Jiji Press reports that UNIQLO, a Japanese casual clothing store chain, is planning on bringing its manga and anime T-shirts overseas:

Fast Retailing hopes to boost sales of the manga and anime T-shirts by luring more overseas customers who seek after Japanese pop culture as "Japan Cool." [...] In France, Fast Retailing on Monday opened a time-limited T-shirt shop at Galeries Lafayette, a major department store in central Paris. [...] UNIQLO's adult-size T-shirts are priced between 1,500 yen and 1,900 yen in Japan. [...] In 2008, the company aims at selling more than 12 million T-shirts worldwide. It operates UNIQLO shops in Britain, France, Hong Kong, mainland China, South Korea and the United States in addition to Japan.

Source: MangaCast

From ManagCast comes an article titled "Jump & Fujoshi - The Mangacast Special" that looks at the relationship between the fujoshi culture and Shueisha's Weekly Shounen Jump.

A round up of the new comic release list and views for the week of April 23th 2008:

• ComicList: ComicList for 04/23/2008
• MangaCast: New Manga Release List - April 23, 2007
• Comics Village: Manga Village Pick 'n' Mix: New Releases 4/23/08
• Precocious Curmudgeon: Upcoming 4/23/2008

Christopher Butcher's Comics212 is 6 years old!:

It's 6 years to the day since I started blogging at Comics212. I'm a considerably better writer at this point, I think. I actually started writing a column for 212.net in December if 1997, so I guess that was my official serialized writing debut (10 years!), but it wasn’t until April 23 2002 that the blogger software roared to life. :)

Giapet reports that according to a recent poll on Oricon, Gintama was voted as the "funniest manga". The full ranking is as follows:

1. Gintama
2. One Piece
3. Ping Pong Club/Sexy Commando
5. Gag Manga Biyori
6. Nodame Cantabile/Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku
8. Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo
9. Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar and Lovely Complex

MangaBlog points out that Viz Media is currently hiring for a number of positions.

From Manly Manga and More... comes three manga-related news from Germany:

1. Tokyopop Germany has licensed four new manga (2 shounen and 2 shoujo): Love Trouble by Saki Hasemi & Kentaro Yabuki and Claymore by Norihiro Yagi, and Hell Girl by Miyuki Etoo and Nagatachou Strawberry by Mayu Sakai.

2. The result of Comic of the Year Award 2007, an award hosted by Comixene, Comics Info and comic.de, has been announced.

3. Heyne Manga has raised the price of several of their manga (such as Air Gear, Mamotte! Lollipop and Samurai Deeper Kyo), and that the publication of Gacha Gacha, Yagyu Ninpo Cho and Life has been put on hiatus indefinitely.

The Broccoli Books Blog points out that previews for Koi Cupid and sola has been posted on Broccoli's official website:

• Koi Cupid
• sola

ICv2 has released the February 2008 top 100 graphic novel sales estimates and the top 300 comics sales estimates based on Diamond Indexes and Publisher Title Data. Also from ICv2 is an analysis of the trends in December based on the graphic novel sales chart, and an analysis of Diamond Comic Distributors' October sales.

Also, MangaBlog provides its own look at the data, as well as a list of manga from the Top 100 Graphic Novels chart.

Top 10 manga (4/23) according to Tohan:

1. Hayate the Combat Butler (15)
2. Mahou Sensei Negima! (22)
3. Kekkaishi (20)
4. Ace of Diamond (10)
5. Ouran High School Host Club (12)
6. Otomen (5)
7. Bleach (33)
8. Inuyasha (53)
9. Detective Conan (61)
10. Good Morning Kiss (2)

Additional Rankings:

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