Anime News

Shigofumi Trailer Online

The official homepage for the upcoming Shigofumi anime television series now hosts a 2:30 long streaming trailer. The series is scheduled to premier in January.

Source: Moon Phase

Kemeko Deluxe Anime Announced

Japanese publisher MediaWorks has formally announced development of an anime television series adaptation of Masakazu Iwasaki's sci-fi romantic comedy manga series Kemeko-Deluxe. Iwasaki may be best known to Americans as the creator of the Popo-Can manga, published in America by Infinity Studios. The Kemeko Deluxe anime "pilot film" is available on the official Kemeko Deluxe homepage.

The 2008 television series will be directed by Haré+Guu director Tsutomu Mizushima and animated by Hal Film Maker (DearS, Princess Tutu).

Source: Anime News Network & Tokyo Anime Center

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Anime Announced

Japanese publisher MediaWorks has announced an anime television series (and drama CD) adaptation of Yusaku Igurashi's romantic comedy light novel series Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu (Haruka Nogizaki's Secret), a story about a high school boy that discovers that the most respected girl in school is secretly an anime otaku. The anime adaptation is planned for release next year.

Source: Anime News Network

Shina Dark Anime Announced

Japanese publisher MediaWorks has formally announced development of an anime television series adaptation of Bunjuro Nakayama & Yukari Higa's fantasy manga series Shina Dark ~Kuroki Tsuki no Ou to Soheki no Tsuki no Himegimi~. Reportedly the anime series will be produced by Shaft (Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~, Negima!?) and directed by Akiyuki Shinbou (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei).

Source: Moon Phase

Vampire Knight Shōjo Manga to be Animated for TV

Popular school horror manga is being released in English by Viz Media

The January issue (on sale November 24) of Hakusensha's LaLa shōjo magazine has announced that Matsuri Hino's Vampire Knight manga will be animated for television in Japan. The horror manga takes place in Cross Academy, where the student body is divided into the "regular" Day Class and the "elite" Night Class. Yuki Cross, the adopted daughter of the headmaster, is one of the few people in the entire school who knows that the Night Class are vampires. Yuki herself was attacked by a vampire — and saved by another — as a child. As such, she joins the Guardians, a student group that struggles to maintain the delicate balance between the two classes. Zero, Yuki's childhood friend and one of the Day Class Guardians, happens to be a latent vampire who keeps sane by drinking blood voluntarily offered by Yuki. Meanwhile, the student president of the Night Class is Kaname — the same vampire who saved Yuki as a child.

Viz Media started publishing the original manga in English in January. Four drama CDs have already been offered to LaLa and LaLa DX magazine readers in Japan, but no announcement has been made on the cast or staff of the animated version.

Source: Moon Phase

Square Enix Won't Nail Down Dragon Quest IX Release Date

♦Square Enix Won't Nail Down Dragon Quest IX Release Date

By Chris Kohler

 

Same As It Ever Was Dept.: At a shareholders meeting in Japan today, Square Enix executives said that they won't nail down a release date for Dragon Quest IX, which is coming to Nintendo DS in 2008.

You don't say. Dragon Quest games can't ever seem to make it out in Japan without a volley of delays and uncertainty. This is so routine in Japan that it was just parodied in Game Center CX, down to the last detail: The parody RPG in the game gets a December 31 release date (check), promises up to the last minute that they'll make schedule (check), then a delay into nowhere for vague reasons containing the word "quality" (check).

Seriously, this is like a pathology. Check out this IGN article from 1999.

Dragon Quest VII Delayed
The highly anticipated Japanese RPG from Enix has been delayed once again.

November 17, 1999 - Heart Beat today announced that Dragon Quest VII, which was scheduled for a December 29, 1999 release for the Sony PlayStation in Japan, has been delayed. The release postponement was made because Heart Beat, the company developing the game, felt that more time was needed to guarantee a high-quality game for the consumer. A new release date was not given, but the company says that they will announce more details as soon as they are decided.

You could seriously just replace the numbers and run the same story.

Why does this happen? To their credit, Square Enix does realize that Dragon Quest is way too important to go screwing around with, and releasing anything but a remarkably polished product that sells four million units in a day would be a gigantic failure. I am not exaggerating. If they sold two million copies of Dragon Quest IX in Japan, it would be read as the beginning of the end of the company. So everything has to be perfect. If that means releasing all three Dragon Quest remakes on the DS to prime the pump first, then they'll do it (and it's looking very likely that they'll do exactly that).

