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Posts Tagged Conventions

Kuri’s Overview of Animaritime 2009

Animaritime 2009

Animaritime is fan-run anime and gaming convention that has taken place in New Brunswick, Canada for six years. Each year it grows with more events and more attendees and this year was certainly no exception. With over 1000 attendees, Animaritime enjoyed its highest attendance numbers yet and brought with it a whole lot more of the fun, activity and lack of sleep that staff and attendees alike have come to expect. I myself am a three-year attendee and two-year staff member, with no plans on stopping being either anytime soon.

You can check out Animaritime’s forums if you’d like to learn more about the convention, including people’s thoughts, photos and videos of the recent event. For the curious, Animaritime’s official photographer also has lots of photos for online viewing. Under the cut I share some of my own experiences at Animaritime 2009 which happened earlier this month, including a short peek at some new purchases and a mish-mashed overview of my panels.

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Manga Bargains, Yaoi Not Actually

Unrelated Manga Guy

Though it’s already been covered at a variety of sites already, never hurts to spread the word, right? Aurora Publishing has sent out e-mails outlining some financial difficulties that have them cutting prices on their books to sell off some old stock. By contacting them directly at e-tung@aurora-publishing.com, you can purchase any of their titles prior to January 2009 for $4/US a book and anything more recent than that for $8/US a book. Snow has some recommendations as well as shipping cost information (for American customers at least), and Kris shares her thoughts on the tone of the e-mail itself.

 Also on the note of good bargains, the online store BookCloseOuts is currently selling all their Tokyopop backstock for a mere .99 cents a piece. A great way to cheaply grab some of their older series and even a few of their newer releases (such as Tactics volumes 1-5).

Yaoi Press is excited to announce that one of their artists, Rhea Silvan will be attending as a guest at 2009’s Anime Central convention. They’re also now offering their KOSEN’s Yaoi playing cards as rewards for purchasing through their all-yaoi online store, EverythingYaoi, which has lots of boys’ love stuff currently on sale. They’ve also begun posting amusing weekly strips that parody scenes from their books, a feature they’re calling Yaoi Not Actually.


Animaritime 2009 Countdown

Animaritime - Coming Soon to a Moncton Near You!

As a staff member of the very-shortly-upcoming Animaritime, my time has been pretty split this year thus far with final preperations. I hope visitors haven’t minded the older boys’ love reviews I’ve imported over from Manga Jouhou in recent weeks. I always want to provide atleast something new for my loyal readers each day :) For those looking for my thoughts on some more recently released titles, expect those to pick-up again next week.

In the meantime, I can’t wait to see all the new and returning attendees at Animaritime this year. Our pre-registration numbers this year were incrediable as the convention grows more and more each year. As during last year, I’ll be running several panels and I’m also the manager of this year’s Artist Alley. I’ve doubled the size of the Alley this year as well so definitely drop by to see the amazing talent we have in there. It’s going to be tons of fun, I guarantee it!Animaritime Artist Alley 2009

The panels I’ll be running this year are:

Shonen-Ai/Shoujo-Ai (Friday, March 6th, 8pm-9pm)
Yaoi (18+) (Friday, March 6th, 9pm-10pm)
Yuri (18+) (Friday, March 6th, 10pm-10:30pm)
All About the Wii (Saturday, March 7th, 1pm-2pm)
How to Get Manga (Saturday, March 7th, 9am-10am)
Digital Illustration (Aid to MTCopyright: Saturday, March 7th, 11am-12pm)

For more information and scheduling on Animaritime (Moncton, NB), you can pop in on the website and check out the information there and on the forums as well.

Only one day left until I pack the last of my things and head on up, but of course there’s still a million things left to do!


Viz Dominates NYCC 2009 Sunday

With Tokyopop, Bandai, Del Rey and Yen Press’s panels yesterday, it was Viz who stepped up to take centrestage today at New York Comic Con. Many thanks to @MangaCast again and the ever-vigilant (and wonderfully detailed) Gia over at AnimeVice! You can read her live-postings about the Viz panel here.

