|
|
 Manga Bulletin: June 11, 2008
Written by Park Cooper
Hello, Park Cooper here, and welcome once again to Manga Bulletin, a newish feature in which, among other things, ML will give you the manga/anime/industry news of the week and comment on it, perhaps snarkily (perhaps not). Indeed it’ll be a place for all sorts of shameless plugging, but let’s jump right into things with some professionals of hype with the newest press releases I’ve gotten from Viz:
VIZ MEDIA BRINGS UNIQUE AND EXCITING PROPERTIES FOR ALL AGES AND INTERESTS TO 2008 LICENSING INTERNATIONAL EXPO
San Francisco, CA, June 5, 2008 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, brings some of the hottest anime properties to the Licensing International Expo, taking place June 10 through June 12 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. VIZ Media will be located in Booth # 4505.
The Licensing International Expo is the largest and most important annual event for the more than $180 billion licensing industry. It features more than 500 leading licensors and agents, representing more than 6,000 properties and brands, with upwards of 25,000 attendees expected including key decision-making retailers, manufacturers, and marketing professionals across all consumer and product categories.
VIZ Media is a key licensor delivering manga and animated content to a fast growing international audience. The company offers a diverse selection of unique animated properties designed for diverse interests and viewers of all ages including children, teens and young adults and adults.
The properties VIZ Media will be highlighting at 2008 Licensing International Expo:
NARUTO
NARUTO has become the hottest animated series across North America and is one of VIZ Media’s most successful manga and animated properties in terms of sales. Created by Masashi Kishimoto, the series depicts the adventures of a young boy named Uzumaki Naruto who trains to become a ninja. But the boy is cursed with the spirit of a nine-tailed fox demon and is forced to live a bullied life discriminated against by his fellow villagers. But Naruto is resilient and undaunted in his quest to become a master ninja and his determination often inspires those around him. Through amazing adventures, the young ninja learns the importance of friendship, teamwork, loyalty, hard work, creativity, ingenuity, and right vs. wrong. Dedicated website at www. naruto.viz.com. Rated T for Teens.
BLEACH
BLEACH is an animated, epic action series aimed at teens. Ichigo Kurosaki is an ordinary 15-year-old boy who happens to be able to see ghosts. His fate takes an extraordinary turn when he meets Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper who shows up at Ichigo’s house on the trail of a Hollow, a malevolent lost soul. Drawn to Ichigo’s high level of spiritual energy, the Hollow attacks Ichigo and his family, and Rukia steps in to help but is injured and unable to fight. As a last resort, Rukia decides to transfer part of her Soul Reaper powers to Ichigo. Ichigo, now a full-fledged Soul Reaper, and Rukia, minus her powers, join together to face the challenges that lie ahead. Dedicated website at www.bleach.viz.com. Rated T for Teens.
DEATH NOTE
DEATH NOTE is currently one of the hottest animated titles in Japan. The series depicts the adventures of Light Yagami, an ace student with great prospects but who is bored out of his mind. All of that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals mysteriously begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to investigate, and he is soon hot on the trail of Light, who must now reevaluate his one noble goal. Dedicated website at www.deathnote.viz.com. Rated T+ for Older Teens.
BLUE DRAGON
Based on the popular Microsoft Xbox 360 video game developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of Final Fantasy) and featuring character designs by Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragon Ball), the BLUE DRAGON animation is a classic adventure story of magical Shadow powers, flying air fortresses, and unbounded heroism! Brought together by fate, Seven Soldiers of Light must awaken the Shadow within themselves in time to overcome a despotic power and bring peace to their land. Their ensuing journey through a rich fantasy world is also an internal journey to awaken the great power within each of them. Journey with them into the world of BLUE DRAGON! Dedicated website at www.bluedragon.viz.com. Rated A for all ages.
KILARI
Kilari is a happy-go-lucky 14 year-old schoolgirl. Unlike her friends, she is more interested in food and shows no interest in good-looking boys. One day, however, she accidentally bumps into Seiji, a pop idol, and develops a crush on him at first sight. Realizing how difficult it would be for her to become friends with him, Kilari makes an extraordinary decision, to become a star herself to be close to him! Thus begins her pop star adventure! Rated A for all ages.
