According to Canned Dogs, the Japanese blog Katsujichuudoku has discovered the reason why Takehiko Inoue decied to serialize Vagabond in Kodansha's Evening magazine after his popular basketball manga Slam Dunk ended in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump:

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Bungaku Shoujo, a light novel series by Nomura Mizuki (author) and Takeoka Miho (illustrator), will be adapted into a manga by Kousaka Rito and will be serialized in GanGan Powered starting with the August issue (6/21).

Another light novel series, Young Gun Carnaval by Fukami Makoto, will be adapted into a manga by Satou Yuko, and will serialize as an e-manga on FlexComix Next beginning June 3rd.

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Top 10 manga (5/14) according to Tohan:

1. Naruto (42)
2. Claymore (14)
3. Worst (20)
4. To Love-Ru (9)
5. Kaichou wa Maid-sama! (5)
6. Steel Ball Run (15)
7. Faster than a Kiss (3)
8. Angel Heart (26)
9. Initial D (37)
10. Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (3)

Additional Rankings:

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The winners of the 37th Japanese Cartoonists' Association Award (Nihon Mangaka Kyokai Awards) have been announced:

Grand Prize

- 20th Century Boys/21st Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa
- Hina-chan no Nichijo by Hiroko Minami

Award of Excellence

- Alfheim no Kishi by Seika Nakayama

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The winners of the 12th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award (sponsored by Asahi Shimbun) have been announced:

Grand Prize:

• Moyashimon (Tales of Agriculture) by Masayuki Ishikawa

Shinsei (New Hope) Award:

• Tr??umerei by oranosuke Shimada

Short Manga Prize:

• Gou-Gou Datte Neko De Aru by Yumiko Oshima

Special Award:

• International Institute for Children's Literature

Source: Anime! Anime!

Japanese fansite Takahiro no Kenkyuukan reports that recently Ichijinsha has released readership data of their magazine for potential advertisers. Canned Dogs has a summary of the data in English.

IGN has published an extensive article on Tokyo's Akihabara district titled "Next Stop: Tokyo's Akihabara District."

In April, Shueisha announced that PEACH-PIT's popular seinen manga Rozen Maiden, which was discontinued last year in Gentosha's Comic BIRZ, will resume serialization in Young Jump.

In accordance with Rozen Maiden's move to Young Jump, Shueisha will re-release the Rozen Maiden series under its seinen comic imprint Young Jump Comics.

The first volume of the new version of Rozen Maiden was released on April 28th, 2008.

According to Canned Dogs, Yasuhiro Kano's Mx0 and Mizuki Kawashita's Hatsukoi Limited are both coming to an end in upcoming issues of Weekly Shonen Jump.

However, Weekly Jump reports that several new series are starting as well:

#25 (19/05)
Shimabukuro Mitsutoshi / Toriko (New Serie)
To Love (Pc)

#27 (02/06)
Hamada K??suke / Basket Mono (New Serie)

ANN points out that Kodansha's Morning 2 website has leaked news of the winner of the 2nd Morning International Manga Competition. According to the preview of the next issue of Morning 2, the winner is Fairy Tale by Taiwan's Meng-Lin Yu.

Deadline of the 3rd M.I.M.C. is September 30th, 2008.

Also, MangaCast has a "surprising" report on the latest issue of Morning 2.