Animanga in the News: 1/14 - 1/21

Hello everyone, it's this time of the week for the animanga news. Yep, we're going to find out what's going on in the world of anime and manga! This week, we have quite a number of legal cases, the divorce of one of japan's most famous female artist, Eyeshield 21's new work, film awards and much more~ To find out more, as usual, just read on!




Manga artist Yuusuke Murata (Eyeshield 21) posted on his Twitter account on Saturday that he is planning a new manga series with web manga creator ONE (Onepunchman). The new series will be a magical girl series, and it will involve magical hydraulic cylinder weapons. Murata added that more information about when and where the manga will be serialized will be revealed later.

Murata launched the Donten Prism Solar Car manga with Moonlight Mile creator Yasuo Ohtagaki in 2010 after ending his Eyeshield 21 sports manga with Riichirou Inagaki in 2009.

Viz Media published the 37th and last Eyeshield 21 manga volume in North America in October 2011. Sentai Filmworks began releasing the the series in 2010 after Crunchyroll streamed it in several countries outside Japan.

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Tatsuya Sawaguchi, a 26-year-old guard from the central Japanese city of Fujieda, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly shoplifting all 64 volumes of the One Piece pirate manga. According to the authorities, Sawaguchi carried the manga, in a big bag hanging from his shoulder, from a bookstore in a shopping center in nearby Shimada City on December 23 at around 7:45 p.m. The entire series is worth about 26,000 yen (about US$340). Sawaguchi reportedly said under deposition that he intended to resell the books.

On the morning of December 24, the bookstore staff noticed the empty section where the 64 manga volumes had been, and confirmed the image of a man stealing the books on the surveillance camera.

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The U.S. Department of Justice shut down the Hong Kong-based file-sharing service Megaupload on Thursday during an ongoing investigation into the company's alleged copyright infringement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday that seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with violating piracy laws and committing other crimes.

According to an indictment filed by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court of Alexandria, Virginia on January 5, the defendants were accused of two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement and conspiracies to commit money laundering, racketeering, and copyright infringement. The indictment listed 103 alleged, overt criminal acts, including a 2010 incident involving a user who watched the television anime series Fruits Basket via a linking site.



The U.S. Justice Department claims that Megaupload Limited, Vestor Limited, and seven individuals gained more than US$175 million in illegal proceeds and cost copyright holders more than US$500 million in lost revenue. The FBI's press release labels Megavideo and its related sites and services as an "international organized criminal enterprise" responsible for large-scale worldwide piracy of various copyrighted works. As one of the largest criminal copyright cases brought by the United States, officials executed more than 20 search warrants in nine countries, confiscated about US$50 million in assets, and seized 18 domain names associated with the alleged "Mega conspiracy" on Thursday.

Founded in 2005, Megaupload allowed users to reproduce and distribute movies, music, television programs, electronic books, and software, according to the grand jury's indictment. The legal document also alleges that Megaupload supported the use of third-party linking websites to promote infringing content and used a business model designed to encourage illegal uploading. The U.S. Justice Department said that the company failed to delete accounts of users known to distribute copyrighted material and misrepresented that infringing copies of works were removed.

The individual defendants are citizens of Germany, Slovakia, Finland, Estonia, and the Netherlands. New Zealand authorities arrested four of the defendants, including the Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and director Mathias Ortmann, in Auckland on Thursday. The accused individuals each face a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison for the combined charges. According to BBC News, Megaupload posted a message saying that "the vast majority of Mega's internet traffic is legitimate" and that the allegations were "grotesquely overblown" before the site was shut down on Thursday.

Last February, police in Japan's northern Akita Prefecture arrested an 18-year-old male student for allegedly using Megaupload to illegally distribute 260 manga titles.

On Wednesday, various websites participated in an Internet "blackout" to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) bills that were proposed in the U.S. Congress.

