On the USA Today Booklist Top 150 (PDF) for the week ending April 29th, Tokyopop's Warriors: The Lost Warrior ranks at #74, and Fruits Basket volume 16 ranks at #98. Volume 14 of Viz's Naruto ranks at #115.

The new comic release list for May 2nd 2007 from ComicList, compiled by MangaCast.

According to ICv2, VIZ Media has announced five new shojo licenses, all of which will be released between September 2007 and January 2008:

• Yume Kira Dream Shoppe by Aqua Mizuto
• Special A by Maki Minami
• Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa
• Wild Ones (Arakure) by Kiyo Fujiwara
• High School Debut (Koukou Debut) by Kazune Kawahara

Erica Friedman, founder of Yuricon, interviewed on Afterellen.com

Erica Friedman, president of Yuricon and ALC Publishing, was interviewed by Suzanne Corson, a contributing writer at the popular lesbian culture website.

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As parts of its advanced anime/manga course program "Manga and Anime Explosion: Story Development, Marketing and Adaptation," UC Irvine Extension has announced a field trip to Digital Manga's headquarters in Gardena:

Students will be able to ask questions of the staff and CEO, sign up for internships, and take a personal tour of the facility with Digital Manga's CEO, Hikaru Sasahara, a pioneer in manga publishing in the US.

English Anime News and Review site ActiveAnime has completely revamped its website. The new site, powered by Joomla, can be found at www.activeanime.com.

From the LA Times comes an article titled "Mad for stories born as manga" that looks at manga-based light novels in the U.S.:

Japanese writers and readers describe these books as "light novels," recognizing that they're not serious literature. In English, they read like a cross between the pulp fiction of the '40s and the juvenile novels of the postwar decades.

Via: MangaBlog

From Macworld comes an article that looks at how Japanese visual novels are not doing as well in the U.S. as Japanese manga:

Hirameki International is popular in its native Japan - it's one of many companies that publishes "visual novels," - a sort of modern-day alternative to "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. The company is having a tough time finding an American audience, however, primarily because of retailer resistance.

Source: ActiveAnime

San Francisco, CA, April 26, 2007 ??? VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, has announced the launch of NARUTO NATION???, a broad campaign that will bring an unprecedented increase in the frequency of publication of its wildly popular NARUTO??? manga series.

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The new comic release list for April 25th 2007 from ComicList, compiled by MangaCast.