Of course, it's also important to remember that Dragon Quest IX, above and beyond all other editions of the series, has had a major development overhaul. It was originally shown to be an online action RPG in which four players could team up to adventure together. This sounded like a fun concept, but it also drastically changed the nature of Dragon Quest, which since the series began has been the most straightforward Japanese RPG of them all, never wavering from the standard tropes.

Faced with severe fan backlash, Square Enix then showed the game with bog-standard Dragon Quest gameplay and all was right with the world. (Although if I was the brash young visionary at Level 5 who came up with the first idea, I'd be a bit annoyed.) But they quickly delayed it, and now it's back into limbo. After disappointing sales of their last n games, they're hoping it eventually becomes the big hit Square Enix needs to prove they're still on top.

Dragon Quest Release Date Not Decided [Game Watch]

Source: Wired Magazine

Hidamari Sketch's Second Season Announced

Hidamari Sketch x 365 high-school slice-of-life anime set for 2008

A second season for the Hidamari Sketch anime series has been announced via posters at November 18's Chō Hida Matsuri (Super Hida Festival) event. The Hidamari Sketch x 365 anime project is planned for 2008 in Japan, along with reportedly more events and a one-year Hidamari Radio program that personality Kana Asumi (Hidamari Sketch's Yuno) will start hosting in January. Hidamari Sketch is based on Ume Aoki's manga about a high school for the arts and the everyday life of four of its students. The first season aired from January to March on the TBS/MBS television network in Japan. The first of two special episodes screened at the TBS Anime Festa 2007 event in Tokyo from August 11 to August 12, and both special episodes ran on the BS-i satellite channel on October 18.

Source: 2ch, Moon Phase Anime Schedule

Haruhi Tissue Boxes

The Japanese store kamikau.com has begun offering The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya tissue boxes in 20 different styles in an exclusive online sale that started on November 12. Each style sells for 525 yen (about US$4.74, tax included) and features artwork from the high school comedy anime series on five sides — and incidentally, 100 double-ply sheets of plain white tissue. A complete set of 20 boxes sells for 10,500 yen (US$94.75). The site also offers a tissue-box-sized acrylic case for 2,100 yen (US$18.95) to keep the tissue in mint, unused condition.

If none of the 20 pre-made styles match the home decor, customers can run a free applet to create "My Tissue Box," a customized layout. For the same 525-yen price, each custom layout can include any five images from those in the 20 pre-made styles.

Source: animeanime.jp

Anime News

Broccoli Licenses New Yaoi Manga

Broccoli's Boysenberry Books line of English translated yaoi manga has acquired distribution rights to Nase Yamato's "Cigarette Kisses" (Kuchibiru no Yukue).

Source: Anime on DVD

Media Blasters Hiring

Media Blasters is seeking a full-time professional position subtitling foreign language content into English language DVDs, and a fluent, full time English-Japanese translator. Qualifications and application guidelines are available from Anime on DVD.

Media Blasters Acquires New Live Action Titles

Media Blasters CEO John Sirabella has revealed, on the Anime on DVD Forum, the acquisition of translation rights to one of the Lone Wolf & Cub live action television series, based on the manga by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima. Anime News Network has confirmed that the license is for the 1973 television series (as opposed to the 2002 series).
Mr. Sirabella has also revealed Media Blaster's acquisition of distribution rights to the 2006 children's movie Gamera: Chiisaki Yusha Tachi, also known as "Gamera the Brave."

Subaru Live Action Movie in Production

The Sankei Sports Newspaper reports that a Japanese produced live action feature film adaptation of Masahito Soda's best selling manga series "Subaru," the story of an underdog ballerina in training, is now in production in China under the watch of director Lee Chi-Ngai. The film stars Japanese actresses Meisa Kuroki as Subaru and Kaori Momoi as Subaru's instructor.

Source: Anime News Network

Detroit Metal City Versus Berserk

As part of a new advertising campaign promoting the November 29th release of Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga volume 32 and Kiminori Wakasugi's Detroit Metal City manga volume 4, Japanese publisher Hakusensha has released the first animated video in a series of 3 shorts depicting Detroit Metal City's Johannes Krauser II versus Berserk's Gutts. The second short will go online on the 21st, and the final clip will premier on the 28th.