Other featured properties include:
BUSO RENKIN, DETECTIVE CONAN, DEKO BOKO FRIENDS, HONEY AND CLOVER, HUNTER X HUNTER, INUYASHA, NANA and more.
Athena and Alethea Nibley:
Oh! Kilari! The romanization doesn’t look so good (kinda makes her look like a killer), but it’s probably the best way to get a good American pronunciation. We saw a bunch of the anime of that and thought it was cute, but it’s one of those ones that they want the anime to go on forever, so the filler can be a little much. Or a lot much. I wonder if the manga is better in that regard.
Park Cooper:
Uh huh uh huh but let me get this straight: do I understand that if all goes really well, Viz could be bringing me at some point in the plausible future an anime version of my newly-beloved Hunter X Hunter?
Well I could ask them, couldn’t I? And so I did. My Viz contact’s answer:
VIZ: “Well what it means is that VIZ holds the broadcast license for Hunter X Hunter and hopefully they will find a network to carry it. Many TV and Cable execs go to the Licensing show for just that reason – to find new shows to buy. The manga has done very well and I bet someone will pick it up soon. Keep ya posted!”
Oh ho ho.
Okay kids, the main reason I offer this for comment is for you to comment on the game part. Someone explain this to me… Was it originally like… a choose-your-own-adventure book? Or more like a solitary rpg module?
DRMASTER TO RELEASE LUNAR LEGEND TSUKIHIME VOL. 6
SAN JOSE, CA – June, 2008 – DrMaster Publications announces the impending release of Lunar Legend Tsukihime volume 6. With much anticipation, the sixth installment of the popular horror action series by Sasakishonen and TYPE-MOON will be released in February 2009. Lunar Legend Tsukihime is based on the video game by TYPE-MOON’s well-known video game Tsukihime, which has also spawned an anime series.
In volume six, the violent bloody action continues when Shiki loses control of his senses and reveals his true “monster” nature within him as he goes on a mad killing spree. Subsequently, Shiki begins to recall fragments of his childhood memories, which reveal some important secrets of the Tohno family. Just when Shiki collapses from his killing spree, Roa appears with the intention of killing him, while Akiha tries desperately to defend him. Ciel later joins the fight against Roa, and more secrets of Ciel’s painful past are revealed. Don’t miss out on all the blood, gore and supernatural action in the sixth volume of Lunar Legend Tsukihime!
About Type-Moon:
Type-Moon is a doujin game publisher that has released several games with fanatic followers. Their works include: Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and Kara no Kyokai [Borderline of Emptiness]. Tsukihime is actually a novel type game with over 5000 pages of text, which makes it difficult for people who don’t understand Japanese to enjoy it. However unlike other doujin games that resort to please the carnal pleasure of the players, Tsukihime has a solid story, unique characters, great graphics and music that was as good or even better than games created by the big game companies, which eventually led to the anime adaptation of the game.
About Sasakishonen:
Sasakishonen has worked on quite a number of comic anthologies including Mabu Love, Air, Kanon, Comic Party, Leaf, and Tsukihime. Lunar Legend Tsukihime will be his first full-length comic book.
Availability
Lunar Legend Tsukihime vol. 6 will be available February 2009, and will be priced at $9.95. Lunar Legend Tsukihime volumes 1-5 are available now.
David Rasmussen:
Let’s see… according to the press release, it’s based on the video game series which spawned the Anime series.
Type-Moon is a doujin game publisher… and if we take the word doujin to mean the same as doujinshi then it’s most likely a fan game publisher which most likely translates into homebrewed gaming (improbable but then again games like Cake Factory, Diner Dash and Alien Homonid started their lives as home brewed games on the internet before they were picked up by Nintendo & Sony for the Nintendo DS, the PSP and PS2 respectively so it’s not inconceivable for a homebrew to become so hot).
