.

After a week hiatus, Episode 20 is now available.  Enjoy.

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If you have already subscribed in iTunes, then just hit refresh.  If you haven't subscribed yet, you can subscribe using the link in the right navbar of the main page.  Finally, you can listen to this epsiode by going to http://www.anime-bliss.com/podcast/abp20.mp3 or download it by right clicking on the link above and choosing "save as".  Then you can import it into iTunes as a regular mp3.

The show notes can be found here

Turner Classic Movies has scheduled Spirited Away to air on their cable and satellite channel on june 3rd at 9:45 PM.  In the past Turner Classic Movies has shown marathons of Studio Ghibli works.

Hideo Nakata, director of several Ringu movies, is going to be directing a new Death Note spinoff movie.  The movie is tentatively titled "L" and is planned to have a 2008 release.  Ken'ichi "Matsu-Ken" Matsuyama has already been confirmed as reprising his role of L.  Production will begin in August and a teaser trailer is set to begin showing in Japan on April 14th.

Namco Bandai has announced that they will be releasing Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes for North American and European PSP's in the late summer of 2007.  This is the same game that was released under the name Naruto: Ultimate Ninja.

This will be the first game that features wireless gameplay between two PSPs while using only one UMD.

During their panel at Sakura-Con, fans confront Bandai Visual about their most recent pricing trends.  Bandai Visual has begun pricing their releases at $39.99, except for Galaxy Angel Rune which is $49.99, for only 2 subtitled episodes.  The current pricing trend throughout the rest of the industry is 3 to 5 dubbed and subtitled episodes for $19.99 to $29.99.

Tatsunori Konno, CEO of Bandai Visual USA, responded to a polite complaint from an audience member by saying, "In former days, probably now the same thing, the licensees who are getting the American distribution rights from Japanese licensers can do that because the Japanese licensor is thinking the American market is just a secondary market. But we changed our outlook, we are thinking that the American market is the primary market along with Japan. So we are thinking that you guys should get the same products as Japan at the same time, so the price will be the same."

Many more audience members then got involved by pointing out that fans would rather wait for releases then pay higher than normal prices and that most american broadcasters would not air subtitled anime, only dubbed.  At no time were the complaintants rude, but it was obvious that Konno was surprised.

Source: Anime News Network

The Funimation Channel has acquired the broadcast rights to several Central Park Media titles.  They include Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie which will air Sat. May 5th at 8 PM, Record of Lodoss Wars, Roujin Z, Project A-ko, Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, and Grave of the Fireflies.

Funimation also announced Anime Road Rage which is their live-action show for news, interviews and convention events.  The show will debut on Thurs. April 12th at 10PM.

The DC Anime Club is looking for artists to participate in the 3rd Annual Anime Art Show in November 2007.  You can find more information about participating on the press release or on their website at www.dcanimeclub.org

Nikkatsu Corporation has given the green light to the production of both the Yatterman and Gatchaman Live Action movies.  Yatterman is looking at a possible Spring 2009 release date.  A date for Gatchaman has not been annonced yet. 

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa has been announced as part of the one year anniversary of the Studio Movie Grill in Houston.  The movie was shown last year at the Studio Movie Grill also.  The showing will be Wednesday April 11th at 7:30 PM.  The screening is free but seating is limited.

We incorrectly reported in this article a few days ago that Fred Gallagher was going to be a Guest of Honor at Otakon.  He will indeed be a guest, but none of their guests at this time are a Guest OF HONOR.  We apologize for the mistake.

There were a couple of announcements this weekend at Sakura Con.  First Bandai announced that they have the license to Zegapain.  Next, Funimation announced Hell Girl (aka Jigoku Shoujo) which we just started talking about in this thread.

Geneon didn't announce anything new, but they did announce that they will be re-releasing Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo, and the three Tenchi moview.  They also announced that they will be releasing singles for 3x3 Eyes and El Hazard.

