Jouhou Shisou

Our Convention Retro segments got me thinking about my first anime/manga convention experience. It was nine (!) years  ago now at Megacon in Orlando, Fla.

Although the event is not solely anime (really, anime is mostly an afterthought behind the comics and sci-fi), it was the first convention I went to for anime. Two friends and I, who had been into anime for about six months at that point, heard about the convention a week before it was held. Attending college in Gainesville at the time, it was only one and a half hours away, so we decided to go.

Honestly, between the years and the 30 odd conventions I’ve been to since then, I don’t remember much from the weekend. I do know it was the first time I saw Anime Music Vidoes, and I would spend the next four years or so using the art form as my major creative otaku outlet.

I also know I was struck by the massive large amount of people who were into anime. I came across the whole anime thing by accident. This was right before the digital fansub explosion, but the folks were there. A few months later we returned to Orlando for Jacon and then Anime Festival Orlando. Later we discovered Anime Weekend Atlanta.

Although I don’t go to conventions like I used to, I still make the trek every year to AWA and will do so again this September both for pleasure and to cover the event for Manga Jouhou.

So… in the spirit of getting this blog more active, I turn it over to you all. What was your first convention? What sticks with you most about it?

We conclude our Convention Retro segments with Manga Jouhou Editor riseabove77’s look at Anime Expo 2007.

Well, I was supposed to be blogging AX on a daily basis, but that has proved to be impossible. I totally missed Day 1 because I was first on a six-hour plane ride from NY to SF, and then an EIGHT-hour car ride to Long Beach. Apparently, I didn’t miss much. I’m not a Gackt fangirl, so missing the S.K.I.N. concert was no skin off my back, no pun intended. The only event worth going to on Friday was the AMV contest, but apparently the dude in charge lost the DVD with the entries. Nice going there, guy. They had the videos for one category only and played those entries, and played the rest this morning (at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m.).

Anyway, I was sorry to miss the Viz panel, but sources tell me that they didn’t announce anything we didn’t already know. I did attend the CMX panel yesterday, but, again, nothing much worth reporting. They maintain that they will have more to announce at Comic-con, as does Viz. There is supposedly a TP panel tomorrow, but it’s not in the program, and I remain skeptical because both TP and Viz are conspicuously absent on the trade floor. When I asked a representative for TP, I was told that they felt their presence was more necessary at Comic-con. I have no idea why; I would think Anime Expo had more of their direct market audience. Another notable absence was Del Rey. What is it telling us that the three top manga publishers did not exhibit at Anime
Expo?

As to licenses, this is what I know so far:

Current titles CMX discussed:
-Canon
-Gon (remastered version)
-Go Go Heaven!!
-I Hate You More than Anyone
-The Time Guardian
-Apothecarius Argentum
-Samurai Commando: Mission 1549

After which they moved on to their slate of upcoming titles:
-King of Cards by he author of YELLOW
-Key to the Kingdom
-Venus in Love
-Palette of the 12 Secret Colors
-Orfina
-Presents (this one looks EXTRA creepy, which means I’m of course interested)
-Variante (can’t wait for this one either)
-Tears of a Lamb
-Dorothea
-Two Flowers for the Dragon

They also spoke about the possibility of publishing Shirley (Shirley, from what I could divine, is the sequel to Emma) next year, but made no formal announcement. They also maintained that they have no plans on publishing any OEL any time soon. They also promised not to edit future volumes Tenjho Tenge as heavily as they have been, for whatever that is worth.

Today I spoke on the DrMaster Panel and they announced three new titles:

-Purgatory Kabuki by Yasushi Suzuki, a conceptual game designer responsible for the design of games such as Ikaruga and Sin and Punishment.
-Phantoms, a short story collection by Yasushi Suzuki
-Metro Survive by Yuki Fujisawa, author of Bio-meat Nectar, UK Kingdom, and Elle.

For the most part, the general feeling I get is that AX was very poorly organized this year. The S.K.I.N. concert started two hours late on Friday, then there was the AMV contest disaster, among other things. The registration desk for badges is not located at the main entrance, but somewhere in the back of the convention center, and the lines were ridiculously long. Registration booths should have been located at every entrance to the convention center. This only makes sense. At least the air conditioning was working. It is such a crush in that exhibition hall after the lunch hour that it even becomes hard to breathe at points.

