Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto manga is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year in Japan. To help celebrate, many other famous Shonen Jump manga-ka commissioned their own Naruto fan-art. Included are the manga artists of DragonBall, Bleach, One Piece, Death Note, Gintama, Bo-Bobo, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, & many more. Check out the photo gallery here:

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/08/narutos-bizarre-adventure

The first part of the new Code Geass project has been revealed! The January issue of Newtype magazine has announced that an official prequel story to Code Geass will run in its pages later in the year. Titled "Code Geass: Renya of the Blackness," this story takes place long before the beginning of the anime series, dating all the way back to the Edo period in Japanese history (1600s-1800s). The story is about 17-year-old Renya, who has a mechanical arm that shoots out shuriken. His destiny begins when he runs into the immortal C.C., who is looking for a partner to create a contract with. There's also another mysterious character in the story who bares a strong resemblance to Lelouch.

The story is being written by Goro Taniguchi, the director & co-creator of the anime series. This is the first manga he'll be working on, making this a true prequel story to the anime. There have been tons of different Geass manga adaptations & alternate retellings over the past few years, but this is the first one to be officially connected to the anime. The art for Renya of the Blackness will be done by Tomomasa Takuma, who did the "Nightmare of Nunnally" spin-off manga.

As already mentioned, this is only the first part of the promised new Code Geass project. 2010 will also see the rise of brand new music, visual works (meaning anime?), & other products as time goes on. Until then, this new prequel manga sounds very exciting. CC is back, we got a Lelouch look-alike, & a brand new hero with a shuriken-shooting mechanical arm... even though this takes place hundreds of years in the past. But no Kallen? How disappointing.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-12-07/code-geass/shikkoku-no-renya-manga-to-launch-in-2010

Yesterday I posted the top selling manga of 2009 by series. Today we'll take a look at the top selling manga by volume for the year. The results can be surprisingly different between the two different lists, though One Piece still comes in at #1- its 53rd volume sold more copies than any other manga this year, & the only one to break 2 million.

But just like last year & the year before that, the top selling manga volume after One Piece goes to Nana. So why did Nana rank so high on this list but didn't even appear on yesterday's? Because there was only one volume of Nana released during the whole year. & while that one volume sold like hotcakes & more than most manga titles out there (Nana is insanely popular, after all), most other titles had several volumes over the year, which collectively boosted their sales & rank.

Duplicates are removed from this list, so that only the top selling volume for each series is listed. For example, while One Piece grabbed all top four spots with different volumes, it'll only be listed once as the top seller. Check out the top 20 rankings below:

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The January 2010 issue of Yen Plus magazine added a last minute new title to the magazine- a manga adaptation of the popular novel & TV series "Gossip Girl." That's right, a manga... of Gossip Girl. Come on, guys. You don't want me to unsubscribe from your magazine, do you? What the hell? Okay, granted I've never given the books or the TV series a chance. I'm also not quite the target demographic for this, what with me being neither a girl or a teenager.

Korean artist Baek Hye-Kyung (Bring it On, Happy Spider, Chiro) is the artist for the new series, making it sort of manhwa & sort of an OEL manga. "Gossip Girl: For Your Eyes Only" will also consist of new original stories rather than a straight up adaptation of the teen novels. According to Yen Press publishing director Kurt Hassler:

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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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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

A public funeral was held this week in Japan for Crayon Shin-Chan manga-ka Yoshito Usui. Over three thousand fans attended the event for the late creator. It's good to hear that so many people loved his series & wanted to pay their respects. Shin-chan is, after all, one of the few manga/anime in Japan that everybody reads/watches- not just anime fans & children. At the event, fellow manga-ka & good friend Tetsuya Chiba (Ashita no Joe) said "Mr Usui unfortunately died, but the characters created by Mr Usui are still alive."

We knew this was true for the anime, but now it holds true for the manga as well. After the few remaining chapters run over the next few months, it was announced that Usui's assistants will be creating a sequel to Crayon Shin-Chan will starting in Summer 2010. It's also expected that the new manga will be in a different format than the current Shin-Chan manga, which is done in the four-koma style. Usui’s surviving family gave their consent to the idea of his manga living on.