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The North American publisher Digital Manga reached its goal of raising US$6,500 in pledges for an English-language printing of Osamu Tezuka's Barbara manga on Sunday. Digital Manga had just starting accepting pledges on Friday. Digital Manga gave the following description of the story:



Digital Manga said that it will release the manga in large paperback format (5 7/8" x 8 1/4") if it receives US$6,500 in pledges by February 12. Contributors will receive various rewards, depending on the level of their pledges.

Digital Manga also used Kickstarter to raise funds to reprint Tezuka's Swallowing the Earth manga in the same paperback format last year.

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In an interview posted on the ASCII.jp website on Monday, producer Masayuki Ozaki reported that he considered live-action and musical adaptations of the Tiger & Bunny anime series. As a producer, Ozaki contemplated expanding the franchise through these and other means to recoup the investment that the anime studio Sunrise and its partners had made.

Ozaki emphasized that the staff did not expect to rely solely on revenue from in-anime product placement and advertising — a signature part of Tiger & Bunny — to recoup costs. However, he hopes that this system would be one of the alternatives to help recoup costs, since the home video market has been shrinking.

In response to the interviewer's note that Tiger & Bunny is an anime supported by an unusually large female fanbase, Ozaki confirmed that the staff thought that the anime would bring in male fans at first. He noted that single males in their 30s make up an overwhelming share of the home video buyers recently, although he cited Gundam and Gintama as exceptions.

However, Ozaki wanted more people than just core anime fans to watch the series. Specifically, he anticipated an audience among people who used to watch anime in the past, but have begun working and may even have kids. He emphasized that this intended target audience includes all working people who have not watched anime recently, regardless of marriage status, size of family, age, or gender.

The staff did not consciously make the anime for female fans specifically, so Ozaki said it was a pleasant surprise that there were more female fans that the staff had anticipated. He added that the female fanbase included everyone from core anime fans to many housewives who did not watch anime before.

The Tiger & Bunny anime staff announced in November that production on two films (pictured right) has been green-lit, with the first film planned for next year.

In 2010, producer Yoshitaka Kawaguchi revealed in a Newtype magazine interview that he and director Goro Taniguchi would be interested in a stage or musical version of another original Sunrise anime, Code Geass. Within the past two months, Sunrise announced both the Code Geass - Hangyaku no Lelouch - Sōran Eve stage play and the Code Geass - Hangyaku no Lelouch -Majin ni Sasageru Prelude stage musical.

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The Taipei Times news source reported on Thursday that the Taiwanese television channel Momo Kids TV was fined NT$600,000 (about US$20,033) on Wednesday for airing an episode of School Rumble that was "deemed inappropriate for children."

According to the Taiwanese news source Now News, a mother had filed a complaint against the December 26 airing of the show, accusing that the television station had "not rated the program properly and 'tainted' my 5-year-old daughter!" Taipei Times noted that dozens of parents complained to the National Communications Commission (NCC) about the show, saying that the episode depicted "high school students watching a pornographic movie together" along with "a scene of jiggling breasts" and a scene showing "actors moaning in pornographic movies."

An independent review team of 18 experts tasked by the NCC unanimously agreed that Momo Kids TV had violated a rule that stated that domestic and foreign satellite broadcasting businesses cannot air content that would "impair the physical or mental health of children or juveniles."

Jin Kobayashi's School Rumble manga was adapted into two 26-episode television anime series and two OVAs in Japan between 2004-2008.

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TV Tokyo sent a legal request to China's Youku website last month, warning the site again to take down unauthorized copies of Naruto, Bleach, Gintama, and other anime programs whose copyrights are held by TV Tokyo.

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On January 11, police in Aichi Prefecture arrested a 26-year-old male company worker from the prefecture's Toyohashi City on suspicion of using the Share file-sharing software to upload the live-action special effects show Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger online without the permission of Toei, the copyright holder. According to the Association of Copyright for Computer Software (ACCS), the suspect uploaded the series' 26th episode around September 16, 2011.

According to the police investigation, the suspect also uploaded obscene animation and drawings. The man said under deposition that he had been uploading anime for about four years because he wanted to make these titles available to people for free.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger is Toei's 35th Super Sentai (Power Rangers) television series, and began airing in Japan on February 13, 2011.

