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IMAF is now running

Date: 2006 November 10 16:14 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

For our London readers you might want to visit IMAF, the International Manga and Anime Festival, which opened today at County Hall near the London Eye in Westminster. It's set to run from Friday 10th - Tuesday 14th November 2006.

Opening times vary each day, so be sure to check to avoid dissapointment before going. The event schedule can be found in a 132KB MS Word document (web usability experts scream as it should be in HTML for everyone to read). It includes panels and workshops by author Paul Gravett, artists Sweatdrop Studios, international comic book
creator Ilya and expert on traditonal culture Akemi.

The winners have been announced and the overall award winner is the talented Paul Duffield who also won the Tokyopop UK Rising Stars of Manga Competiton in 2005. Anime expert, author, writer, and Ghibli fan Helen McCarthy also won a much deserved "Outstanding Contribution to Anime and Manga" award. Congratulations to all the winners!

We suggest you get to County Hall to enjoy all the lovely artwork while it's on display.

Souce: IMAF

London Graphic Centre Manga Day

Date: 2006 November 03 18:58 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Art

We've received some very last minute details from Letraset about an event they'll be running on Saturday 4th November at London Graphics a huge art supply retailer. We've been told that their Covent Garden store in London will be hosting a manga day with activities and workshops 11.00am to 6pm. The following will be there:

- Letraset
- London Graphics
- TokyoPop
- Tokyo Toys
- Sweatdrop Studios
- Blusheep

Apparently it's also being supported by Neo Magazine and Manga Entertainment.

So if you can get to London in time and are feeling artistic it's well worth a look.

Souce: London Graphic Centre

MangaQuake 3

Date: 2006 October 26 09:39 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Manga

UK Small press anthology MangaQuake is back for its third issue which contains 56 pages of manga goodness!
Press Release:
"MangaQuake is back for its third issue- and it's better than ever! Featuring a collection of strips for a few familiar names from previous issues, and some truly astonishing brand new talent. With stories of betrayal, inter species romance (...well sort of!) and Norse gods with traffic congestion problems- I think we can genuinely say that this issue, its 56 pages crammed to overflowing with fun and action- has something for everyone! "

Souce: FutureQuake

Pink and Blue - Double release from Sweatdrop Studios

Date: 2006 October 24 08:48 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Sonia from Sweatdrop Studios the manga styled art group has dropped as a line about their latest publications. The books are supposed to be paired together and explorer the differences between shojo and shonen manga, apparently each book can be enjoyed alone or with it's partner book. The shojo book is called Pink is for Girls, while the shonen book is titled Blue is for Boys. We like the comparison of sparkles versus speedlines in their press release. The book is due for release on Saturday 28th October at the London MCM Expo at the Sweatdrop Studios stand.

Read More... | Souce: Sweatdrop Studios

Tomo-dachi 2007

Date: 2006 September 15 03:26 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

We've been sent some details from the Tomo-dachi Crew about their next convention, set for Friday, August 31st - Sunday to September 2nd, 2007 at the UU Magee Campus in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Bookings before March 31st are £25 and £30 after. As of yet, they've not released a guest list, however if the last Tomo-dachi is anything to go for they'll have some good industry guests.

Sweatdrop Release Two How To Draw Manga Books

Date: 2006 September 14 14:52 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

We've been sent a press release from the nice people over at UK manga inspired art group Sweatdrop. They're both aimed at beginners, Draw Manga By Sweatdrop Studios and Drawing Manga by Selina Dean. Draw Manga focuses on basics, with a series of tutorials on how to draw character elements such as eyes, hair, hand and clothing, along with step by step projects showing how to put individual elements together to create a manga style character.

Drawing Manga by the talented Selina Dean focuses more on character design with posing characters. It includes tips on drawing people monsters and mascots. In addition it includes comic creation techniques such as developing storyboards, creating layouts, scripting, including backgrounds and colouring and inking techniques.

Draw Manga by Sweatdrop Studios is due out on 15th October 2006, while Drawing Manga by Selina Dean was out on 4th September 2006.

