Releases Based On The New The Film By Hayao Miyazaki’s Famed Animation Studio Include Film Comics, Art And Picture Books

San Francisco, CA, January 26, 2012 – VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, brings the miniaturized adventure of famed Studio Ghibli’s newest animated creation – THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY – to readers everywhere with a collection of ARRIETTY film comics, art and picture books set to debut on February 7th, 2012. THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY is scheduled for North American theatrical release on February 17th, 2012.

THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY is based on the celebrated novel, The Borrowers, by Mary Norton and was produced by Studio Ghibli, the famed animation company founded by Hayao Miyazaki, which also created Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo. The new film, with planning/screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, will feature the voice talents of Bridget Mendler, Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett and Will Arnett for its English language release.

Arrietty isn’t your ordinary fourteen-year-old girl – she is small enough to make her home under the floorboards of a typical house, “borrowing” what she and her family need from the giants in whose shadows they live. A young boy named Shawn befriends Arrietty, but when adults discover the Borrowers, Arrietty and Shawn must work together to save her family.

THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY PICTURE BOOK  Rated “A” for All Ages  MSRP: $19.99 U.S. / $22.99 CAN  Available February 7th, 2012
The colorful and easy-to-read THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY Picture Book is a full-color hardcover edition that will appeal to younger readers especially. The book uses the vividly colored animation cel art from the feature film combined with simplified text to retell the story of Arrietty and her adventures.

THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY FILM COMICS  Rated “A” for All Ages  MSRP: $16.99 U.S. each / $19.99 CAN each  Available February 7th, 2012
The official 2-volume film comic of THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY re-tells the film’s story with vivid full-color frames.

THE ART OF THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY  Rated “A” for All Ages  MSRP: $34.99 U.S. / $39.99 CAN  Available February 7th, 2012
Co-founded by the legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli films enthrall and enchant audiences across the world. The Art of series gives fans the opportunity to follow their favorite film from initial concept to the silver screen, thanks to hundreds of sketches, concept drawings, and animation cels, plus in-depth interviews with the creators.

“Fans and readers of all ages won’t want to miss these new additions to VIZ Media’s Studio Ghibli Library of titles,” says Masumi Washington, Senior Director, Editorial. “Studio Ghibli has mastered the ability to tell poignant and engaging stories that captivate both children and adults, and their latest film, THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY, continues this tradition. Our forthcoming picture book and film comics are fun ways for young readers to visit the world of ARRIETTY while the gorgeous art book will be a must-have for the ardent Studio Ghibli fan or those who want to know more about the evolution of the film. Discover the adventures in-store for this band of ‘borrowers’ in these new releases scheduled for February!”

More information on VIZ Media’s Studio Ghibli titles is available at www.VIZ.com.

About VIZ Media, LLC
Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), is one of the most comprehensive and innovative companies in the field of manga (graphic novel) publishing, animation and entertainment licensing of Japanese content. Owned by three of Japan’s largest creators and licensors of manga and animation, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media is a leader in the publishing and distribution of Japanese manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa and is a global ex-Asia licensor of Japanese manga and animation. The company offers an integrated product line including the popular monthly manga anthology SHONEN JUMP magazine, graphic novels, and DVDs, and develops, markets, licenses, and distributes animated entertainment for audiences and consumers of all ages. Contact VIZ Media at 295 Bay Street, San Francisco, CA 94133; Phone (415) 546-7073; Fax (415) 546-7086; and website at www.VIZ.com.

The anime and manga industry is starting out on rocky footing this year with news early this week that Bandai Entertainment is immediately ceasing operations as a publisher of new titles. This includes the cancellation of their upcoming releases. Hopefully we’re just getting the negative industry stuff out of the way early to pave the way for a stronger 2012 – fingers crossed, right?

The press release Bandai Entertainment sent out included the full list of manga titles now cancelled:

Code Geass: Renya
Gurren Lagann
Kannagi
Lucky Star Boo Boo Kagaboo
Mobile Suit Gundam 00I
Tales of the Abyss: Jade’s Secret Memories

Some of these series were already mid-way through their run while others, like Tales of the Abyss: Jade’s Secret Memories, hadn’t started yet. Bandai noted their existing catalog – meaning those already released – will remain in print and available until the company’s licenses expire. That said, however, if there are any titles you want, I say it’s still best to pick them up now just in case (though you could say the same for any titles from any company – you never know!).

