Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

Announcements

• Not sure if this is new, but I didn't know it-- InuYasha is available subtitled on Hulu, the first 32 episodes are currently up with a new one each week. Good thing, 'cause...
• InuYasha the Final Act, the newly-announced continuation in Japan, is "coming soon" to TheRumicWorld.com. No word on if that'll be a simulrelease, but good to see VIZ isn't going to hold out on us too bad. 
• And there's the Kekkaishi anime license, which we're about to see a trailer for...
• Dragon Ball (the original series) is being reworked into chapter books, short prose books with illustrations directly from the manga. This is also being done for Naruto.
• Vampire Knight anime coming in 2010.
• Monster's anime box set, episodes 1-15 (uncut) will be coming out December. Finally!
  

 

Write-Up

So we've got Traci Todd, the editor for VIZ's kids line, and Mike Montesa, editor of the new Shonen Sunday site. Let's see, not sure what to expect here...

 

Shonen Sunday

A brand new imprint for shounen titles, of course, and a website that will have some of the manga online for free, plus series info, creator info, features, a blog, some other downloadables, etc. Some of the series coming up for it are the manga of Kekkaishi, Rumiko Takahashi's Rin-ne, Juvenile Remix, Hyde & Closer, and Arata: The Legend (from Fushigi Yugi's Yuu Watase).
 
Shonen Sunday's website, ShonenSunday.com, is live right now, and we're in fact browsing it on Comic-Con's free wi-fi right now. Some of the titles, such as Arata, have their first chapters up right now. It's a really nice looking site-- no Anime Vice, of course, but pretty good. ;)
 
So, those of us who have been using the free Comic-Con wifi have noticed ads for free iGoogle themes, which pops up when you log on. One of those themes is for Rin-ne, but I didn't realize they were officially created, not fan-created, but we were just told that this theme came from VIZ. Cool beans!
 
DID NOT KNOW THIS: InuYasha's first 32 episodes are up on Hulu for free, with more episodes every week.
 
InuYasha the Final Act is "coming soon"  to TheRumicWorld.com. It's the continuation that was just announced in Japan, so yes, it looks like VIZ is going to jump on it. That's all they can say right now, no timeframe, no guarantee of a simulrelease, but the odds aren't bad.
 
By the way, we got our hands on some of the (exclusive?) Rin-ne calendar/posters, so we'll be giving those out later.
 

Studio Ghibli Library

Just came from Miyazaki, and here we are with more! The Ponyo books are coming out August 4th and September 1st, so that'll be fun...I think I just heard John go "woo" for Miyazaki. Heehee. (We separated so he could hit up a power outlet.) There's also the artbook (August 11th) and the picture book (August 4th). Miyazaki's essay collection, The Starting Point, is coming out August 4th as well, of course...it will also have sketches and art from other projects that Miyazaki did before he hit it big.
 
Candace says she forgot to show a video during Shonen Sunday, which is...a trailer for the Rin-ne manga.
 
Hokay, we're moving on to...
 

vizkids

Obviously the children's line of manga, which we talked about a few titles from yesterday...
 
Naruto has been reworked into "chapter books," prose books for kids with illustrations taken directly from the manga. They'll be doing this same thing with Dragon Ball ("The Adventure Begins!"), which is exciting given FUNimation's announcement that they'll be releasing the original anime of. These books are reworked to be child-appropriate while preserving "the spirit."
 

VIZ Signature

I got a bit distracted but I don't think anything new has been announced here-- they're talking about  Vagabond''s VIZBIG release and Solanin creator Inio Asano's What a Wonderful World.
 
Ooh, early copies of 20th Century Boys volume 4. Must have. *drools*
 
The Monster DVD box set part one is FINALLY coming out. December 2009. God help me.
 

Q&A

This is actually an hour and a half panel, so we have a bit of time for a Q&A...but no good questions so far. Basara VIZBIG, no, monthly Case Closed, no, Vampire Knight on TV, no. Or rather, those are all "nothing to announce right now," they're not definite "no"s. Older titles? No news at this time. 
 
A girl just asked if D.Gray-Man was coming back. I read on the Shonen Jump fans LiveJournal that the creator, Hoshino Katsura IIRC, is coming back from hiatus, but I couldn't confirm the info elsewhere so I'm not sure yet.