VIZ MEDIA PARENT COMPANY SHUEISHA INVESTS IN JAPANESE PUBLISHER SHOGAKUKAN’S LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING SUBSIDIARY TO FORM NEW PARTNERSHIP – SHOGAKUKAN-SHUEISHA PRODUCTIONS CO., LTD.

New Entity Will Help Streamline Operations And Increase Flexibility To License Titles For Global Manga And Anime Markets

San Francisco, CA, June 19, 2008 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced that one of its parent companies, Japanese publisher Shueisha, Inc., has made an investment in Shogakukan Production Company Ltd., the licensing and merchandising subsidiary of Japanese publisher Shogakukan, Inc., another of VIZ Media’s parent companies. ShoPro will be renamed Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Ltd.

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Rumiko Takahashi's long-running manga, Inuyasha, will be ending it's 12 year run in Shogakuan's Shonen Sunday No.29 (to be released the Wednesday after next).

Source: Furinkan

According to Yahoo! Japan, Shogakukan is considering suspending its weekly seinen manga magazine Young Sunday due to declining sales. ANN has more:

According to Mainichi, Shogakukan's public relations staff confirmed that the magazine's fate is under review, but also emphasized that absolutely no final decision has been made.

Recently the Japanese news program "Broadcaster" ran a report on the anniversary collaboration between Shonen Sunday and Shonen Magazine. Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura was mentioned in the report as the key to Shonen Sunday's sucess in the 1980s.

Source: Rumic World

From Canned Dogs comes an story about the troubles of Wakaki Tamiki, a Shounen Sunday manga artist responsible for series like Seikesshou Albatross. According Tamiki's latest blog post, he is extremely short on money at the moment, with less than 10,000 yen in his bank account:

He would have no money to pay the utilities bills, but he managed to get an advance from Shounen Sunday for the manga that's starting serialization in the next issue.

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 Imōto 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 Imōto ni Koi o Suru.

Celebrating Shonen Sunday's and Shonen Magazine's 50th anniversary, Kodansha an Shogakukan are collaborating on a variety of special features.

In order to keep the English fans up-to-date on the special features and events, Rumic World has created a special page to keep track of everything that's coming out, as well as translations of the press conference and others.

According to Muhyojo, the latest issue of Kodansha's Morning revealed that the second volume of its Mandala magazine on March 21st. ANN has more:

Not only will this new 290-page volume be bigger (20 milimeters larger than A4 paper size, or roughly North American "Letter" size), but it will be in full color. 15 creators from eight countries contributed to this project, including 10 artists who returned from the first Mandala volume.

Also from ITmedia (via ANN) is the news that to celebrate the magazine's 50th anniversary, Konami will be making a game that will feature popular characters from Kodansha's Shonen Magazine and Shogakukan's Shonen Sunday.

The latest issue of Shounen Sunday came with a free Sakuya (a character from Kenjiro Hata's Hayate the Combat Butler) card that can be used in Hayate the Combat Butler TCG. New Akiba is reporting that a Hayate fan bought 398 copies of Shounen Sunday in order to get 398 copies of the Sakuya card.

Canned Dogs has more:

He had to travel to 82 different branches of 7-Eleven buying several copies of Shounen Sunday from each branch to complete the task (leaving a few copies so others can get their own copy) [...] 398 is a wordplay on the name "Sakuya", which is why he bought 398 copies.

Canned Dogs is reporting that several new series will begin serialization in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday:

• New manga (title rumored to be Gekkou Jourei) by Fujita Kazuhiro (Ushio to Tora, Karakuri Circus)
• MiXiM♀12 by Nobuyuki Anzai (Flame of Recca, MÄR)