Personally I hadn’t read any of Bandai Entertainment’s manga titles but that’s because they tailored to fans of the company’s anime franchises for which I wasn’t really interested. Regardless, it’s a big shame that we’re seeing another manga publisher forced to close its doors. The most consistent experience I had with Bandai was that the company was never the most communicative about it’s manga publishing. Hope for a change in this was short-lived after their new manga-focused website quickly dried out in regards to updates. Learning just recently they only had five full-time employees – most of whom have now unfortunately been laid off – really shed a light on how tight the division was run though.

Credit goes to AnimeNewsNetwork for the news. They followed up with an interview with Bandai’s executive producer, Ken Iyadomi. It sheds more light on the reason behind the closure which came down from the higher ups in Japan this past October.

This past week AnimeNewsNetwork posted an interview with Taku Kishimoto, screenwriter for the recently debut anime series, Usagi Drop.  I provided the questions for ANN’s interview and was glad to see they garnered some interesting answers. Inadvertently my first Japanese-industry interview so my thanks to ANN for the opportunity.

Of the answers, I think the following was my favourite:

“…considering the current situation, there is a high possibility that this anime adaptation will expand the demographic of the Usagi Drop fanbase. I couldn’t be happier if the men who watched this anime realize that they don’t have to let women monopolize the enjoyment of raising kids.”

The manga (from which the anime was based) is currently being released in English by Yen Press under the translated name, Bunny Drop. It’s one of my favourite series being released right now and even the spoilers of the series’ end have done little to damper my enthusiasm for each new volume. It’s a really sweet story about a single, middle-aged man who takes in the illegitimate daughter of his recently deceased Grandfather. Unlike Yen Press’s other series starring a single, middle-aged man raising a girl he adopts (aka, the amazingly hilarious Yotsuba&!), Bunny Drop has a great balance of drama and humour that’s more focused on the emotional and logistical role of actually raising a child.

When it was announced they were making an anime I was really excited. One of my favourites being animated, huzzah! Seeing trailers and images come out only furthered my excitement – finally a new anime series I actually want to watch as it comes out! And yet… I haven’t watched it yet. Sure there’s only one episode so far but I just can’t get behind the watching-one-episode-at-time trend. It’s why I wait for boxsets of series then marathon them, similar to how much more I loved manga when they went from releasing single-chapter editions to full volumes. Anyone else find they have the same issue?

That being said, I hope someone licenses it! Series are getting picked up for English release earlier and earlier these days so I hope Bunny Drop falls in that category. In the meantime, I hope newcomers read the manga, the anime-curious check out the interview and those who don’t mind one-episode-at-time enjoy the anime as it comes out because it looks adorable!

Prepare to get nostalgic or witness why so many people are proud to have the story of a gun-toting pacifist as one of their first anime - Trigun: Badlands Rumble is officially coming to theatres across Canada!

“Vash the Stampede is a gunslinging, red-trenchcoat-wearing drifter with a giant bounty on his head. His biggest threat, however, may not be law enforcement, but an outlaw by the name of Gasback. Twenty years ago, Vash accidentally interefered with one of Gasback’s robberies, and now the villain’s back with a score to settle. Gasback has come to Macca City in hopes of stealing one of their major installations, and Vash has just coincidentally arrived at the same spot. Also involved in this caper are a beautiful lady with a grudge, a couple of insurance agents, and Vash’s old buddy Wolfwood. At first it seems that Gasback has succeeded, but one can never underestimate Vash’s legendary abilities—not to mention the secrets that his allies have up their sleeves.” – Cineplex

The movie will be a special one night only event on June 22nd at 7pm, local time.

Empire Theatres has confirmed with Animaritime organizers that the movie will have Japanese audio with English subtitles. Tickets through Empire Theatres will go on sale on their website tomorrow and tickets are currently available to purchase on Cineplex’s website.

You can see the full list of Canadian theatres below:

Trigun is a lot of fun so I hope everyone who’s able goes out to buy a ticket, not only for a fun time shared with fellow anime fans but also supporting more anime in Canadian theatres!

Last week listings for Evangelion 2.0 popped up on Cineplex (src: ANN), one of Canada’s theatre chains. Eager to see how many anime fans across the country would get another shot at seeing Evangelion on the big-screen, I made some inquiries and did some internet spelunking and loe and behold, it looks like a decent-sized release!

The movie will be screened on the big-screen across Canada on Thursday, January 20th at 7pm (local time). Seating is limited and as tickets for the majority of the showings below are currently on sale, it’s recommended you nab your tickets while they’re available.

