In March 2007, several publishers were allowed to include manga in school textbooks. The move was intended to help students who are doing bad in school to learn while having fun. However, the idea of including manga in school was met with severe criticisms.

Mimei Sakamoto, a manga artist for over 20 years and writes essays and manga for several Japanese magazine, recently expressed her opinion on manga textbooks:

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Free Comic Book Day, an annual promotional effort to promote lesser known comics to new readers, will take place on May 5th. 40 publishers will be participating in this year's event. Tokyopop, one of the participants, will be giving the Choose Your Weapon, a collection of Korean manhwa samples, for free.

An interview with manga artist Moto Hagio is current available on Matt Thorn's website. The interview originally appeared in the shojo manga issue of The Comics Journal (issue number #269, July/August 2005).

Via: MangaBlog

According to ICv2, VIZ Media has announced four new shounen manga for the fourth quarter of 2007:

• Tekkonkinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto - September
• Kurohime by Masanori Katakura - September
• Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation by Yoshiyuki Nichi - October
• Yu-Gi-Oh GX! by Kazuki Takahashi - November

According to a recent post on its blog, Newtype USA is currently looking for a freelance yaoi fangirl to write columns about yaoi/shonen-ai/boy-love:

You've gotta be over 18, know your stuff, and be able to write about it in an entertaining, coherent (and G-rated, if possible) way. Just testing the waters here, but if you think you might be the gal for the gig, drop a line to letters@newtype-usa.com. Don't forget to send us a writing sample or point us toward your work on the web. We gotta see if you're worthy, after all.

On the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending April 29th, Tokyopop's Warriors: The Lost Warrior ranks at #74, and Fruits Basket volume 16 ranks at #98. Volume 14 of Viz's Naruto ranks at #115.

The new comic release list for May 2nd 2007 from ComicList, compiled by MangaCast.

Manga Jouhou translates an interview from Mainichi Communications with manhwa artists at the Modern Korean Manhwa Exhibition (April 21st - June 3rd), held at the Kawazaki City Museum in Kawazaki City.

According to ICv2, VIZ Media has announced five new shojo licenses, all of which will be released between September 2007 and January 2008:

• Yume Kira Dream Shoppe by Aqua Mizuto
• Special A by Maki Minami
• Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa
• Wild Ones (Arakure) by Kiyo Fujiwara
• High School Debut (Koukou Debut) by Kazune Kawahara

Manga Forever, an Italian website about comics and animation, conducted an interview with manga artist Go Nagai during a comic convention in Naples (at Castel Sant'Elmo) called Comicon 2007. A translated version of the interview by Manga forever can be found here.