Currently enjoying at least three (soon to be four) new anime acquisitions, US anime distributor FUNimation are working their way through this week by announcing one new license every evening. So far, their newly bought anime includes:

• The first 26 episodes (out of a potential 50) of martial arts comedy KenIchi The Mightiest Disciple (2006)
• All 12 episodes of shojo (girls) romantic drama Mamotte! Lollipop (2006)
• The 15 episodes-long TV sequel to the popular Gunslinger Girl series, Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino- (2008). As it's name suggests, this is a sober (and relatively mature) action story about a group of (female) children who are brainwashed and used as specialist government assasains.

Adding to the above, at least one further new license is being promised by FUNimation and will most likely be announced tomorrow (Thursday) evening via their official website. It's worth noting that they release a lot of their anime (for example, Fullmetal Alchemist and the first Gunslinger Girl series) in the UK via Revelation Films, therefore, it's now quite possible that one or more of the above series will eventually see a UK DVD release too.

On Friday last week, the latest Wachowski "Matrix trilogy" brothers action movie Speed Racer (based on the 1960s anime series Speed Racer (aka Mach GoGoGo)) opened in theaters worldwide, but has so far failed to achieve the kind of box-office sales required to be the big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster many expected it to be. The film (now being classed as 'flop') took $20.2 million, far below the already scaled-down estimation of $30+ million.

With this news in mind, it brings into question the potential financial viability of the several other big-budget live action anime adaptations currently in-production; including the fast-approaching Dragonball movie, which has already been filmed, and the highly anticipated new Akira and Ghost in the Shell movie projects.

Rhoda "Voxie" Villegas is giving away (free) copies of her (now in-active) fanzine 'MAMEzine'. Along side magazine regulars like (old) news, features and reviews, it contains a number of rare comics drawn by several well-known UK comic artists, including a couple of Sweatdrop Studios regulars, Laura Watton and Sonia Leong. If you're interested in taking advantage and picking up a free copy, read on below (including several preview images of the magazine itself).

"MAMEzine is or rather was, a non-profit fanzine I created alongside a wealth of brilliant contributors. It was on sale via online and a few events over the last five years or so, mainly the London Anime Club. It used to cost approx. £1.50 a copy, but here on out from today it's totally FREE!!!"

"All I ask is that you send me a size A5 (MUST be A5!!) SSAE (Self Stamped Addressed Envelope) to the following address: Rhoda Villegas, MAMEzine #X, 212 Lewisham High Street, Lewisham, London SE13 6JP. (Offer is for those in UK and Eire only). Where X is, please write the number of the issue you want (details below)."

• MAME #3 previews (click to see scanned preview)
• Fan Scene Highlights by Rhoda Villegas
• Backfire by Rebecca McCarthy, Andy Marc
• Pick Up the Beat by Laura Watton
• Event Reports & Reviews by Various: Preview 2
• First Date by Sonia Leong
• MAME#4 previews
• Plushie Lounge Potato #2 by Claire Sears
• Many an Event Report by Various: Preview 2: Preview 3
• A Virgin Traveller's Guide to Doing Japan by Peter Vine
• MLS: Reuniting the Melody (an experimental comic really...)
• Reviews by Various

It has been several months since the President of Geneon USA, Eiji Orii, left his [PDF format] parting words back in November 2007, and while there is still no official word on the situation, an industry insider and owner of the popular fan-orientated US anime distribution company "Robert's Anime Corner Store" has let out some carefully worded information on the current situation, which provides a very well deserved sigh of relief for the many thousands of anime fans who have been left in the cold since the last quater of 2007.

