Otaku magazine’s next issue, their fourth, is titled Otaku Kaidan, and covers all things horror in Japan. From their site:
KAIDAN is the term used for the Japanese ghost stories, and, extensively, for the J-Horror culture. The Buddhist moralizing stories were rapidly transformed into international shockers; people wanted more frightening monstrosities and oddness, with no direct connection with the Western horror. Manga, anime, movies and the subcultures developed around them competed in shicks and panic. If you really want to know why on the Japanese horror movies is written 18+, take a look at the next issue of Otaku Magazine. Nevertheless, is our duty to warn you that all who looked inside certain pages of this issue have disappeared shortly after. Still, it might be just a story to send the children to sleep for good.
You can order the issue from the magazine’s official site. Thanks, Tim!
Move over BOSS, Golgo’s taking over the canned coffee racket! I don’t much care for the world of canned coffee anymore (it’s gotten to a point where I just can’t drink it — too sweet), but I absolutely love these cans featuring Golgo 13 art on them. The Mainichi has a gallery of all the cans available. Via Japan Probe.
NEW YORK – TOKYO posts more about UNIQLO’s latest manga t-shirt collection, including a look at the display they have up at the Soho Store.
The official site for the upcoming live-action film adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s 20TH CENTURY BOYS (out August 30) is now hosting a teaser trailer. Nice to see the use of T.Rex’s “20th Century Boy” as the title rolls up! Via Anime News Network.
As reported by Anime News Network:
Bookoff Corporation, Japan’s largest used bookstore chain, has reportedly offered to pay 100 million yen (about US$1 million) to the Copyright Network for Comic Authors in the 21st Century, The Japan Writers’ Association, and other creators’ associations. According to the newspapers who first learned of this offer on March 31, the offer is intended to address complaints from these organizations that the growing used-book market has affected new book sales. This is the first known specific offer of payment from bookstores to these organizations. The comic authors’ group was one of the groups listed in the “Stop! Fan-Subtitles” notice that appeared in Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008.
Read the rest of the article here.
What exactly was the importance of Akio Nakamori’s new column that appeared in a little-read weekly soft-core porno comic (MANGA BURIKKO) back in 1983? “Otaku no Kenkyu” marked the first use of a word in a context we now know so well. Matt Alt translates that column for Neojaponisme.
Just in time for spring, Uniqlo’s UT line of t-shirts has just launched a new series based on manga titles that appear in Kodansha’s WEEKLY SHONEN MAGAZINE and Shogakukan’s WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY. The first few went on sale yesterday, ten in all, and new titles/designs will be released each week. Via Imprint Talk.
THE JAPAN TIMES covers the Manga Museum in Kyoto. I agree with Imprint Talk, why isn’t there one in Tokyo?
A Public Space (in their fifth issue, but online here) takes on Rikimaru Toho, the world’s only manga street performer, with a profile that also includes video of Toho in action. The piece is by JAPANAMERICA author Roland Kelts.
Want to know everything there is to know about Patrick Macias and jaPRESS, the company he co-owns with Izumi Evers? Well then head on over to About.com’s manga corner for this giant interview.
Anime News Network has plenty of details on an upcoming live-action adaption of Naoki Urasawa’s terrific 20TH CENTURY BOYS manga. I love this series — I really don’t know if I prefer MONSTER or not — and so I’m personally really excited to see how it’ll come off. It’s planned as a trilogy, with the first film coming out in August of this year. There is also an animated TV adaptation that is set to air sometime this year (I think in the spring).
Update
My wife just pointed out to me that the director of the film is also the man behind the TRICK TV series, starring Yukie Nakama and Hiroshi Abe, of which we’re both big fans. Definitely some good news!
CLOVERFIELD, J.J. Abrams’ (as a producer) upcoming monster film, gets a manga prequel by Yoshiki Togawa that leads into the opening of the movie, and that you can read online here (Japanese-only). Via io9.
I’d never heard of Reiko Shimizu’s philosophical sci-fi manga series HIMITSU – TOP SECRET (or any of her other works, like MOON CHILD and KAGUYA HIME), but the news that it’s being turned into an anime series for the spring 2007 season sounds good to me, especially after having read this description:
The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five years’ worth of memories from people’s minds — even if they are dead. The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police Science’s 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in the ultimate invasion of privacy as they delve into people’s minds to solve crimes. (
Anime News Network)
Fumiyo Kouno’s TOWN OF EVENING CALM, COUNTRY OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS has been selected by NEW YORK MAGAZINE as one of the best comics of the year. The manga is produced by jaPRESS, Patrick Macias‘ production company. He also co-edited the book.
Update
Even more acclaim for the book.
PingMag interviews Simona Pini, an Italian who has been translating manga in Italian and English for 15 years, including some very popular series like BLEACH and NANA.
Jean Snow is a contributor to 
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of 