We think it's great that some UK based artist are producing books on how to draw manga, however we're curious as to why they've released two books within the space of two months with the same purpose at the same price (an affordable £9.99), we wonder if the books are significantly different, would it have been better to combine the contents into one bigger book? Perhaps the writing styles are different allowing a potential artist to chose the style they prefer.

Read More... | Souce: Sweatdrop Studios

Random House Launch New Manga Label

Date: 2006 July 16 17:01 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The good folks at publishers Random House have dropped us a line to tell us about their new manga publishing label Tanoshimi. They'll be releasing some great titles in the UK including xxxHOLiC, Tsubasa and Negima. Their new website is due to launch on 3rd August 2006, in the mean time you can sign up for a chance to win an iPod Nano.

Souce: Tanoshimi

FuyuCon UK Convention Set For October 2007

Date: 2006 June 21 07:45 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

The good people from the East Midlands Anime Group have arranged a convention for Friday 19th October to Sunday 21st October 2007. FuyuCon has capacity for 500 members and will be based at the Britannia Hotel Nottingham. Full weekend membership costs £40.

Anime expert Helen McCarthy will be the guest for FuyuCon, it will be her first UK anime convention appearance in a while. Helen regularly attends US conventions such as A-Kon.

FuyuCon is a welcome addition to the UK anime convention calendar. Since the capacity is 500, we suggest you book as soon as possible to avoid any disappointment.

Cosplay Cafe at Cafe Manga

Date: 2006 March 29 17:54 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Emily has just sent us some details about an event she's organising in London next month, Cosplay Cafe at Cafe Manga. Aimed at Cosplayers kameko (photographers) and their chums. It's set for Sunday 23rd April, 2pm-5.30pm, and includes fun activities like a photoshoot, a talk/workshop, a quiz, anime and live action screenings, along with a swap table. They'll even have goodies to give away too! ^_^

Follow-up on Ottaker's Manga Evening

Date: 2006 February 28 05:16 | Posted By: Voxie

Category > Manga

Following my recent report on Ottaker's promotional push on the manga scene, I've gotten hold of a small list of other branch locations where a Manga Evening is taking place. If your branch isn't on there, I've been told to keep checking and/or asking away. Areas probably differ in consciousness with manga, and are likely to hold a Manga Evening too, if they know there is a demand.

New Manga Collector's Club + Manga Events with Ottaker's

Date: 2006 February 26 08:28 | Posted By: Voxie

Category > Manga

After getting a heads up from Anime Artists UK on bookshop Ottaker's new Manga Collector's Club, I searched around and found that Ottaker's Coventry branch will also be holding a small manga evening on April 6th in association with Tokyo Pop.

Sweatdrop Shop

Date: 2006 February 12 14:45 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Fandom

Those artistic people from Sweatdrop Studios have dropped us a line to tell us about their new on-line shopping system. They take Paypal too, which is useful for those who don't have or want credit cards. We recommend you grab a copy of Sugardrops if you haven't already, since it contains artwork from a selection of the Sweatdrop Crew. The press release they sent us also has a discount coupon. ^_-

Read More... | Souce: Sweatdrop Studios

Manga Manufacturing at the Japanese Embassy London

Date: 2006 January 30 16:08 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Events

The Japanese Embassy in Piccadilly, London is hosting a free to enter exhibition focusing on the production of manga from the rough through to the finished work. The exhibition focuses on the work of manga artist Kiriko Kubo.

It runs from 30 January - 24 February 2006 and is open Monday - Friday 9.30 am - 5.30 pm.

Souce: Japanese Embassy

UK Rising Stars Announced

Date: 2006 January 06 04:18 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Manga

The winners of The Rising Stars of Manga UK have been announced. The Grand prize was taken by Paul Duffield with the manga Falling Star the second prize was one by Sonia Leong with the manga Fatal Connection.

Sweatdrop Studios At Comic Expo Brighton

Date: 2005 November 15 17:22 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Those nice people over at Sweatdrop have sent us a press release for their appearace at the Comic Expo in Brighton. Tokyopop and Letraset will be there too. It's certainly worth a vist if you like your comics or want to be more active in the independent UK comic scene.

