SyFy's online schedule has been updated to inform us what will be filling up time in its AniMonday block starting in late September. The two current series on AniMonday, Gundam 00 Second Season & repeats of Rave Master, will both come to an end on September 21, along with the short film "Negadon: the Monster from Mars." So what will be replacing the two shows beginning the following week? Some rather... interesting choices.

The frequently aired "Street Fighter Alpha: Generations" film will be filling up the first hour of the lineup on September 28. Meanwhile, the second hour is scheduled to air anime "motion comics"- First "Street Fighter Motion Comic" episode 1 at midnight (Eastern/Pacific), followed by "Voltron Motion Comic" episode 1 at 12:30. A motion comic, for those who don't know, is a hybrid of comic books (manga in this case?) & animation. The program basically takes scans of a comic & adds slight animation to it. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the Watchmen Motion Comic. Or for a more anime-specific example, check out Viz's recent One Piece motion manga.

As to what a Voltron or Street Fighter motion comic will be like, or why SyFy would even show something like that, I haven't the slightest. I've never even heard of motion comics for those two series, & searching for such results in nothing substantial. Is this really the best programing AniMonday can offer? & October's schedule, which should've been online by now, for some reason hasn't been added yet. Guess we'll find out on September 28 as to what's really going on.

Source: http://www.syfy.com/schedule/index.php?date=28-SEP-2009

It was reported last month that the American-made live-action Akira movie was dead & would no longer be coming out. But Andrew Lazar, a producer at Warner Bros, had otherwise to say while at Comic-Con this weekend. Lazar said that Akira is a top priority project for them right now, & a script is being worked on as we speak. So there you go, Akira's not dead yet! Let's just hope that there's enough life & interest in the project to see it to till the end.

Source: http://www.japanator.com/sdcc-akira-live-action-not-cancelled-after-all--10692.phtml

Last year, it was revealed that American comics studio Marvel & Japanese anime studio Madhouse would be joining forces to create four Marvel anime series. The first two were already revealed to be Wolverine & Iron Man, which Marvel debuted trailers for this weekend at Comic-Con. Check out the Wolverine trailer above, & the Iron Man one at the bottom of this post.

In addition to the trailers, Marvel finally revealed what the other two titles would be- the X-Men, & Blade. Some sources are saying that a Planet Hulk anime was also announced, but in fact Marvel was talking about a completely separate & American-made DTV for that title. So yeah, no Hulk anime. Yet.

Perhaps the best part about the Wolverine anime (& the X-Men one as well) is that we can say almost complete certainty that Steve Blum will be voicing the character for the English dub, who was also present at the Marvel panel. Besides being one of the best anime voice actors in the business, it turns out that Marvel has signed him up to be THE voice of Wolverine for all animated works for the foreseeable future. We already know that he's voicing the title character in Nick Toon's Wolverine & the X-Men series, but I didn't know how extensive his relationship with Marvel was. Makes sense considering he's also playing the character in Cartoon Network's upcoming "Marvel Super Hero Squad" this Fall. So him playing the anime version of Wolverine just makes sense.

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Viz's second Comic-Con panel covered everything that wasn't Shonen Jump related. They announced three new anime licenses, with the biggest being the upcoming new InuYasha: the Final Act series. There's even some talk about possibly simulcasting the series on Viz's Rumic World website when the series airs in Japan this Fall, but that's not clear yet.

Another big license, as I expected, is Shonen Sunday's "Kekkaishi" anime. They also announced they acquired the rights to the "Vampire Knight" anime series, based off the manga they ran in Shojo Beat. Considering how popular vampire stuff is doing right now (especially among females), this should come as little surprise. Finally, Viz is FINALLY releasing "Monster" on DVD, with the first 15 episode box-set coming out this December.

Source: http://www.animevice.com/news/cci09-viz-anime-manga-liveblog/1863/

Viz Media held a separate panel for their Shonen Jump line at Comic-Con this weekend, & there was quite a lot of interesting news. In terms of new licenses, Viz announced Bakuman (from the creators of Death Note) & Toriko. Both titles will run in the Shonen Jump magazine as well, starting in 2010.