Robert writes in his weely newsletter:

I'm still getting a half dozen e-mails each week from folks wondering when Geneon's old titles will be back on the market. Anime fans are consummate optimists. :-) I actually do have an update of sorts, and I have not mentioned anything up until now because I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up - but what the heck, here goes. Geneon has been in serious talks with a major US home entertainment distributor for about the past three months to get their titles back on the street. I know exactly who it is, how far along they are, and the details that are going to make or break the deal. The trouble is I can't make any of that info public without jeopardizing our relationship with the new company, but perhaps it's helpful to let you guys know that there is something serious in the works. Whether the deal is completed or not remains to be seen, and I would advise everyone to not get their hopes up, but I will tell you this:

• If we don't hear anything by mid-summer we probably won't hear anything.
• Even if a major deal is struck, it won't involve Geneon's entire catalog circa Sept 2007. The new company will cherry pick those releases like people at Ruby Tuesday pick over the salad bar.
• The 'major distributor' they are in talks with is NOT one of the existing US Anime studios.

Manga Ent. UK have confirmed two new UK anime licenses.

1. Hellsing Ultimate is a high-quality OVA re-animation of Kouta Hirano's popular vampire/horror action manga. So far, the series consists of only 4 four episodes (releases began in Japan during 2006), but it remains an on-going project in Japan, where a new fifth episode expected at some point in 2008. Hellsing Ultimate isn't related to 2001's 13 episode TV anime of same name, which, towards its end, completely diverged from Hirano's (then in-complete) original story.


2. In addition to Hellsing Ultimate, Manga Ent. have also picked up the theatrical movie Origin Spirits of the Past. The 2006 sci-fi/fantasy flick was Studio (Hellsing, Gantz, Last Exile) Gonzo's first theatrical effort (followed up by Brave Story). In promotion of the film, there will be a free screening (tickets are limited) at Manchester's Arndale Centre on Monday, 26th May.

Three Japanese salary-men were arrested late last week for allegedly uploading  new episodes of anime to the Japanese file-sharing program "Share". According to Canned Dogs, these three people (their online handles were 92JeyRfcya, YS2YSUOe1cLtf and YnXmHqtxqS) were well-known within the file-sharing community for encoding and uploading "huge amounts" of anime; a lot of which was then used as a basis for international fansubs. It remains to be seen whether their absence will ultimately effect the speed of online distribution of fansubbed anime.

Anime influenced (UK based) t-shirt designer Terratag has released two new designs based on the popular action anime Afro Samurai. These t-shirts, created alongside Afro Samurai mangaka Takashi Okazaki, can be seen (and ordered) on the Terratag website.

We've received news that on the 20th of May (from 6PM till 8PM) at the Walthamstow Library (E17 7JN), Tokyopop will be running one of their "recon" manga events; basically, it's a social gathering organised to spread all the recent news related to Tokyopop UK's manga releases. Apparently, there will be "free gifts, cosplay, art competitions, quizzes and prizes and a chance to play the latest Nintendo titles at the event". If you're interested, contact info for the Walthamstow Library can be found on their official website.

Earlier in the week, Nozomi Entertainment (US anime publishing arm of Rightstuf International) announced that they've acquired the fan-favourite slice of life anime franchise Aria, starting with a box set release of all 13 episodes of the first series (Aria the Animation) on September 30th. Following that, Nozomi will then release Aria the Natural and Aria the Origination. As is the modern trend for relatively niche anime series in today's climate, no English dub will be produced for any of the Aria series.

To celebrate the recent release of Death Note (anime) Volume 1 in the UK (it came out last Monday, 28th April), Manga Ent. have posted up 5 short streaming video clips cut from the first couple of episodes of  the series (English dubbed). If you're interested in sampling what is undoubtedly one of the biggest UK anime releases of the year, see below:

• Clip 1 – LIGHT FINDS THE DEATH NOTE
• Clip 2 – LIGHT WRITES IN THE DEATH NOTE
• Clip 3 – RYUK
• Clip 4 – RYUK MEETS LIGHT
• Clip 5 – THE DEATH NOTE IN ACTION

Kicking off next weekend (10th to 11th May), the Bristol Comics Expo has expanded its focus on the (global) manga scene to unprecedented levels. We're told the line-up includes guest appearances and panels with:

• Misako Rocks, returns again from the USA
• Helen McCarthy, Manga critic
• Frederik Stromberg, Swedish manga/comic book critic
• Yokaji studio, a group of chinese artist living in Sweden.
• Dimensional Manga, a new UK publisher
• Sean Michael Wilson of Boychild Books, 'Lafcadio Hearn's Japanese Ghost Stories','Yaoi volume one', Best New Manga volume 2.
• Tokyo pop, with their big display again
• Dark horse comics joins us this year
• 'Selfmadehero', a UK publisher launching their new manga adaptations of  Shakespeare.
• Yishan Li, a Chinese artist, Best New Manga volume 2 now published by Dargaud in France and working on books for US publishers.    
• The London collective of Japanese manga artists 'Umisen-Yamasen' will be  there (there might be as many as 5 of them attend!)
• Siku, with his new manga Bible books.
• Ilya, the editor of the Mammoth book of new manga, will be there with some of his manga 'mammoths'.

You can get more information on the Bristol Comics Expo at their official website.

In London on Friday 16th May (from 1pm till 6pm), King's College London (Room K2.31, Strand Building, Strand Campus) will be hosting a seminar on anime and manga; it's titled "Japan’s Manga and Anime Industries: Creativity and the Global Marketplace".

"This research seminar will investigate the Japanese comic book and animation industries, identifying and analysing the forces behind the increasing popularity of manga and anime in the English speaking world and beyond. Exploring specific texts and their broader cultural context, and examining both the audiences for and the business of manga and anime, the seminar will attempt to discover the complex cultural and commercial logic of these industries, at once manifestly country-specific and globally successful."

The afternoon will be made up of presentations for five seperate "papers", they are:

• 'Anime: The Anti-Cartoon?' by Andrew Osmond
• 'Advertising anime: Global-local advertising and the Tokyo International Anime Fair' by Dr Rayna Denison
• '"Such stuff as dreams are made on": Dystopian vision of the future in Japanese manga and anime' by Yoko Ono
• 'Manga in the UK: Can manga reinvent Shakespeare?' by Emma Hayley
• 'Between fan culture and copyright infringement: Manga scalation' by Dr Hye-Kyung Lee

If you're interested in attending, more information can be found at the King's College London website.

Several impressive new trailers have been released recently and here's a quick run-down of what to look out for:

• A new (and much longer) trailer for Mamoru "Ghost in the Shell" Oshii's Sky Crawlers has been placed on YouTube. The theatrical movie, previously described as a "a philosophical story built around the visceral trials and tribulations of a group young fighter pilots who are forced into fighting a "war for entertainment"" will be out in Japan later this summer.


• The official website for the anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal (a violent, supernatural samurai epic) has gone live with an extended streaming flash trailer. Be warned, it contains bloody gore.


• A 35-second teaser for the live action thriller 20th Century Boys has appeared online. It’s set to become the most expensive Japanese film project of all time, being based on Naoki "Monster, Master Keaton" Urasawa’s multi-generational manga of same name. The story involves a group of men who, as childhood friends in the 1970s, wrote (and then buried) a comic-book manuscript that describes a massive terrorist attack on the civilized world. Decades later, their story, including every insignificant little detail, starts to come true.

As anticipation for the live action Dragonball movie reaches boiling point, Japanese manga magazine Shonen Jump have announced that they intend to produce a brand new (albeit one-shot) Dragonball anime (as well as a new One Piece short film too). Though specific details are few and far between, it's known that the new anime will be shown all across Japan as a part of the “Jump Super Anime Tour”, making it the first Dragonball anime to have been produced since GT ended in November 1997.

UK-based Death Note fans are being invited to attend a Northern gathering next week (Monday, 28th April) to celebrate the in-bound releases of the first live action movie (in UK cinemas) and the anime series (on UK DVD). In association with Manga Ent., the event is being held at the 'Zavvi' shop in the Manchester Arndale Shopping Centre from 7PM (note: in order to gain entry on the evening, you must pick-up a special wristband in-store prior to the event).