There have been reports that the Stateside dub of One Piece has been cancelled, and those reports are seemingly confirmed in this forum post. I'm always sad to see a series get cancelled, especially one as popular as One Piece.

 

While I was over on TheOtaku, I saw that they are having a massive art contest. Even if you can't draw, and it's fairly well-known that I can't, spread the word to those who can. It's for a fantastic cause, if nothing else. And better it be someone you know than someone you don't, right? Then you can hang out and bug them about the prizes...

 

 AnimeOnDVD has their latest roundup of manga reviews, submitted for your perusal. Nothing really jumped out at me this week, but that's because I'm already making my way through most of them!

 

As if you needed another reason to go to Japan, the International Manga Museum has opened up in Kyoto. It's first on my (theoretical) tourism itinerary, should I ever make it to Kyoto (thus the "theoretical" in there).

 

MAR and Prince of Tennis will be appearing on Toonami. As weird as it sounds, I'm actually looking forward to Prince of Tennis. It seems like a really good show, or so I've heard.  

 

That's all for me today! Have a good week, everybody!

The producer of Robotech was visited by the FBI, according to this report on ICv2. This is apparently related to a fraud and embezzlement scheme perpetrated by a former Italian prime minister. All I know is I am very, very confused.

 

Speaking of ICv2, they will be hosting a conference on graphic novels at the New York Comic Con. Despite the name, I anticipate a lot of discussion about manga-related topics, considering one of the executive VPs of Viz will be there, and Viz seems to be one of the sponsors of the conference. This might be a bit more industry-heavy than fan-oriented, but it still sounds like a very interesting conference, and I kind of wish I could go.

 

The Hellsing Ultimate home page is now live, and I am so pumped for Hellsing Ultimate that I might just explode like confetti.

 

Over at The Japan Times, they have a very cool retrospective on Ultraman, covering just how much butt he has been kicking throughout the years.

 

Just a reminder that the latest anime podcast is out from TheOtaku, and it's a very good one (as usual), one well worth your time.

 

There's a guessing game going on at AnimeOnDVD. Get your guesses in now! I have been told that prizes may just be involved.

 

That's all for me today! Hope you had a good weekend, everybody!

The Otaku has the latest roundup of new manga releases, including Naruto #12, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist #18, and Bleach #16. As always, I suggest updating your shopping selection through their handy list, then hitting the bookstores this weekend.

Paprika gets a nice writeup in the Japan Times. If you're anticipating Paprika as much as I am, you'll definitely want to check out this review. I reeeealllly can't wait to see it.

 

If you're going to hang out and be cool and indie at Sundance (wish I could, but my indie cred is low), there'll be a screening of the live action Bugmaster for you to investigate. Report back and let me know how it is.

Speaking of live action, Akadot is reporting a live action Death Note movie will be coming up in 2008. 2007 hasn't even started, and here I am looking forward to '08!

 

That's all for me today! Have a good weekend, everybody!

Anime News Network has a fantastic interview with voice actor Patrick Seitz, who you've heard in Bleach, as well as Paradise Kiss, DearS, Girls Bravo, and Hellsing. It's definitely worth a read, especially since Patrick seems to be one of the hardest working guys in anime. 

 

The New York Times has an interesting profile on Clamp, who I imagine you've heard of if you're visiting here. Clamp is, from my reading, doing things very differently, and I think it shows in the quality of the product they produce.

 

If you're going to Akiba, you're probably going for the maids!

 

What's that sitting atop the Japanese box office? It's Death Note 2, ruling over all it surveys.

 

NPR has a nice article up on Japan's otaku culture.

 

Lastly, thelatest round of Small Bodied Manga has some very cool stuff in it. I'm particularly intrigued by Vagabond.

 

That's all for me! I'll see you Friday!

I saw on TheOtaku that the website for the new Naruto series is live. And right after I checked that out, I went through their list of upcoming conventions for December to begin making reservations and planning my winter adventures. It's never to early to start booking, kids!