As for how they're going to make room for two more titles in the magazine, well for one thing, the panelists pointed out that YuYu Hakusho is nearing its end quite soon. Aside from Akira Toriyama's extremely short Sand Land manga during Shonen Jump's first year here in America, YYH will be the only other manga to run completely from beginning to end in the mag. While true that Yu-Gi-Oh also concluded in the magazine a giant chunk of story in the middle went straight to graphic novels & wasn't printed in the pages of SJ. So congrats to YYH on what is a surprisingly rare achievement.

Oh, & Ultimo creators Hiroyuki Takei & Stan Lee were at the panel together once again. But no one cares about that. =b

Source: http://www.animevice.com/news/cci09-viz-shonen-jump-liveblog/1860/

It was announced at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday that an anime OVA anthology based on Microsoft's "Halo" video game franchise would be coming out next year on DVD, Blu-ray, & digital distribution (aka Xbox Live). Titled "Halo Legends," it will feature seven short stories from a variety of famous anime directors & studios, just like the Animatrix & Batman: Gotham Knight before it. Already confirmed are BONES, Casio, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, Toei, Shinji Aramaki, Mamoru Oshii, & more.

A trailer was shown at Comic-Con during the unveiling yesterday, but an online version debuted today for the rest of us. Make sure to check it out above!

Wizard World announced that the brand new ACen Aftershock, a supplement anime convention to the usual annual Anime Central, will be a part of this year's Chicago Comic-Con. This is the first time ever that ACen will be expanding beyond its usual three-day convention event in May. It's not yet known how big a presence ACen Aftershock will be at CCC, but they do promise that there will be anime exhibitors, artists, showings, panel events, cosplay, contests, & more throughout the four days.

Chicago Comic-Con (which shouldn't be confused with the official New York Comic Con sanctioned Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo debuting next year) will run from August 6 to August 9, so only one month away.

Source: http://www.wizardworld.com/acen.html

Remember that live-action Witchblade film that was announced a year ago? & when we later saw the poster & official website for the film, the year 2009 was plastered everywhere? Well we're almost at the halfway point of the year, & we still haven't heard anything new about the movie adaptation coming into existence, much less a release date. So what happened?

We all know that there's a recession going on & everyone's tight on money right now, so it seems easy to blame the economy on Witchblade not making any progress. But as it turns out, the problem actually relies in the script. It seems that Top Cow is actually determined to make the thing turn out good, & not another, say, DragonBall Evolution. Head-hancho Matt Hawkins explains:

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Konami put together a booth for their Blue Dragon Role Playing Card Game at Comic-Con this past weekend. The booth featured on-hands tournament demos of how to play the game. It also featured someone in a giant scary Shu costume to play along with the kiddies. Dear god that thing is frightening.

Yeah, that's all I have to report. Just wanted to share the scary Shu pic with everyone. Kotaku's got a few more shots here:

http://kotaku.com/5149204/this-blue-dragon-shu-mascot-is-really-creepy

Among the events at the New York Comic Con this weekend was a panel for Imagi's upcoming Astro Boy movie, which included exclusive footage from the film. A spy from Aint it Cool News wrote in his impressions of what he saw, which you can read below:

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Viz announced at their Comic Con panel that they had licensed Rumiko Takahashi's new manga. Said manga has not yet been released in Japan yet, nor does it have a title, nor has any information about the plot or characters been revealed yet. But it IS Rumiko Takahashi, after all. All her previous works, such as InuYasha & Ranma 1/2, have proven to be gold mines for Viz. Her newest story is set to begin Spring in Japan, with an American release sometime before year's end.

Viz also announced nearly a dozen other manga licenses as well, the most notable of which is the "Yu-Gi-Oh! R" spin-off sequel. "R" will start being released in October, with a new volume coming out every three months & an exclusive card packaged with each. A serialization in Shonen Jump doesn't seem likely, oddly & unfortunately enough. But Stan Lee's long anticipated manga Ultimo will finally start appearing in the SJ pages starting with the July issue.

In non Shonen Jump news, another notable manga license is the epilogue "Jewelry Box" volume to "Boys Over Flowers," which concludes the original popular story. Moving away from manga, Viz confirmed that they have indeed licensed the third live-action Death Note movie L: Change the World. A DVD release is a given, but they might give it a limited theatrical release like they did for the first two films as well. Viz also said that they'd be revealing details about their release of the Monster anime series very soon (lulz at the idea of Viz doing an anime that isn't Naruto/Bleach/Death Note).

