News

From MangaCast comes the Diamond Previews for March 2008, which provides information on new U.S. releases for May/June 2008.

Seven Seas has announced that it will be giving out light novels to anime/manga-related blogs that are willing to review their titles:

[...] if you have your own anime/manga-related blog or write reviews for an anime/manga website, then we'd like to send you one of these three titles in exchange for a review!

We have 25 slots available:
10 for Ballad of a Shinigami,
5 for Pita-Ten, and
10 for Strawberry Panic

In the latest Oricon poll, readers were asked who their favorite mangaka were. Below are the results:

1. Ai Yazawa
2. Akira Toriyama
3. Takehiko Inoue
4. Mitsuru Adachi
5. Yoshihiro Togashi
5. Eiichiro Oda
7. Naoki Urasawa
8. CLAMP
8. Fujiko F. Fujio
10. Osamu Tezuka

Source: Tokyograph

topAfter 379 chapters, Takeshi Konomi's tennis manga The Prince of Tennis has finally ended in issue 14 (3/3) of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump.

Also ending in the same issue is Yoshiyuki Nishi's Muhyo to Rouji. Finally, Katsutoshi Murase's K.O.Sen will end in issue 15 of Weekly Jump.

Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter x Hunter resumed serialization in issue 14 of Jump, and will run for 10 chapters before going back on hiatus.

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According to Shueisha, a special one-shot by Marvel's Stan Lee and Shaman King mangaka Takei Hiroyuki will appear in the newly announced Jump SQ.II, a special issue of Jump SQ that will be launched on 4/18.

Also, an one-shot titled Kare no Satsujin Keikaku by Mohiro Kitoh, mangaka of Bokurano, will appear in the May issue of Jump Square (4/4).

Mediation will be launching a new BL light novel label titled "Hug Novels" on March 10th. 3 novels will be released on the day of the launch:

  • Domestic Love -Kateinai Renai-
  • Otona no Jijou
  • Saite Sakasete Koi no Hana

Source: LightNovel.org

Inspired by a post from Reversing Everything, Manga Xanadu has posted an article looking at the possibilities of using Amazon's Kindle E-reader to read manga.

Via: MangaBlog

ANN reports that France's Center for International Studies and Research (CERI) will be hosting a 2-day manga conference (PDF) on March 15th and 17th respectively:

Researchers who will present their work during the conference include Matt Thorn, an anthropologist at Japan's Kyoto Seika University; Yokohama National University's Jaqueline Berndt; and Go Ito, whose 2005 book Tezuka is Dead was among the first to criticize moe and other anime or manga genres that are driven by character designs, rather than narratives.

South Carolina Now is reporting that a student was removed from his school due to possession of a "Death Note":

A Hartsville Middle School student has been removed from school, pending a discipline hearing, after a school administrator confiscated a notebook titled "Death Note" earlier this week.

Via: Journalista