Newtype USA has made an exclusive deal to serialize the new CLAMP manga "Kobato".  "Kobato" is currently running in the Japanese Newtype.  The manga includes many familar characters from other CLAMP manga, such as Chobits, as well as a bunch of brand new characters.  The story is about a young girl who has a bottle that she must fill by helping others with their problems.  The new series will begin in the June 2007 issue.

Early in Februrary it was reported that Shueisha would be ending Monthly Shonen Jump with the July 07 issue.  It was also announced that a new monthly magazine would be started to fill it's place.  It has just been announced however that some titles from Monthly Shonen Jump will be making the move to the new montly magazine. 

Claymore is one of the first titles to be announced as making this move.  Claymore will show up once a month in Weekly Shonen Jump until the new magazine begins publication so that fans will continue to be able to read the series. So far that is the only information available about the new publication though.

Shueisha will be starting the new monthly magazine in autumn of 2007.

I have just posted a new Webmaster's Corner with some begging for help, an update on Anime Bliss 3.0, and a quick run down of what will happen to the site on upgrade day.

You can find the full post here

We received a press release today letting us know that the J-Rock band LiN CLOVER will be signing CD's at Kinokuniya Bookstore in San Francisco on Thursday, April 12 at 4:30 PM.  This will be occuring at during a short tour of the West Coast.  They will be performing at:

April 7 - Sakura-Con 2007 - Seattle, WA – all ages (performing with M.O.V.E.)

April 11 – Slim's - San Francisco, CA – all ages (opening bands Vomica and Thee Out Mods)

April 13 – Claron Lounge – Santa Clara, CA (opening band Foreign Telegram)

You can find ticket information at http://www.myspace.com/shibuyaairwaves

The address for the signing is:

Kinokuniya Bookstore
1581 Webster St # 165
San Francisco, CA 94115

Right Stuf is having a large sale on Urusei Yatsura.  They have created bundles of 10 volumes with each bundle costing $99.99, that's only $10 per disc.  This is the cheapest way to check out this long but good series.  They have also bundled all of the movies together for $67.99 and the entire OVA for $47.99.  Below are the links to view all of these bundles and purchase them.

Urusei Yatsura DVD Bargain Bundle 1 (S) (Vols. 1-10)
Urusei Yatsura DVD Bargain Bundle 2 (S) (Vols. 11-20)
Urusei Yatsura DVD Bargain Bundle 3 (S) (Vols. 21-30)
Urusei Yatsura DVD Bargain Bundle 4 (S) (Vols. 31-40)
Urusei Yatsura DVD Bargain Bundle 5 (S) (Vols. 41-50)
Urusei Yatsura DVD Movie Bargain Bundle (Hyb) (Movies 1-6)
Urusei Yatsura DVD OVA Bargain Bundle (S) (OVA Vols. 1-6)

Urusei Yatsura is the first series by Rumiko Takahashi, the creator of Ranma and Maison Ikkoku.  Here is a quick plot synopsis:
"When the Oni, a mysterious race of Aliens, come to repossess the Earth, they give us one chance to save our planet: a champion, selected at random, must defeat their princess, Lum, in their national sport - Tag! Unfortunately for Earth, the champion turns out to be Ataru Moroboshi, a lecherous lad whose lack of luck is legendary.

When Ataru lays eyes on the curvaceous Lum, he readily agrees to take on the task of touching the tips of her tiny horns. Alas, when the contest begins, he finds out that the Oni forgot to mention one small matter - Lum can fly! When all seems lost, his girlfriend Shinobu promises to marry him if he wins. Win he does, but Lum misinterprets his victory cry as a proposal of marriage - to her!

Now Lum's living in his closet, planning their wedding, and zapping him with high-voltage electricity if he even looks at another woman. His girlfriend isn't sure if she's been jilted or saved from a life of misery, his Lum-crazed schoolmates are plotting to get him "out of the way," his parents are loudly wishing he'd never been born!"

After a week hiatus, Episode 19 is now available.  Enjoy.

