Those near the Alabama Gulf Coast should be aware Mobicon 9 is occuring today through Sunday. AL.com is carrying an article on the lead up to the annual three-day convention for fantasy, science fiction, horror, comic book, anime, and gaming fans. Their convention will be held at the Ashbury Hotel and Suites. Past years have seen around 350 visitors. Organizers are already looking at a substantial rise in pre-registrations and are hoping to have more than 500 registered participants. The norm in past years has been about 350.
According to the July, 2006 edition of Media Works' Dengeki Daioh magazine, UFOTABLE has announced it will adapt the moe, seinen manga Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! to animation. The manga, serialized in Dengeki Daioh since October of 2005 is illustrated by Taatan Check with story by UFOTABLE. There's been rumblings of this project getting off the ground for several months. In the past, UFOTABLE was responsible for the seinan / moe themed 2x2 Shinobuden, Dokkoida, and Futakoi Alternative animations. A few staff confimrations were also reported by the magazine such as Story Director Ryunosuke Kingetsu (Tales Of Phantasia), Visual Director and Character Designer Atsushi Ogasawara (Galaxy Angel A, Z), Layout Director Takahashi Takuro (Futakoi Alternative), Tech Director Takayuki Hirao and Key Animators Miura Takahiro and Kadekari Mutsumi. Additionally, the lead role of Manabi will be voiced by Horie Yui (Orphen-Fiena, Love Hina-Naru Narusegawa).
Diamond Comics has reported that AD Vision will release an Evangelion 10th Anniversary DVD commemorative DVD boxed set this August. The $249.98 set will include the entire TV series, "a deluxe case and a plethora of commemorative items."
Ironically the 10th anniversary of the Japanese premier of Evangelion was last year, and the 10th anniversary of the series' American debut will be November 11, 2008.
Active Anime has interviewed VIZ Media's Director of Public Relations, Evelyn Dubocq on issues of internet anime piracy. Right out the gates we learn the following:
How do you think "Bittorrent" and other forms of downloading are affecting the anime and manga industry in the United States?
EVELYN DUBOCQ: If anime piracy continues to grow in North America, at the expense of legitimate product, then studios will be forced to increase prices and/or slow down the number of anime releases, to compensate for lost sales. For some of the less popular, but critically acclaimed anime series, this could mean that new seasons would never be officially released here. Similar, new anime properties may never even make the leap from Japan to North America. Ultimately, if piracy continues to extend to a greater scale and sales of legitimate anime DVDs in the US fall as a result, there could be less anime produced in Japan. Part of what makes the anime genre so unique and attractive to fans is the diversity. Unfortunately, piracy could undermine this, leading to fewer anime series being created and even fewer being released in North America.
Pittsburgh, PA's Post Gazette reports on Michael Kao who spent 23 years -- and earned a small fortune -- making plastic Christmas trees in China and selling them to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other big retailers. Then his son, Francis, came home from college in the U.S. eight years ago and persuaded his father to trade in 10,000 factory workers for 350 computer animators and a long shot at Hollywood glory. Today, the company that once was the world's biggest artificial-tree maker has morphed into one of Asia's biggest digital-animation studios. It is now halfway through making a new, $35 million "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie, which Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and Weinstein Co. are set to distribute in spring of 2007.
Billed as a distinctive "new interpretation" based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the 52 episode 1994 Tatsunoko / Shaft TV series, Shirayuki-hime no Densetsu ("The Legend of Princess Snow White") is set for a DVD release in Japan. The anime originally aired in Japan on NHK. A 5 piece DVD-BOX set begins release from May 31st. Buyers can download a special wallpaper. This won't be the first Snow White anime, Nippon Animation did their own three episode version of the story as part of the 1987 TV series Grimm Meisaku Gekijo (released in English as Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics). Series Director is Kunio Okajima, original broadcast dates were 04/06/94-03/29/95, Yuri Amano (Ifurita - El Hazard, Inu Yasha - Tsukiyomi) starred as the voice of Snow White.
Source: Anime News Service
Nausicaa.net reports the May 15th Studio Ghibli production diary reports the latest progress: Key animation: completed Key animation check: completed Animation: 1,233 (99.8%) cuts Animation check: 1,223 (98.9%) cuts Background painting: completed Effects: 1,191 (96.4%) cuts Sound production continues until next month. A final release date has yet to be announced. The second trailer was uploaded at noon on the 15th and is now available at the official site.
Production IG has now updated with a summary and screening schedule for their new anime series, Le Chavelier D'Eon. A promo of the show will play at Cannes.
Source: Anime News Service
The main attraction for many fans of the genre is likely to be "Negadon: The Monster From Mars," an homage to all those lizard-wrecks-Tokyo films that is billed as "the world's first completely computer-generated monster movie." It looks great and even has a respectable dose of the character development and back story that anime sometimes spurns.
Source: New York Times
In a plan to do for teen fiction what they have already done for manga, leading youth-oriented publisher TOKYOPOP is pleased to unveil the latest addition to its rapidly growing publishing family-an innovative line of serialized international teen novels, launching under the new TOKYOPOP banner Pop Fiction. Priced between $7.99 and $10.99 (SRP), TOKYOPOP's Pop Fiction novels lead with a top-notch group of engaging critically acclaimed multicultural tales ranging from fantasy stories to psychological adventures. From Europe's best-selling Magic Moon to Asia's hottest titles, Scrapped Princess, Kino no Tabi: Book One of THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD and Witches' Forest: The Adventures of Duan Surk, Pop Fiction fuses genres and embraces diversity to celebrate the inherent beauty in imperfection.
Source: NewsaRama