 

Fullmetal Alchemist #10 climbed into the top 150 books on the USA Today booklist chart. Good news for Fullmetal fans, and just one sign of the popularity of FMA.

 

AnimeonDVD is giving away a prize a day until the end of the month. I'm already entered for today! Are you?

 

Anime today is celebrating their one year anniversary today. Yay! Congratulations, guys, and I love the podcast.

 

That's all for me for now. Have a good day!

The GDH group, who you know of as the company behind the GONZO brand, has started an investment fund to start looking outside their group. One wonders who will get their funding first.

 

If you're a fan of Toei, Anime News Service has some info on some of the projects they're working on next year. Perpetual blog favorite Yoshitaka Amano is among the names mentioned.

 

Aspiring manga artists, take note, as Planetwide has announced the Tokyopop Manga Creator. I've actually played with the first iteration of this, which was aimed at American-style comics, and it's possible to do some amazing work with it.

 

Charles Campbell, from ADV's Guyver, has a great interview up at ANN.

 

Naruto fans, if you're curious about the uncut DVD releases, the first review is up at AnimeonDVD.

 

That's all for me! Also a note, we'll give away the t-shirts on Monday, as we're all planning to be in gravy-induced comas come Friday. Have a good holiday, everybody!

According to Anime News Service, Naruto is number one on the GameCube! Naruto really is an unstoppable juggernaut by this point, isn't it? It's dominating the manga charts, video games, and I'm willing to bet its TV ratings are good, too. What can stop the Naruto Train?

 

Del Rey landed the intriguing sounding Princess Resurrection, according to ICv2. I'm a sucker for gothic-style manga, and gothic horror manga that sounds like this "cute, but take-no-prisoners, chainsaw-wielding heroine of this series battles the forces of darkness with the help of a zombie servant and a robot sidekick" is too delicious to pass up.

 

The latest iteration of The Otaku's podcast merits a listen, as it always does.

 

Since I was just talking about manga a paragraph up, I thought I'd throw in a link to this one. Freak sounds like an awesome semi-cyberpunk manga worth checking out.

 

Finally, do you understand anime?

 

That's all for me today! Have a good week, everybody!

The latest round of winners have been picked and they arrrrrrrrre....

 

NartosNinja9 
ruehue321

darkfox2401 

 

 Congratulations, lucky people!

Congratulations  twilightmusuko.  -- and thank you to our Otaku Invitational contestant teams!   Your home-brewed trailers are awesome ...

The Bleach DVDs are coming out and the reviews are coming in! AnimeOnDVD has a pretty good writeup of the first disc and considering how hot the series is, you'll want to pick it up. It's one of those that everyone is talking about.

 

Rockin', uh, J-Rock band Dir En Grey is going on tour and TheOtaku has tour dates up. While none of them are particularly close to me, I am considering a road trip to Philly to check them out. I'd love to see them live, rather than listening to my iPod.

 

Dragonball Z is going Hi-Def! All of you with fancy TVs will be pleased to know that Funimation is releasing high definition transfers of all 291 episodes of Dragonball Z. That is a LOT of Dragonball, let me tell you.

 

Joyride, makers of the Fullmetal Alchemist TCG, are hosting a charity tournament series. Win awesome cards (I have a deck here, they're beautiful cards) and help out people in need? Sign me up!

 

In addition to the upcoming anime and the upcoming XBox 360 game, Blue Dragon will be getting the manga treatment.

 

That's all for me today! Have a good day, everyone!

 

I have been notified that I forgot something kind of important last week, and hopefully I can make up for that with this latest round of winners. The lucky peoples are...

 

Over the weekend, the latest TheOtaku anime podcast went up. It's certainly one of my favorite podcasts and always merits a listen.

 

Publisher's Weekly has a very cool interview with a manga adapter-type. It's not quite a straight translation, most of what she does is English-ifiying everything, making it readable rather than a straight, literal translation. It's very interesting, a side to the business you don't see very often.

