Animanga in the News: 8/21 - 8/27

Here you will find a run down of this week's anime and manga news! This week, we've got two new trailers, free stuff offered to manga artists, a monthly shojo magazine canceled, a bookstore is in for some money trouble, and new details on the Berserk Movie! Enjoy!~



The seemingly unstoppable .Hack franchise is getting a full CG feature film. Game developer CyberConnect2 is animating the 3D anime film .hack//The Movie. The film will introduce new characters discovering the complex, immersive, and dangerous online game “The World.” The film will hit Japanese theaters in January. Game Watch mirrors the streaming trailer available on the movie’s homepage.

The story is set in 2024, when children have lived their entire lives since birth in a world connected by networks. A cheerful 14-year-old middle school girl named Sora Yūki (Summer Wars' Nanami Sakuraba) has no interest in games, but her friends get her to go into the popular network game "The World." However, due to "a certain incident" in The World, anomalies start occurring in the real world.

Adapted from a fictional MMORPG game. Dot-hack has been adapted to many manga publications.

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Datacraft's new website Manga Sozai Jiten β ("Manga Materials Reference Beta") features downloadable image material for use in creating manga.

Web Technology Com Corporation released a similar software package last year; however the images in the ComiPo! manga-making program are only available by purchasing the CD-ROM. Unlike Manga Sozai Jiten, ComiPo! also adds 3D tools and advertises itself as software that lets even "people who can't draw" create manga.

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All Nippon Entertainment Works, a new company formed to adapt Japanese intellectual property for the rest of the world, has been funded at $80 million by investment fund Innovation Network Corp. of Japan. The new company, launching in October, will develop films, TV shows, games, books (including novels and manga), toys, and character goods,” according to the report.

Partners in the new venture include Asmik Ace Entertainment, Dentsu, Fuji TV, Mitsubishi, Nikkatsu, Production I.G., Toho-Towa, Tokyo Broadcasting, and Tomy, with more expected.
Source Japanese IP will include movies, books (including novels and manga), television shows, games, toys and other content industries.

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The Japanese publisher, Zassosha, announced on Friday that their Puff magazine has been suspended. Zassosha had already announced earlier this month that the September issue, which would have shipped on July 30, was cancelled.

For 37 years, Puff provided coverage on manga news and fandom, with an emphasis on shōjo, boys love, and other areas of interest for female readers. The last issue, the August issue (pictured), shipped on June 30.

Zassosha thanked the readers of Puff for their patronage and promised to notify them if the magazine is relaunched.

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The American bookstore chain Borders' monthly report to its bankruptcy court revealed a loss of US$328 million for the month of July. The retail chain's sales were US$94.7 million with US$114.5 million in cash and US$208.5 million in inventory.

The chain first filed for bankruptcy in February. The bankruptcy came after a string of difficulties for Borders, including the departure of two of its executives and delay of payments to publishers, followed by additional layoffs and an attempt to convince publishers to treat its debts as loans, which failed.

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The Japanese website Cinema Today began streaming a 98-second trailer for "Muybridge's Strings," the latest anime short by Oscar-nominated animator Koji Yamamura ("Mt. Head," "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor").



Telefilm Canada gave the following description of the story: "The destiny of photographer Eadweard Muybridge and that of a Japanese mother clash poetically in this exploration of the irrepressible human desire to make time stand still." The 14-minute short premiered at the Cannes Film Market, which ran in May in France alongside the more well-known Cannes Film Festival. It will then open at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography on September 17. Yamamura remains the only Japanese animator besides Hayao Miyazaki and Kunio Katō to be nominated for an Oscar.

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Berserk Golden Age Arc I: Egg of the Supreme Ruler has a bit of time until its January debut where it will cover supposedly the first ten volumes of the manga, but that’s not stopping the flow of information. Three headshots made it out today from Studio 4°C that shows off the main characters of Guts, Griffith and Casca.



They’re the base modeling designs to show how they look and can be adjusted to the particular scene, so they’re not hugely detailed at this point and we have seen some other shots that looked a bit more intense from the few promotional materials released. Naoyuki Onda’s designs for the principal characters is solid though and these give us a good idea of how similar they are to both the previous anime incarnation and the source material manga.

Raging swordman Guts, voiced by Hiroaki Iwanaga (Tomica Hero Rescue Force, Moyashimon, Kamen Rider OOO). Ambitious mercenary general Griffith, voiced by Takahiro Sakurai (Code Geass' Suzaku Kururugi). The Hawk's young woman captain Casca, voiced by Toa Yukinari (Naruto Shippūden).

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