Read More... | Souce: Sweatdrop Studios

Japanese Manga and Cultural Politics Lecture

Date: 2005 September 29 16:15 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Author and anime expert Jonathan Clements has sent us details of the SOAS Japanese Manga and Cultural Politics Lecture and Discussion in London. This is due to take place at 7pm Tuesday 11th October, with free admission at the The Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS. Since it's hosted by The School of Oriental and African Studies, you know it should be good.

IMAF 2005 Lines Up Top Speakers and New Anime

Date: 2005 September 26 17:29 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

With the competition deadline edging ever close, the nice folks at IMAF have sent us some more details for their London event.

Highlights include Sweatdrop Studios, a special screening of Millennium Actress, along with the Europe Premiere of Streetfighter - Alpha Generation. Even Garnier will be their with its Manga haircare range. The IMAF is certainly worth attending to see the wonderful range of entrants.

Read More... | Souce: IMAF

Viz Titles for the UK Include Bleach and Inu Yasha

Date: 2005 September 17 16:37 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Anime

Viz are set to enter the European anime and manga market,partnering with Copyright Promotions Ltd they will form Viz Media B.V. Titles appearing in the press release include Bleach, Deko Boku Friends and Mar.

We at Otaku news have also noticed one title surprisingly not mentioned in the press release has already appeared on the CPLG website, with a page now listing the Inu Yasha anime.

Souce: AnimeUKNews

International Manga and Anime Festival Launches and Calls For Entrants

Date: 2005 July 25 15:49 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Art

This years IMAF has just launched. They're looking for international talent in the form of artists and animators to identify the best. Entrants have a chance to win some of the $75,000 prize fund which is divided between the categories. The best overall entry will win a generous $30,000!

The Otaku News Crew advise that our talented readers get to work, you've got until the 30th September 2005 to get your entries in!

Read More... | Souce: IMAF

Gollancz Manga Launch Details

Date: 2005 July 14 15:07 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Gollancz Manga have sent us the details for their UK Manga releases. Starting August they'll be releasing manga on the first Monday of every month. Gollancz entered into an exclusive arrangement with VIZ to publish their titles in the UK. The titles available will include Yu-Gi-Oh!, Fushigi Yugi, Dragon Ball and Case Closed.

Many UK manga fans would have already got these titles from certain retailers offering the American import versions, but since these are the official UK versions it means that they'll be more easily available. Libraries for example will be able to order manga if they so wish through their distributors. The Otaku News Crew are excited to hear about this and look forward to seeing even more manga in the UK.

Only 49 Places Left at AyaCon

Date: 2005 June 21 19:07 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Popular UK Anime convention AyaCon are now down to their last 49 places. The convention always proves a hit and once it has sold out getting a ticket to the event is very hard, normally people have to wait for registered members to cancel.

AyaCon 5 is set to be the biggest UK anime convention to date with 1200 fans in attendance. Currently hosting an anime convention of this size is tricky and it's always nice to know that the people running the convention have experience and a proven track record at organising anime conventions. So book now to avoid disappointment.

What will be interesting to see is where will anime conventions go after this. Anime and manga is getting increasingly popular in the UK and more events are being held all the time. Surely more people will want to go to anime conventions run by anime fans like AmeCon, AyaCon and MinamiCon, however there are a only a limited number of venues that can cater for a fan run anime convention in the UK larger than 1200 people, anything bigger and all sorts of logistical factors kick in making organising an event a lot more complex. The Otaku News Crew wonder what will happen next, will these conventions continue with the same capacity, or will they be able to find even bigger venues to hold larger events? Whatever happens we certainly look forward to future fan run anime conventions.

Souce: AyaCon

Manga Special At Artists & Illustrators Exhibition

Date: 2005 June 12 14:58 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Sonia Leong over at Sweatdrop Studios has just sent us some details about a special discount at The Artists & Illustrators Exhibition (21-24 July, Business Design Centre, London, UK). For more details read the full press release.