“The story of a 14-year-old boy, who has been entrusted with the heavy burden of mankind’s fate, is about to enter uncharted territory. Asuka, the heroine whose popularity is on par with that of Rei Ayanami, enters the fray piloting Evangelion Unit Two. Joining them is a new, alluring heroine. The war between the mysterious entities known as “Angels” and the Eva Series heats up even more with the introduction of new Evangelion units. Intense battles the likes of which have never been seen rage across the screen one after another. The excitement of these mind-blowing spectacles will take the story in a new direction.” - Cineplex.com

Below are the currently confirmed locations that will be playing Evangelion 2.0 across Canada. Note that this locations are subject to change and there may yet be more:

Tickets for select showings are currently on sale at Cineplex.com and EmpireTheatres.com.

The first Evangelion film in this new incarnation, Evangelion 1.0: You Are Not Alone, previously played across Canada on September 30th and October 3rd, 2009.

As someone who attended the first movie and not only thought it was fantastic (and completely worth seeing on the big screen) but also had lots of fun with the community-driven spirit of the event, I will definitely be in attendance at my city’s showing (Halifax, NS!). We live in an age of the internet but nothing beats the feeling of your local community coming together to enjoy something together, plus it supports anime in your local theatres. Can’t wait!

Time for some winnings! A few interesting contests going on right now that are worth a gander and an enter.

Firstly, AnimeNewsNetwork has teamed with Aniplex (from whom they’ve licensed their two simulcasting series) and Pop Travel Japan (the tour-company of Digital Manga) to offer a contest where the winner gets a fully-paid trip to Japan!

There are two trip packages to be won – Tokyo Anime Fair Tour: an Otaku-centric tour of Japan including a trip to the Tokyo Anime Fair and Akihabara; and Fangirl Paradise Tour: a more boys’ love fan-central tour that includes the infamous Otome Road and a visit to an “authentic butler cafe”.

Entrants for the Fangirl Paradise Tour are required to take pictures of themselves in togainu no chi cosplay, with one of the two images having a sign proclaiming ‘ANN Please Send Me To Japan!’. For the Tokyo Anime Fair Tour contest, participants are to draw some Oreimo fanart and submit for the judges to see (with the ANN logo included somewhere in the picture all not-sneaky-like).

The winning packages include airfare, hotel accommodations, transportation while there, tour guides and customized guidebooks. Us Canadians (alas  excluding myself) are able to enter the contest as well, though in place of airfare, there will be $500 given towards booking your own flight to Japan. Full guidelines and rules of course available over on the website.

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On their Twitter account, NetComics announced a fun little contest with the winner receiving $100 in e-Cash to go towards reading manga and manhwa on their website. With chapters for $.025, that’s a lot of reading!

1) Choose your favorite series.
2) Identify a scene/panel to recreate.
3) Do yer thang: bubbles, illustrations, etc.–the whole nine yards.
4) Q yourself whether or not your work is compelling/original.
5) Tweet it like there’s no tomorrow.

The deadline for NetComics’ contest is November 30th.

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RightStuf also runs numerous small contests, a current one being a draw for a random bag of swag. And though not really a contest but still for the artistically-inclined, a reminder that Yen Press’s current talent search is still on-going with a deadline of January 3, 2011.

Not a whole lot of buying last week as I awaited a hefty RightStuf order to be delivered. And delivered it was! I prefer buying manga in-store and at conventions so when I make big purchases online, they usually consist primarily of anime.

Note to all Canadians: now is the perfect time to get together some friends, head over to RightStuf.com, fill up your cart with oodles of goodies (check out their clearance section for amazing deals), getting that free shipping and taking full advantage of our strong dollar. Save lots of money and get some awesome stuff!

In my box of shininess this time, I continued a recent buying spree of Funimation box sets which always impress with me low prices, great selection and amazing dubs. Their S.A.V.E line is really phenomenal - an entire series for $12? Try justifying to me how that isn’t affordable (advance note: you can’t).

My series of choice this time were Jyo-Oh-Sei, a sci-fi survival series of which I really enjoyed the manga; Baccano, an anime cominbing violent mafia wars and alchemy; Hell Girl (S01), an episodic series about a website where you can ask to have someone banished to Hell; and Eden of the East, which I’ve heard so many amazing reviews for from people I know, that I had to give it a go. Thus far I’ve watched Hell Girl, which was really good and had a continuing plot line I didn’t expect, and the first half of Baccano. The first four episodes made little to no sense but after that the story picks up pace and wow is it something else! Very fun.

The final boxset of the purchase was Media Blaster’s new release of Magic Knight Rayearth which is a digitally remastered version in celebration of CLAMP’s 15th Anniversary. I’ve already seen the series via VHS, but the quality I’ve seen of these remastered episodes is more than reason enough to finally upgrade that series to DVD. I look forward to the shiny nostalgia of this title.

