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, "Depth of Japanese Mangas - Tabi Manga on Bali," looks at traveling notes for tourists and manga about Bali.

From ANS comes an article on two of the largest anime events in Japan, the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) and the Tokyo International Anime Fair (TAF). According to the article, the Tokyo International Anime Fair is currently considering the coverage of manga:

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Hobby Japan has announced that it will release manga series based on Queen's Blade in Japan. The first series, titled Queen's Blade Bitoshi Gaiden, will be released in April. The manga will be fully colored and come with an accompanying drama CD. A Queen's Blade manga anthology will also be released in late April. Other accessories such as mousepads and figurines are also being planned.

Source: ICv2

The Beat links to a software titled ComicBookLover, a "state of the art" tool that allows its users store and read manga on their computer:

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Walkers, Kadokawa Shoten's Taiwanese division, has announced a new license agreement with Libre Publishing to distribute Libre's products in Taiwan.

As a result of the new deal, Kadokawa will create a new BL imprint called BLOOM Series. The new imprint will cover BL manga and light novels from Libres, as well as original BL series from Taiwan. Below is the announcement posted on Walker's offcial site:

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Orange County Register posts a link to a software made by University of St Andrews's School of Psychology called "The Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer." By uploading the picture of a person onto its website, the software will manga-lize the person in the photo.

Source: animeOnline

According to The Beat, DrMaster has announced plans to distribute downloads through IGN's digital retail store Direct2Drive. Initial "launch" titles include Chinese Hero: Tales of the Blood Sword.

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On the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending April 8th, VIZ Media's Naruto volume 13 ranks at #84, and Bleach volume 18 ranks at #103. Tokyopop's Fruits Basket volume 16 ranks at #122.

Conrad Publishing company will be releasing the manga Zettai Kareshi by Yuu Watase (Fushigi Yuugi) in Brazil. The title in Portuguese will be Zettai Kareshi - The Perfect Boyfriend (Zettai Kareshi - O Namorado Perfeito). According to Conrad's marketing manager Alexandre Linhares, the manga will be released in six volumes, and the first volume will appear in May.

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According to Comic Book Resources, U.S. manga publisher Go! Comi has renewed its partnership with Diamond:

As part of the deal, Diamond will remain as the exclusive North American distributor of Go! Comi's books to the bookstore, library, warehouse, mass merchandise, specialty mass merchandise, hobby, game and comic book specialty markets.