February 9, 2001 For Immediate Release Contact: Ardith Santiago 310.397.4713 ext 111
Los Angeles, CA,- Akadot (http://www.akadot.com) continues its multifaceted coverage by traveling to the home of manga and anime and focusing on Japan's most famous manga related convention, Comike (also called Comic Market or Comiket).
To celebrate this wonderful institution and its long history, the staff at Akadot has created a little trivia contest on Comike. You can enter Akadot's Comike no Trivia Contest starting today, February 9 through to February 23, 2001.
If you answer all the questions correctly, you will be entered into a drawing for prizes that we procured at this past winter's Comike 59! The lucky winners will be announced on Akadot on Friday, March 2, 2001. You can win rare Comike goodies such as a Final Fantasy inspired wall clock, Card Captor Sakura inspired stationary, Sakura Taisen (Sakura Wars) inspired stickers, Final Fantasy VIII inspired stationary and even Trigun inspired trading cards created by talented amateur artist in Japan.
For rules, regulations and to enter, please go to Akadot.com!
New York - Goku and Vegeta are humming into the Big Apple in the CCG Dragon Ball Z Hummer for Toy Fair to and to spend the week visiting New York's hospitalized children. Goku, Vegeta and the Hummer already part in the Toy Fair Parade February 11th and had a blast. To bring smiles to faces of DBZ fans, Goku and Vegeta will cruise the medical centers in the Hummer, including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai Medical Center, NY Presbyterian Hospital, the Hospital For Joint Diseases, Beth Israel Hospital, NYU Medical Center, Ronald McDonald House and others. Gen Fukunaga, President of FUNimation, said, "Dragon Ball Z is a big hit with fans of all ages, especially kids, so we wanted their favorite characters, Goku and his pal Vegeta, to drop by to cheer them up." Frances Wells Cunningham, Vice President Global Marketing at Irwin Toy, Ltd., which make Dragon Ball Z action figures, vehicles and accessories, said, "The children truly love Goku and Vegeta and it is our pleasure to brighten up their day with a visit from their favorite TV pals." Londa Robinson, National Marketing Director of Score, the official Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game company, said, "Goku and Vegeta will be bringing Dragon Ball Z games for the children to play and each fan will get a special collector's pack of the Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game. The CCG Dragon Ball Z Hummer travels the nation bringing fun to children, especially in hospitals, and we are thrilled to bring Dragon Ball Z cheer to the show's fans in New York.
After the success of MTV Italia MTV Germany has decided to start also with anime. They will begin airing with "Goldenboy" from the 28th of march at 22:00 CET. More Information will be available soon under http://www.mtvhome.de.
RTL 2, one of the only stations, who is airing animes like Pokemon, Sailormoon, Monster Rancher, Dragoball, will launch th 24th of april Wedding Peach and from the 29th of may they will be show Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. Announced is also Ojamajo Doremi.
Director: Shin Kudou
Character Design: Fumi Muroi
Art director: Hidetoshi Kaneko
Color design: Naoko Kodama
Animation Production: Madhouse
The Feb. 13 edition of Cinescape mentions Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon has been mentioned as having been nominated for about 9 Academy Awards including Achievement in art direction, Achievement in cinematography, Achievement in costume design, Achievement in directing, Achievement in film editing, Best foreign language film of the year, Achievement in music in connection with motion pictures, Best motion picture of the year and Screenplay based on material previously produced or published.
Gamers Republic is running news that Nintendo has announced that Game Boy Advance will be out in the U.S. on June 11, and March 21 in Japan. Also, GR claims that the Japanese GBA should be able to play Japanese and American GBA games without a problem.
Game Cube will come out in Japan in July and October in the U.S., despite rumours that it would be released in November here. This is at this ZD article
The IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) will be announcing their plans-to the FTC-for counteracting marketing of M-Rated games(such as RE) to kids under 17. The details can be found at this link.
Sony and Vodafone are working together to provide games through portable phones. Also, cinescape is doing a monthly Digital Democracy section where you can vote on your favorite sci fi. Anime is most likely allowed.
This article has pictures and descriptions of lesser known Transformer toy lines.
LOS ANGELES, CA- Comictones.com, the ultimate source for Japanese manga art supplies, has reconfigured its e-mail based ordering system into a fully functioning, automated e-commerce site. The site will automatically generate orders and accept credit cards. To celebrate the remodeled site launch, tones will be specially priced at $4 and there will be more tone sets priced at $14.95.