Some of the booths were out of control. ADV had a two-story booth. The Geneon booth was made to look like a castle. I felt like a little kid in a candy store when I first walked into that exhibition hall. Anyway, more to come tonight or tomorrow. I have another panel tonight to speak about Suzuk-sensei, and then I’m off to watch the Masquerade.

riseabove77

We’re back with another installment of our look back at conventions past. Today we’ll finish up with AWA 2007. It was an enjoyable convention and looks to be again this year.

Waking up on the Sunday morning of an anime convention is always a bittersweet affair. On one hand, you’re in middle of an oasis of geekdom, two days into a smorgasbord of cosplayers, action figures and Pocky. On the other, you’re only a few short hours away from the closing bell, followed by any number of hours driving back home.

For at least one of our quartet of anime enthusiasts, it was even worse, as she was hit by a delayed hangover that she should have rightfully had Saturday morning. All of us were a bit worse for wear, and thus we were dragging a bit slower than the previous day as we made our way down the complementary breakfast.

There were no offended otaku to overhear this morning, but the food was once again prompted no complaints, including the crepes.

Back in the room, it was time to pack, tossing clothes and toiletry items here and there while gently rolling up the posters and wrapping up the figures that, now fully assembled, would no longer fit in the boxes. Picking up the last playing card off the floor, we dragged our suitcases down to the parking lot, checking out on the way.

As for the Embassy, I can only hope that are still have manager’s receptions next year.

Our first target upon reaching the convention was the Funimation panel, seeing as we had only made one industry panel on Saturday. Unfortunately, we were a bit late getting to the Renaissance and arrived about 20 minutes into the panel. Fortunately, the panel hadn’t started yet and we weren’t late after all. Unfortunately, the panel was ultimately cancelled for reasons I never found out. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks station right by the panel’s room, and much coffee (and hot chocolate) was had by all. Unfortunately—ok, I’m stopping now.

So instead, we wandered through the artists gallery and dealers room one last time, picking up those last minute items we hadn’t know we needed until we saw them.

Our intrepid guide’s last circled item was Bento Anarchy, a panel about those oh so cute Japanese lunches. Run by the author of the coincidently named Bento Anarchy blog (bentoanarchy.blogspot.com), the hour-long panel was very informative. To be honest, I hadn’t put a whole lot of thought into them, but the sheer cuteness she is able to get out of her lunches, well, let’s just say the mind is boggled.

On a side note: Please, when you’re at a con and you show up to a panel late, do your very, very, very best to enter quietly. I swear that had to have been 100 people come and go during that panel, and when you’re sitting very near the door, it gets very annoying. I was legitimately worried one or more of our party was going to take somebody down sooner or later.

Following the panel, as much as we hated to admit it, our weekend was drawing to a close. With all of us facing five to six hours of driving, we gathered for a quick lunch at a nearby delicatessen before one drove south and the rest drove north.

Somehow, I managed to survive another trek through Atlanta traffic and spent the next five hours on I-75 listening once again to “The Golden Compass.”

AWA has always provided a fun weekend, and this year didn’t disappoint. Well run, well attended and full of everything an otaku needs for three days of geek immersion, I’ve already set my calendar for 2008.

Here we are again, staying in 2007 with Part 2 of our coverage of that year’s Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA). It’s always a fun and interesting event, and that year was no different.

It was 7 a.m. when one of our party decided it was time for the rest of us to awake. When, through murmured protests we disagreed, she decided using our bed as a makeshift trampoline was a polite and proper was to reiterate her point. It was miraculous that none of us had hangovers, and that fact alone is what most likely saved our bouncing compatriot from a quick and messy descent to the lobby nine stories below.

Thus, it was with sleepy eyes and empty stomachs that we took the elevator downward to the Embassy’s continental breakfast. Through a meal of eggs, bacon and other early morning appropriate food, we listened as an otaku at a nearby table expounded to his companions the many reasons why the crepes did not meet his satisfaction. Although I have to admit a woeful lack of experience when it comes to the creation and subsequent consumption of crepes, I can say that I enjoyed mine. So did everyone else at our table, I may add.

Our appetite for food and enjoyable eavesdropping sated, we made our way to the convention to begin day two in earnest.

Although we tend to roam aimlessly around conventions until we happen through a door or two to find ourselves in a panel or anime showing, our rookie this time around was much more coordinated, circling all the events she wanted to attend. It was a smart move on her part, seeing as how we dutifully followed her directions for the rest of the day.