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The Sankei Shimbun newspaper posted an exclusive feature article based on an interview with the Golgo 13 manga creator Takao Saito on Monday. The 75-year-old manga artist discussed how he and his team write the action manga.

According to the article, Saito works with a dedicated team of about ten writers to create the impression of a spy novel in the manga. The creator delegates and strictly checks all their work before each chapter is published.

Saito revealed that serialization of Golgo 13 was supposed to end ten times, and he is planning the last part of the manga. However, he also stated that only the manga's readers and publishers will decide when the story will conclude.

The manga launched in November 1968 in the January 1969 issue of Shogakukan's Big Comic magazine, and it is the longest-running manga still being serialized. It centers around the unrivaled assassin-for-hire Duke Togo and his exploits around the world. Golgo 13 has sold over 200 million copies, and the series' 163rd volume shipped in Japan on December 5. The manga inspired two live-action films (one starring Ken Takakura in 1973 and another starring Sonny Chiba in 1977), an anime film, a video anime project, and a television anime series. The production company Davis Film also announced in September that it acquired new film adaptation rights from Japan's LEED Publishing Co., Ltd.

Viz Media published selected chapters from the four-decade-long run of the original Golgo 13 manga in North America. Sentai Filmworks and Section23 Film released the television anime series.

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This year's second issue of Switch magazine published a full-page interview with author NisiOisin and director Akiyuki Shinbo on Friday. Towards the end of the interview, NisiOisin exclaimed that the ongoing "NisiOisin Anime Project" initiative will have 10 works. He noted that four works in the project — the last being the Kizumonogatari film — have already been green-lit. Shinbo noted with a laugh that this is an exclusive scoop and concluded the interview by saying that the commemorative 10th project will be a new, original script by NisiOisin, as opposed to an adaptation of an existing novel.

The first three "NisiOisin Anime Project" works are the Bakemonogatari series, the Katanagatari series, and the ongoing Nisemonogatari series. Shinbo expressed his desire to animate all of NisiOisin's "Monogatari" novels.

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The family television anime series Chibi Maruko-chan will air its 1,000th episode on February 12, and the original manga creator Momoko Sakura is celebrating the occasion by scripting the 1,000th anime episode herself. (The manga celebrated its 25th anniversary last year.) "Watashi no Umareta Hi" (The Day I Was Born) will be a one-hour special about the birth of the title schoolgirl.

Kadokawa Magazines' The Television Web site posted two images from the upcoming episode.

Anime episode counts differ, depending on how the numbers are tallied; another Kadokawa publication, Newtype, will list the February 12 episode as No. 845 since it is part of the second Chibi Maruko-chan anime series that premiered in 1995. The first series ran from 1990 to 1992.

Sazae-san is still the longest animated television series in the world; it will run its 2,144th episode on February 5. (Each episode is split into three segments, so the segment count is about three times as long.) The 276th episode of the current Doraemon series will run on February 3, although the overall number of Doraemon episodes is over 1,500 now. The 760th episode of Crayon Shin-chan will air on February 3. Added together, there are over 700 Pokémon episodes. Detective Conan's 644th will run on February 4, and One Piece's 534th will air on the following day. The 468th and 469th episodes of Naruto/Naruto Shippuden will then run on February 9.

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The executive committee for the fifth Manga Taisho awards has announced this year's 15 nominated works on Monday. (The official English name of the awards is the "Cartoon Grand Prize.") The nominating committee is composed mainly of bookstore staffers who are in charge of their respective stores' manga. Any manga title that was released in 2011 and has eight volumes or less is eligible. The volume cap is intentionally added so that the prize winners would be relatively new works that have not already earned their popularity through sheer longevity.

