The FBI seems to have begun targeting scan sites. The site which has been was shut down by the FBI is HTMLcomics.com which is a comic scan site .The site offered comics to download and view, the comics were things like; Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, Dilbert, Peanuts, Catwoman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hellboy, Star Wars, 300, Predator, The Mask, Iron Man and Buffy and Vampire Slayer. The site has been shut down after the FBI served a warrant to the owner.

According to a press release from the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, the FBI conducted the investigation with a consortium of comic book publishers and their legal counsels, including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Bongo Comics, Archie Comics, Conan Properties Int’l LLC, Mirage Studios Inc., and United Media.

The press release also stated that the website had posted more than 5,700 comic series for viewing without authorization. According to the law firm, the site received an average of 1.6 million visits each day before it was shut down.

I wonder how much longer until this begins to affect anime and manga sites.

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Car looks amazing to bad the price is amazingly high as well.

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Finally the long awaited continuation to Code Geass is here, well not here but announced anyway. The name Code Geass Gaiden Bōkoku no Akito translates into “The Ruined Land of Akito.”

This time Code Geass is going to be primarily set in Europe, or so it seems;

a.t.b 2017. A KnightMare unit of 11 youths embark on an operation to save their comrades stranded on the European front, their odds of success only 5%

Code Geass Gaiden Bōkoku Akito information was released via bonus material on “Kiseki no Tanjobi” event disc.

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I am somewhat surprised by this, but I shouldn’t be, manga is a big industry so why shouldn’t a 4 year degree be more common?

For some people, manga may not stack up as a high-brow subject like Chinese classics or nuclear physics, but universities in Japan are increasingly offering courses on comic culture as part of their curriculum.

The first attempts to set up manga departments were greeted skeptically because universities were considered unsuited to fostering manga artists who needed creative ideas and drawing ability to be successful.

Despite the doubts, a few graduates of manga departments have moved on to professional careers.

The universities offer various courses to help prospective manga artists.

At Kobe Design University, a special class held in February offered students the opportunity to present their work to editors of manga magazines.

The one-on-one sessions often involved direct criticism of a student’s work.

One editor said, “You have to make your story understandable to everyone.”

Another student was told, “Your idea is a good one, but the story kind of fizzles out part of the way through.”

Some students got teary-eyed during the session.

The special class was for sophomores majoring in manga in the Department of Media Arts of the School of Progressive Arts.

Since January, editors from at least 10 manga magazines have visited the campus for sessions with the students.

One traditional way manga artists have gotten a break has been to visit publishing companies and show their work to editors.

Those considered talented by the editors have had their work published, and others are often given advice on how to improve their work.

The special class was designed to train the students in selling their works to editors.

Not only do the students become accustomed to dealing with editors, they also receive advice from professionals.

Naoto Hashimoto, 20, appreciated the feedback he got by attending the special class.

“We are shown where we are weak and other things are pointed out that we may never have considered. I really appreciated being able to meet an editor.”

Such practical help has benefited the first class of manga majors who graduated this spring. Of the 20 in that first cohort, 16 have won some kind of award for newcomers or have been in regular contact with an editor.

Eiji Otsuka, the professor in charge of the manga program, said, “While it is like a bonus, it is the result of thoroughly thinking about how a manga story develops and also about movie-like story lines and the relationship between a plot and characters.”

The curriculum for a manga major is not easy.

Students have to produce the equivalent of about 400 pages of storyboard over a year. In every class, students are trained to create stories and characters.

There are also projects to create anime and movies.

Even students who entered as freshmen without ever having written a manga develop a certain level of skill after four years.

Some students have made their debut while still in university.

Masato Yamaguchi, 21, a junior in the Department of Manga of the Faculty of Arts at Tokyo Polytechnic University, had his work, “Uchu rescue” (Outer space rescue) published in the Shukan Shonen Magazine (Weekly youth magazine) Special by Kodansha Ltd.

At least 10 universities offer majors or courses on manga and animation.

The pioneer was Kyoto Seika University, which established what is the only manga faculty in Japan in 2006. The faculty is fairly large. It has a capacity of 200 students per year.

When the predecessor to Kyoto Seika University began as a junior college in 1968, it was already offering classes on manga.

They were upgraded to manga courses in 1973 and a manga department was established in 2000.

The central government’s white paper on education took notice of the university’s endeavor “as one doing research on manga as a scholarly field.”

In the 2010 school year, a master’s program in manga studies starts at Kyoto Seika.

“As a university, we want to provide a path that will allow graduates to become connected to society,” said Keiko Takemiya, head of the manga faculty.

Full article source

Surprise surprise just like Pokemon Digimon lives on;

The online figure and game prize store Fumuo de Pon is listing a set of Digimon straps for what it describes as a “new Digimon anime premiering on television throughout Japan!” The retailer says that the accessory strap lineup, which will ship at the end of July, represents the main characters from the beginning of the tentatively titled New Digital Monsters program: Shautomon, Dorurumon, Barisutamon, Gureimon, and Monitamon. It also gives a copyright notice of “Digital Monsters © Akiyoshi Hongo/Toei Animation.”