We started with Brent Allison’s quite enlightening panel on anime in academia. My first impression upon seeing the item on the schedule was nothing like what it turned out to be. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia (I won’t hold that against him–much), Mr. Allison presented a wealth of knowledge about the current literature available on the subject of the academic study of anime and manga, as well as the study of popular culture in general.

Once again I have to admit a lacking in my knowledge, this time of the vast amount of study that has been done in this area on an academic level. He passed out a pretty comprehensive list of internet references as well, but instead I will point those wishing to pursue the subject further to his website, www.animefandom.org.

Next on our guided tour was a voice actor’s panel with Colleen Clickenbeard, Monica Rial and Amy Howard-Wilson. From attending past panels with her, I have come to expect hilarity and chaos whenever Monica is in the room, but Colleen and Amy had the room in hysterics as well. Colleen (if I remember correctly) had a hilarious story about her time on Case Closed, in which a mischievous director played a prank on a cast mate by spooling a series of action grunts to 70s porn music, complete with some squeaking bed springs. I wonder why that never made it on one of the DVDs as an extra?

Colleen also gave us a quick early preview of the new Luffy (One Piece) voice, and Amy talked about her time voicing on Star Blazers, when there weren’t anime fans in America.

They also gave a heartfelt warning to aspiring voice actors out there, reminding the hopefuls to pursue a career in acting in general, not just a niche market such as voice acting.

Up next, we deviated from the circled events to catch Dark Horse’s panel hosted by the ever-informative Carl Horn. He started by passing out several new releases as well as a few new releases (still in Japanese) around the room.

Although he did not have any new release information (AWA just didn’t fall at the right time, he apologized), he did update the audience on several of the company’s recent headlines.

Dark’s Horse planned collaboration with Clamp should see release in the U.S. in late 2008 or early 2009, in a series of “mangettes,” each about 80 pages. They will be released monthly, matching a similar release in Japan. Clamp will have full creative control on the series, something Horn said Clamp was looking forward to.

He also updated everyone on the upcoming release dates for the Vampire Hunter D novels as well as the Blood+ novels.

During the question and answer portion, the status of the ill-fated Super Manga Blast titles came up several times, including Cannon God Exaxxion and Shadow Star. Horn said Dark Horse still holds the licenses for the titles, which were left in the wind when the anthology was canceled, and the company is still trying to decide what if anything they are going to do with them. Personally, I would love to see the rest of Shadow Star get a U.S. release. How many manga series have cute little Pokémon-like creatures with lots of sharp nasty bits controlled by a bunch of children bent on world domination through bloody revolution?

Horn didn’t make any promises (I didn’t expect any) but it was good to hear that the company hasn’t forgotten them.

We considered going to a writing for manga panel, but food beckoned instead. The convention center has a decent food court, with a Subway, Chic Fillet and a Chinese restaurant, and the lines weren’t too bad considering the thousands of people there. Thirty minutes later, fortified by a round of Subway sandwiches, we braved the dealers room again.

I should point out that this was the first AWA that we didn’t go to the anime music video contest. Although I have never been to any of the other major U.S. anime cons, I am convinced that AWA’s AMV contest has to be one of the best in the country. It is consistently well judged and well executed despite the large number of awards and contests they have to deal with. This year, however, none of us had the time to get a video prepared, so we decided to forgo the contest altogether and see the rest of the sights. Hopefully next I will have a video ready in time.

Following our guide’s list of circles brought us next to Rikki Simmons panel. Comic artist and voice actor of GIR on Invader ZIM, Rikki talked about his love (hate) of certain companies and the joy (drudgery) of working on such titles as Jackie Chan Adventures.

I do have to take a moment to make another confession–and to think I’m not even Catholic. I have never watched Invander ZIM. There I said it.

Even so, listening to Rikki’s tales of his friend and creator of ZIM Jhonen Vasquez were highly entertaining. To top it off, following the panel, our intrepid guide got her photo take with Rikki as well as a very talented GIR cosplayer.

We made another trip through the dealer’s room, killed some time in the artist alley, and then it was time for Daryl Surat’s Panel of Doom. A staple of AWA as well as Anime Festival Orlando (located rather ironically in Orlando), the Panel of Doom is a genius mix of really bad anime and equally hilarious commentary from Daryl. This time he presented an almost entirely new slate of movies, anime and American television shows for his audience. Where Daryl finds his clips, I don’t know, but I have to wonder about his sanity after being immersed in the wackiness of the Japanese in general and the surreal nature of 70s American pop culture for as long as it must have taken to obtain enough material to fill an two-hour panel. Over my years as an anime fan, I have seen some strange things from the land of the rising sun, but Daryl managed to top it this year with the introduction of the new craze in Japanese live entertainment: air sex.