The second round of voting will determine the winner of Manga Taisho 2012, which will be announced at an awards ceremony held on March 23. Last year, Chika Umino's March comes in like a lion won the award. Shinichi Ishizuka's Gaku - Minna no Yama, Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru, and Mari Yamazaki's Thermae Romae won the first three Manga Taisho in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively. Two of this year's nominees, Kengo Hanazawa's I am a Hero and Kouta Hirano's Drifters, were also nominated last year, and I am a Hero was nominated the year before.

Manga Taisho 2011 Nominees

I am a Hero
Kengo Hanazawa

Flowers of Evil
Shūzō Oshimi

Silver Spoon
Hiromu Arakawa

Gurazeni
Yūji Moritaka, Keiji Adachi

Getenrou
Masakazu Ishiguro

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso
Naoshi Arakawa

Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū
Haruko Kumota

Giga Tokyo Toy Box
Ume

Takasugi-san-chi no O-Bentou
Nozomi Yanahara

Tonari no Seki-kun
Takuma Morishige

Drifters
Kouta Hirano

25-ji no Bakansu (1 a.m. Vacation)
Haruko Ichikawa

Nobunaga Concerto
Ayumi Ishii

Hibi Rock
Katsumasa Enokiya

Hōzuki no Reitetsu
Natsumi Eguchi

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The 66th Annual Mainichi Film Awards were announced on Tuesday, and the anime film Hotarubi no Mori e, the animated short "663114," and the manga-based live-action films Moteki and Mainichi Kaa-san were among the winners.

Hotarubi no Mori e won the Animation Film Award. The film adapts Yuki Midorikawa's (Natsume Yūjin-Chō) supernatural romance manga. Anime studio Brains Base animated the film, with director Takahiro Omori and music by Makoto Yoshimori. The film stars Ayane Sakura (Dream Eater Merry) as Hotaru and Kouki Uchiyama (Infinite Stratos, C, Soul Eater) as Gin. The film opened in Japan on September 17.

Isamu Hirabayashi's "663114" anime short won the Noburou Oofuji Award, which honors animated works that offer new forms of creative expression. The 7-minute short responds to Japan's March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster. The anime film screened at the 68th Venice Film Festival in September and at the 2011 Vancouver International Film Festival in October. The short will also screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival this month. That film festival described the short as follows: "I am a 66-year-old cicada. There was a big earthquake. There was a big tsunami. There also was a big accident."

Mirai Moriyama won the Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Yukiyo in the live-action film adaptation of Mitsurou Kubo's Moteki romantic comedy manga. The film opened in Japan on September 23.



Kyōko Koizumi won the Best Actress Award for her portrayal of the title character in the live-action film adaptation of Rieko Saibara's Mainichi Kaa-san family comedy manga. The film previously won the Best Film for Asian New Talent Award at the 14th Annual Shanghai International Film Festival in June.

Shōta Sometani won the Sponichi Grand Prix Rookie of the Year Award for his performance as Mii-kun in the live-action film adaptation of Hitoma Iruma's Uso-tsuki Mii-kun to Kowareta Maa-chan light novel series. Shiori Kutsuna (Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Beck, Gota Keshi: Jidan Kōshōnin Shirai Torajirō) shared the award with Sometani for her performance in My Back Page.

Michiyo Ookusu, who played Shiranui in the 1973 Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons live-action film, won the Kinuyo Tanaka Award. Hiromi Nagasaku (Angel, Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto) won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance in Youkame no Semi (Rebirth). Denden (Red Shadow: Akakage, Uzumaki) won the Best Supporting Actor Award for his performance in Tsumetai Nettaigyo. Hirokazu Kanakatsu (Boku to Kanojo no XXX) and Hikaru Hayashi (Vampire) won the Art Award and Music Award respectively for their work on Postcard (Ichimai no Hagaki).

The awards ceremony will be held on February 13 in Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture.

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Ōkami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki, the latest film from Mamoru Hosada (Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), is slated to open in theaters throughout Japan on July 21. A preview clip for the film will also debut in Japanese theaters on Saturday.