 

The New York Comic Con is going to be doing some anime awards. While you can check out the full press release here, the categories are:

Anime on DVD has a review up of the Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie Limited Edition DVD. While I already own the original release, the extras on this one are so cool that I might just have to pick it up.

 

The Otaku has their usual list of new manga releases up. I'm going Christmas shopping in a few hours, and I've already printed this out to take with me. Who should be so lucky? Me, of course.

 

The annual Anime Fan Questionnaire is up. Make sure to fill it out so your voice can be heard!

 

Ready to get your hand on some Full Metal Panic DVDs? Sign up over here! You can win before you can buy it.

 

And lastly, you'll have to know Japanese, but the website for Romeo X Juliet is officially live! It's such a great looking series.

 

That's all for me! Have a good weekend, everybody!

Some followup to the Ah! My Goddess post. Apparently, Media Blasters did not acquire season 2, which means we may be short on the Ah! My Goddess fun, and also makes me very sad. I'm reading elsewhere that it may have been licensed by somebody else, but I always like Media Blasters releases.

 

Jonah Morgan's "A Room With A View On Anime History" merits a read, if you happen to like anime, history, or anime history, which you probably do if you're here.

 

If you have TCM, Grave of the Fireflies will be airing, so make sure to set your recorders if you haven't seen the saddest anime ever.

 

There's a Behind the Scenes on Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society which is pretty awesome, if you dig the production side of anime.

 

RightStuf has a special Halloween Edition of their podcast up. Bit late for that, I'd say, but it's still worthy of a listen.

 

That's all for me today! I'll see you again Friday!

The Otaku Invitational is now in the voting stages. Cast your votes here! I won't reveal my pick, lest I bias the results with my awesome powers of influence.

 

Paprika is expected to compete for an animated picture Oscar, whatever "expected to compete" means. GO PAPRIKA! I've seen some of the other movies on that last, and I'm pretty sure not one of them is as good as Paprika will be.

 

Illumitoon continues their recent acquisition spree, adding Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo to their lineup.

 

Releasing this week is the Ah! My Goddess TV Premium Box Set, which you should buy as it's one of my favorite shows.

 

Kurogane, from Del Rey, sounds like an interesting twist on the samurai genre. I have a weakness for cool samurai stories.

 

Anime News Service is reporting that Death Note has been officially licensed for the US, though they're not saying anything other than that.

 

ADV has announced the acquisition of Le Chevalier D'On, Ghost Train, and Synesthesia and you will find the full text of the announcement right here on ADV's site.

 

 There's a very cool interview with Yoshitaka Amano, one of my favorite artists, up over here.

 

I'm also pleased to report a new manga press will be heading our way shortly. There's some big names behind it, too.

 

 

This week's lucky winners:

 

 

Congratulations, you lucky people!

 

For those of you coming for the news, I found out today that Blood+, the sequel to Blood: The Last Vampire, will be airing on Cartoon Network. I love vampire anime, and I'm fairly sure the awesomeness of this particular series is assured.

 

Speaking of Hellsing, there's a splash page up for Hellsing Ultimate.

 

Attention weekend shoppers, the latest list of manga releases is out. I spotted Trinity Blood Volume 1 on the list and My HiMe is one of those I keep meaning to check out. There's tons of other good stuff on the list, especially if you're planning for Christmas (as I am).

 

Anime News Service says Paprika is rated R and probably due out in March. 2008 cannot get here soon enough!

 

Right Stuf is currently taking preorders for the original Gunbuster OVA.

 

I am a big fan of Full Metal Panic and you should be, too, so go read this review of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid and report back.

 

That's all for me! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Yu-Gi-Oh! is returning to television and it's right from the beginning, so all of you who missed it the first time around will have ample opportunity to get caught up and figure out what's going on. This seems to be one of those shows most people like to some degree, so give it a whirl and see what it's all about. My TiVo will be set, I can assure you of that.