Yes, you heard me right. Think air guitar, but with sex. Men take the stage, clothed thankfully, and pantomime their best (at least in their minds) moves for an applauding crowd. Not to be outdone by the Japanese, however, Daryl invited two members of the audience to hold an impromptu competition there in Atlanta. The resulting display was obscured from my view by the rest of the crowd, who took to standing on their chairs so as to not miss the action. The resulting screams, yells and groans from everyone else left me rather mixed over whether I should be upset or elated over not being to see it.

My only complaint for the panel was the room they gave Daryl, which, while gloriously larger than the closet they gave him the previous two years, was set up with the screen to the far right, so everyone in the left side of the room had to look over a lot of heads to see.

Our group split up after the panel, with two of our number heading over to The Captains concert. It wasn’t too long, however, before we got a call from them, telling us that they had forgone their attempt due to the long line. We ended up back at the food court, passing the line, unmoving even though it was past time for the concert to begin. AWA is usually very good about getting things going on time, but apparently something didn’t quite work out for them.

After dinner, the girls left for the Yaoi After Dark panel, while we remained to wander. Not entirely keen on the whole yaoi thing, or the thought of hundreds of screaming fangirls (no offense), we decided to see what the Mike McFarland Unplugged event was. The con guide described it as simply, “Mike McFarland plays a solo acoustic set.” Not willing to take the obvious at its face value, I assumed it was a casual talk with the voice actor/director/producer. I was wrong. Instead, we were treated to a wondrous hour-long concert of acoustic covers played and sung by Mr. McFarland. He was that good. He’s Mr. McFarland to me now. Apparently he plays regularly over in Texas. If you get a chance to see him play, I would definitely recommend it.

After a quick peek into the Bebop Lounge, we returned to the hotel room to find that the girls had once again been defeated by a long line, and decided instead to retire early. Our otaku natures sated by a day full of geekdom, we spent the rest of the evening in quiet manga reading and assembling figures, a stark comparison to the craziness of the previous night.

Thus ended Saturday, not with a bang, but with a whimper (actually, it was a snore, but some things you just don’t talk about). Stay tuned for Sunday and the end of our journey.

In an attempt to kick-start the blog off again, we’re going to take a few days and look back at Conventions past we’ve covered here at Manga Jouhou. Up first is Day 1 of Anime Weekend Atlanta 2007, the first of a three-part coverage I wrote about the largest anime convention in the Southeastern United States.

I hope you enjoy our look back:

For starters, I would like to apologize for the tardiness of this write-up. Life, it appears, has been paying me back 10-fold for my little vacation among the otaku.

On the morning of Friday, Sept. 21, I began my annual pilgrimage north for Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA).

With the superb audio book edition of Phillip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass” as my companion, I made the five and one-half hour trek up I-75 to the pinnacle of social engineering we call Atlanta. This was my first trek through the area without a co-pilot, but aside from the usual traffic, I managed to squeak by just before rush hour to make it to the Embassy Suites Hotel Atlanta Galleria.

The convention, in its 13^th year, is located in the Renaissance Waverly Hotel and Cobb Galleria Centre, a beautiful hotel, complete with one of the nicest convention centers I’ve visited. The Renaissance fills quickly each year, but there are no less than six overflow hotels. Over the five years I’ve been going to AWA, I have stayed at three different hotels, including the Renaissance.

The Embassy, by far, is my favorite of the three. The Renaissance’s rooms just don’t quite match up; the hotel also required patrons to sign a conduct agreement this year after some apparent room trashing last time around (this included a no outside alcohol policy, which is a definite deal breaker in my book). It is sad that this has become an apparent necessity. Bad otaku!

As for my journey, I checked in, mixed myself a celebratory drink to mark another non-lethal journey through Atlanta traffic, and walked the short three-block trek to the Renaissance to register for the convention. While the line for comp passes was short as I had imagined, the walk-in registration line was equally short. Word to the wise, if you go to AWA, don’t pre-reg. The line tends to be 20-30 times longer (I’m not joking!).