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If you have already subscribed in iTunes, then just hit refresh.  If you haven't subscribed yet, you can subscribe using the link in the right navbar of the main page.  Finally, you can listen to this epsiode by going to http://www.anime-bliss.com/podcast/abp19.mp3 or download it by right clicking on the link above and choosing "save as".  Then you can import it into iTunes as a regular mp3.

The show notes can be found here

Geneon Entertainment has announced a couple of re-prices and re-releases.  They are:

El-Hazard OVA - 5/29/2007 - $14.98
Dog Warriors - The Hakkenden - 6/5/2007 - $14.98

They have also announced a bunch of new releases:

Strawberry Marshmallow - Complete Box Set - 7/3/2007 - $59.98
Strawberry Eggs (I My Me!) Bailey Box - 6/5/2007 - $39.98
Zipang Vol. 6 - 7/3/2007
Shana Vol. 6 - 7/3/2007
Hello Kitty Stump Village Vol. 5 - 7/3/2007
Ayakashi - Samurai Horror Tales Vol. 2 - 7/3/2007

Anime Boston has announced their final round of guests for this years convention.  They are Hiroshi Iwata (producer of Macross), Kenji Terada (writer of Kimagure Orange Road and the first three Final Fantasies), and Brina Palencia (Black Cat, FMA, Speed Grapher, Gunslinger Girls, and Negima).

Anime Boston will be taking place April 20th - 22nd at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.  Anime Bliss will be attending, see this thread to let us know if you would be interested in a site gathering.

Anime Expo has announced that they will be holding Anime Idol 2007 at this years convention.  Judges will include Industry Professionals and the selected winners will get the chance to perform live.  The Grand Prize winners will get to visit Bang Zoom! Studios, sit in on an actual recording session, and audition for a rold in an upcoming anime.

Anime Expo will take place June 29th - July 2nd.

Otakon has announced that Fred Gallagher, known for his comic Megatokyo, will be returning as a guest.

Otakon will be held July 20th - 22nd at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, MD.

We received a press release today from Central Park Media announcing their release of Pretty Maid Cafe.  This is the third and final movie in the Akihabara Trilogy which includes Cat Girl Kiki and Legend of the Doll.  You can click the links above to get to the index page for this release and the press release, both of which will give you more information about it.  Here is a summary of the plot:

"Hideki is depressed over the sorry state of his love life and career. That is, until his best friend Shirou takes him to a maid café where he meets a beautiful maid named Misaki. Not surprisingly, Hideki falls for her instantly, and in a desperate attempt to impress her he asks her on a date….to go fishing? Will he be undone by his tragic blunder, or will true love prevail?"

Aurora Publishing has announced their first titles.  They will be releasing "Walkin' Butterfly in June", "Flock of Angels", and "Nightmares For Sale".

They have also set up a seperate shounen-ai label, named Deux Press, which will be releasing "Hate to Love You", "Spring Fever", and "I Shall Never Return".

The New York Anime Festival has been officially announced by Reed Exhibitions, the company that runs the New york Comic Con.  The NYAF will be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center on December 7th-9th.  Content will include panels for the general public as well as ones aimed at buyers, store owners, booksellers, librarians, and members of the industry.

You can find the site here.  Registration will be $30 per day or $55 for all three days.  Sponsors for the event include ADV, Tokyopop, Publisher's Weekly, Diamond Previews, BookExpo 2007 and ANN. 

Bandai will be releasing two versions of the live action version of Cutey Honey on April 17th.  The basic edition will have the 93 minute movie as well as a Making of documentary, promotional video, and original japanese trailers for $29.98.  There will also be a limited edition version which will include an exclusive lunch box and key chain for $49.98.

After initially announcing the license at San Diego ComicCon, Digital Manga has announced that Megami DX will be released on October 31st.  Megami DX is a collection of full-color illustrations from Megami, a japanese magazine devoted to female anime and video game characters.

Digital Manga also announced that they have licensed Garden Dreams by Fumi Yoshinaga.  It is scheduled to be released October 24th.

