Anime Expo Update

Friday was a busy day for the manga folks at Anime Expo. Here’s a roundup of news and announcements:

SPJA Awards: The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) gave their awards at AX. Here are the manga-related ones:

Best Manga – Action
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, by CLAMP (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Comedy
Fairy Tail, by Hiro Mashima (Del Rey)

Best Manga – Drama
Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz Media)

Best Publication
Shonen Jump (Viz Media)

Anime Vice has a comprehensive report on the awards.

Bandai Entertainment: Edward Zacharias of Animanga Nation covers their panel from a manga-centric point of view. They discussed a number of manga, although I think most of these were previously announced. ANN and Anime Vice have more.

CMX Manga: DC’s manga arm seemed to go quiet for a while, and after the demise of Minx, some of us started wondering if they would be the next to go, although there were some hopeful signs at NYCC. Now they have come roaring back with a set of new license announcements and a promise of more to come at SDCC. The new titles lean heavily toward shoujo, with a handful of shonen and one mature-rated seinen title, Rampage. Below is a list of all the titles discussed in the panel, some of which have been previously announced.

The Battle of Genryu, by Shouko Fukaki (August 2009)
A Tale of An Unknown Country, by Natsuna Kawase (September 2009)
Oh! My Brother, by Ken Saito (October 2009)
Deka Kyoshi, by Kamio Baba (November 2009)
The Lizard Prince, by Asuka Izumi (November 2009)
The World I Create, by Ayami Kazama (January 2010)
Stolen Hearts, by Miku Sakamoto (January 2010)
Rampage, by Yunosuke Yoshinaga (February 2010)
My Darling Miss Bancho, by Mayu Fujikata (March 2010)
Diamond Girl, by Takanori Yamazaki (April 2010)
Polyphonica: Cardinal Crimson, by Ichiro Sasaki / Ocelot (May 2010)
Nadeshiko Club, by Miku Sakamoto (June 2010)

Deb Aoki has capsule summaries of each title at About.com, and Carlo Santos has more at ANN. Julie has notes on some of the series and remarks that scheduling problems with Swan and From Eroica With Love were attributed to problems getting the source material from Japan as well as the need to keep the new releases flowing.

Viz Media: Gia liveblogged the panel for Anime Vice, and Ai Kano covers the manga announcements at Animanga Nation; many of them are for previously announced titles. The big news seems to be that they are doing a speeded-up release of One Piece, as they did for Naruto, with four volumes per month coming out from January through June 2010. As Gia remarks, “That’s pretty badass.” These seem to be the new announcements:

Biomega, by Tsutomu Nihei (February 2010)
Crown of Love, by Yun Kouga (February 2010)
Cactus’s Secret, by Nana Haruto (March 2010)
Stepping on Roses, by Rinko Ueda (April 2010)
Flower in a Storm, by Shigeyoshi Takagi (May 2010)

For more impressions of the con, photos, etc., check out all the coverage at ANN’s AX page, Animanga Nation, Anime Vice, Deb Aoki’s blog, Japanator, and Manga Maniac Cafe.

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Comments

  1. I think Yen Plus deserved to win best publication.