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/new-york-comic-con/viz-media

Bandai Entertainment announced at their New York Comic Con panel that they'll now start adding free, full-length shows to their YouTube page. They kicked things off with the first five episodes of Code Geass season 1, adding both the uncut dub & uncut subtitled versions for all five eps. Bandai also plans to add episodes of Gundam 00 (which ends its television run this week in the US) & other titles in the near future as well.

Speaking of Gundam 00, Bandai also confirmed that they've licensed ALL of the manga titles related to the series that are out there. In terms of anime, there weren't any new licenses there, but they did say that they'll finally start releasing Hayate the Combat Butler on DVD beginning in July. But due to the fact that it's very unlikely the series would ever air on American TV, Hayate will more than likely be getting the subbed-only treatment from Bandai.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/new-york-comic-con/bandai

Comic Con fell upon New York again this weekend, & as usual there are plenty of anime panels held among all geeked-out activities. First on the list was Yen Press, who pleasantly surprised the crowd by announcing their licensing of the sixth volume of the hit "Yotsuba&!" manga. "Yotsuba&!" had previously been released by ADV's manga division, but ADV hasn't released any manga for a very long time by now. This left fans of hugely popular comedy manga waiting indefinitely for the sixth volume to come out, if it ever would come out. But now Yen Press has rescue licensed the title, starting with #6. They hope to re-release the previous five volumes as well, but details on that will have to wait.

Yen Press also licensed the "Spice & Wolf" manga, which is a great addition to their previous licensing of the Spice & Wolf light novel series. "Crescent Moon Story" was another manga license by them.

In terms of their Yen Plus magazine, JiUn Yun's manhwa title "Time & Again" will be added in the December 2009 issue, & a nice pull-out poster of "Soul Eater" will be included with the upcoming April issue.

Source: http://www.animevice.com/news/nycc-yen-press-liveblog/479

This first trailer isn't even for a Japanese movie at all, but rather a Russian one. So why is it here then? Well, it's an animated flick being done by renowned Japanese anime studio 4C. "First Squad" is about the Russian campaign against the Nazis during WWII.

Speaking of non-Japanese movies, the next trailer below isn't one either! It's actually a Japanese subbed trailer for the upcoming American supernatural thriller "the Broken." But moving on to the actual stuff, there's Donju from wacky writer/director Kankuro Kudo (Ping Pong, Zebraman), as well as "the Clone Returns to the Homeland" which looks to be pretty good. Finally, we'll round things out with one more non-Japanese movie- the newest trailer for "Watchmen"! It is a graphic novel after all, as well as pure awesome. Check out all the goodies below:

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Marvel superheroes are going anime, courtesy of "Ninja Scroll" producers Madhouse Ltd. The famous anime studio will be creating four series based on various Marvel characters, with the first to roll out in Spring 2010 in Japan. These wont be just retellings of famous American superheroes done in anime style, however. Rather, the characters will be rebuilt from the ground up. Iron Man will still be Iron Man, for example, but his character & history will be rewritten to be something more akin to Japanese culture. Marvel hopes to create a brand new, parallel Japanese universe for their heroes with this approach.

Each of the four series will consist of 12 half-hour episodes. The first ones will focus around Iron Man & X-Men's Wolverine, it seems. The fact that they'll be starting with these two isn't that surprising, considering that the Wolverine spin-off movie will be coming to theaters in 2009 & Iron Man 2 scheduled to come out in 2010. (At least this is the plan on paper. But with a potential boycott of the Wolverine movie in the works & Iron Man director Jon Favreau saying a 2010 date isn't possible, who knows.) & perhaps not coincidentally, new cartoon series on both of these characters are set to come out on the Nicktoons Network later this year.

The image above is the first official image of how the anime Iron Man will appear. The new Madhouse version is on the left side of the pic, & the classic Marvel version can be seen on the right.

This seems to be the next step in American comics & Japanese anime teaming up. Within the past year, Stan Lee has opened these doors by announcing his involvement in four Japanese projects. An "Ultimo" anime & manga, an anime titled "HeroMan," & another anime titled "Quartz" all exist under Lee's belt. The line between American & Japanese animation has been blurring for awhile now, & soon it wont be long before we can't distinguish between the two of them at all.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-08-26/marvel-madhouse-iron-man-anime-image-posted-online/2