Read More... | Souce: Sweatdrop Studios

TokyoPop to Launch New Children's Line

Date: 2005 May 24 18:41 | Posted By: Jeremy

Category > Manga

TokyoPop has announced that they will launch a new branch of their successful Cine-Manga line. This July, they will release the first of the new Jr. Cine-Manga books that will, they predict, revolutionize the children’s book market by bringing beloved characters and storylines from the screen to an original exciting visual format.

Manga Art Competition At London Expo

Date: 2005 May 10 18:20 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Sonia Leong from UK manga style art group Sweatdrop Studios has just sent us the details of a Manga Art Competition which will be held at the London Expo this weekend. The competition is sponsored by Letraset who will be giving the winners some highly desirable colour professional Letraset Tria Marker collections, worth over £70 each.

So if you can draw and will be at the London Expo then why not give it a shot? ^_^

More Details Of Dragon Ball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh manga releases in the UK

Date: 2005 May 05 15:03 | Posted By: Ash

Category > Manga

Following on this story, Gollancz have confirmed more details of the release of the Dragon Ball Z and the Yu-Gi-Oh series in mainstream book shops. The cartoon series of both have caught the attention of the UK audience by their showing on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and now it will be possible from August to buy the manga titles from all good book shops, with Ottakars especially making a push with these titles.

First Ever UK Tokyopop 'Rising Stars Of Manga' Competition

Date: 2005 April 28 17:09 | Posted By: Ash

Category > Manga

Following on from our earlier story Tokyopop are to offer a chance for UK creators to earn prizes and receive a chance to have their own Graphic Novel.

Garnier Release Manga Hair Styling Product In UK

Date: 2005 April 26 18:03 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Freaky Things

Anime and manga fans in the UK have always dreamed of their favourite hobby becoming more mainstream, without doubt over the last year or so this has happened. What key indicators are we using for this? Sales figures in highstreet retailers? Availability of manga in bookshops? No, we're using hair products. Anime and manga characters have always been noted for having very distinct hairstyles and beauty products company Garnier have just released Fructis Style Manga Head styling putty in the UK. It seems that either their marketing department are cool and hip or Garnier have found a niche market of otaku who want to emulate their favourite characters.

IMAF Announce Winners

Date: 2005 April 19 13:51 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

The International Manga and Anime Festival have just announced the winners of their first international competition. The London based event started last year as a trial run and has proved very successful indeed. The entrants work was displayed in London County Hall in December. This was a very high profile event, located near the famous London Eye, with a $75,000 prize fund which even ran adverts in national newspapers. We covered the story originally here.

The Otaku News Crew would like to congratulate all the winners in this competition, especially talented artist Wing Yun Man, who is well known in UK anime fandom as part of the Sweatdrop Team, she is also a member of the Otaku News Crew and finds time post the occasional story and draw lovely artwork for us!

Read More... | Souce: IMAF

Gollancz Announces Manga Deal

Date: 2005 April 08 07:39 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Following on from our story about Viz being distributed in the UK, we now have the offical press release from Gollancz.

Viz Manga For The UK

Date: 2005 March 31 15:50 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Manga

For some time Viz titles have only been available through specialist importers in the UK, but thankfully for those without access to these services the UK will finally get versions of it’s own. UK publishers Gollancz have struck a deal with Viz and will be publishing Viz’s titles in the UK under the imprint Gollancz manga. Titles include: Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Case Closed and Fushigi Yugi. The books will be priced at £4.99 and be available from August.

Souce: The Book Standard

Sweatdrop At London Expo

Date: 2005 March 24 12:14 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Press Releases

UK manga style art group Sweatdrop Studios has announced that they will be attending the London MCM Expo and will be running the artists alley section of the 'anime village'. The MCM Expo is running on the 14 & 15th May.

Comic Expo UK -Tokyopop Rising Stars Competition Opens To The UK

Date: 2005 March 21 13:17 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Events

Comic Expo is a new UK comic convention in Bristol 14th - 15th MAY 2005. Which seems to be making an effort to include manga fans within the convention. The biggest news is that Tokyopop UK will be launching its new 'Rising Stars of Manga' competition which for the first time will be open to UK artists. The convention also lists a "Tokyopop cine-manga night" but there are no details so it's hard to understand what this means.
Tokyopop Cine-manga are comics made out of animation screenshots (which with Tokyopop aren't all based on anime e.g. Disney), so it's unclear if it's some sort of presentation, anime screening or broader animation screening.