Now an owner of a shiny con badge and a goodie bag complete with coupons and postcards, I made my to the dealers room. I frequent 3-4 conventions a year, mostly in Orlando, Fla. AWA is by far the biggest (as far as I know, it’s the biggest anime con in the southeast) and has the most comprehensive dealers room. Well, almost. For whatever reason, the AWA dealers room is always lacking in the Pocky/Japanese snacks department. Sure, there were a handful of dealers selling snacks, but the ratio is way under most other cons’ dealers rooms. By the end of the weekend, however, I managed to satisfy the list of Pocky demands given to my by my non-anime-fan coworkers who have become hooked on the snacks over the years.

After a quick walk-thru, during which I mercifully survived with no money spent (the weekend was still young), I made my way back to the Embassy to take a breather.

A kind porter on the way up the elevator alerted me to the Embassy’s nightly “Manager’s Reception,” boasting two-hours of free drinks and snacks. Thus I spent the next 45 minutes waiting for the rest of my otaku party sipping a series of rum and colas and demolishing plate after plate of the best fresh tortilla chips I have had the benefit of eating. Seriously, they were some good chips. Everyone was asking what seasonings were used. They weren’t talking.

Soon enough the rest of the party arrived (making a six-hour jaunt southward through rush hour traffic and a wreck-induced interstate crawl), and we made a quick trip back to the convention for registration, a prolonged journey through the artists alley and one more trek through the dealers room. In the alley, I picked up a beautiful original piece entitled “Maki” by Shelli Paroline (www.foolproofart.com) and an extra cute rendition of Harry, Ron and Hermione by Bettina M. Kurkoski.

My second trip through the dealers room wasn’t free either, as I picked up the Hoshi no Koe manga.

We had plans to hit Anime Hell, which has been a staple of our previous visits to AWA, but plans are made to be broken, and we actually didn’t leave the hotel room again until morning (unless you count a half-drunken walk through the hotel’s parking lot at 3 a.m. which included a short but profound conversation with a pirate).

Stay tuned for Saturday, complete with an engaging panel about anime in academia and the new craze sure to sweep across the nation… air sex.

ShockTillYouDrop.com recently conducted an interview with Shutter Island screenwriter  Laeta Kalogridis, and its sister site ComingSoon.net picked up a tidbit about her progress on the live-action adaptation of Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell manga.

Here’s what she had to say:

I’ve got Ghost in the Shell, which is an adaptation of another manga and anime with DreamWorks and Steven’s producing that and I’m hoping that the draft will come in pretty soon and I’m hoping he’ll like it. DreamWorks had the material and I have loved it for years and years and years. They contacted me about it when they found out that I was interested. I mean, there’s just no other property quite like it. It could actually be three two-hour movies, which is what I would vote for, but it’s the seminal cyberpunk text as something like Neuromancer. I mean, it really just is, and there’s nothing else like it.

Of course, it’s not likely that the studio will listen to the screenwriter on the idea of making the film into three parts (although it should be noted Kalogridis was also executive producer on James Cameron’s Avatar).

That being said, we did have the recent news that the live-action Akira adaptation could be split into two films.

It seems a number of manga and anime Hollywood projects have been picking up steam of late. There’s even the report earlier this month from Anime News Network that the live-action Evangelion movie might not be as dead as we all assumed.

Of course, there is still Cameron’s forthcoming (?) adapation of Battle Angel Alita, if it doesn’t get bumped by the Avatar sequels.

I would venture to guess that this renewed interest in all three titles (not counting Alita) has less to do with Hollywood suddenly finding the anime/manga jackpot of material, and more with the spectacular year science fiction in general had at the box office in 2009.

Of course Avatar is just steamrolling its way through the record books, but don’t let that overshadow the success of Star Trek ($247 million domestic/$385 million worldwide) and District 9 ($115 million domestic/$204 million worldwide).

Even better, both movies received mostly positive reviews from most of the mainstream press.

It’s not all rosey, however, as the last three big named anime/manga adaptations have all more or less flopped: beginning with 2008’s Speed Racer and continuing with Astro Boy and Cirque du Freak, both from last fall. Be sure that the studios are keeping that in mind as well.

The next such project will likely be Priest, from director Scott Stewart, whose recently release Legion was panned by critics but at least looks to be making its money back… barely.

The good news it seems there are solid teams being built around the Akira and Ghost in the Shell projects. It shouldn’t be overlooked that the anime films of both titles help launch the anime/manga revolution here in the U.S. Perhaps the live-action versions can do it again.

