Yaoi Press is offering a $100 reward to those who can find a yaoi manga published in Europe in a language other than English.

Can you give me a link to the publisher’s website, and the name and email of the person to inquire about licensing it in English?

Terms:

1. You show me this property somehow. Probably an online listing for it, or maybe you have scans or something.

2. You give me the name and email of who to contact.

[...]

If you do that, then I’ll pay you $100 USD after the licensing contract is signed via Paypal or check.

Via: Yaoi Suki

Yaoi Suki points out a new yaoi manga, Voice or Noise by Yamimaru Enjin, on Amazon.com, which appears to be a new license from Tokyopop's yaoi imprint BLU. There is currently no official confirmation regarding the license.

MangaCast reports that two new shojo titles, Wild Ones by Fujihara Kiyo and Special A by Maki Minami, have appeared on Simon & Schuster's catalog under Viz Media, and is set for release in Q4 2007. Currently there has been no official announcement from Viz regarding the licenses.

According to the latest Broccoli Books Blog, Square-Enix will attend this year's San Diego Comic-Con to promote their manga division. It is not clear at the moment whether Square-Enix will simply be promoting their Japan Division, or if there are plans to set up a new North American Manga Division,

Icarus Blog reports that Diamond has announced the result of the 2006 Gem Awards, where retailers cast their vote based on "quality, creativity and sales performance" in the market.

Viz Media was picked for "Video Manufacturer of the Year" and "Manga Trade Paperback of the Year for Naruto volume 9." Also, Dark Horse receives the "Special Recognition of Achievement in Publishing" award.

Source: Icarus Blog

Currently a preview of Del Rey's American manga Make 5 Wishes can be found on Tokyopop's website.

Read More »

Tokyopop is current hosting a preview of Make 5 Wishes, the upcoming American manga from Del Rey that is created in collaboration with pop superstar Avril Lavigne.

Source: animeOnline

From MangaCast comes the Diamond Previews for April 2007, which provides information on new U.S. releases for June/July 2007.

Rabbit Valley, an online anime/manga shop, has announced that it will drop all CPM/Be Beautiful products from its catalogue due to the recent copyright issue with Libre Publishing:

NOTICE - Pirated works removed
It has come to the management's attention that several items we sold by the publisher "Central Park Media" doing business as "Be Beautiful" were not authorized, licensed reprints of an artist's work. We have pulled the following items from our catalog: "Golden Cain," "Embracing Love Volume 1," and "Selfish Love" volumes 1 and 2. It is the policy of Rabbit Valley (R) Comics to NEVER endorse piracy of any kind. Until the licensing issue is cleared up, these items have been pulled from the site. Further information is available from the original Japanese publisher's website at http://www.b-boy.jp/info17.html.

Source: Icarus Blog

A new book titled The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga-Anime Revolution will be released by Stone Bridge Press in September 2007. The author of the book is Frederick Schodt, a close friend of Tezuka and the author of Manga! Manga! and Dreamland Japan.

Source: ANN