Entries Tagged as 'News and Announcements'

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2012

It's 2012! The world is supposedly ending this year, so let's go out with a bang!  Okay, yeah, I don't believe that BS either, but I do want to do better with this blog. I've been sporadic in posting in the last year, not because of lack of desire or lack of reading/watching anything, just laziness and well, 2011 was a really busy year for me, including some major projects at work sucking my energy out. So this year, I'm making it my goal to post to this blog at least once a month!  Not a lot, but certainly doable. I'm hoping it will be more, of course ;-)

As part of that goal, I'm planning to do more posts reacting to anime/manga news I read (where it interests me), some more editorial pieces on the anime/manga market in general, and the like.  I may also try more short form reviews, where I give quick paragraphs on some anime I'm currently watching online and the like. Oh, yeah, and fixing that archive thing since it seems to be broken. :-P So I hope you all stick around with me for the ride!

(P.S. seeing folks rating and commenting on posts helps energize me to write cause I know people are actually out there reading ;) )

Farewell AnimeOnDVD

April 30, 2011

Seems to be the season for farewells. Yesterday Chris Beveridge, beloved creator of AnimeOnDVD, announced his. Chris founded AnimeOnDVD thirteen years ago, working as its editor-in-chief with a dedicated staff of reviewers and reporters. There was some grumbling when he decided to sell the site to Mania in 2008 was sold to Mania, however as he stayed on board as the head of the area, the only major change was that the news/reviews were incorporated into the hideousness that is the Mania.com site design.  Most of the regulars stuck around, particularly in the forums which were nearly as popular as the awesome reviews. As of this post, AoD's forums sport 145,238 members, of which 11,384 are considered "active".  I'll admit, I myself haven't been an active member in the forums for the last two years or so due to time constraints, but I still loved the site and recommended it to other fans.

According to Anime News Network, he isn't leaving the anime/manga writing game entirely, as he recently launched The Fandom, and intends to continue acting as its editor-in-chief there. Per a goodbye thread in AoD, several well known AoD staffers are working with him on it.  Taking a quick look around, the front page site is confusing as heck, but the forums are familiar. I suspect it is using the same software, and many of the "classic" threads found at AoD are there, as well as new ones to cover comics, TV, etc. Here's hoping he achieves the same success there that he did with AoD. If the forums at The Fandom are any indication, he will. Only open a little more than a month, and it already has 857 posts and 289 members, with 147 "active".

No word yet on what will happen with AoD at Mania. If the staffers who have joined Chris in the Fandom are also planning to leave, I can see the site slowly going away, and the forums being shut down, but for now, I guess time will tell.

Farewell Tokyopop

April 18, 2011

You've probably heard the news about Tokyopop shutting down its US manga divison.  As a whole, I personally don't see it is a huge blow to the manga industry, not anymore. Had it happened five, ten years ago, when Tokyopop was one of the top companies, yeah, but really the writing has been on the wall for awhile with all the layoffs of late, the repeated bad business decisions, the lost a lot of licenses (almost all their Kodansha ones, for example), and the seemingly few new licenses. For the general manga industry, though, seeing the historical giant go down is a sad loss of a known name, but otherwise it won't be a real ripple. Viz, Yen Press, Kodansha USA, Del Rey, etc will more than fill the needs.

Even the loss of their BLU line, which have included some great yaoi and shonen-ai series, will have less effect now thanks to DMP becoming the seeming king of yaoi/shonen-ai series. And, of course, I do feel for the fans of the series they did have going as their fate is yet unknown.  The series they were publishing that I was personally collecting either long ago finished, or had already been dropped due to losing the license and are being republished by someone else (Rave Master and Sailor Moon).

