News

Weekly Wrapup 27/Nov - 3/Dec

Australian anime and manga distrubitor Madman Entertainment made several acquisition announcements on its website, including the popular magical-girl-deconstruction anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Other newly announced titles include The Future Diary, Heaven's Lost Property, Persona 4 The Animation, Maken-Ki! and the OAVs Coicent and Five Numbers! as a double feature. The Future Diary and Persona 4 The Animation will also be streamed on the Madman Screening Room. All titles will be released sometime in 2012.

Sadly, another famous figure in the anime industry was lost last week with the passing of animation director and character designer Shingo Araki at the age of 72. Collaborating and founding a studio with his wife, character designer Michi Himeno, Araki is well known for his work on the anime adaptations of Saint Seiya, The Rose of Versailles, Gegege no Kitaro, Ashita no Joe, and Yu-Gi-Oh!. Araki also worked on several American animations in the 1980s, including Inspector Gadget and G. I. Joe: The Movie. Toei Animation released a statement offering condolences and thanking Araki for his contributions. The latest Mike Toole Show column provides a retrospective on Araki and his work. Also lost last week was long-time mangaka Mamoru Uchiyama at the age of 62. Working on sports manga up to his death, Uchiyama is particularly well known for his manga adaptation of super sentai series The Ultraman.

Famous prolific female mangaka group CLAMP released a notice that it will reduced its work planned for next year, due to a serious back injury sustained by one of its members. An unnamed member of the group has been diagnosed with lumbar compression fracture, developed through long hours of sitting in a chair, and was ordered to take half a year off to rest and recover to prevent the injury shortening her career. The group advised that as a result, it will release less pages of serialised manga and may delay other work, and has asked for their fans' understanding and for others to look after their own health. Having recently finished the series Kobato and XXXHolic, CLAMP is currently serialising two manga, Gate 7 and Drug & Drop (a continuation of earlier series Legal Drug).

US presidential candidate Herman Cain officially suspended his campaign on Saturday, and while doing so revealed a quote he used while campaigning, which he had attributed to ‘a poet’, actually came from a Pokemon film. The line “Life can be a challenge... but you and I can make a difference. There's a mission just for you and me," was paraphrased from “The Power of Love", a song by Donna Summers used in Pokemon 2000.

Finally, a Oricon poll revealed that Japanese audiences are frequently dissatisfied with live-action adaptations of anime and manga, with 65% of respondents saying they were not satisfied. About 17% of respondents, which consisted of 1000 respondents evenly spread between genders and age groups, said they were ‘completely unhappy’ with live-action adaptations, while about 49% percent were ‘somewhat unhappy’. Only around 4% were ‘completely happy’ and the remaining percentage were ‘fairly happy’. Oricon also asked respondents what they sought from live-action adaptations. The most common answer was for casts to match the original characters, with follow-up responses including remaining true to the original work, consultation with the original creators, and the inclusion of famous scenes and trademark items. The survey comes as several live action adaptations including Rurouni Kenshin, Ranma 1/2 and Ace Attorney are releasing trailers and screenshots, and casting rumours circulate for the the American live-action remake of Akira.