In September 2011, Viz Media announced that it had contracted marketing & placement company T3 Networks Inc. to market Viz anime titles to television networks and film distributors. T3 Networks Inc. announced earlier this week that it had ceased all business operations, explaining, “We lack the sales, personnel and additional resources essential to continue operations as a business.”
Source: Anime News Network
Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe is helming the anime adaptation of Yuki Kodama’s drama manga Sakamichi no Apollon. The April Noitamina series tells the story of an introverted intellectual high school boy in the 1960s who finds common ground through jazz music with his new school’s female class president and a delinquent boy. The manga was the winner of the “Best General Manga” category in this year’s prestigious Shogakukan Manga Awards. The anime from studio MAPPA/Tezuka Productions is an all-star production reuniting director Watanabe with Cowboy Bebop music composer Yoko Kanno. Nobuteru Yuki (Escaflowne, Paradise Kiss) provides character design. Ayako Katoh (Chihayafuru) & Yuuko Kakihara (Persona 4 the Animation) are co-writing the scripts. Yoshimitsu Yamashita (Hyoge Mono) is serving as animation director. Shinichiro Watanabe hasn’t directed a full anime production since helming his “Baby Blue” segment of the 2007 anthology film Genius Party.
Can’t say that I immediately like the CG animation, but this is already assured of being one of 2012′s most acclaimed and respected shows simply based on its pedigree. It is certainly nice to see Noitamina getting back to unconventional adult oriented anime.
Source: Anime News Network
Gekkan Flowers Magazine has formally announced the development of an anime based on Aloha Higa’s lady’s comedy manga Shirokuma Café (Polar Bear Café). The slice-of-life gag comedy revolves around the animal patrons that visit a Café run by a polar bear. The manga premiered in 2006 and has three collected volumes. The anime adaptation will premiere in April.
Source: Anime News Network
Nico Nico Douga has announced plans to simulcast next month’s Black Rock Shooter television series online with subtitles in eight languages. The show will premiere on the Fuji TV network’s Noitamina programming block on February 2. The show will debut online at 11:00pm on February 3 for online viewers in the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, Monaco, Switzerland, Andorra, Italy, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Singapore.
Source: Anime News Network
The teaser trailer for AIC’s TV series adaptation of Ishiki’s four-koma gag manga Acchi Kocchi (Place to Place) originally released last month is now streaming on the series’ official website. The daily life school comedy will premiere this April.
Source: Moon Phase
Kadokawa has released a streaming ad for the Japanese home video release of the Sora no Otoshimono: Tokei-jikake no Angeloid motion picture which confirms that the anime franchise is getting a third TV series.
Source: Anime News Network
Weekly Shonen Sunday magazne will formally announce next week that the 47th collected volume of Shun Matsuena’s Shijo Saikyo no Deshi Kenichi (History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi) will be released in May in a limited edition including the franchise’s second OVA. The first OAD will be released on March 14, bundled with limited edition copies of the 46th volume of the manga. Unlike the 50 episode TV series from 2006 that was animated by TMS Entertainment, the OVAs will be animated by Brains Base (Kurenai, Baccano).
Strictly speaking, these anime releases are actually OADs, but Shogakukan identifies them as “OVA” format.
Source: Anime News Network
Developer Imageepoch and distributor Bandai/Namco Games have released a streaming teaser trailer for the upcoming Playstation 3 animation RPG Tokitowa. The game’s FMV sequences along with character movement and battle animation is entirely animated in HD by studio Satelight (Aquarion, Macross F).
Source: Anime News Network
Director Goro Miyazaki’s second film, Studio Ghibli’s Kokuriko-Zaka Kara (From Up On Poppy Hill) was Japan’s highest grossing domestic film of 2011, bringing in 4.46 billion yen ($57.6 million USD). The film came in fourth in Japanese 2011 box office receipts behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Goro Miyazaki’s first film, 2006′s Ged Senki, was also the top grossing Japanese film of its release year.
Seven out of 2011′s top ten grossing Japanese films were anime or manga related:
1. Kokuriko-Zaka Kara
3. Pokemon movie 14
5. Gantz
6. Kaibutsu-kun
7. Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence
8. Gantz 2: Perfect Answer
10. Doraemon: New Nobita and the Iron Men Platoon
Source: Tokyograph
Question:
If you owned a television network and had carte blanche to put any anime on you wanted to at anytime you wanted which ones would you choose?
Discotek has announced its acquisition of distribution rights for the 1989 anime feature The Venus Wars. Director Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s adaptation of his own 1986-1990 sci-fi adventure manga was previously distributed on American VHS & DVD by Central Park Media. Discotek has confirmed plans to release the film domestically in a bilingual anamorphic remastered edition.
Nice to see this one back in circulation, but I never thought the American community cared very much about this film. Perhaps I was mistaken, or time has matured tastes.
Source: Anime News Network
The official website for creator/director Mamoru Hosoda’s forthcoming fantasy film Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki has released a nice teaser trailer. While the trailer linked through the official site is limited to viewers in Japan only, publisher Kadokawa has formally released the same trailer for international viewers. The movie will hit Japanese theaters on July 21.
The flick has a much more “Ghibli-esque” look to it than Hosoda’s previous works, which isn’t a complaint. With the fan community increasingly calling contemporary Ghibli movies stale, perhaps Hosoda can give us the sort of golden era Ghibli film that Ghibli itself seems to not make anymore.
The current Japanese TV commercial for the March issue of Monthly Sh?nen Ace magazine reports that the issue will include a major announcement regarding the Sora no Otoshimono anime franchise. Apparantly, a high-resolution zoom-in of the magazine’s cover reveals that the announcement will be a confirmation of a third season for the popular anime series that’s had two TV series and a feature film so far.
Source: Anime News Network
So here’s the first look at this April’s Nazo no Kanojo X anime television series, an adaptation of Riichi Ueshiba’s ongoing romantic comedy manga. Hoods Entertainment (Seikon no Qwaser) will animate with veteran Doraemon movie assistant director Ayumi Watanabe directing and Kaneko Sizue serving as animation director.
Source: Yaron
Question:
Does buying out of print anime from defunct or dormant companies (like CPM or Animego) benefit the anime industry? I’d like to know if buying old OOP helps the Western market for anime in any way even though it may be a company that’s not around anymore. Especially since now it’s easy to just download nearly anything, is only brand new releases from vital companies the way to help the market for anime stay alive?