Manga always needs to sneak its way in somehow though and I bought two books that I absolutely adored upon reading. First was the second volume of Bunny Drop from Yen Press. Following a man taking in a young girl and going through the realistic motions of caring for her is both heartwarming and impressively grounded. The other book was volume of The Last Uniform from Seven Seas, a positively adorable series about schoolgirls and their feelings for one another. Both books made me very happy.

In a disappointing follow-up to my last Swag Bag, the DelRey omnibus edition I bought of Mushishi fell apart into a pile of loose out-of-order pages when I sat down to read it! Looks like I got a bad bind. I hope it’s a one-off and not from a bad batch out there. If this is some kind of omen about DelRey manga then, well, it came too late.

So what’ve you bought recently? Anything you’d recommend or something coming up?

New RightStuf sale this week and it’s for all Media Blasters releases – animes, manga, t-shirts and plushies, lots of goodies and pages and pages of it to choose from.

While Media Blasters has some fun manga titles though, especially for boys’ love fans (Crimson Spell, Yokai’s Hunger or I Can’t Stop Loving You, anyone?) , their real bread and butter is their anime and boy do they have a lot of amazing titles. I’d forgotten how many of my favourites were theirs until I started working my way through the list.

If there was an award for anime I’ve seen the most start to finish, it’s definitely the fantasy-epic Berserk which I’ve seen at least half a dozen times. Twelve Kingdoms is one of the best animes I’ve seen in years and I can’t wait to own a copy for myself after being lucky enough to have my local library in possession of the series. The anime Moribito is trying to challenge Twelve Kingdoms though, another gorgeous show.

Definitely on my nostalgic side, there’s Twin Signal, a funny and cutely quirky one-shot DVD about a super arrogant robot who turns into a chocolate-obsessed chibi when his human little brother sneezes – and a rerelease of CLAMP’s Magic Knight Rayearth, the definitive magical-girls-tossed-into-another-world series. You can also take advantage of the sale by picking up the complete series + OVA of Magic Users Club, which made me think I was watching a hentai at first when I first saw the OVA back in junior high – watch out for those pervy tentacles!

So much shininess here to be had – what Media Blasters releases would you recommend?

After a good night’s sleep, day two of Anime North officially began. The registration lines began to form fairly early but paled in comparison to the line for the dealer’s room which stretched on hundreds of people down the sunny parking lot. A pleasant change from yesterday, a portion of the parking/line-up area had now been sectioned off from traffic meaning that cars were no longer able to drive inbetween groups of con-goers. Yay for minimizing the risk of getting run over!

And so – day two! (watch out, it’s a long one)

————————————————– VENDORS ROOM ——————————————————

The doors opened at 10am and the Comic Market and dealers room quickly flooded with its second wave of eager shoppers. All the same dealers from yesterday remained in place, some already busy filling up tables with new stock. After my blitz through on Friday, I was looking forward to taking it easier and looking at the individual tables this time around. Manga remained my focus and I spent a lot of time price and selection comparing. The general rule of thumb was everything at US cover price with tax covered by the vendor. Some boothes offered buy x get x free while others sold assortments of older series in packs or for flat rates of $5.

Lots of vendor tables were covered in anime DVDs for sale but the prices definitely weren’t on a side as friendly as the manga. One vendor was already slashing prices by late-afternoon so their prices were good at $10 a pop, dropping to $5 a DVD before the event closed at 8pm. However the real treat of the show is the returning Starstruck Entertainment whose direct dealings with Funimation offered up a vast collection of titles at mind-boggling prices. Wow. The complete series of Ouran Host Club? $12. Gankotusuou? $6. Individual DVDs of numerous series were priced at $3.99 while brand new blu-ray boxsets went as low as $40. Suffice to say, much anime was purchased.

And filling every other nook, cranny and elaborate shelving system were every kind of anime merchandise you’d imagine – anime pillows, wallscrolls, figurines, prop trinkets, cosplay items, doujinshi, CDs, toilet paper and candies – to name a few of the more recurring. Admittedly my time spent looking at this kind of merchandise is very limited compared to books and DVDs but I always try to scout it out for a few fun trinkets which are things I’d only buy at conventions. Still, this kind of merchandise is definitely the most visually (and financially) promient at the show and the hoards of people crowding each vendor table well betrays their enthusiasm for the swag before them.

With some vendors already putting out their end of con sale prices, Sunday is bound to be a flurry of last-day shoppers looking to swoop in and take advantage of every sale presented to them (myself included of course).