Source: Moon Phase

New Detail on Detroit Metal City Anime

Hakusensha's Young Animal Magazine has revealed that the planned Detroit Metal City anime, based on Kiminori Wakasugi's popular manga, will apparently be an OVA, animated by acclaimed studio 4°C (Mind Game, Genius Party).

Lost Universe Producer Interview Online

In anticipation of its domestic re-release of the 1998 Lost Universe anime television series, Nozomi Entertainment has opened its official American Lost Universe homepage, which features an interview with series producer Kazuto Imanishi.

Source: Anime on DVD

Daisuki Drama Announced

The TBS television network has announced plans to develop a live action television series adaptation of Mizuho Aimoto's manga series "Daisuki!! Yuzu no Kosodate Nikki," a story about a mentally disabled woman with the mind of an 8-year-old, who falls in love with a man with a similar disability. She becomes pregnant, but he dies in an accident, leaving her alone to raise their child. The television drama will star model and actress Karina. The series is scheduled to premier on January 17th.

Source: Ultimatum & Tokyograph

WildLife Drama Announced

Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday Magazine has announced that Fujisaki Masato's popular manga series WildLife will be adapted as a live action TV series. WildLife is the story of a high school delinquent who becomes a veternarian.

Source: Ultimatum

Anime News

Murakami's Los Angeles Opening Attracts Celebrities

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles ended its opening for Takashi Murakami's anime-influenced exhibition with a Sunday gala of celebrities, including music producer Pharrell Williams (live-action Voltron project) and actress Christina Ricci (live-action Speed Racer's Trixie). Rapper and anime fan Kanye West, who used Murakami's art on his Graduation album and videos, performed a small live set. Ricci said her movie's production was influenced by Murakami's Superflat aesthetic. Actress Susan Sarandon (Speed Racer's mother) had previously said that the directors, the Wachowski Brothers, are compositing scenes in artificially flattened layers to emulate the look of the original Speed Racer anime.

Source: Los Angeles Times, Style.com


Vertical to Publish Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack Manga

Publishers Weekly's Comics Week reports that the North American publisher Vertical Inc. will publish the entire run of the Black Jack medical suspense series from manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka. The story revolves around a gifted maverick doctor who treats patients at the edge of society without regard for rules. Tezuka himself was a medical student before he decided to pursue his passion of manga.

The original manga ran in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion magazine in Japan from 1973 to 1979, with occasional one-shot installments up until 1983. Almost all of the installments were eventually collected into various book editions that totaled 22 volumes. The North American manga distributor Viz published several installments in the defunct Manga Vizion magazine and compiled two volumes in the 1990s.

The manga has been been adapted numerous times in animation and live-action formats for television, film, home video, and even Internet distribution. Tezuka's frequent collaborator Osamu Dezaki directed ten animated video volumes between 1993 and 2000, which were later distributed in North America by US Manga Corps. Dezaki also directed a 1996 movie which Manga Entertainment distributed in North America.

A 2003 Black Jack animated television special mini-series spawned a series of 11 Flash-animated shorts that was one of the first anime to premiere exclusively online. (The net series also featured pop star Hikaru Utada as the doctor's young companion Pinoko.) Those videos in turn spawned the first Black Jack animated television series, which ran from 2004 to 2006, as well as yet another animated movie in 2005. The Black Jack 21 television sequel followed in 2006.

Four different live-action actors played the doctor in a 1977 live-action film, a 1981 serialized drama, a 1996 video series, and three 2000 drama specials. Akita Shoten itself revived the manga after Tezuka's passing with five different manga serializations, including three volumes by Kenji Yamamoto in 2006.

Source: Anime Newsnetwork

Le Chevalier Author, Production I.G Start Sci-Fi Manga

The Winter 2007 issue (on sale November 14) of Kadokawa's Shonen Ace Assault magazine will debut Eulenspiegel, Shuji Sogabe's manga adaptation of a light novel from Tow Ubukata (Le Chevalier d'Eon, Sōkyū no Fafner) about three cyborg girls in a police unit in 2016. The January 2008 issue (on sale November 30) of Mag Garden's Comic Blade will launch Tokumu Kikōtai Kuchikura (Special Operations Armored Unit Kuchikura), a "near-future military simulation drama" from Production I.G and scriptwriter Yoshiki Sakurai (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Evangelion movie remakes). The manga covers the battle for survival in a 21st-century Tokyo leveled by warfare.

Source: Moon Phase