The story covers 13 years and begins with a 19-year-old college student named Hana who encounters and falls in "fairy tale-like" love with a "wolf man." After marrying the wolf man, Hana gives birth and raises two wolf children — an older sister named Yuki ("snow") who was born on a snowy day, and a younger brother named Ame ("rain") who was born on a rainy day. When the wolf man suddenly dies, Hana decides to move to a rural town far removed from the city.

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The Japan Academy Prizes' official website confirmed the nominees for the 35th annual awards on Monday. The website had revealed the nominees one day early on a "test" page; the test page has since been taken off public access.

The nominees in the Animation of the Year category are:

1. K-ON!
   
2. From Up On Poppy Hill
   
3. Buddha: The Great Departure (Tezuka Osamu no Buddha -Akai Sabaku yo! Utsukushiku-)
   
4. Tōfu Kozō
   
5. Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence
   

Concordia University announced on Wednesday that the manga writer Eiji Ohtsuka (MPD-Psycho, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service) will present the keynote speech at this year's President's Conference Series event titled "Experiencing the Media Mix: Anime, Manga, Video Games." The conference will take place at the university from February 4 to 6 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Ohtsuka will present "The Unholy Alliance of Disney and Eisenstein: The Wartime Origins of Manga, Animation and Otaku Culture" at 5:00 p.m. on February 4. Concordia University describes the speech as follows: "Otsuka will discuss the roots of anime and manga forged during Japan's Pacific War as an amalgamation of Eisenstein's style of montage and Disney's character aesthetic." Ohtsuka will speak in Japanese, but his presentation will receive simultaneous translations into English and French. Admission to conference events is free, but guests must use an online form to reserve seats for Ohtsuka's keynote lecture.

The three-day international conference will also include a symposium with topics focusing on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku, and video games. The Mount Royal Game Society will partner with Concordia's Technoculture research institute to host the "'Mixcade' Games Arcade." A group of 20 graduate students from Japan, the United States, and Canada will also attend a closed master class with Ohtsuka and other speakers on February 6.

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NHK General, the main television channel of Japan's public broadcaster, will relaunch its animation programming block this spring with the soccer anime Ginga e Kickoff!! (Kickoff to the Galaxy!!). The story follows a boy who was in a soccer team, but it was disbanded due to not enough players. However, after the boy meets a female professional soccer player, he aims to bring his soccer team back.

The anime is an adaptation of the 2006 soccer novel Ginga no World Cup (Galactic World Cup) by Hiroto Kawabata. The anime will premiere on Saturday, April 7 at 9:30 a.m., and all 18 professional soccer teams in Japan's top-tier J1 League are collaborating on a special segment. The segment will have boys and girls playing against actual J-Leaguers.

It has been six years since NHK General aired the Korean animated series Jang Geum's Dream in 2006. NHK General once ran such anime programs as Nadia - The Secret of Blue Water. NHK General's sibling channel E-Tele (NHK Educational) has also run animated programs such as Bakuman.

The educational program Kagai Jugyō: Yōkoso Senpai (Extracurricular Class: Welcome, Senpai) currently runs in NHK General's 9:30 a.m. timeslot in Saturday, but it will become a monthly program on Saturdays.

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Kawaii Kon announced on Tuesday that it will host voice actress and singer Yuu Asakawa at the March 16-18 event in Honolulu.

Asakawa has voiced roles in more than 70 anime titles, including Love Hina (Motoko), Azumanga Daioh (Sakaki), Bubblegum Crisis 2040 (Priss), and Amagami SS (Hibiki), and she also lent her voice to the Vocaloid 2 virtual singer character Megurine Luka. Asakawa sang theme songs for Bubblegum Crisis 2040, the Love Hina X'mas Special - Silent Eve, and Majikoi - Oh! Samurai Girls!, and voiced roles in the Final Fantasy XIII and Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII video games. Arakawa previously attended Anime Expo in 2010.

Kawaii Kon will also host voice actors Ryo Horikawa (Dragon Ball Z's Vegeta) and Kenichi Miya (Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Dragan), and Final Fantasy/Vampire Hunter D artist Yoshitaka Amano. Other confirmed guests include voice actor Johnny Yong Bosch and his rock band EyeShine, voice actress Lisa Ortiz, and voice actors Vic Mignogna and Chris Sabat.