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Of the vendors present, I settled on three manga-wise to do the majority of my shopping:

The Beilguing’s buy 5 get the 6th free made it the perfect place to buy some a whole bunch of books new and old. I walked away with a stack of new titles including Shinobi Life (Vol. 06) and 20th Century Boys (Vol. 08). Most excitingly perhaps was the find of the entire King of Cards series! And the entire Bride of Deimos series! They also had a sizeable collection yaoi and hentai comics that made for interesting browsing (and perhaps more than a few purchases). Seriously though, the mass amount of books The Beilguing had is hard to accurately describe but it did take a very long time to go all the way around the large multi-directional, multi-space layout. The books never ended! And when they did you just turned around and discovered the other tables behind you.

1001 Comix had a huge selection of different titles but the most impressive was their boys’ love which made up a vast portion of the offerings. We’re talking hundreds of books easily. I thus walked away with a sizeable pile of boys’ love books, not an easy feat when I own perhaps far too many yaoi books already released in English. Notable titles include the recently released Maiden Rose (Vol. 01) and Blood Honey. Sadly they were very anti-photos so few images of their lengthy table-line can be shared.

The Hairy Tarantula (weird name) was my final manga-stop of the day. Though I wasn’t expecting to pick up much after already stretching thin my budget, I came across the entirety of Key to the Kingdom and a number of other missing volumes from my CMX collection. Sold! They also had a sizeable boys’ love discount section, and though they didn’t have any books I needed, should be a great find to anyone looking to grow their collection. Keep an eye out for those hidden sections!

————————————————– FUNIMATION PANEL ——————————————————

Mid-afternoon on Saturday a decent crowd of people entered into a post-Beyblade showing room for Funimation’s first of two industry panels. Internet issues made the presenter unable to use the presentation put together so the duration of the panel was held by showing random trailers out of QuickTime and speaking schedules and titles out loud. The result was pretty unenthralling but the presenter’s efforts were appreciated, his mood good and some snazzy information to be taken from it.

Some panel highlights:

- Hetalia’s marketing slogan is “World War Fabulous” (to the crowd’s amusement and disbelief)
- Funimation does not have the rights to release Evangelion 2.0 as it has not yet been offered to them by the Japanese license holders
- Reminder of their upcoming rerelease of X/1999 got the most reaction from the audience, even over Hetalia
- No comment from Funimation regarding recent word from Manga UK that Funimation be doing their dub for Summer Wars
- Funimation is currently pushing several series for Canadian broadcast and is working to have their website Hulu streams switched to YouTube so those outside the US can watch

And of course you always need to have someone with an undoable demand during the Q&A session. This panel’s wasn’t nearly as grating others in the past, but the demand to stop releasing boxsets without all previous extras because you’re “punishing those who wait to buy” was definitely on the silly side. We… kind of understand your pain? Most of us are happy to have the option to buy seperate DVDs for extras and slimmed down boxsets for cheap, I should think.

Overall it was a pretty uneventful panel, a quick put together that fell victim to technology issues and needing to save all the big announcements for the bigger cons throughout the summer. Still, it was nice to see Funimation take the time to send a rep up to show they care and the knowledge they’re actually pushing a number of their titles for Canadian TV coverage was exciting to hear – even if it being met with repeated failure. Our anime up here is pretty terrible ie: completely non-existant, but it’s good to see someone’s still trying!

————————————————– THE SHERATON ——————————————————

The bulk of Anime North’s events were spread out between three differnet locations – the Doubletree hotel, the Toronto Conference Center and the Sheraton Hotel. The Sheraton Hotel is the furthest point away, a good 5-10 minute walk up the street. It also proves the most different in atmosphere. Emcompassing all the gaming, yaoi/yuri and roleplaying events, the mood of the center was notable more enthusiastic and the age group lower overall. This also extended to the staff who showed a level of enthusiasm for what they were doing that was almost overwhelming.

The video games were jam-packed with a dozen-number combination of widescreen TVs and project screens all playing an assortment of games, from BlazBlue to Street Fighter. Nearby a room was designated purely for DDR and the level of skill by the players utilizing a wall-sized screen complete with seats for watching was mind-numbing. Seeing feet move that fast was one thing but seeing the game keep up was almost that impressive on it’s own.

Several other rooms were designated for tabletop roleplaying, LARPing discussions (live-action role-play) and most impressively, Go. The Go room was packed full of Go players of every skill level all playing eachother in games. Seen Hikaru no Go and those rooms of players? It was just like that – the level of concentration, dedication and fun everyone in the room was having was really great to see. Very inspiring too, for someone who’s tried multiple times to learn the game and can’t figure it out. I’d like to stop by and perhaps trying playing a game against a human being for once!

