With 2009 now almost over, it's time to take a look at the best selling manga series in Japan of 2009. The results below combine the total volumes sold for each series. For example, the top four selling individual manga volumes this year were all One Piece, but they were all combined into one number. One Piece's massive popularity in Japan shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point, so it only makes sense for it to be at #1.

Interestingly enough, two titles on the list- 20th Century Boys & Mei-chan no Shitsuji- didn't even release any new volumes in 2009. But due to both getting live-action remakes this year, interest in these older titles surged. The top three though were the Big Three Shonen Jump titles, naturally. You can check out the top 10 below:

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Today was Lelouch's birthday, or at least it would be assuming that he's still alive. But instead of all of us getting him a present, he gave us one. Bandai's official mobile website confirmed on this most holiest of days that a brand new Code Geass project has been green-lit. The message was left by none other than Zero himself.

There's no real mention on what this new project is, other than it'll be a "rebirth." By this I take it they mean some sort of reimagining or spin-off, similar to the various manga versions out there. Considering how conclusive R2's final episode was, I don't see how they could do a direct sequel. Of course there's no guarantee that this new project is even an anime, though we're pretty sure it is. It might be a movie or OVA rather than a new series, though. Here's a translation of the message Zero left on the mobile site:

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The Nintendo Wii isn't the one in town that'll be getting a port of Phoenix Wright. Capcom Japan recently announced that the first Ace Attorney video game will be making its way over to the iPhone & iPod Touch. While it'll mostly remain faithful to the Game Boy Advance classic, the game will be modified to take full advantage of the iPhone's features.

No date or price point has been revealed yet. The game is also Japan-only for the time being. But the Capcom Mobile American branch is already looking into bringing an English version to Apple's App Store as well.

Source: http://www.capcom-unity.com/jgonzo/blog/2009/12/03/surprise_ace_attorney_makes_its_way_to_iphone

The winners of the 13th annual Japan Media Arts Festival Awards were announced this week. The big winners this time around included Hosoda's newest hit film Summer Wars, which won the Grand Prize in the Animation Division. The only other big anime title to win an award was Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which was one of the winners in the Excellence Prize category for animation. There were plenty of noteworthy names in the Jury Recommended Works in Long Animation category, including Canaan, ToraDora, Nodame Cantabile: Paris, Eden of the East, & Xam'd.

In terms of manga, the mature story Vinland Saga won the Grand Prize in the Manga Division. A few other well-known manga titles won the Excellence Prize, including Children of the Sea (available for free in the US from Sig Ikki) & Hyouge Mono.

& finally in the Entertainment Division, the Naruto: Narutimate Storm video game for the PS3 won one of the Excellence Prizes. Meanwhile, the controversial Hetalia anime web series was one of the Jury Recommended Works in the self-produced/web manga section.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-12-03/summer-wars-vinland-saga-win-media-arts-awards

Descendants of Darkness 1-13:

http://www.hulu.com/descendants-of-darkness

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When Shoji Murahama left the troubled Gonzo studio back in April, he vowed to move on to bigger & better things. & just last month, he accomplished that goal. He released a brand new iPhone game called "Goldfish Scooping," where the player... scoops up goldfish. The game is the first creation of his new company Lambda Film, & quite the inaugural product it is.

Goldfish scooping is quite the popular summer activity in Japan. Of course if you sat through every episode of Haruhi's Endless Eight this past summer, you should already be well aware of that fact. The game is available for the iPhone & iPod Touch worldwide. You can download it on Apple's App Store for a mere 99 cents. A little info on the game:

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Seems like I'm doing one of these Year in Review things pretty much everyday now. Today we take a look at the ten most shocking anime headlines of 2009. The list comes from a Japanese magazine, so don't expect any American-side anime news to make the list. A lot of these of course were covered here on the Nebs Blog over the course of the year as well. Check out the list below & see if you can remember when they happened:

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Holy sweet jesus. What we have here is the first official figurine of Asuka Langley Shikinami in her test-version plugsuit, seen exclusively in the Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 film. There are seemingly hundreds of different Asuka figures that have been released over the years, but this is the first to have her in a new official outfit like this.

This new version of the classic EVA plugsuit was worn by Asuka towards the end of the film when she test piloted a new EVA. Since a new outfit was never even hinted at in the trailers or anything, fans were taken aghast by Asuka's surprisingly revealing new uniform. I mean, yowza. That orange part is essentially see-through.

Outfit aside, I love Asuka's overall look here. Great face, & lovely flowing hair to go along with it. Seriously, you can't call yourself an Asuka fan if you don't order one of these. I put my order in instantly. In fact it's so awesome & I'm such a big Asuka fan, maybe I wont be doing her justice unless I buy two of them. =b

Retail price is 4725 yen (~$50), quite a good price actually. Though that probably has to do with the fact that she's smaller than your average anime figurine. Average tends to be 1/8th scale, but Asuka here is only 1/10th scale. You'll have to wait awhile before importing her too. She wont be hitting Japan until May 2010.

