News

From MangaCast comes the Diamond Previews for April 2008, which provides information on new U.S. releases for June 2008.

ANN reports that the winner of the 2008 Manga Taisho (Manga Grand Prize) have been announced, and the winner is Gaku by Shinichi Ishitsuka:

Unlike many other manga prizes which are chosen by the editors of the manga publishers themselves, the Manga Taisho nominating committee is dominated by the bookstore staffers who are in charge of their respective stores' manga. The awards are also limited to works to published last year with eight or less volumes to promote relatively newer works.

From du9 comes an interview with mangaka Igarashi Daisuke:

With his fragile line, his magical stories and the nostalgia for a lost Japan, Igarashi Daisuke is one of the authors revealed by IKKI magazine, the experimentation laboratory of Japanese publisher Sh??gakkan. Of course, defying all expectations, Igarashi Daisuke (a short but energetic and decided fellow) will answer in an incredibly fast flow of speech the questions of this bewildered interviewer. An encounter, in record time.

According to a post from Negima mangaka Ken Akamatsu's blog, limited editions of volume 23 - 25 of the Negima manga will come bundled with the Negima OAV:

The anime will be by Shaft again and it'll be based on the manga version of Negima this time.

Source: Canned Dogs

From the Daily Yomiuri comes an article titled "Manga sniper gets a shot at television" that looks at how the anime adaptation of Takao Saito's Golgo 13 will be aired for the first time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original manga:

The manga by Takao Saito and his production company, Saito Pro, has been adapted for a live-action movie twice and an animated film once but, surprisingly, it has never been serialized as a TV anime.

Trading Markets is reporting that this year's Tokyo Anime Fair saw record number of exhibitors:

A record 289 animation production houses, toymakers and other companies and groups are exhibiting this year, including 79 from overseas, which is 24 more than last year.

Also, according to the Hollywood Reporter, this year's crowd was 7% larger than last year's:

Registrants at one of the world's largest anime events, staged at the Tokyo Big Sight venue, numbered 12,325, up from the 11,523 recorded a year ago.

The Earth Times has more on the event.

ANN is reporting that Shogakukan plans to celebrate Sho-Comi's 40th anniversary by making 4,000 pages of manga from 400 series available on Yahoo! Comic Japan for free:

The lineup includes Yuu Watase's Absolute Boyfriend, Fuyumi Soryo's Boyfriend, Chie Shinohara's Red River, Kotomi Aoki's Boku wa Im??to ni Koi o Suru, Kazuko Fujita's Rising!. The website is also hosting a free online version of Shojo Comic with new installments added on the 5th and 20th day of every month. This free online "magazine" includes a side story of Boku wa Im??to ni Koi o Suru.

According to ICv2, Tokyopop has licensed a new seinen manga from GTO mangaka Tohru Fujisawa titled Tokko. The first volume of Tokko will be released in July.