Along with the numerous Yaoi panels occuring in one of the hotel’s convention rooms, another huge draw of the area is the Manga Library. Run via a surprisingly organized method of temporary library cards via bar codes on badges, each book of the presented collection was scanned in via a check-in, check-out system while readers sat in the room and read. It was literally a library, short of being able to take the books out of the room. It was both well-organized and well-attended for being so tucked away from the bulk of the convention. By evening Saturday it had seen around 435 individual registrations.

The Sheraton was definitely a different kind of convention experience than the rest of Anime North. Granted fitting that many people into a much smaller space with more physically extensive activity mixed with sitting for hours on end events made for a stuffy and perhaps less flattering environment at times but the general attitude of all in attendence is the kind of love-for-your-hobbies enthusiasm that makes conventions a lot of fun.

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And so… day two comes to an end! A few panels attended, lots more stuff bought and day three on the horizon, Anime North has passed the halfway mark. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how the attendance numbers play out with a lot of talk that the numbers seem to have definitely grown this year. It being my first year, I can’t comment but hopefully AN will be able to soon after the event’s end.

Day three tomorrow including my wrap-up thoughts on the convention as a whole and a small but colour assortment of photos to go with.

Day one of Anime North has been survived! Mostly anyway. I will admit to unfortunately being careless to my two hours of sleep, limited food sources and sorching-in-the-sun heat that rendered me incompasetated by the evening. But a long nap followed by a hopefully full night’s sleep (pending the airplanes taking a halt on the constant very-close-over-head flying) and all shall be right as rain and ready for day two!

But how was day one you ask?
(Photos will be included in a future post as current server problems aren’t allowing me to upload them – sorry!)

My day began with the airport travel – thankfully there’s of nothing importance to say regarding that – uneventful and it served it’s purpose (I did rewatch How to Train Your Dragon as my in-flight movie however, and let me let anyone who hasn’t already seen know how awesome it is.).

Arriving at the Anime North location at about 9am, Marsha and I took some time getting familiar with the exteriour layout. The convention is split between three hotels, all of which seperated by a six-lane highway. Suffice to say it was obvious things were going to get a little hairy on the safety side as these now pedestrian-free streets were going to be very much packed in a mere few hours. The same was easily said for the dealers room – at the time a large empty space with dozens of tables but soon to be stuffed wall to wall with the contents of a dozen trucks outside and a mass of eager-buying bodies.

The registration line began building noticeably at about 10am, with lines opening at 1pm. By the time 12:30pm rolled around there was a sizeable line of at least a few hundred people waiting to get in. Once registration opened, it was like a floodgate in the area and by 2pm the line had grown in size and the area was overtaken by every manner of costume and creature you’ll ever see at an anime convention. Note: People dressed in full body Pokemon outfits is very big at Anime North this year.

The opening ceremonies were held at 4pm. Occuring with 3 hours of time for people to register means it garnered a decent sized crowd. The event was late to start by half an hour with a momentary attempt to distract by two staff members momentarily waltzing on stage. Never let it be said though that the staff of AN doesn’t have an obvious enjoyment for their work and a great sense of humour about it all. The ceremony about with a staff tribute video of amusing past-con photos of staff before jumping into the guest announcements including most predomiantly voice actors. The ceremony finished with a high-beat anime music video with a lot of high-action anime sequences that did a great job hyping the audience with a combination of new fads and old favourites. The video had a 0.5 second tribute note to the recently passed Carl Macek at the end, that though missed if you blinked, was still a nice addition.

Pockets of people hanging out, posing for cosplay and desperately seeking shade from the sun covered the outside area quickly at this point and local food truck vendors had already smartly surrounded the area. The dealers room wasn’t set to open until 5pm but it was evident this was what the masses wanted. By 5pm there was a line spanning the entire length of the building, almost dwarfing the registration line earlier that afternoon. Unfortunately, while the line did prevent a massive influx of people surging into the dealer’s room, it also became painfully obvious that the situation wasn’t being handled quite as smoothly as it could’ve been when many learned that anyone could just waltz past the line, enter the building unstopped by the security directing the line and head into the dealer’s room without issue while hundreds were trapped almost an hour in the boiling unshaded heat of outside. Marsha and I followed one such flock of people while looking to seek out the musical guests autograph session and were more than a little surprised.