Sources: http://www.japanator.com/three-thousand-attend-crayon-shin-chan-creator-s-funeral-12502.phtml
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-30/newspaper/crayon-shin-chan-manga-sequel-in-the-works

The January 2010 issue of Kadokawa's Nakayoshi magazine has revealed that the popular shojo manga "Shugo Chara" will be coming to an end after three & a half years. The final chapter will run in the February issue, which actually goes on sale on December 28 in Japan.

Considering how popular & long-running the anime adaptation of the series has been, it was easy to get comfortable & assume that Shugo Chara would simply always be there. Not every anime get greenlit for 100+ episodes, after all. Those that usually do are stories that tend to go on for years, if not decades. But that just goes to show how popular & successful Shugo Chara has been for Peach-Pitt. Peach-Pitt has had several other popular series in the past, including Dears, Rozen Maiden, & Zombie Loan. But of course all of those came to an end after a couple volumes. Some fans thought that SC would be a title they'd stick with for a very long time, but it seems even this must come to pass. As for the future of the anime, that's hard to say at this point. More than likely, the current third season will be its last. I love this series, so it'll be sad to see it go.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-29/peach-pit-shugo-chara-manga-to-end-in-japan-next-month

The latest craze in Akihabara right now seems to be manga guidebooks that teach you various forms of masturbation. The first one pictured above is "Hitori de Ecchi," a guide that teaches basic & general masturbation for both guys & gals. At 120-pages long, there are plenty of example illustrations to go along with the helpful texts. One of the many examples includes using the edge of a table (thanks, Code Geass). The book is also selling like crazy, both in Akihabara stores & online at Amazon.

Another manga guidebook that came out at the same time translates to "I can do it Myself ~Beginners Guide to Ananie for Guys~." What's Ananie, you ask? It combines "onanie" (the German word for masturbation, which the Japanese also use) & "anal." Yes, this is a book that teaches all about anal masturbation. Even though that looks like a girl on the cover, I can assure you that it is a trap. This one also includes tons of illustrated examples alongside detailed texts, & it's also selling out like mad. To give you a sense of what it's about, here's a list of the chapters:

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The January 2010 issue of Viz Media's Shonen Jump magazine arrived at my doorstep earlier this week, & there's a lot in this issue that makes it notable. The big push is for SJ's jump in the One Piece manga, which skipped 30 volumes in order to "catch up" with where the manga is in Japan, similar to what they did with Naruto. & while they are indeed MUCH closer to the Japanese manga compared to just last month, I feel it's a bit misleading to say they're caught up with Japan. The English Naruto manga is only about 15 chapters behind the Japanese version, which is pretty good. However, the One Piece manga is more than double that, running about 35 chapters behind where Japan is right now. That's still well over half a year behind Japan. I'm hoping they'll slowly catch up a little more over time.

The other news is that two different manga titles ended in this issue of US Shonen Jump. One of course is YuYu Hakusho, the only manga in the magazine to run since issue #1 without skipping any chapters. It's also only the second title in the magazine to run from beginning to end without skipping as well, behind Akira Toriyama's very short SandLand manga during the mag's first year. Truly an honor indeedm & it's sad to see this classic reach its conclusion.

The other title was a little more surprising it wasn't seen coming. This was also the final issue to serialize the Yu-Gi-Oh GX manga. The manga will still continue on in graphic novel format, but will no longer run in the magazine. This final chapter concluded volume 4 of the manga, & we'll have to wait till volume 5 goes on sale to see more. What really sucks is that the GX manga was running really close behind the Japanese version, with only a few months separating the two. But now we'll have to wait until October 2010 for the next English chapters to come out. Ouch.

This also means that for the first time since the magazine launched 9 years ago, Shonen Jump wont be running a Yu-Gi-Oh manga in its magazine. There's also no signs that the new 5D's manga will be replacing it either. I'm actually quite surprised by this, as having the two different YGO manga in the mag has always served as a sort of advertisement for Konami's card game. They've always had lists of the cards used in each chapter at the end, & gave tips about how to use the cards in real games. Will a similar feature still exist? Or is this yet another sign of the impending doom of the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise in the US?

Beginning in the February issue, a three-month preview of the Toriko manga will be replacing the two fallen titles. I would assume that the three issues will cover the entire first volume of the graphic novel, but it doesn't quite state as much. & after that, it's pretty much a given that Bakuman will be replacing it in the May 2010 issue, but who knows for how long.

