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Itochu to Put Ishinomori Manga on N. American iPhones
posted on by Egan Loo
The Saturday edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) paper reported that ITOCHU Corporation will release Japanese manga on mobile devices in the United States and Canada. In particular, it will start releasing 30 manga, such as Kamen Rider and Cyborg 009, from manga pioneer Shōtarō Ishinomori on the Apple iPhone in October. The service will then add works from Harlequin Comics for a total of 100 titles by next spring. The first chapter of each title will be free, and the subsequent chapters will be US$1.00 each.
Ishinomori conceived of several popular classics, including Harmagedon and The Skull Man. Many of his works have been adapted into live-action and animated projects. Nikkei had reported last November that a work by Ishinomori will be adapted into a live-action and computer-graphics film in Hollywood in 2012.
Several of the Japanese live-action Kamen Rider television series have been adapted into English and exported, including the recent Kamen Rider Dragon Knight series (pictured at left). Tokyopop published the Cyborg 009 manga in North America, and Cartoon Network ran the 2001-2002 anime adaptation in the United States. Central Park Media's U.S. Manga Corps label released the Harmagedon anime film, and Media Blasters' AnimeWorks label imported the Genma Wars television sequel series. Sentai Filmworks released The Skull Man anime from Bones this year. Cyborg 009 is currently available on the Nokia Ovi store for certain Nokia phone models.
Source: animeanime.biz
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