The North American publisher Viz Media announced at its Shonen Jump panel at Comic-Con International today that it has licensed the Wāq Wāq manga by Ryū Fujisaki and the Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) manga by Hiroyuki Asada. Wāq Wāq will be serialized in Shonen Jump magazine in the United States in August of 2009. Tegami Bachi centers on a boy who has become a Letter Bee, a courier who delivers special messages between the different areas of a land in perpetual night, all while fending off armored insects. Tegami Bachi will start serialization in March 2009, when it will replace Slam Dunk in Shonen Jump. (Slam Dunk will continue to be published in the faster, compiled-volume format.) From now on, every color page in the Japanese magazine serialization of licensed manga will also be published in color in Shonen Jump.
As a surprise guest, Stan Lee also appeared at the panel to promote his and Hiroyuki Takei's Ultimo collaboration, which will be previewed in the September issue of Shonen Jump. In addition to Ultimo and his Heroman anime project with Bones, he hinted at a third, unannounced project in Japan.
