Animanga in the News: 1/20/11

Here you will find a run down of today's anime and manga news! If anything sent waves through the anime and manga world today, you'll find it in this post! By the way, I'm saladesu, one of the translator-moderators of MH, and I'll be posting a post like this every day (as much as possible, anyway). Look forward to them ;)

If you would like to help in finding and translating news of this nature, please contact saladesu via PM ^^ Feel free to PM me any interesting bits of anime or manga news you find floating around the internet, too.




A 2-man mangaka unit Kinohana Sakuya have developed a free application for the iPhone/iPad, called "Cyber Manga #1", which will have manga panels moving just like in anime. When the user taps on the manga panel, the anime will begin. There is even an option for the anime sequences to play automatically in order. The lines will be voiced by seiyuus Hiyama Nobuyuki, Ogata Megumi and Horie Yui. The selling point of this application is that from the second chapter, the user can try out a "multicast system". The user can select which seiyuu to voice each character, and there is even an option of having a single seiyuu voice all the characters in the manga. Although browsing manga on the application is free, users are free to pay any amount they wish after reading, by using "Arigato Dolls" that are each worth ¥115. This concept is akin to people donating after viewing street performances.

Kinohana Sakuya is made up of Nishino Kouhei, who is a mangaka and an associate professor of story manga at the manga faculty of Kyoto Seika University, and the mangaka Nishino Tsugumi. As for their aims for the application, they said, "As long as a mangaka can earn a few ¥100,000 a month, he can keep on drawing manga. We are trying to create a new generation of manga that, through the use of PCs, is as compact as possible and is sold directly to the customers." The two of them have also developed "Cyber Manga Studio", an authoring software for "Cyber Manga", which will be available as a beta from today, allowing other mangaka to create cyber manga as well. There are also plans for Nishino-san to start lectures on using "Cyber Manga Studio" to create manga aimed at iPad users.

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Naruto, Initial D, Saint Young Men, Happy Marriage!?, Bakuman., Hanma Baki - Son of Ogre and Shingeki no Kyojin make out the rest of the top 10, with all three volumes of Shingeki no Kyojin remaining in the top 15 this week.



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Theatrical anime "Colorful" received the Animation Film Award at the 65th Mainichi Film Awards. The results were announced on the 17th of January. "Colorful" is based on a novel by Mori Eto, and was made into an animation film by director Hara Keichi of animation studio Sunrise. The film tells the story of "Boku" (a colloquial, male way of saying "I"), who was supposed to have died, but yet was sent back to earth to discover the sins he had committed during his lifetime, gaining attention for its head-on approach of the heavy themes of death and human relations.

It can be said that "Colorful"'s win acknowledges such ambitious works. "Colorful" also won the Excellence Award in the Animation Category of the 14th Bunkachou Media Art Festival. It has been three years since Director Hara's last Animation Film Award at the Mainichi Film Festival, with "Kappa no Kuu to Natsuyasumi" in 2007 (64th Awards). Having also won the award at the 57th Awards with "Crayon Shin-chan/Arashi wo Yobu Appare! Sengoku Daikassen", he is no stranger to this award. Director Hara and his ability to bring warmth to people's hearts could have a certain affinity with the Mainichi Film Awards.

The history of the Mainichi Film Awards dates back to before the war, all the way to 1935. It is one of the oldest film awards in Japan. Holding a great interest in animation as well, the Oofuji Noburou Award began in 1962 as an award for animation films. Furthermore in 1989, the Animation Film Award as we know it today was established. The Oofuji Noburou Award is now awarded to experimental animations, clips, novel presentations of productions etc, but this year the award was not applicable.

In addition, "Akunin" (Directed by Lee Sang-Il) won Best Film, Miike Takashi (Thirteen Assassins) won the Best Director, and the late actress Takamine Hideko, who passed away at the end of last year, won the Special Award. The awards ceremony will be held on 8th February at the Myuuza Kawasaki Symphony Hall in Kawasaki City.

original source