Animanga in the News: 4/7/11

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




The 60th volume of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece pirate manga became the first book to sell over 3 million copies since Oricon began posting its sales ranking charts in April of 2008. It sold 16,000 copies during the March 28-April 3 week for a new overall total of 3,011,000 copies. Volume 61 also sold 26,051 copies during that same week for a new total of 2,996,545 copies, so it is poised to become the second book to sell 3 million copies.

Last November, volume 60 became the first book to sell over two million copies in its first week of sales in Oricon's ranking history. Volume 61 sold over two million copies in just three days in February. The same volume already holds a record for having 3.8 million copies published in its first print run. The series overall now has more than 200 million copies in print.

Oda launched the manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1997, and Viz Media will publish the 57th volume in North America in June.

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Illustrations from Yamazaki Mari's "Thermae Romae" are being exhibited at the "Italy Book Fair - Italy in Japanese" fair being held at the Italian Cultural Hall from the 7th in Tokyo.

The fair began in 2008, and exhibits and sells around 800 different books related to Italy. This year, there is a special corner where 4 of the cover illustrations of "Thermae Romae" are displayed.

original source





The Hana-Saku Iroha television anime premiered in Japan on Sunday with a surprise for eagle-eyed viewers — a phone number was shown onscreen that actually connects to a working phone with the main character's voice. In the first six minutes of the anime, the mother of the high school protagonist Ohana shows the name and phone number of Ohana's new home, the hot spring inn Kissuisō.

The onscreen phone number of the fictional Kissuisō, 076-235-1168, is an actual working number. ("076" is an area code in Toyama, the prefecture where Hana-Saku Iroha's studio P.A. Works is located.) People who successfully connect to the number — which has been very busy since its discovery — hear the following answering machine message from Ohana (Kanae Itō):



The story centers around Ohana Matsumae, a 16-year-old Tokyo native who suddenly ends up at Kissuisō after her mother flees town to avoid debts. The website Crunchyroll is streaming the anime outside Japan within 90 minutes of its original broadcast for premium members (and one week later for everyone else).

original source





Moyashimon, Ookiku Furikabutte, High School Debut, Kimi ni Todoke, Suki Desu Suzuki-kun!, Pandora Hearts, Soul Eater, Deadman Wonderland and Switch Girl!! make up the rest of the top 10.


original source



Please note that there may be delays in the broadcasts or releases of certain anime and manga following the quake. You may see a list of affected publications here, here, here and here (new).



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.