Some see this as some pending doom because of the economy, but really Tokyopop's downfall seems more due to its still being run like a sole proprietership instead of a legitimate company, with Stu Levy as the primarily decision maker and controller. It was a labor of love, and one he has decided he's spent enough time as he refocuses his life to spend a year in Japan to make a documentary on the earthquake/tsunami recovery efforts. Had Tokyopop been organized as a proper company long ago, Levy's leaving would have little real effect on the company, and the company likely would have made different business decisions. Would it have saved the company? Who knows...playing arm-chair quarterback in hindsight isn't for me.

Please don't think I'm hating on Levy - he did revolutized the US manga market, and thanks in part to his efforts we have a vast library of legal, English-translated manga across a broad range of genres, stories, age markets, etc in unflipped formats. They brought us Sailor Moon, the first successful shojo title for US release, the gorgeous release of Cardcaptor Sakura (the ones with the cards, box sets, etc), and of course Fruits Basket, whose volumes ran neck and neck with Naruto for sales for some volumes. I think all manga fans should heartily thank him for his works, and Tokyopop in general for the mark they made.  It is the unfortunate way of the business world sometimes, those who were the leaders eventually fall behind and are close up shop.  I do hope Levy the best in his future ventures. I hope those few staff members left in the manga division are given opportunities to work in the remaining US film and TV areas. And if this affects the manga-inspired comics Tokyopop published as "global manga", then I hope those authors of manga-inspired comics published by Tokyopop are able to regain their rights and are given another chance by another graphic novel/comic publisher.

Meanwhile, any licensed series you'll be missing the ending off that you are hoping will be picked up by someone else?  I've already one of mine, Rave Master, which is slated to have its last three volumes published by Kodansha USA as an omnibus in the next year or so.  The other, D.N.Angel, of course went on a three year hiatus in Japan before starting back up in 2008, and it is still on-going at 15 volumes and counting. Not sure how likely it is anyone will pick up the license to finish the series, even once it does finally finish in Japan, which really sucks. :-(

May 25th Update: Per Anime News Network and a Facebook note from Tokyopop, all of their manga licenses will revert to their original owners, rather than being held until expiration by the parts staying alive.  This means that all titles will immediately be available for relicensing by other companies, if the original owners choose to license them again. They also noted that, Digital Manga stated, via Twitter, that their licensing team is looking into possible acquiring some of those titles.

Awesome News: Sailor Moon is Back!

March 18, 2011

Alas, I spent most of February battling bronchitis and other medical issues, but now I'm back.  And with so much sad and tragic news coming out about Japan lately due to the horrifying earthquake and tsunami, I had to share some good news for a change.

Per Anime News Network, Kodansha USA is going to be re-releasing the Sailor Moon manga series!! Even more awesome, they are also going to do the prequel series,  Codename: Sailor V, which was never included in the original Tokyopop releases!  Sailor Moon is one of my all time favorite manga series, and I'm really happy to hear it will be available in new volumes as my old ones are falling apart at the seams.  According to the announcement, they will feature new covers, "extensive bonus material" and both the art and dialogue have be retouched by the series manga-ka Naoka Takeuchi. These volumes will be based on the newer 2003 re-release of the series in Japan, which spanned 12 volumes instead of the original 18 and added some more side/short stories. The first volume is slated to be released in September.

I normally don't "double dip" but with the age of my volumes, the inclusion of Codename: Sailor V, and the chance to finally get Sailor Moon Stars, I will definitely be acquiring all of these new volumes! Some Anime News Networkers are speculating that this will lead to a re-release of the anime, which would be awesome for everyone who couldn't get it the first time, and for all of us if such a re-release finally included the never translated Stars.

And I haven't forget my reviews, I have a few new manga series I'm working on reviews for now, including I Am Here!, a release from Del Rey manga that seems to be part of a growing trend to release lesser known series straight to omnibus form, and an older but still popular series, Wish.

Coming Dry Spell

October 18, 2010

Its getting towards November, so of course I'm gearing up for National Novel Writing Month. With my writing energies focused on my novel, I won't be doing many posts until its done. I do have three partials in the queue, though, that I plan to try to get done before November starts so something will get posted :-D  Otherwise, see y'all in December!