Also of interest is a talk by Paul Gravett which is billed as 'PAUL GRAVETT gets Re-Animeted. Celebrating 60 years of the genre.'

Manga Collector Required

Date: 2005 March 09 17:57 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The Otaku News Crew have been sent this request from a Publisher who requires someone with a large manga collecton -

Publisher seeks manga collectors in South East England with collections of 75-100 plus translated titles, mostly non hentai. Author and publisher would like to visit you and look at your titles as part of picture research for new book. Small fee and thanks in book. If interested send your list of titles/authors and your address to

chippymouseuk@yahoo.co.uk

Souce: Publisher

Sweatdrop Studios Mini Comics Feature on Artists & Illustrators Magazine

Date: 2005 March 06 18:10 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Sonia Leong from UK manga style art studio Sweatdrop has sent us some details regarding an exciting collaboration with Artists & Illustrators Magazine. The March issue heavily features manga style artwork in the form of two full colour cover-mounted mini comics and a make your own manga tutorial, covering details such as sketching, inking and using colour markets to produce authentic looking illustrations.

The Sweatdrop crew will also be representing the UK manga community at the Artists & Illustrators Exhibition 2005 event.

Artists & Illustrators Magazine is the UK's best selling magazine for practising artists. You can grab a copy of the Sweatdrop Planet Manga mini comic with the March Edition of the magazine, which is available from 4th March.

London MCM Expo Celebrates Anime - Manga & Cosplay

Date: 2005 February 13 17:18 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

The folks over at the London Expo Event have sent us details of their anime and manga lineup. Not only will they have Cosplay events on both days, but they've also arranged sponsorship from MVM and Neo Magazine.

Guest wise, the Expo has Teryleryl Rothery who plays Dr. Janet Frasier in Stargate SG-1 and has been a voice actress in Dragon Ball playing Agent Mai in the 1995 dub and Raven in the first Dragon Ball Movie. She's also played A-ko Magami in Project A-Ko and Kodachi Kuno in various Ranma ½ features.

Ghost In The Shell UK Manga Release Details

Date: 2005 February 10 08:42 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

We've got details from Titan Books regarding the UK release of the new edition of the groundbreaking manga Ghost In The Shell. This is Masamune Shirow's best known work and has been reprinted in a smaller format now uncensored. Titan will also be releasing the new manga Ghost In The Shell 2: Man Machine Interface. The sequel to the original manga has lots more CG art that Shirow has become known for in his popular Intron Depot artbooks.

Both books have been translated by Frederik L. Schodt and Toren Smith, which otaku know are famed for the quality of their translation work. Both books hit the shelves on 25th February and retail for £19.99, which is reasonable considering the page count and the amount of colour artwork in both books.

Sweatdrop At The Artists & Illustrators Exhibition 2005

Date: 2005 January 09 15:16 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

We've just got news from the nice people at UK manga style art studio Sweatdrop that they'll be representing the UK manga community at the Artists & Illustrators Exhibition 2005 event and also provide workshops, and four 90 minute long presentations covering aspects of Manga-styled art and it's creation.

The event is scheduled for July 21st - 24th at London's Business Design Centre, last years event attracted over 14,000 visitors!

The Sweatdrop crew can be seen regulary at UK anime events, such at the London Anime Club and other UK anime conventions like AyaCon and AmeCon. Recently Sweatdrop also ran a stall at the London Comic Festival, with great success. Regular readers of Otaku News, will also remeber some of our lovely Christmas Desktop Wallpaper created by Sweatdrop artist Wing Yun Man.

AyaCon Five: Launch Announcement

Date: 2004 December 14 18:40 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

I've just received the details for AyaCon 5, the next edition of the successful UK anime and manga convention which always proves popular. AyaCon 5 will be held from 19-21 August 2005. Their venue will be the Warwick Arts Centre (University of Warwick near Coventry).