 

If you're a fan of Trinity Blood--and it's one of my favorite new shows--you'll be interested to know that Tokyopop is planning to release the Trinity Blood novels. These are not the manga, they're actual books, and they should make an interesting addition to the story.

 

A Blood: The Last Vampire live action movie? What an intriguing concept...

 

For you business-y types, Funimation seems to be doing well, according to a report from ANN. I'm glad to see it. Funimation is one of my favorite companies in the industry and they put out some good material, so they deserve to do well.

 

So you're asking, was the creepy blood theme intentional? Not at all...

 

But then again, it was Halloween yesterday. Spoooooky.

Anime News Network is having a Pumpkin Carving Contest as well as a Tales of the Abyss giveaway. Tales of the Abyss is a pretty awesome game and pumpkin carving is just plain fun! Also note our own contest is still going, and you'll find the details up there just above me!

 

ICv2 has a very cool article on Bleach versus Naruto, if you're interested in the business-y side of things, as you know I am. The battle for dominance goes on!

 

 If you haven't watched Gunslinger Girl yet, you should, and this would be a fine place to start. Gunslinger Girl is one of my favorite series, and is incredibly awesome.

 

I missed it on Friday, but the latest Anime Today podcast is out and merits a listen if you roll with an iPod, as I always do.

 

Speaking of podcasts, the latest one from TheOtaku went up over the weekend and is worthwhile if you've got a long commute or just don't want to the smelly guy who insists on sitting next to you on the bus.

 

Do make sure and contribute to our thread on your favorite anime.

 

And that's all for me today! Have a great week, everyone!

The latest round of winners in our shirt giveaway have been picked. They are...

Congratulations to our lucky winners! I'll be in touch shortly to figure out how to send you your awesome shirt.

 

Are you bilingual? Have you done production work? It seems like Geneon has an opening for you! As for me, I still need to brush up on my Japanese.

 

It's cold and grey outside (at least, here it is), but it's always bright and colorful at an anime con. TheOtaku has put togethera helpful list of the conventions coming up in November and it's just about everything you could ask for. And there's also a list we host off to the left, if you take a look over there. We've always got something handy here, don't we?

 

If you're in San Francisco, Gilles Poitras will be speaking at Cody's Books and I'd encourage you to attend. I actually have his Anime Essentials sitting right here on my desk.

 

Seto no Hanayome is going to be made into an anime, though that's about all the info I could glean from this particular post.

 

That's all for me today! Congratulations to the lucky winners!

 

 

The Naruto Mall Tour is underway! If you're near any of the locations, I encourage you to investigate it. Anything with a Ninja Academy just has to make for a fun day out. If none of the stops are near you, keep your 2007 clear, as they will apparently be adding dates in the near future.

 

The promotional site for Ergo Proxy has finally gone live. If you look closely at the bottom of the page, you can watch the first episode for free. I did, and I just can't wait to buy the DVDs!

 

The latest round of Small Bodied Manga reviews are up and there's some awesome-sounding manga in there. Tsukihime is one of my favorite series, and now I *suppose* I'll have to check out the manga. Work, work, work...

 

Seems to be a quiet day out there in anime land. I'll have more for you on Friday!

 

 The guys behind Appleseed have a new project coming up, and you'll find all the details here. There's also info on the Lament of the Lamb movie in that post, so make sure to give it a good, solid read-through. There will be a quiz later!

 

If you haven't been keeping up with the Otaku's fan manga, now is as good a time as any to get started. They have some choice picks up, and I quite enjoyed them.

 

There's an interview with Satoshi Kon covering Paprika and all kinds of other stuff over here if you, like me, are eating up every little bit of Paprika news that you can find. It's an interesting interview, too, aside from the Paprika info.

 

I saw some ex-Central Park employees started their own anime and gamer clothing company, if you're in need of some new clothes. Not quite my sort of clothes, but they are clothes nonetheless.

 

Zeta Gundam fans, check here for some items that might be of interest, though watch out for spoilers.