Comictones.com is a Digital Manga, Inc. project that has provided both professional and novice manga artists art supplies for a year and a half. Comictones.com stocks up on various brands of manga art supplies including the hard to find tone sheets. The artist’s gallery, which showcases customer ’s artwork, and the English translation of the starter kit’s “How to Draw Manga” booklet will still be included on the re-vamped site. The full launch will be February 12, 2001. If you have any questions please contact Comictones.com at info@comictones.com.
New Online Cardcaptors Game At Clowbook.com The Power of the Clow Captures Kids' on the Web NEW YORK- Today at Toy Fair in Trendmaster's showroom, Nelvana announced the launch of the Cardcaptors Challenge, the new online, interactive game where kids can surf the Web to collect and trade elusive Cardcaptors Clow Cards summoning the power of the Clow with the click of a mouse. The launch is being held at the Trendmasters Showroom located at The Toy Center South, 200 Fifth Avenue, Suite 259 at 5:30 PM.
The official Cardcaptors website at www.clowbook.com has been a hot destination for kids and anime fans as a place to find out all about lead character Sakura's adventures, view exclusive clips and enter contests. Now fans can become Cardcaptors themselves in this fun, interactive game.
An earlier version of the game was launched in partnership with AOL (U.S.) and Kids WB! as a contest over a three-week period during the holiday season. Available exclusively to AOL/Kids (U.S.) users in partnership with Kids' WB! The contest was enormously successful increasing page views to the site by over 250% and resulting in over 70,000 contest entries. The Grand Prize winner will be flown to Toronto for the opportunity to record a voice to a character in an upcoming Cardcaptors episode.
Nelvana's Jay Udow, Vice President Marketing says: ``Bringing Cardcaptors online through Clowbook.com has opened up a wealth of opportunity to bring the brands to a new and expanding marketplace. It brings Sakura into the homes of fans looking for an interactive Cardcaptors experience while at the same time acting as an ideal vehicle for cross-promotion and partnerships as was the case with the recent AOL/Kids WB! Contest.''
Today marks the launch of the full Cardcaptors Challenge. Fans can follow the clues taking them to selected sites throughout the Internet as they attempt to complete their very own Clow Book. Some cards are more elusive and sought after than others. To capture more crafty cards, fans will have to pull together and enter the different trading rooms where they can trade amongst themselves and finally complete their collection.
Since debuting on Kids' WB! this season, Cardcaptors has soared to the third highest rated anime series for kids 2-11 according to Nielsen Media Research (Source: Nielsen Media Research, Season-to-Date 9/1/00 - 12/31/00; Includes ABC, FOX, CBS and Kids' WB!). A North American Cardcaptors movie release is scheduled for Fall 2001, bringing this highly successful property to a larger audience.
ABOUT NELVANA
Nelvana is a leading integrated children's entertainment company which develops, produces, markets and distributes high quality media content and related products to children worldwide. The company operates through two core businesses: Production and Distribution and Branded Consumer Products.
Through its Production and Distribution business, Nelvana produces 2-D and 3-D animated programming, as well as live action. Nelvana's growing library has over 1,450 cumulative half-hour episodes, including such well-known television and feature film properties as Franklin, Little Bear, Babar, Rolie Polie Olie and Pippi Longstocking.
Nelvana's Branded Consumer Products division includes: Kids Can Press and recently acquired Klutz, making it the leading children's publisher in Canada and one of the top 10 in the U.S. Merchandise licensing of both classic and contemporary character brands completes the division. Nelvana owns a 20% interest in Teletoon. Nelvana's web site address is www.nelvana.com. Nelvana recently announced its acquisition by Corus Entertainment.
- Source: Nielsen Media Research, Season-to-Date 9/1/00 - 12/31/00
(Includes ABC, FOX, CBS and Kids' WB!)
As a result of the public listing, Toei's revenue figures are now public information for the first time. According to the January 30th issue of Nikkei Kinyu Shimbun Toei Animation's group sales will be 1,283,000 yen in the fiscal half ending in March jumping 28% year over last year and its group net earnings will increase 290% from last year to 148,000 yen.
Yaoi-Con 2001 has secured their quest of honor which will be the talented shoujo/shounen ai/yaoi manga artist You Higuri who's works include Seimaden, Zeus, and Ludwig II. For more information about You Higuri's work please visit http://www.yaoicon.com or Ms. Higuri's own website at http://www.diana.dti.ne.jp/~higuri/
Kotobukiya (12 February 2001)
The third entry in the wonderful series of action figures from ARMORED CORE 2 has just come out. He is called ZIO MATRIX ZCX-F/ROOK and, is released on the heels of ZEO MATRIX ZCL-XA/2 and EMLORD ECM-XR00. I'd just like to say that there are a lot of toys out there that are similar to these action figures which aren't nearly as good. The designs of the mechs from this PLAYSTATION 2 game are really solid. Kotobukiya does them justice with high quality production and amazing attention to detail. Any Mech-lover really needs to pick these up for robot-design alone. The ZIO MATRIX ZCX-F/ROOK comes with three option heads and retails for 3,200 Yen.
