Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

If you're not familiar with the idea, it's one Dark Horse (the US publisher for the project) announced at Anime Expo 2007: the manga would be released nearly simultaneously in Japan and the US; in Japan it would come out in a typical manga fashion (as part of an anthology), while in the US it would come out in 80-page chunks on a monthly basis. (“Mangettes” is a pun-- in English it just sounds like a short manga, which it is, but the Japanese pronunciation “man-getsu” contains the word “getsu,” or month.)

Anyway! Kuri has word from keen-eyed CLAMP fans who spotted a listing on Amazon.co.jp for the work, which is titled Gate 7. You can see the cover here in all its glory; I found a UK listing for it and here's the official description:

Between our conscious, waking world and the subconscious state of slumber, there is a thinly veiled plane of lucid dreaming. While the conscious state belongs to individuals, the hidden plane of dreams is one shared by all human minds, past, present, and future. Yet only a few have ever possessed the power to enter this secret realm at will - where a war is being waged to control the waking world. For our earthly wishes and desires are not our own, but under the manipulation of these unseen masters of dreams. The heroine of Gate 7 is Hana, a high-school girl hailing from Kyoto, the daughter of a temple caretaker. Her peaceful ways give her the self-control to act in the hidden realm. But Hana can only reach it through the strange beast that acts as her totem in the world of dreams - and her companion on a journey to confront the puppeteers of our reality!

There is bad news-- the release date isn't until August 15, 2010. I believe the last we'd heard it was still hopefully coming out in 2009. So it'll be even ore of a wait...but it's CLAMP, so I'm sure it'll be worth it.

What do you think? Will you pick it up?