Continuing our discussion about how Bandai Entertainment screws up everything it touches, we now move on to their manga division. Specifically, their English release of the Lucky Star manga. As we know already, the first volume was originally scheduled to come out in May but wound up releasing in late June. The second volume was then supposed to come out in August, but since this is Bandai we're talking about, of course it got delayed. The release date was then moved to October, which came & went without it showing up yet again. But now Bandai has come out & announced that volume two of Lucky Star will be officially hitting shelves this Tuesday, November 16. They seem to be serious this time, but we'll know for sure soon enough.

The weird thing about all this is that these delays came after the fact that the first volume sold surprisingly well, so much so that Bandai had to order a second printing of it. So what better way to keep the hype of a hot new series than to delay the second part by three months without hardly any word on the matter? Regardless of whether the first volume sold great or only just mediocre, there's no excuse for such a massive delay. Only if the first volume completely tanked could one justify Bandai dragging their feet on this, & that didn't happen.

To make it up to the fans, however, Bandai will be releasing the third Lucky Star volume just a month later in December. Again, they sound serious about this, but I'm taking this news with caution regardless. After that, Bandai promises things will be fully back on track with volume four coming out in February, just as originally scheduled way back in the day. Once again, we'll see.

Source: http://www.mania.com/lucky-star-goes-back-to-back_article_118789.html

The Will Smith & Steven Spielberg American adaptation of the classic manga Oldboy seems to now be officially dead in the water. It seems they weren't able to get past the troublesome Korean legal disputes which stemmed from Korea making their own live-action movie of it some years ago. You just know Hollywood's a tough town when a movie involving Spielberg & Smith attached to it couldn't get made. Here's what Latino Review had to say:

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AnimeOnDVD's Chris Beveridge recently wrote up an editorial piece about how English dubs in anime are dying out. Indeed, with companies like Bandai, Media Blasters, & ADV/Section23/Sentai Filmworks releasing more & more of their titles without dubs in order to save money, & the fact that fewer & fewer series are airing on American TV anymore, there have been a noticeable decline in dubs.

The main reason this was brought up was because voice actor Greg Ayres, who's always been a fan-favorite for being so eccentric at conventions & talented in the booth, held an FAQ panel at Nekocon this past weekend called "From Ouran to the Hospital." It was there he revealed that he was semi-retiring from the anime voice acting industry. Greg has been a VA over at ADV & FUNimation for years, but due to ADV/Section23 practically not dubbing anything anymore & even Funi cutting back a bit on the number of series they're working on at once, solely relying on dubbing anime to pay the bills just doesn't cut it anymore. So he'll be looking for a new career to join while only voicing anime as a side job.

That's the state of affairs on the American side of the industry, but things are kind of looking meek on the other side of the Pacific as well, this time in terms of manga. Manga-ka Tamiki Wakaki, best known her his "Kami no Mizo Shiru Sekai" manga in Shonen Sunday, says that manga is on the decline in Japan, & that the only genres that are still popular enough to be successful are ero, parody, bishonen, & bishoujo. Anything else, such as his romantic comedy "Kaminomi," are destined to soon die out. Here's what he had to say:

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While reading through my new December issue of Yen Plus magazine (which comes with the alternative Spice & Wolf novel jacket cover, by the way), I noticed that there was some sort of error with the latest chapter of manhwa series "Time and Again." This issue should have featured chapter 11, as chapter 10 was in the November issue. The magazine's index even lists it as such. However, the chapter itself has "Chapter 12" written on its opening page instead.

Now of course there is the possibility that this really is chapter 11 & that it was just a typo of some sort, but the chapter itself doesn't really feel connected to the previous chapter. Chapter 10 ended in a "to be continued-ish" sort of way, but the chapter in the latest issue doesn't continue the previous story at all. So if I had to guess, Yen Plus really did skip a chapter. But it's still possible that this really is the correct chapter & it was just a typo. Hopefully this will all be made clear soon.

Yen Press must be pretty happy with their manga adaptation of James Patterson's Maximum Ride, which is a staple in their Yen Plus magazine & more recently has gone on to do fairy well in graphic novel format. Its success must be the reason behind Yen announcing another manga adaptation of one of Patterson's novel series- Daniel X.

Korean artist Seung-hui Kye has been penned to draw the manga, & will also be added to the Yen Plus magazine. While the first collected novel is scheduled to come out in Summer 2010, there's no mention when the story will start appearing in the magazine. I'd imagine it'd be soon though.

Source: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/16220.html