I do understand that anime fans would be horrified to learn that SF II will be released with just an English language track, but there are reasons for this, first, when we released SF II on VHS years ago we changed a lot of the sound track as well as dubbing it, so when the rights were acquired for SF II we signed a deal that would allow us to release SF II with our re-worked sound track and dub, not an original Japanese soundtrack with subtitles.
If we were allowed to release the version with subtitles and original soundtrack then it would have to be a double disk due to the fact that the sound/music do not run in sync with the English dub version.
We are looking into releasing a sub version but we would like to see how the English dub version does first, if sales are good then a special limited edition version could be released this year.
It is also worth mentioning that SF II is Manga Entertainments second biggest selling anime title so getting this title on to DVD is a priority even if this does mean doing a limited version later on.
Fans of SF II will be pleased to here that our DVD release of StreetFighter Alpha in March does have sub and dub versions on it.
SERIES 6 - Concept Art
SS Trunks in Armor
SS Goku in Armor
Android 16
Android 19
Perfect Cell w/Cell Jr.
SERIES 7 - Concept Art
Spopovich
Krillin w/ Hair
SS Gohan (teen)
Great Saiyaman
Dabura
SERIES 8 - Concept Art
Majin Boo
Videl w/ Long Hair
SS Goku (bomber jacket)
Majin Vegeta
SS Trunks & SS Goten (2 pack)
Deluxe figures with some sort of plastic energy ball include SS Gohan, SS Goku and SS Vegeta.
9" collector's series of battle damaged SS Gohan, SS Goku and SS Vegeta. Secret Saiyan (formerly known as morphing skin figures) Trunks, Goku, Vegita, and Gohan change from regular to forms Saiyan forms. triking Z figures of Piccollo, Trunks, and Vegita.
Trunks time capsule.
From McFarlane Toys 3D Animation from Japan II is set for release in September, figures inlcude Naomi Armitage (Armitage III), Akira (Akira), Joker Clown Gang Leader (Akira), Kaneda with Bike delux box set (Akira), Motoko Kusinagi (Ghost in the Shell), Tenchi Masaki (Tenchi Muyo), and Soul Taker (Soul Taker) anime series.
McFarlane's Metal Gear Solid 2 lineup includes Solid Snake, Olga, Revolver Ocelot, Metal Gear Ray, MGS2 Top Secret Operative 1, MGS2 Top Secret Operative 2 and MGS2 Top Secret Operative 3.
ReSaurus is showing off new Sonic the Hedgehog figures and new Speed Racer figures of Racer X with #9 Racer and Sparky w/ Mach 5 as well as a group of shot of figures of Speed, Trixie, Sparky, Sprittle and Chim Chim. An Akuma bust and the following figures (in player 1 and 2 color schemes) are as follows:
Series 2:
AKUMA
Charlie
Chun-Li
Necro
Remy
Sagat
Series 3:
Dan
Dhalsim
Guile
Guy
Ibuki
M. Bison
Series 4
Ken (Alpha)
Ryu (Alpha)
Yang and Yun
Zangief
Palisades Marketing is showing off Dragon Ball Z busts of Android 18, Goku, Krillin, Piccolo and Trunks at Toy Fair. Each measures close to 7 inches in height and are due out starting in June for $39.95.
New issues of the orignal Transformers toys are with a new animated TV series (The Japanese Car Robots Anime TV Series??) that will air on Fox Kids.
The Transformer two packs will retail at $4.99 and include: Ironhide/Mirage, Hot Shot/R.E.V. Race Evolution, W.A.R.S. Wicked Attack Recon Sportscar/X-TECH and Speedbreaker/4-Wheel Drive Truck. Ironhide/Mirage, Hot Shot/R.E.V. Race Evolution, W.A.R.S. Wicked Attack Recon Sportscar/X-TECH will be available in August, Speedbreaker/4-Wheel Drive Truck will showup in October.
The Deluxe figure line from $9.99 is made up of Hammerstrike, Tank Drone currently available, Spy Streak, Motorcyle Drone, Battle Unicorn all expected in March. Other figures include Prowl and Speedbreaker. Deluxe Beast Machines figures also retailin at $9.99 include Noble Wolf Beast Changer, Rapticon, and Terranotron, Strika, and Nights Slash Cheetor, and Megatron Megabolt.