The convention will have use of the entire Arts Centre and extra faclities including a bar, restaurant and additional conference rooms, along with the full nightclub facilities in the nearby Students' Union for two parties on the Friday and Saturday evenings.

Manga Tour of Japan 2005

Date: 2004 December 13 18:08 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Those alert people over at BritAnime have discovered a manga package holiday from 29 March to April 2005 for our British readers.

The price seems good considering the flights and everything, although personally I prefer to go around Japan without a tour guide, discovering things by yourself is a lot of fun! However it is nice to have the option for the less adventurous, or for those who enjoy the convenience of having everything ready for them, especially since many anime fans have a limited Japanese vocabulary, including words such as baka (idiot), which doesn't really go down well when you're trying to book a hotel room!

The 8 day trip includes a visit to the Tokyo International Animation Fair, the fantastic Ghibli Museum, a visit to Akihabara (for all your electronic needs) and also the wonderful Meiji shrine, with huge Tori gates by it's entrance.

Souce: JapanJourneys.co.uk

An Interview With The Reading Agency

Date: 2004 December 07 18:15 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Following our previous news items about the educational value of manga in the UK, that appear in both the Times Education Supplement and the Daily Mail, we've managed to get an interview with the organisation that created the campaign designed to get kids reading using manga - The Reading Agency.

Auchinawa Glasgow Convention for Otaku

Date: 2004 November 29 08:53 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

One of our contributors Voxie from MAME has just discovered plans in Scotland for Auchinawa which "strives not to be an "Anime Convention" but an "Otaku Convention". Our Mission is to create a Convention/Expo in Scotland, the first of its kind, which caters for your needs and wants as fans."

They plan to screen anime, have DDR machines and will also be catering for J-Music fanatics and furries.

It's not set to run until the summer of 2006 so many of the details aren't finalised yet. However it's always good to plan ahead and conventions in the UK often get booked out quickly, so go take a look and get saving to get to Glasgow, if you're not near there already.

Souce: Auchinawa

Neo Magazine First Issue Out Now

Date: 2004 November 25 19:15 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

Just a quick reminder to our UK readers that the first issue of Neo Magazine is out now. The publication covers anime, manga, videogames, gadgets, and all things Japanese. It's available from WH Smith, Borders, HMV, Martins Spar, Virgin Store, Forbidden Planet and some independent newsagents, it should also be available from Diamond Comic stockists.

For more information check out our previous write up on Neo Magazine, Anime UK News also has an interview with the editor as does UK-Anime.net

Souce: Neo Magazine

Mail On Sunday Portray Manga In A Bad Light

Date: 2004 November 21 21:08 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Following on from our report about The Educational Value of Manga In The UK, British News Paper The Mail On Sunday have just written an article about the topic titled "Child murder, incest and rape... is this really how our schools should be encouraging boys to read?", this is in stark contrast to previous articles we have reported on in other publications that portray anime and manga in a more positive light. When dealing with the Daily Mail and Mail Sunday our readers outside of the UK should note an Ian Hislop quote where he says that to the Daily Mail even Yoghurt is scary (I can't find the exact quote right now).

Educational Value of Manga In The UK

Date: 2004 November 16 18:33 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The Times Education Supplement (a Times newspaper for teachers and people working in the education sector) are running a story about the educational value of manga, interestingly enough they make the same common misconceptions about manga - "Mangas depict wide-eyed heroes, often in varying states of undress". The Reading Agency, an organisation that promotes literacy, is encouraging schools to buy Manga comics, it seems they want to get as many children to get into reading by introducing them to manga. They've compiled a list of 150 recommended Manga titles, deemed suitable for teenagers and are sending them to all libraries and schools. The Otaku News crew imagine that this will help TokyoPop UK's already very healthy sales figures! ^_-

Souce: TES

Strong Yaoi Sales on Amazon.com

Date: 2004 November 14 08:34 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

ICv2 are reporting an interesting trend with Amazon.com's manga best seller list. Apparently Yaoi is three of the top five, four of the top ten and six of the top fifteen manga titles. ICv2 point out that these sales are only on Amazon.com as the American Bookscan list doesn't not match with these sales figures, with only Del Rey's Tsubasa Volume 3 appearing at the top of both lists.