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Singer Ayumi Hamasaki announced on her official fan club site "Team Ayu" on Tuesday that she is getting divorced from Manuel Schwarz, an Austrian actor. She is filing for the divorce in America on Monday (which would be Tuesday in Japan). The two had gotten married in a Las Vegas chapel on New Year's Day last year.

Hamasaki performed theme songs for Inuyasha, Connected, and SHINOBI - Heart Under Blade, and she voice-acted as Yuri Sakazaki in Art of Fighting (Battle Spirits Ryuko no Ken).

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The February issue of Shogakukan's Monthly Sunday GX magazine is announcing on Thursday that Jormungand manga creator Keitarō Takahashi's new manga will begin serializing in the magazine's May issue on April 19.

Takahashi ended Jormungand in the same issue, and the series' eleventh and final volume will also ship in Japan on April 19. This manga about a female arms dealer and her accomplices launched in Sunday GX in 2006, and the studio WHITE FOX (Steins;Gate) is animating the manga for television. Viz Media began releasing Jormungand in North America in 2009, and the company's English edition of the eighth compiled book shipped on January 10.

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Fumi Yoshinaga's Ōoku: The Inner Chambers manga will receive a live action television drama adaptation and a new film adaptation in October and December, respectively.

The television drama, titled Ōoku: Arikoto・Iemitsu Hen, will premiere in October. The drama will cover volumes 2-4 of the manga. Masato Sakai (Honey and Clover's Shuuji, Buddha: The Great Departure, Aoi Bungaku Series) will play Arikoto, the monk turned Ōoku member, and Mikako Tabe (Kimi ni Todoke's Sawako) will play the female shogun Iemitsu Tokugawa.

The movie, titled Ōoku: Emonnosuke・Tsunayoshi Hen will open on December 22, immediately after the TV drama ends. The movie will cover volumes 4-6 of the manga. Masato Sakai will play the Ōoku member Emonnosuke, and Miho Kanno (Tomie's title character) will play the female shogun Tsunayoshi Tokugawa. Additional cast members for the drama and film will be announced in July.

Fuminori Kaneko, a director best known for the live-action Kisarazu Cat's Eye and Ikebukuro West Gate Park television series, will return to direct both the drama and the second film, and Minako Kamiyama is handling the scripts.

The manga already received a live-action film adaptation in October 2010. That film covered the first volume of Yoshinaga's manga.

The historical science fiction story takes place in an alternate-history version of medieval Japan, in which a bizarre disease has dwindled the male population. This has led to a matriarchal society where women outnumber men by 4 to 1. The shogun and de facto ruler of Japan keeps her own harem of men, or Ōoku.

The previous flim starred Arashi J-pop group member Kazunari Ninomiya (Tekkonkinkreet, Letters from Iwo Jima), and singer/actress Kou Shibasaki (Battle Royale, Dororo, Sekai no Chūshin de, Ai wo Sakebu) played Shogun Yoshimune herself.

Viz Media released the sixth volume of the manga in North America in July 2011. The manga won the 2009 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and it also won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009.

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Viz Media confirmed with ANN on Wednesday it will release Kazuki Takahashi, Shin Yoshida, and Naohito Miyoshi's Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal manga in North America. The online retailers Amazon and Simon & Schuster each list a June 5 release date for the series' first volume.

Shueisha revealed the Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal anime and manga project in December 2010. The anime premiered in Japan in April 2011 and CW4Kids Toonzai began airing the series in North America in October.

The near-future story revolves around Yūma Tukumo, a 13-year-old rookie duelist, and Astral, the mysterious lifeform from a parallel world who suddenly appears before Yūma.

Shueisha released the first manga volume in Japan last June, and it will release the second volume on February 3. The manga is currently running in Shueisha's V Jump magazine.

Viz Media also published the Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, and Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga in North America.

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