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Weekly Astro Boy Magazine on European iPhones in 2010
posted on by Egan Loo
Ed Chavez, the marketing director of the North American manga publisher Vertical, reports that the Weekly Astro Boy Magazine application for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch mobile devices will be available in Europe in English and French in the summer of 2010. The application with weekly installments of titles from manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka will then be available in Spanish and Italian "soon thereafter."
Chavez noted that each country's selection of titles might be different from what the American version of the application has. For example, France, Italy, and Spain "might get Princess Knight" but the United States might not. Dororo will be exclusive to the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom; the United States and the United Kingdom will have the same content.
The software distributor Yappa launched a similar Weekly Tezuka Osamu Magazine application in Japan with Mighty Atom, Phoenix, Black Jack, Dororo, Under the Air, Princess Knight, The Crater, Rainbow Parakeet, and other titles in April. The software developer D-Arc Inc. and Tezuka Productions Co. launched the American Weekly Astro Boy Magazine last week with Astro Boy, Phoenix, Black Jack, and other works. D-Arc will release a complete version of the American application "soon," and that version will offer additional weekly volumes of manga for US$0.99 each.
Image © 2009 by D-Arc, Inc. © Tezuka Productions