Although nothing is 100% confirmed, and this is merely speculation  there is still a big possibility of a Digimon anime being made.

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The Tokyo Anime fair broke a new record this year for cumulative attendance ,132,492 people showed up this year, this breaks last years record number of 129,819 attendees.

Attendance has been increasing almost consistently every year since TAF’s inception in 2001.

The event recorded 13,076 attendees on the March 25, the first business day devoted to industry professionals and press. March 26, the second business day, had 13,887 attendees. 51,073 and 54,456 came on the following two public days of March 27 and March 28, respectively.

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China is making it’s move, and starting a push to help boost its own anime industry and not just be a sideliner to Japan.

Chinese people, they are starting to think, ‘How come I’m manufacturing for someone else?’ Why are we not creating anything ourselves?’”

“China is a big market, and everybody is trying to get in,”

Komazawa’s enthusiasm for something new is a small victory for China’s fledgling animation industry, and could well represent a widening crack in Japan’s global anime dominance. Japan may be the birthplace of anime, but China is gunning for its future as it mounts an aggressive effort to expand the country’s creative prowess and reputation.

Yoko Komazawa had been at the Tokyo International Anime Fair for nearly six hours when she fell in love with a brown-and-white stuffed panda — a character in one of the fair’s featured cartoons.

“It’s so adorable and interesting,” she said, staring into its gleaming pink eyes. “I want it.”

Unfortunately, the panda wasn’t for sale and Komazawa had to settle for a photo. But she walked away from the small booth impressed by the panda’s creators — from China.

“Japan is certainly an amazing anime country,” said the 30-something anime fan and collector of all things cute and cuddly. “China has some intriguing characters though. They’re different, and that definitely catches my attention.”

So why did China decide to expand its own anime industry all of a sudden?

China’s growing ambitions coincide with an ominous industrywide slump in Japan.

After peaking in 2006, the number of anime minutes made for television fell 20 percent to 108,342 in 2009, according to the Association of Japanese Animations. A survey of the group’s members shows that overseas anime revenue fell 21 percent between 2006 and 2009.

Some of the reasons associated with the slump are more adult related titles, but not just that, terrible wages and working conditions for young animators is pushing them to leave the animation industry. Because of shortages, animation companies are forced to outsource to other countries such as china, which will be able to create the work for much less money.

“The Japanese anime industry basically gave China, Korea and all these countries the keys to the candyshop,” Alt said. “By outsourcing so much work to them, they trained this work force of people who are now far more ambitious and far more hungry than a lot of Japanese animators are.”

I wonder how the anime industry is going to be 10 years from now, and how much anime will be produced in China.

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US  Democrat politician Nick Levasseur apparently doesn’t like anime;

His Facebook page^

[pro-player width='560' height='400' type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp-USKnPDbY[/pro-player]

I wonder what he’s going to do now? Some things the twitter community is saying:

Lolita_Girl RETWEET!! New Hampshire State Rep. Nick Levasseur BASHES ANIME!! http://bit.ly/bCNhSw #anime #politics #FuckYouLevasseur

How is stuff like this tolerated from our ‘leaders?’ It’s things like this that make me sad I’m from the United States: http://bit.ly/cfxR0A

hris_coltrane US Democrat.: “Anime is a prime example of why two nukes wasn’t enough.” Come on man, Dragonball Z wasn’t *that* bad. http://bit.ly/bk2qPE

“Anime is why 2 nukes wasn’t enough” LOL what an a-hole, I wanna see how the Japanese respond to this

@bigopinion This is why I will never vote for the Democratic party again. And it isnt over health care!! http://bit.ly/diCK2t

Maybe  if this was his first time saying something this outrages people would be more forgiving, but atlas Levasseur seems to enjoy doing these sorts of things.

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Lucky star voice actor Minoru Shiraishi is going to be starting a spin-off live action series called Lucky Racer. The show will air on April 2  and will feature Shiraishi cart-racing with voice actors and staff  from the Lucky Star anime. Theres even a prize for winning;

the winners can debut products or publicize themselves.

The whole show just seems like a cheap and good way to advertise products by using the lucky Star name; what do you think?

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Samurai Champloo Composer Jun Seba or as hes know  in the hip-hop community Nujabes died in a car crash which occured on February 26th;

He was 36 years old. An ambulance had rushed Nujabes to a hospital in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward, but the live-saving efforts of the medical staff were ultimately unsuccessful.

Nujabes made his professional debut in 2003 on the label compilation album first collection and his first solo album, Metaphorical Music. He composed the music in Manglobe’s Samurai Champloo television anime series, including its “Battlecry” opening theme song. He had left behind some unreleased tracks in the studio, and his label plans to release those tracks on some format in the future.

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