New manga licenses from Viz are:

All My Darling Daughters
Fumi Yoshinaga

Beast Master
Kyousuke Motomi

Boys Over Flowers: Jewelery Box
Yoko Kamio

Butterfly, Flowers
Yuki Yoshihara

Gogo Monster
Taiyo Matsumoto

Jormungand
Keitaro Takahashi

Natsume’s Book of Friends
Yuki Midorikawa

Not Simple
Natsume Ono

The Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross Artbook
Arina Tanemura

What a Wonderful World
Inio Asano

Yu-Gi-Oh! R
Akira Ito

ANN has thumbnails and release dates to go with these titles as well.

Also exciting from Viz is that they’ll be revealing “very soon” information about their release plans for the Monster anime series and L: Change the World live-action film. As someone who has just finished the Monster manga series (in a word, wow), I’m excited to hear that the English anime release is moving forward. An anime I may actually sit down and watch! I hope its a nice boxset release initially over individual DVDs.

Other tidbits (which you can read about in more detail over at Gia’s live blog of the panel) include Stan Lee’s Ultimo running in Shonen Jump, Naruto taking a break in Shonen Jump to make way for a lot of manga volumes spread over a few months and some date reminders of upcoming releases.


Saturday at NYCC 2009

While I usually wait until a con’s end to post an overview of the manga news, some exciting announcements (okay, one inparticular) have left me too over-eager for that this time! I have Twitter to thank for that, @MangaCast and @DebAoki inparticular, who via dedicated posting, I’m able to read all the fun stuff as it happens! What’s better than that for those of us who couldn’t make it?

So thus far at New York Comic Con we’ve had a bunch of new manga  announcements:

You can just tell this is gonna be cute. Tokyopop announced that they’re adapting the NHK mascot, Domo, into a full-colour manga due out in September. No word yet on whose writing or drawn it though. They’re also holding a contest for artists to have their fanart featured in the book though as is customary for TP, the contest it open to residents of the US only.

Bandai Entertainment informs fans that they’ve acquired the license to “all” the Gundam 00 manga, including spin-offs and light novels.

CMX has confirmed some titles that Amazon exposed in December, such as Broken Blade and King of Debris.

Del Rey has gotten their hands on Four-Eyed Prince by Wataru Mizukami, Only One Wish by Mia Ikumi and You Higuri’s manga adaptation of the anime series, Night Head Genesis. As another anime series I found interesting, but ultimately dull due to the fact that animes need to try a million times harder to maintain my attention, I really look forward to You Higuri’s version (and no complaints to more of her work in general!).

And finally, Yen Press has announced that it’s licensed the Spice and Wolf manga, Park JinJun’s supernatural mahnwa Raiders,  Crescent Moon Story –a yaoi by Fujiyama Hyouta – and, the most long-awaited yet still surprising news, the license rescue of the well-loved and ridicuously charming, Yotsuba&! ! They’ll be picking up where ADV Manga left off with the sixth volume due out this coming September.


Overview of Yaoi Con 2008

Celebrating Beauty and Passion - Bleach style!

While there still hasn’t been much in the way of news from Yaoi Con 2008, many still await it with semi-patience. So, in the absence of any yet revealed internet press at the event (though some birdies have said a certain Brian from MangaCast was there?), here’s some little tidbits in the meantime!

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NYAF 2008 Recap

Announced at New York Anime Festival 2008

Not many announcements made at the New York Anime Festival this past weekend but there’re still some new manga licenses to share! No word from publishers on any announcements made at this weekend’s Yaoi Con (yet).

Licenses, thanks to Gia and Deb Aoki, are under the cut.

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If I Was Down in San Francisco This Weekend

Celebrating Male Beauty and Passion, hmm?

The schedule for Yaoi Con 2008 was posted yesterday night. Coming up this weekend, September 26-28th, it’s the biggest (I would assume by this point?) boys’ love event on this continent. Alas, the cost of flights, hotels and passports keep me from it. And yet I couldn’t help looking at the schedule and planning my ‘if I was there’. Live the experience for me, Yaoi Con attendees!

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