The line-ups, along with being very hot, were also in a parking lot that was missing some much due signage. Notably this meant that cars were fully capable of driving around and through the crowds – which many did. Watching the look of confusion on drivers’ faces as they traversed the crowd was amusing but seeing them slowly push through a crowd of hundreds of anime fans was not only unnerving but ridiculous. When you see a huge crowd of people, drive around!

Inside this building, which houses the Artist Alley (Comic Market), dealers room and wrestling arena (complete with live wrestling matches), things were flooded pretty quickly. The artists tables were covered in tons of shiny merchandise and prints for sale while attendees were threaded through their area towards the dealers room which was already packed wall-to-wall with people.

More than a little overwhelming at first, there’s definitely a sense of frenzy to get what you want now in fear it won’t be there later. From already severely-marked down boxset prices to walls and walls of manga, unending aisles of anime body pillows and every type of merchandise you can imagine inbetween, there’s definitely something for everyone here. Whether or not there’s enough room for everyone is a totally different story, but definitely not one unheard of in convention settings.

One thing that surprised me about Anime North, and I had a similar reaction at SDCC, was the amount of bootleg material. While stacks of doujinshi isn’t anything unexpected, the number of boxes of bootlegged DVDs and CDs was a little odd, some spanning from Disney movies to anime soundtracks. These only made up pockets of the dealer room offerings but they were disappointingly out of place.

Companies themselves are sparse, something common to Anime North so I’m told, with the only one I noticed being a Media Blasters booth - again apparently run by those not actually associated with the company. However the group does have a panel tomorrow, suggesting actual company staff on-hand somewhere (same being said for Funimation).

And what did I buy you ask? Well not much so far on account of needing to collapse in my hotel room but I did manage to at least scope out the area and see who was offering the best deals on manga. Need to get the most for my money of course! Everything at US cover price seems to be the standard, with no taxes and occassionall a buy get x free sort of deal. Several vendors had books on for $5 a piece in an effort to clear out old stock but the selection proved tediously familiar for those who traverse conventions on a regular basis looking for new additions to their bookshelves.

Eager to nab the new stuff first so I could spend tomorrow looking for the more older or out of print stuff (ie: CMX is the name of the game this weekend), I came out with only 12 books on day one – a far cry from my 67 at Fan Expo a few years ago. Two days left though – I could still break my convention record! Book highlights include The Last Airbender: Zuko’s Story, Maiden Rose (Vol. 01), Silver Diamond (Vol. 06) and Library Wars (Vol. 01).

This is where my day ended but my event booklet is already highlighted with all the things I’d like to attend tomorrow. With doors opening bright and early, it’s bound to be a busy day – best get some more sleep!

Hinako Takanaga’s Tyrant Who Falls In Love boys’ love series has been officially scheduled for an anime adaptation! The news was released in the May edition of Japan’s Gush magazine (where the series currently runs). There are no further details yet on the company producing or the release date. (via AnimeNewsNetwork)

But really, the news itself is impressive enough in itself isn’t it? Seems there’s been a good streak of boys’ love series being adapted into animes in Japan lately and the popularity of Tyrant is sure to have this news serve as music to many a fans’ ear. It’ll be entertaining in itself seeing Hinako Takanaga’s art brought to the screen for the first time as well and will allow her fans to ponder what other series would look like animated (a one-shot OVA of The Devil’s Secret anyone?).

The Tyrant Who Falls In Love follows the trials of Tetsuhiro Morinaga whose fallen hopelessly in love with his senpai – unfortunately this ponytailed, steely-eyed man who has won Morinaga’s affection also happens to be homophobic and bearer of a wicked temper. The series is currently up to five completed volumes in Japan and was originally a spin-off of one of Hinako Takanga’s older works, Challengers.

Though the real question in light of this news is… will we see this anime get licensed for English release so we can actually buy/watch it? With the way license-trends for boys’ love material have been in recent years, eyes should likely be looking in RightStuf/Nozomi Entertainment’s direction as they prepare for their upcoming release of the anime adaptation of Junjo Romantica.

News of the series’ adaptation also comes at a great time for Digital Manga who announced at YaoiCon 2009 their acquisition of the manga for English release. The first volume is due out September 2010 and pre-orders are currently available via Amazon.

News that was a little lost in the fray this past week in the mangaverse, Media Blasters has recently laid off a number of its employees. According to a post on AnimeNewsNetwork, the lay-offs include at least 13 employees across all departments of the company. With a staff of about 50 before the lay-offs, that equates to about a quarter of their workers.

Media Blasters is a company that releases anime and manga licensed from Japan. This includes their imprint, Kitty Media, which releases an assortment of mature-only anime and manga, including a number of popular boys’ love titles such as Ayano Yamane’s Crimson Spell. Some of Media Blaster’s most popular anime releases include Princess Princess, Loveless, Kite and Girls High.

