Fujimi Shobo has announced the winners of the 6th Fujimi Young Mystery Award and the 18th Fantasia Novel Award (both are novel awards):

6th Fujimi Young Mystery Award

Grand Prize:
- Our Paradox by Jun Atsugi
Honorable Mention:
- For "Beauty" Charlotte by Shuuichi Oseki

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Comic Gumbo, Japan's first free weekly manga publication, will be handed out by Dejima starting next Tuesday. The free weekly magazine, which will also be available online for free, will contain two complete stories and 11 series features.

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A new desert named after Japan's Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Aso was recently sold in Akihabara. The desert, "Taro's Milk Castella," first appeared in Akihabara near the end of 2006. The cake sold at 525 yen a piece, and was said to be inspired by Aso's love of milk cake.

Taro Aso is famous for being an anime and manga fan. Due to his love for PEACH-PIT's Rozen Maiden, he received the nickname "Rozen Aso" (ローゼン麻生). Last September Aso's campaign speech at Akihabara received great response from the otaku audience.

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A new Kimi Kiss manga (based on the popular game of the same name) drawn by Taro Shinonome will start in Young Animal No. 3, on sale 1/26.

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In the February issue of Akita Shoten's shojo magazine Mystery Bonita, an announcement was made regarding the return of the shojo manga Bride of Deimos.

Written by Etsuko Ikeda and illustrated by Yuuho Ashibe, Bride of Deimos, which began in 1975, is one of Akita Shoten's most popular shojo manga and one of Akita Shoten's four longest-running series, with 17 tankoubons and 12 bunko-sized books (pocket/novel-sized re-packagings of the tankoubon) released to date.

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According to Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Shogakukan and Sony Pictures Entertainment and others have announced plans to explore the light novel market aimed at people between 10 to 20 years old. While Shogakukan will be officially entering the light novel market this spring, Sony Pictures plans to tap into the large pool of new writers who write using their cell phone.

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From the blog Daily Life as a Shojo Manga Fan comes an article titled "Manga Consumption between Hardcore Fans and Casual Fans." The article looks at how the hardcore fans tend to look down on the casual fans for not being "hardcore" enough, and how the casual manga fans are actually contributing to the manga industry.

Manga Consumption of Hardcore Fans and Casual Fans

A reader responded to my previous article "Ordinary Girls Don't Read Yumiko Oshima*" saying that "Ordinary girls would even read Nana to kill time; for us, Nodame Cantabile is just something used to pass time."

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Kinoko Nasu, the mastermind behind the story of Tsukihime and Fate/stay night, is also the author of the novel Kara no Kyoukai (of which a featured film was recently announced). However, Kara no Kyoukai was not Nasu's only novel. On January 9th, Kodansha released volume 1 of Nasu's other novel, DDD, under its Kodansha BOX imprint.

The story of DDD was originally published in the magazine Faust. DDD volume 1 includes "J the E" (Faust September issue 2004), "HandS. (R)" (Faust November issue 2005) and "HandS. (L)" (Faust December issue 2005), and a new story titled "formaal hunt."

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BUZZMANGA, a new service launched by Machiokoshi, Inc., creates manga-based advertisements for clients from overseas. For each client, a manga will be created by a Japanese artist at the price of 150,000 yen (50,000 yen more if the manga is over 15 pages).

Source: ANS

Manga top 10 according to Tohan.

1. Naruto vol.36
2. The Prince of Tennis vol.36
3. Katekyo Hitman Reborn! vol.13
4. Pluto vol.4
5. Lovely Complex vol.15
6. Gintama vol.16
7. Rurouni Kenshin Perfect Edition vol.13-14
8. Harukanaru Toki no Naka de vol.13
9. Bartender vol.7
10. Tegamibachi vol.1