According to publishing-industry news source Shinbunka Online, Animate, a vendor dealing in anime-related merchandise, is set to purchase the B-Boy franchise from the publisher Biblos, which recently filed for bankruptcy.
According to Shinbunka, a contract was signed between Animate and a bankruptcy receiver on the 19th, and Animate will establish a new company to carry on the B-Boy business.

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Shogakugan is planning to start 2 lines of light novels in Fall 2007:

Gagaga - Shounen light novels

Lululu - Shoujo light novels

The official site can be found at http://gagaga-lululu.jp/. Currently Shogakugan is seeking submission for the "1st Shogakugan Annual Light Novel Prix".

As previously reported, Movida Entertainment of Soft Bank Group has announced the new monthly manga magazine Shounen Blood. The first issue will be released on April 12 for 290 yen. At the same time, Keitai Blood (cell phone, 315 yen, contains the same contents as the magazine

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Fujimi Shobo will release a special edition of its DRAGON AGE magazine, titled DRAGON AGE Pure.

The first issue will be released on January 30th, and it will come with a special figurine of Karin (a character from a manga serialized in Dragon Age), a figurine of a character from the manga SPAS-PA (serialized in Dragon Age magazine) and a SPAS-PA Special Edition booklet.

Hekitensha, a publishing company which dealt primarily with joint publications and self-financed works, had ceased operations around the middle of last month, and filed for bankruptcy on the 31st of March. This started off a chain reaction which resulted in two other publishers filing for bankruptcy protection effective April 5th in Tokyo District Court: Biblos, an affiliate company that handled Boy's Love publications and which Hiroaki Yamamoto, president of Hekitensha, was the CEO of, and Highland, a creditor company which also dealt with Boy's Love material. There is no word yet on what will happen to other affiliate companies of Hekitensha, such as the e-book publisher Bibloport.

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Oricon poll, the topic is "Who's Your Favorite Mangaka/Manga?":

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Last year, the free online monthly manga anthology Comic Seed! ceased publication after its publisher, Penguin Shobo, declared bankruptcy.

Now Futabasha plans to publish the magazine with the aid of a new business strategy. The first issue of the new Comic Seed! will be release on April 28th, with ten new series and several old series from the "old" Comic Seed. The second issue (5/31) will see the serialization of Kodomo no Jikan, the popular series by Kaworu Watashiyaka originally from Monthly Comic High.

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An interesting analysis of battle manga from logical and existential standpoints:

Regardless of whether they are Jump or non-Jump titles, when reading manga which involve a series of mysterious battles (no clear objective or reason in sight), we can draw up a very simple quadrantal categorization in our minds: on one axis, we have good and evil, and on the other, whether or not the character is aware of the "truth."

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X, or X/1999, is a manga from the popular all-female manga-ka team Clamp. Based on the end of the world, and taking its cast from many of Clamp's other popular series, X has spawned an animated full-length feature film, Anime TV Series, and numerous merchandises. Despite its immense popularity, X the manga was never finished, which left numerous fans in a cliff-hanger, speculating on why the series was put on hiatus, and what kind of ending Clamp is planning, if they are planning to finish it at all.

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Human beings have 5 fingers on each hand. Piccolo is from the Planet Namek so he has 4 fingers. Oh, sometimes he's shown with 5 fingers, but then again this is the same Mr. Akira Toriyama who drew Yajirobe twice on the spine of the covers.

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