Further reading from the world of manga (and similar interests) over the past week.

• Anime News Network has the latest on the Christopher Handley obscenity trial involving manga showing children being sexually assaulted.
• MangaCast has the latest weekly Taiyosha rankings.
• Kadokawa Shoten’s Asuka magazine announced three new titles will debut in February, including a new Evangelion manga depicting Shinji Ikari as a detective.
• The Young Adult Library Services Association, part of the American Library Association named its 2010 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens. The list included three manga titles: Children by the Sea, Volume 1, by Daisuke Igarashi; Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki; and Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1, by Fumi Yoshinaga.
• ICv2 has a three-part interview with Viz Media’s president of sales and marketing Gonzalo Ferreyra.
• Helen McCarthy discusses how to navigate Tokyo while not being able to speak Japanese.

The biggest news of the week, and probably the year so far, was the announcement that the first volume of Yen Press’ upcoming manga/graphic novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight would be released in March with an initial press run of 350,000 copies.

Of course, the Internet has been abuzz since the news, with everyone examining how the title and release can positively affect the manga market… or why it won’t. Whether you love it, hate it or try in vain to ignore it, Twilight has become a cultural phenomenon. With more than 85 million books sold, the series has legions of rabid, vampire-loving fans. While I’m not one of them, and have no plans to join them, you can’t deny that this represents a lot of potential manga fans as they sample the new graphic novel.

Much has been made about Yen Press’ decision for an initial print run of 350,000 copies, a massive amount for any graphic novel, let alone an OEL manga-style book from a relative newcomer Korean artist. Considering today is the fifth day the book has already been in the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com with a month and a half until release, it should sell well.

And really, any manga fan should hope it does.

Firstly, the books will be a cash cow for Yen Press, allowing them to continue to bring over additional Japanese and Korean titles as well as develop new OEL works.

But it could be a win for everyone involved with many teens picking up their first manga book. Even if the Twilight graphic novels are only able to entice a handful of these one-time ventures into repeat business as fans sample other works, it could be a boon across the industry.

Sure, similar arguments have been made in the past, with the Harry Potter series (and Twilight for that matter) supposedly sparking a new reading craze among kids. There have been mixed results from studies trying to examine whether it actually happened or not. The argument has also been made about previous OEL adaptations, but none of the level of popularity as Twilight.

Either way, the potential is here. Here’s an example of why I think this could really work this time. I know of a someone (in her late 30s) who isn’t interested in manga at all, but when her favorite romance author announced a manga adaptation of one her works, she eagerly sought it out. This didn’t develop into any further manga sales beyond the one, but her tastes would also fall into the josei genre, one that is still developing here in the U.S.

The shoujo market, however, is ready and willing to take in all of the possible converts with a wide variety of titles, including plenty of vampire ones. It is interesting that the first volume of Vampire Knight popped back into the top 10 best selling manga books on the New York Times‘ list this week, although the data was compiled from the week prior to Yen Press’ announcement.

Only time will tell how much impact it will have, but I for one can say it’s the first time I’m hoping Twilight does well.

We had two particularly big news stories today over at Manga Jouhou, namely the 2009 Japanese magazine circulations figures and the announcement that 21 major publishers were joining together to form an electronic book organization. And it’s easy to see how they’re linked.

With the new figures revealing little good news for the biggest magazine titles, it’s obvious why the publishers are working to retain as much say as possible in the emerging e-book market.

With Apple’s iTunes dominating the digital music market these days and Amazon attempting to do the same for e-books with its Kindle, the publishers are trying a proactive approach here. Whether or not it makes a difference in the end remains to be seen.

While we’re on the subject, Simon Jones over at Icarus Publishing had some interesting thoughts on the development.

“An organization like this could influence the design of e-readers, or give publishers more leverage in pricing, but the real purpose is to lock-in digital rights, which until now have been negotiated separately from print rights, allowing authors to self-publish online if they so choose,” he said in his blog yesterday.

He goes on to talk about how this could be a bad development for Japanese writers and artists, but also points out that here in the U.S., it’s pretty much the way it goes.

Welcome to Jouhou Shisou, the official blog of Manga Jouhou.

Along with all of the new features being unveiled this week at the main site, this blog will allow us to interact more directly with our readers and fellow manga fans.

Keep an eye here for all kinds of news, briefs, op-eds and commentary about everything going on in the world of manga.

We hope you enjoy.