Gon Gets An Animated Show

gonLast month, Avex has released a 32-second preview of a new television show called “Gon”. The show is said to have replaced Gintama on April 2, 2012 in the very same timeslot.

To a strong majority of video game players, fans may be familiar with this tiny, orange dinosaur. But what some of them may not know is that Gon first started out as a manga character.

Masashi Tanaka gave life to Gon in a wordless manga that was published by Kodansha. Keep Reading

J-Pop Girlband Fairies Gets Manga Adaptation

fairiesThe year 2012 is a busy year for adaptations, from manga to anime and anime to live-action. This news however brings a fresh and unique twist to renditions: Japanese girl group Fairies (フェアリーズ) will be given a manga adaptation of their group!

Composed of seven members, Fairies is perhaps Japan’s youngest singing and dancing act; their age falls in the 13-15 age bracket. The group was formed in the year 2011 under a sub-label of Avex. Keep Reading

Teasers for Live Action Adaptation of Mirai Nikki Released

MirainikkiJapan’s local network Fuji TV has recently streamed a one minute teaser video for their upcoming live action adaptation of Sakae Eisuno’s Mirai Nikki / Future Diary manga.

In the plot taken for the adaptation, twelve youth fatedly comes into the possession of their own Future Diaries, where written is what to become of their future. These twelve are then forced to play a game of survival, aiming to kill each other off during the whole process. Keep Reading

Before The Hunger Games Came, There Was Battle Royale

battle royale mangaWhen the movie The Hunger Games came out in movie theaters, the internet exploded with rants, raves and comparisons. Die hard Japanese pop culture fans quickly labelled The Hunger Games a “rip-off” from a Japanese book that was not short of violence.

Originally published as a novel in 1999, Koushun Takami wrote “Battle Royale” (バトル・ロワイアル). The book was a hit and was translated into several languages including English, Russian, and Chinese just to name a few. Keep Reading

Katsuhiro Otomo Works On New Manga

Katsuhiro OtomoWorld renowned manga artist and director Katsuhiro Otomo talks about working on a new manga. Otomo, 57, is widely known for his cyberpunk anime and manga, Akira.

In an interview with art magazine Geijutsu Shincho, Otomo admits that his new manga will be the first manga to target the male population (shonen), almost 30 years after Akira was first released. His latest manga also succeeds his 2006 manga short entitled “Park”. Keep Reading

Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Adapted To Graphic Novel

twilight graphic novelArtist Young Kim collaborates with popular novelist Stephanie Meyer to create an illustration based novel of the hit franchise Twilight. Currently, online retailer Amazon has enlisted their first graphic novel New Moon, which is staged to be released on October 30. The plot for this volume is similar to Meyer’s first sequel to the Twilight story.

Kim has been known to have adapted Twilight into two separate graphic novel volumes, both which have debuted as #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List for hardcover graphic novels range. Keep Reading

Black Jack Returns With A Contest

Black Jack

The legendary Osamu Tezuka’s medical manga, Black Jack, returns this year with a big bang. Weekly Shonen Champion recently announced that the manga will be featuring medical stories that have been experienced first hand by the readers.

For those unfamiliar with the manga, Black Jack is a brilliant doctor who lends his talents only to those who have the largest amount of money to offer. His ominous appearance and cold, calculating character doesn’t make him popular in the public eye. Keep Reading