Oh, I see what confuses you-- Over 5000 pages of text means that the game is an ultra wordy dialogue rich RPG game (if you’ve played the Ace Attorney series for the Nintendo DS then you’ve seen a good example of a text heavy game). At over 5000 pages of text this means you have enough character dialogue going on in the game to choke an elephant, so if you’re not a fan of text heavy RPGing then you’d probably not enjoy this game. It’s a single player game most likely since I see no mention of multiplayer or MMORPG in the release.
Oh, and this is a rare game that doesn’t delve too deeply into fan service to get people to like it, from what it says on the article.
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But something tells me I’m right on the money on this one.
Park Cooper: Actually, I imagine you’re probably right.
Okay, what about Tokyopop itself this week? Any comments there?
David Rasmussen:
ADV restructured itself (i.e. went through a brief bankruptcy period) and they’re coming back (though nobody seemed to notice ADV’s bankruptcy period).
And, if memory serves, VIZ even went through a “restructuring” period themselves once.
So to say TOKYOPOP is going to crash and burn is too soon to say (and with all the agreements with everyone and their fifth cousins like Disney and so forth it’s unlikely that TOKYOPOP is going to crash).
This isn’t a small company like ComicsOne or Studio IronCat (which has yet to crash but had to be restructured at least twice), in fact it’s one of the top five major corporations in manga so I don’t see it going under anytime soon.
In fact I’m surprised Studio IronCat hasn’t crashed yet since it had a major creator exodus due to internal executive meltdowns with its creative staff between its reformation from ICEntertainment and Studio IronCat. If TOKYOPOP goes down and Studio Ironcat is still running then there’s something wrong with the world at large.
Park Cooper: Actually, I noticed ADV’s problematic period very much—they wouldn’t even answer my questions about “where’s volume 2 of BLUE INFERIOR...”
And I’m starting to worry about when volume 6 of Yostuba is going to get here... But yeah otherwise I hear what you’re saying. And yet...
Athena and Alethea Nibley:
The way I understand it, the TokyoPop restructure thing is the big manga news lately. I talk about it like I'm not so sure because actually, I'm not. We only know a few people who have said anything about it, and that's how we happened to find out about it ourselves (I'm sure I've mentioned before that we don't follow news as closely as we should). In fact, if people hadn't told us about it, we probably still wouldn't know anything about it, despite one of our titles being put on hold. Well, we really hope that it's put on hold; it's possible that it was dropped completely, but we're going to stay optimistic. If we hadn't been told about the whole thing, we'd just be like, “Huh. I wonder why they told us to stop working on it.” We're very easy-going.
That being the case, when we first heard about it, we thought that, as translators, we'd have a keen new insight into the whole thing, but then we realized that, as freelancers, we're kind of too far out of the loop to do anything more than all the other people speculating out there.
As for what this means for the manga world, we personally don't think it means much-- At least, it most likely doesn't mean that the market is crashing, anyway. It's sad that a lot of titles will be dropped, and especially sad for the people who lost jobs. That doesn't only go for the people who were laid off, either.
I really believe that a lot of the titles that aren't selling aren't selling because people don't know about them--not because they're not any good. I mean, most of our friends don't read anything but Naruto--not because nothing else is good out there, but because that's just all they want to read. They're satisfied with Naruto, so they're not looking for anything new, and so a lot of the stuff they might really like just kind of falls into the shadows. I think that's probably why things don't always sell very well, because I know for a fact that some titles that are very popular in Japan aren't quite so popular in America. That might be cultural differences, but we've enjoyed all the lesser-known (in the States) titles we've read.
I guess the main thing I want to say is that I don't think this is a sign of the manga apocalypse. David Rasmussen has pointed out that some other companies in the industry have gone through serious restructuring and not only is the industry still alive, but those companies are doing all right now. We're pretty confident that TokyoPop will make a comeback, too. The hard part is realizing that it'll be a lot longer before the next round of exciting new projects from TokyoPop (well, for us; maybe not for, like, TokyoPop Media).
