Media Blasters CEO John Sirabella has confirmed acquisition of distribution rights to the 2008 Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no Jyunin) television series. Media Blasters does plan to produce an English dub for the 13 episode series.
Koichi Mashimo (Noir, Phantom) directed the adaptation of Hiroaki
Samura’s samurai action manga for studio Bee Train (.Hack, Murder
Princess). The Blade of the Immortal story revolves around wandering
warrior Manji, a man cursed to live until he executes 1,000 evil men to
atone for his own past wrongdoings.
Madhouse
has revealed plans to develop a feature film tentatively titled Tibetan
Dog (Tibet Inu Monogatari). The film will be based on a popular Chinese
coming-of-age novel about a city boy who finds himself living in rural
Tibet. Masayuki Kojima (Monster, Piano Forest) will helm the
adaptation. Shigeru Fujita (Monster) will handle animation character
design based on conceptual character designs drawn by manga-ka Naoki
Urasawa (Yawara, Monster). The film, which Kojima has promised will be
a “creative milestone in international cultural exchange,” will
tentatively premiere next year.
Madhouse certainly has been on a roll of producing eclectic productions lately.
Kadokawa Pictures has revealed plans to develop an anime feature based on Yuji Iwahara’s science-fiction action manga King of Thorn.
Kazuyoshi Katayama (Appleseed OVA, The Big O) will serve as director
and co-screenwriter with Hiroshi Yamaguchi (Bastard!!, Yukikaze).
Hidenori Matsubara (Ah! My Goddess, Gankutsuou) will provide character
design while Kenji Andou (Brigadoon, Karas) will provide monster
designs. The movie will tentatively premiere next year.
King of Thorn is the story of a teen girl placed in suspended
animation along with 160 other selected people infected by a mysterious
pandemic virus. They wake in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by
man-eating monsters, and the survivors struggle to learn what has
happened.
The original manga was published in Monthly Comic Beam magazine from
2002 to 2005. The complete series is distributed in English by Tokyopop.
Kadokawa Pictures has confirmed development
of a fifth Sgt. Frog (Keroro Gunso) motion picture. Television series
director Junichi Sato will supervise production while Susumu Yamaguchi,
who also directed the second Keroro movie, will direct. Keroro TV
series screenwriter Hiroshi Yamaguchi is responsible for the movie’s
script. The movie will hit Japanese theaters next year.
Question:
When I started anime collecting I was a huge
fan on Record of Lodoss War and collected every bit of anime, even the
spin off stuff and its sequel TV series. It seems the shoes it left
have yet to be filled. What good sword and sorcery anime has been
released in the last 5 years that’s worth collecting or comes close to
the fantastic work done on Record of Lodoss War saga? Is there still
hope that the Lodoss series will continue in anime ever again?
8-gatsu no Symphony —Shibuya 2002~2003 (Symphony in August: Shibuya 2002-2003), an anime feature film biography of singer-songwriter Ai Kawashima, will open in Japanese theatrical release this August. The official site includes a streaming trailer for broadband and narrowband
connections. The movie is based on Kawashima’s autobiography, Saigo no
Kotoba (Final Words), which details how Kawashima performed on the
streets of Tokyo’s Shibuya ward in an effort to get recognized. Since
turning professional, Kawashima has sung the theme songs for The Place
Promised in Our Early Days and eighth One Piece motion pictures.
Akio Nishizawa (Nitaboh) serves as the film’s writer and director.
Tatsuo Yanagino (First Kiss Story, Lupin III: Legend of the Gold of
Babylon) serves as character designer and animation director. Despite
playing a cameo role in the eigth One Piece movie, Kawashima does not
have a voice actor role in the movie. In the film, Kawashima is played
by Misato Fukuen (Yin in Darker Than Black, Yoshika Miyafuji in Strike
Witches).
The Mainichi Newspaper reports that 22 year old Japanese actress Suzanne will star in a live action feature film adaptation of Yukiya Sakuragi’s comedy manga Inubaka.
The manga about a pet shop employee with an uncanny affinity with dogs
premiered in Weekly Young Jump magazine in 2004. The ongoing series has
been compiled into 17 volumes so far, which have sold a combined
720,000 copies. Viz Media will release its 13th English translated
volume this month.
There’s a whole lot of good stuff in this 45 seconds. And it
looks like “Spice & Wolf” has been adopted as the official
Romanization of the series’ title.
The official website for the upcoming Katanagatari OVA series
has updated with its first promotional images. The adaptation of
NisiOisin’s 2007 light novel series looks like it will be a 20 monthly
episode series released on pay-per-view TV then DVD. Katanagatari is a
historical drama about a young swordsman in medieval Japan tasked with
locating 12 swords forged by a legendary swordsmith.
Katsuzo Hirata, chief animator on the current Basquash! mecha basketball television series, has revealed
on his personal website that he is no longer working on the series, and
series director Shin Itagaki (Black Cat, Devil May Cry) has also been
replaced. The official Japanese Basquash! homepage now credits Eiichi
Sato (Kissdum, Slayers Next) as series co-director.
I’ve proclaimed the excellence of Madhouse & director Maasaki Yuasa’s Kaiba television series since its April 2008 premiere, citing it as last year’s best original anime TV series. Twitch has now published a new, thorough and highly positive review of the show - a review worth reading.
ICv2 has determined
that despite American graphic novel sales growing by 5% in fourth
quarter 2008, domestic manga sales dropped by 17%, down to 2005 sales
levels.
ICv2 also reports the top 25 most popular “manga” titles in America during first quarter 2009, and the top 10 shounen and top 10 shoujo manga titles of the same period.
Unsurprisingly, Naruto tops the charts of shounen manga and all
manga sales in America. A bit more surprising is the fact that Fruits
Basket is America’s most popular shoujo manga even after five years of
domestic availability.
It would seem more good news sites would exist, but to be quite frank, they are not anything interesting
Final Anime Stop Back-Issues
NOTE: This WHOLE section needs to be updated
May 12th, 2005: What I plan to do with the whole site is since I have anime of the month...well every month, I will TRY to archive them for you so you'll be able access them whenever you want, but I won't get to them until I move on to a new anime of the month of course, so just wait until a month (or two) later and you'll be able to access the previus issues. Until then, see ya, and anime forever!!!
!!!ENJOY!!!