September 30, 2008 Los Angeles

LuvLuv Press, the josei imprint of Aurora Publishing, will have their titles available for purchase and viewing on NETCOMICS' site starting early October 2008. Readers will see the first release in October, and the following releases will come one per month. Following with NETCOMICS' format, readers will be able to see a free preview of the first chapter of any particular title's first release. Since LuvLuv Press' current releases are one-shots, all of them will have free previews. "We are extremely thrilled to be partnering with NETCOMICS," said Aurora President Mr. Nobuo Kitawaki. "The online market is another great possibility to expand the English manga market, and NETCOMIC's expertise will contribute greatly to that."

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Innovative New Online Video Streaming Service To Carry Original Uncut Japanese Episodes From Three Smash Hit Animated Action Series

San Francisco, CA, September 25, 2008 - VIZ Media, LLC., one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies has announced the availability of the original Uncut Japanese versions of NARUTO, BLEACH and DEATH NOTE animated episodes (subtitled in English) on Hulu.com. Hulu is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites - all for free, anytime in the U.S. Hulu has more than 100 content partners and offers nearly 900 show and movie titles, including 200 full-length feature films and 400 television series with hundreds of videos added to the service each week. NARUTO and DEATH NOTE launched in the United States on Hulu this week. BLEACH and new episodes of each title will be added regularly on Hulu.

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Web Video Portal To Offer Streamed Episodes Of Three Hit Series Complemented With Social Interaction

San Francisco, CA, SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 - VIZ Media, LLC. (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies has announced that Joost™, the world's first broadcast-quality internet television service, will carry the original Uncut (Japanese version/English subtitled) episodes of the hit animated series NARUTO, DEATH NOTE and BLEACH (coming soon) in the United States. Episodes will be made available for free at www.joost.com with new installments being added regularly.

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Global Online Media Distribution Giant Partners with Canada-Based Publisher to Launch Weekly Digital Manga and Comic Digest

San Francisco, CA (July 23, 2008) ‹Canada-based publisher UDON Entertainment partners with online media distribution giant, Crunchyroll, to launch a weekly digital manga and comic digest called UDON COMBO!. More information can be found at www.crunchyroll.com.

UDON COMBO! will debut worldwide in August with award-winning hit titles including 1520 and Makeshift Miracle, with many more to be announced in the weeks to come.

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Tokyo—AlphaCreatio Inc., operator of Manganovel (http://manganovel.com), today announced that it will expand its on-line download services to include delivery of flash animations in multiple languages. The new service will start this month, and will offer animations in eleven languages.
Manganovel is the innovative on-line service that takes manga out of Japan and introduces them to a global audience. Manganovel allows readers to download and read manga in Japanese, and then takes user-interactivity to a new level by allowing readers to post and offer for sale their own translations of downloaded manga content in a wide range of languages.

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New trailer, plus contest to win Kaoru Mori artwork reproduction in advance of Season 1 DVD release on June 24, 2008

GRIMES, IA, May 28, 2008 – Anime producer and distributor Right Stuf, Inc. and Nozomi Entertainment are pleased to announce the launch of emma.rightstuf.com (http://emma.rightstuf.com) – the official series site for EMMA: A VICTORIAN ROMANCE, which is set to make its North American DVD debut with the release of its Season 1 DVD Collection on June 24, 2008!

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Bungaku Shoujo, a light novel series by Nomura Mizuki (author) and Takeoka Miho (illustrator), will be adapted into a manga by Kousaka Rito and will be serialized in GanGan Powered starting with the August issue (6/21).

Another light novel series, Young Gun Carnaval by Fukami Makoto, will be adapted into a manga by Satou Yuko, and will serialize as an e-manga on FlexComix Next beginning June 3rd.

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Kodansha has recently opened a comic portal website called Kodansha Comic Plus (講談社コミックプラス).

Source: Ultimatum

The Associated Press looks at the popularity of mobile commerce in Japan.

TMC.net reports that Devil's Due Publishing is collaborating with uclick to make their comics available to mobile phone users.

Finally, the Manchester Evening News has an article titled "How did Manga take over the world?" that looks at the popularity of manga around the world.

Tokyopop has launched a "I-Manga Music Video Mash Up Contest," which asks its participant to remix scenes from two of Tokyopop's more popular manga into music videos.

The winning video will receive an Apple Video iPod packed with Tokyopop music and all of the i-manga webisodes, as well as being featured on the TOKYOPOP TV YouTube page. The contest ends March 23rd, rules can be found here.