ICv2 speculate that people purchasing Yaoi prefer the privacy and relative anonymity that on-line reatilers offer and that the two main Yaoi publishers Digital Manga and CPM Manga don't have the marketing clout or number of titles compared to other publishers with titles at the top of the graphic novel lists.

Souce: ICv2

NEO Magazine UK

Date: 2004 November 09 17:46 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Retail

Charlie from Crazy Ninja has sent us a the details about NEO Magazine. Neo Mag's publicity states that they are the UK's only newsstand magazine dedicated to Anime, Manga, videogames, gadgets, and all things Japanese.

Their market overview text states "Anime and Manga have been popular in the UK for over 10 years now, and the market has never had a dedicated quality publication which appeals to the core fan, and also provides for the broader mainstream markets". I always thought that this was part of Manga Mania / Max's brief.

Neo Magazine is due out on 25th November, with a Dead Leaves Cover and features articles on the American remake of The Grudge, Tekken, also interviews with Chiaki Kuriyama (of Battle Royal and Kill Bill fame), and voice actress Monica Rial.

Souce: Crazy Ninja

International Manga and Anime Festival Launches

Date: 2004 October 27 18:20 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

We've just got a press release from a group called IMAF, who will be holding an international competition to find the best manga and anime talent in the world, entrants stand a chance to win big bucks with a total prize fund of $75,000!

The entrants work will be shown at London County Hall from 16th - 19th December. Judges include Koike Kazuo who is best known for writing Lone Wolf and Cub and Crying Freeman.

Read More... | Souce: IMAF

TokyoPop and Sweatdrop Attract Interest At London Comic Festival

Date: 2004 October 23 17:51 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The Otaku News Crew have just returned from the London Comic Festival, an event that focuses on the British Comic Book industry, it consists largely of underground/independent UK comic book publishers. Representing the UK manga/anime scene were professional manga publishers TokyoPop UK and original UK manga studio Sweatdrop. It was nice to see the interest and enthusiasm both groups generated. All the exhibitors there had a fair number of visitors to the their tables, I didn't do a proper count or survey, but throughout the day it was clear that both TokyoPop and Sweatdrop generated a large amount of interest, more so than any of the other comic book publishers.

Souce: Otaku News

Newtype USA Celebrates Its Second Anniversary

Date: 2004 October 18 18:04 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folk at Newtype USA have sent us a press release regarding their second anniversary. To celebrate the popular anime magazine will bring back it's free DVD insert, which became a subscriber only bonus item. We've heard that Newtype USA stopped the free DVD due to retail issues, original store clerks removed the free DVD to pass on to friends, this in turn meant that the opened issue could not be sold. It seems that the people at Newtype have been listening to their readers. We welcome the return of the DVD since it means more free anime! ^_^

Samurai History Papers - Quarterly Newsletter

Date: 2004 October 16 16:03 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Culture

We've just got details in from Ridgeback Press, apparently they will be launching Samurai History Papers, a quarterly newsletter from Romulus Hillsborough (whose research on the history of the Meiji Restoration spans over twenty years). It focuses on the facts behind many samurai anime series, such as the Shinsengumi (central to Peacemaker Kurogane and Rurouni Kenshin).

Jonathan Clements Launches New Website

Date: 2004 October 16 13:26 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Websites

Jonathan Clements, writer, translator, co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia, The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, The Dorama Encyclopedia and I Love My Tamagotchi (under the name of Bronwen Komatsubara), has just e-mailed with some details regarding his new website -

"Don't know if this counts as news or not, but if it does, there is much anime goodness to be found at my website, including the English version of my Afterword to the deluxe edition of Akira, the unpublished Afterword to the Anime Encyclopedia, and several anime columns from Newtype and the Sci Fi channel."

Considering how much Jonathan Clements has done in the anime industry, I think it does count as news, so go on and have a look at his website. I'm off to find Schoolgirl Milky Crisis.

Souce: Jonathan Clements

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