It has been announced that Susan Sarandon and John Goodman are currently in negotiations to be part of the live action Speed Racer movie.  They are being talked about to play the part of Speed Racer's parents.  The Wachowski brothers are still looking for someone to play Speed's girlfriend Trixie as well as someone to play Racer X.  There are still rumors that Vince Vaughn, who is a producer on the movie, wants to play Racer X, but no confirmation has been made yet.

Filming on the movie is set to start this summer and the movie is set to be released May 9th, 2008.

Gizmodo Japan has released a gundam model made of platinum.  The model is about 4.9 inches tall and weighs 3 lbs.  The head contains .15 karat diamonds.  The Gundam is worth 30 million yen, which is about $260,000 US, and will be on display at the Swiss Basel World 2007 Expo.  You can see a picture here.

We got a press release from Dark Horse announcing their acquisition of Translucent.  This is a shojo title by Kazuhiro Okamoto.  It will hit stores on July 18th.  Here is a quick synopsis:

"Shizuka has problems. Not only is she an introverted girl, dealing with schoolwork and boys, but she feels invisible. In reality, she is victim to a disease that is making her literally translucent!

Shizuka finds support with Mamoru, a boy who is falling for her despite her appearance, or lack thereof. Another friend, Keiko, suffers from the same illness and has turned completely invisible.
The strange disease becomes a metaphor in the ordinary lives of the students in their classes, as they work their way through romance and friendships."

Illumitoon has sent us a press release announcing a trade in program for the following titles:

BoBoBo-Bo BoBoBo - Bo-nafide Protector of Hair

Beet the Vandel Buster - The Sacrifice

B't X - Empire of theMachines

These titles have been the subject of scrutiny by the anime community for many reasons, most notably the fact that they are "dubtitled".  This means that instead of translating the Japanese dialogue on the Japanese track, the subtitles are the English dub script.  The new discs will have a true Japanese translation for the subtitles on the Japanese track.  All future titles will also have proper subtitles.

You can use the link above to see the press release which has info on the trade in program or visit Illumitoon's Website.  The trade in program will run until May 30th and only applies to discs bought before April 30th.

We have been told via press release that Digital Manga Publishing has two positions open.  They are Production Associate and Licensing/Guest Relations Associate.  You can click the link above to see the full press release which has links to the Monster.com listings for these two positions.

We received a press release from Digital Manga Publishing announcing that they are inviting Satoru Kannagi to Anime Expo 2007.  Satoru Kannagi is best known for doing Only the Ring Finger Knows which was Digital Manga's first Yaoi title.   

At this point I think everyone knows the drill.  Beginning of month, news moved to own board, can be found at the bottom of the Message Board or using the news archive link in the left navbar . . . blah blah blah.

ADV Films has launched a website for Ah! My Goddess Season 2.

Libre Publishing is claiming that some Be Beautiful (a division of Central Park Media) titles are unauthorized.  They claim this is due to the Biblos declaring bankruptcy and the properties they held reverting to Libre.  Central Park Media supposedly never went back and renegotiated the licenses with Libre.

Central Park Media has yet to comment on this.

Aurora Publishing has signed a distribution deal with Diamond Book Distributors.  The company is a subsidiary of Ohzora and was founded in 2006.  However they have yet to announce any titles.  In the past both Dark Horse and Digital Manga Publishing have licensed titles from Ohzora.

The Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC will be holding lectures and discusions on the interaction of manga and culture throughout the world.  Among the participants will be Matsuhisa Ishikawa (CEO of Production IG) and Kazuhiko Katou, better known as Monkey Punch (Lupin III).

Dr. Susan Napier has written a new book on the way Japanese pop culture has been received in the West.  On April 5, she will introduce the book, "From Impressionism to Anime: Japan As Fantasy And Fan Cult In The Western Imagination".  Her talk will take place at 6:30 PM in the International Affairs Building of Columbia University in Room 918.  This is at 420 West 118th Street in New York City.

The book is being published by Palgrave Macmillan and is scheduled for a November release.