Manga top 10 according to Tohan.

1. Cat Street, Volume 6
2. Boku no Hatsukoi wo Kimi ni Sasagu, Volume 7
3. Kamen Rider Spirits, Volume 12
4. Detroit Metal City, Volume 3
5. Tony Takezaki presents GUNDAM Manga, Volume 2
6. Kekkaishi, Volume 16
7. Parfait Tic!, Volume 20
8. Pride, Volume 7
9. Air Gear, Volume 17
10. Crimson Hero, Volume 17

Alchemist has opened the official website of Shounen Alchemist, a free online magazine that serialized light novels. The first light novel made available on the site is Chiko Chiko BANG! ~Kimagure Dai-ni Shikkoubu~ (ちこちこBANG！～気まぐれ第二執行部～) by Shin Takase. Currently the prologue and the first 2 chapters are available to the public:

- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two

ANN reports that according to a recent poll from Oricon, manga rental stores are having trouble making their presence known. Only 24% pf the poll said they were aware of manga rental stores, 41.4% said that they weren't aware of the manga rental services, while 34.6% have heard about manga rental, but did not know where and how to access the service.

MangaBlog points out that the Japanese government will be bringing Keiji Nakazawa's manga Barefoot Gen to the Preparatory Committee For 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Barefoot Gen is about the story of a boy surviving and witnessing the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima after World War II.

As parts of its advanced anime/manga course program "Manga and Anime Explosion: Story Development, Marketing and Adaptation," UC Irvine Extension has announced a field trip to Digital Manga's headquarters in Gardena:

Students will be able to ask questions of the staff and CEO, sign up for internships, and take a personal tour of the facility with Digital Manga's CEO, Hikaru Sasahara, a pioneer in manga publishing in the US.

English Anime News and Review site ActiveAnime has completely revamped its website. The new site, powered by Joomla, can be found at www.activeanime.com.

The Tezuka Cultural Awards official site has been updated with the nominees for the 11th Osamu Tezuka Culture Award. Eight manga have been nominated for the award, they are:

• Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga [ Hakusensha ]
• Osaka Hamlet by Hiromi Morishita [ Futabasha ]
• Koukoku no Shugosha (Imperial Guards) by Story: Daisuke Sato; Art: Yu Ito [ Shueisha ]
• Danchi Tomoo by Tobira Oda [ Shogakukan ]
• Death Note by Story: Tsugumi Ohba; Art: Takeshi Obata [ Shueisha ]
• Hyouge-mono by Yoshihiro Yamada [ Kodansha ]
• Maihime Terpsichore by Ryoko Yamagishi [ Media Factory ]
• Moyashimon (Tales of Agriculture) by Masayuki Ishikawa [ Kodansha ]

The winners will be announced on May 10th. Go here for last year's winner.

From MangaCast comes the translation of a new article from Takeshi Ishizawa, a Japanese who have spent a long time living in Indonesia. The article, "MangaCast: Depth of Japanese Mangas - Asia in Comics 2004: Comics by Asian Women," looks at a symposium titled "Asia in Comics 2004: Asia Joryu Manga no Sekai" (Comics by Asian Women) held by Japan Foundation in February 2004.

MangaCast translates the weekly Doujinshi ranking (04/29) in Japan according to Toranoana, and the weekly BL Doujinshi ranking (04/21) in Japan according to Toranoana's BL specialty store Princess Side.

From the LA Times comes an article titled "Mad for stories born as manga" that looks at manga-based light novels in the U.S.:

Japanese writers and readers describe these books as "light novels," recognizing that they're not serious literature. In English, they read like a cross between the pulp fiction of the '40s and the juvenile novels of the postwar decades.

Via: MangaBlog