The company’s president believes this move will not cause any delays in their book releases but some readers have already noticed a change to release dates. There are two books due out from Media Blasters at the end of this month: You Higashino’s Drawn To Him and Naoka Kasuga’s Because of Love.

It’s too bad to see this happen to a company who releases so many niche titles and has been around for as long as Media Blasters has. Reasons cited are predomiantly the decrease in orders from large vendors. This could include recent declines in the American market of buyers such as Borders and the semi-recent changes to Diamond Distributer’s policies.

Personally I’ve always found Media Blaster titles to be some of the most difficult to get a hold of, and more so the most hard to find accurate information on. Many of the books quickly go out of print and suffer from inconsistant release date information from different sources. Unfortunately this issue is made worse by Media Blasters’ websites which are rarely updated and utilize a very glitchy 30%-of-the-time-functioning Flash interface. While conventions often prove the best source to acquire their products, in my experience the booths aren’t manned by any employees of the company itself. Not to mention that license acquisitions are nearly always outed by discoveries via online sites such as Amazon with no official announcements to confirm until order information for the books appear in Diamond Previews.

While my sympathy goes to the employees who were laid-off, I would like to see some future attempts by Media Blasters to better outreach to their consumers. Something as simple as a functioning website with current information about their titles would make a huge difference in not only informing current buyers but also influencing new ones.

In a press release this week, Canadian television station Super Channel announced that they’ll be played the anime series of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. The first episode of the 74 episode series will play on March 15 at 10pm and continue playing each Monday evening at the same time. The episodes will be available on both Super Channel’s standard channel and in high definition. (Source: AnimeNewsNetwork)

Super Channel is a specialty channel available through most digital cable services across the country. Along with the pay-to-view channel, they also provide a subscription feature that allows viewers to watch episodes and movies previously played on the channel at their leisure. This also isn’t the first time Super Channel has added anime to its line-up. It currently has Descendants of Darkness and Gurren Lagann on its programming schedule.

After last week’s disheartening news regarding YTV’s removal of Bleach and Naruto, it’s great to see that Canadian TV still has room for anime on its digital-waves. Though I haven’t seen the Monster anime myself, I have read the manga and it was fantastic so I look forward to the opportunity to watch the series on a weekly basis on Super Channel.

A little plugging for my hometown event – as a part of our Animinitime convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia, we’re excited to announce that we’re now selling tickets for a special midnight showing of Cowboy Bebop The Movie: Knockin’ On Heavens’ Door.

The movie will be played on the big screen at downtown’s Parklane Theatres on the evening of April 24. The showing falls between the two events planned for that weekend – one is a picnic the day before while the convention itself follows the day after. Each ticket is on sale for $5 (taxes included). You can currently buy tickets for the movie event at Strange Adventures and upcoming Anime@Large (a local anime club) events.

According to YTV’s website, Canadians will no longer have episodes – new or old – of Naruto and Bleach to look forward to on cable TV. Both anime series have been removed not only from the channel’s daily schedule but also entirely from their show database. (Source: AnimeNewsNetwork)

Their website section AnimeMaster, where information and blog-style posts were shared from their resident of the same name has also been removed. Both these changes came without advance warning from the station.

YTV has seen a distinct drop in the amount of animated shows it plays in recent years, in favour of playing a line-up of predomiantly live-action comedies and dramas aimed at a younger teen audience. Anime on the station has been in decline for some time and its shaky future on the channel had the final nail in the coffin for most fans when their evening Bionix line-up was moved from its primetime slot on Friday to Saturday mid 2009.

YTV’s OnDemand service, a special feature available on digital cable stations, has also removed episodes of Naruto and Pokemon while limiting the available episodes of Nickelodeon’s Avatar the Last Airbender.

Canadian television in general is a far cry for anime from what it was only five years ago when there were over 15 different anime series playing on television at a time. This included the beginning of YTV’s Bionix line-up which at the time played weekly episodes of many newly English broadcasting series including Inu-Yasha, Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Witch Hunter Robin, Gundam Seed and Bleach. At one point the station was even in talks over an anime-only channel, which though approved at the time, was never launched.

Anime currently still playing on YTV is Dinosaur King, Pokemon and the more recently added Pretty Cure. Teletoon, another Canadian station, currently plays episodes of Bakugan and Domo-kun and Friends. Some digital cable users in Canada also have access to the subscription-based AnimeNetwork service which allows subscribers to watch weekly updated lists of anime series at their leisure.