Source: http://www.hobby-wave.com/LINE_UP/kanseihin/2009/asuka

With the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie only about two months away, you'd think we'd have a more substantial trailer by now. Unfortunately for the time being, we'll have to deal with these character sketches. It's still pretty cool though, especially since we can now finally get our long-haired Haruhi. Not only that, but Asakura makes her triumphant return as well. You can check out movie sketches for all the main characters (including a seasonally appropriate Mikuru in a Santa outfit) here:

http://www.cartoonleap.com/2009/12/01/disappearance-of-suzumiya-haruhi-character-sketches

Crunchyroll has announced that in addition to their regular anime membership, they'll soon be revealing a special new drama membership program as well. This membership will work solely with CR's live-action department on their website, which they've recently started expanding greatly for this new program. To celebrate & help launch the new event, a brand new drama series will be added every single day.

The first few episodes will be available to everyone for free right away, with future episodes filtering out over time. But if your an anime member or a soon-to-be drama member, you'll be able to watch entire series as soon as they're launched. In addition, those who get a drama membership will be able to watch all the live-action series in HD & experience no advertising, similar to what anime members currently enjoy.

Currently, Crunchyroll's drama catalog is much more heavily Korean than Japanese. Considering most of their partners are Korean, that only means even more Korean dramas being added. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. But a lot of fans tend to be like "Japanese only or else it's crap!" But no worries there, because CR should also be getting a lot more J-dramas & J-horrors from Kadokawa beginning real soon.

No pricing information is revealed yet. But considering the current anime membership give to VIP access to all the content on the site & that the drama membership will only give you VIP access to the live-action stuff, I imagine it'll be a good amount cheaper.

Source: http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-586691/drama-membership-coming-soon

K-On's darling loli character Azusa seems to be quite popular among erotic game makers. Last month I reported on a look-alike character appearing in an ERO game with an absurd title. & now another clone of the character has appeared in a different kind of pervy game. & this time she looks more like the real Azunyan than ever before.

This one is actually a mobile phone game that Japanese users can download to their cells. The game itself is actually a chikan (groping) simulator. If you don't already know, groping (especially of school-aged girls) is a serious problem on crowded Japanese trains. So much so that many lines offer female-only carts. It's hard to say though if having video game versions help reduce the amount of real occurrences or if they encourage them. But it's not like you'll run into someone like Azunyan on a train in real life anyway, so it's kinda hard to resist.

The cellphone game offers three different choices- Breasts, Bottom, & Threaten. No idea what that last one does. However, upon completion of the game, the user is taken to a porn site that has nothing to do with 2D girls. An odd bait-and-switch, it seems.

Source: http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/01/molest-azusa-free-from-your-mobile

It's now online super store Amazon's turn to give us their list of the top 10... err, 9... anime titles of 2009. Why 9 instead of 10? No freaking idea. I mean honestly, was it that hard to come up with one more title? Well that little annoyance not withstanding, the list is pretty good. Bandai's epic release of Akira on Blu-ray topped the list, a well deserving choice indeed. You can check out the rest of the Top NINE below:

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The folks at AnimeTV have updated their blog with a pic from the set for the upcoming second season, due to begin streaming this month. The picture shows Johnny Yong Bosch along with his new secret co-star. Sure looks like Cristina Vee to me, aka the coolest & hottest female VA out there right now. Seeing how this is the type of project that'd be right up her alley, this should be a perfect fit for the fan-turned-pro. Can't wait til the new season starts!

Source: http://goanimetv.com/?p=391

It's been over a year & a half since the last time Marik brought together his Evil Council of Doom. Well to be fair he tried to get them together for Christmas last year, though that didn't work out too well. But now the old gang is back again... & then some!... minus a few of the old ones. & this time, they're in Detroit, Michigan! Somehow that just seems more fitting.

New members this time around include the Steve Mooninites & famous anime voice actor Dan Green! Yes, you read that right. Dan Green. & boy is he given the most evil of missions to accomplish. Yugi wont know what hit him this time.

Dartz's Abridged character was given a makeover this time around compared to his past few appearances. He's now yet another character based on Adult Swim's "Perfect Hair Forever" anime spoof (in addition to part of Marik's character). Also, he's now voiced by Takahata 101 from TeamFourStar! [tristan]Goddammit Nappa![/tristan] Bonus vid after the jump:

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With the end of the year now in sight, the top English search engines have revealed their most searched terms for 2009. For Yahoo's Top 10 of the year, "Naruto" was actually the 6th most searched for term on their site.

No anime terms made onto Google's overall Top 10 list, but a few did make it on their Fastest Rising in Entertainment list. Again "Naruto" does very well coming in at #4. It was beat out though by "Transformers," which landed at the #2 spot. Though that has more to do with the second live-action movie than the anime version. & finally, the term "anime online" made it on at #8. Considering how much free & legal streaming anime grew during 2009, that probably has a lot to do with that term doing so well.

Incidentally, among the top 10 hottest new searches for Japanese users on Google were Shinkenger & Kamen Rider Decade.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-12-02/naruto-makes-yahoo-top-10-for-search-terms-in-2009