Okay, here’s something else I’ve been wanting to implement: What Are We Reading? Even if it’s not manga-anime related, though certainly if it is...
David Rasmussen:
This week I’m playing LEGO Indiana Jones the Original Adventures (PSP) and LEGO Star Wars the Complete Saga (DS).
Working this weekend on reviews for Priest Volume 1 (I’m not happy), 0/6 Volume 3 (Creepy but I don’t know it it’s good or bad yet, still thinking about it) and Riding Shotgun Volume 1 (I’m happy) for MangaLife…
Park Cooper:
So is Lego Indy any good?
David Rasmussen:
[Response edited for length] ...Yes.
Athena and Alethea Nibley:
What we’re reading:
Together:
Higurashi no Naku Koroni (Japanese): thumbs up
Negima (English): neutral
Alethea:
VB Rose (Japanese): thumbs up
Athena:
Haruka Naru Toki no Nakade (Japanese, aka Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time): thumbs up
What we’re watching:
Death Note (subtitled): thumbs up
Tower of Druaga (subtitled): thumbs up
What we’re playing:
Re: Chain of Memories (Japanese, PS2): thumbs up
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (North American, DS): thumbs up
I think that covers it for now. We’re so focused on a few things right now that I can’t remember if there’s anything else, which means we’re not paying it enough attention to mention right now.
David Rasmussen:
Chain of Memories? As in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories?
If you love Phoenix Wright don’t forget to get the other two games in the series (Justice for All and Trials & Tribulations) as well as the first game of the sequel series Apollo Justice Ace Attorney (which picks up several years after the last Phoenix Wright game).
Athena and Alethea Nibley:
That’s right, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Only the logo has Re: in front of it, probably because it’s the PS2 remake. You seem to be really into gaming, I think you might already know this, but for the benefit of anybody else who might be interested and doesn’t know, Square-Enix does this thing where they’ll add a few new features to the North American release of a game (for example, the fight with Sephiroth wasn’t in the original Japanese Kingdom Hearts 1). Then they’ll take the North American release, add a couple of NEW new features (like a battle with a “mystery man” in Hollow Bastion) and re-release it in Japan. When they re-released Kingdom Hearts II in Japan, it also came with a PS2 version of Chain of Memories. The gameplay is exactly the same as in the GBA version, but the animation is like the PS2 Kingdom Hearts games.
We know all about Ace Attorney! We’ve played all the games and are hoping to do a cosplay from Trials and Tribulations at Anime Expo (but we don’t know if we’ll have time to make the costumes). Park didn’t ask us to specify if we were playing through something a second time. We can’t wait for Perfect Prosecutor!
Park Cooper:
Nope, re-reads/re-viewings/re-playings count, too.
Barb is reading Viz’s Hunter X Hunter, so far she’s up to v6. I got her into it... She’s reading critical scholarly articles on DRACULA (the Bram Stoker novel [and isn’t it weird that I feel the need to clarify that by specifying?), and she’s currently listening and crying to beautiful Northern Soul tracks that I’m finding for her on YouTube.
Me, I’m waiting for Hunter X Hunter v11 to arrive from Amazon so I can read the rest of the series... I’m reading FullMetal Alchemist v2 (It got better again!), MAIL v1 (pretty good) from Dark Horse, Dodoro v2 from Vertical (excellent), Strawberry 100% from Viz (you can hardly ask more from a harem manga... or you shouldn’t, you naughty things...), and the book There’s A Dead Person Following My Sister Around by Vivian Vande Velde.
Barb cries out over the Stax horns: “Metro Survive v2 was good too, people... more about that laaaterrrrr...!”
That’s it for this week... please look forward to next time.
: :
|
13 August 2008
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Meow 6 August 2008
Manga Bulletin: August 6th, 2008 5 August 2008
MangaLife Spotlight: The Manga Bible: It's Pretty Good, Believe It or Not 29 July 2008
Words of Truth and Wisdom: Thoughts on DubsWhat I Read: July 30, 2008 22 July 2008
Manga Bulletin: July 23rd, 2008
|