Beast Machines Battle for the Spark mega figures will retail at $14.99. Beast Machines Electronic Ultra Figures will retail for $19.99, and include Ultra Jetstorm, Ultra Nightscream, and Ultra T-Wrecks. The figures can be seen at here
Source: Figures.com
BANDAI ON THE ROAD
Travel update: Jason will be representing Bandai Entertainment at KATSUKON later this week. Jason will also be visiting FANIME at the end of March as the official representative, while Richard has submitted a vacation request form and will be attending as a stealth attendee/fanboy.
From the Gundam OfficialAnnouncement:
The original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series and Mobile Suit Gundam: The MS08th Team will be airing on Cartoon Network in 2001!
This website will be updated with more information about the Universal Century timeline in which Mobile Suit Gundam and the MS08th Team exist. Learn about the history and origins about Gundam, coming soon!
In Italy for domestic aniamtion, there are 2 publisher: Yamato Video and Dynamic Italia (partner of Go Nagai's Dynamic Planning). Both Are working on DVD releases. Yamato has relased: Lupin III (first series), in 5 DVD; the OAV series of Cashern in 1 DVD, and the OAV series of Techno Ninja Gatchman. They announced Versailles no Bara (called in Italy Lady Oscar), Dagger of Kamui and City Hunter Special 6. Dynamic has announced al lot of titles , but nope of these are published yet (it's tipical of Dynamic :). Excel Saga, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo, Alexander, Utena the movie
Actually in stores are:
Dynamic
- Mobile Battleship Nadesico #5
- Trigun #5
- Neoranga #6
- Excel Saga #3
- Galaxy Cyclone Bryger #8
- Blue Submarine No. 6 #2
- Shamanic Princess #2
Yamato
Magic Knight Rayearth #1,2,3 (OAV)
I cavalieri dello Zodiaco (Saint Seiya)
About mangas, four are the major publisher: Star Comics, Panini, Dynamic Italia and Play Press Publishing.
Star Comics now started InuYasha, but are still publishing: Dai Great Adventure, Video Girl Ai, Sanctuary, Jojo kimioura no boken, Touch,Rayearth 2, Family Compo, Yuyu Hakusho, Dasah Kappei, Dragonball, Capitan Tsubasa, Clover, Minna Acchegau, Mars, Ah my godnesss, Kamikaze, Patlabor, Hen. Next month will start with Short Program and Video Girl Len.
Panini this month is publishing: Nausicaa, It, After School Adventure, Vagabond, Berserk, Spriggan, Blame, Riot, Gundam 0079, I'll - Generation Basket, Fushigi Yugi, Angel Sanctuary, Angel Arm.
Play Press Publishing make: Vampire Princess Miyu, Etcetera (Tow Nakazaki), Sobakkasu. On Summer we'll publish Boys BE..., Love Hina, Cyborg Kuro-chan and King of bandit Jing.
ADV FILMS and DIC ENTERTAIMENT Announce Release of “Sailor Moon: Green Eyed Monsters!” & “Sailor Moon: And in this Corner – Sailor Venus!”
HOUSTON(February 12, 2000) - ADV Films and DIC Entertainment are proud to announce the latest home video releases of Sailor Moon, the #1 television series for girls on Cartoon Network’s top-rated “Toonami” programming block. ADV Films will release Sailor Moon: Green Eyed Monsters! and Sailor Moon: And in this Corner – Sailor Venus! on May 1, 2001. Featuring the English-dubbed, family/children friendly version of the show, as seen on television, each tape contains four episodes never before seen on video and is available for the suggested retail price of $12.98. Sailor Moon: Green Eyed Monsters! Zoycite’s evil monsters are still searching for the Rainbow Crystals and only the Sailor Scouts can stop them! But before Sailor Moon can lead the Scouts to victory, she must first defeat another equally dangerous monster: the jealousy in her own heart! An unusual grandpa, an army of cats and another Tuxedo Kamen imitator are just a few of the many complications the Sailor Scouts must face in the seventh astonishing collection of Sailor Moon! Sailor Moon: And in this Corner – Sailor Venus! If you thought the fight against Queen Beryl and the Negaverse was wild, you won’t believe the action when Sailor Venus arrives! She’s bold, she’s beautiful… but which side is she on? And that’s only the beginning of the excitement - Serena and Darien finally reveal their secret identities to each other, a scissors-snipping monster runs amuck and a new enemy arrives, all in the eighth electrifying collection of Sailor Moon! An anime sensation that has appeared in the “Lycos Top 50” consecutively for the past 41 weeks, Sailor Moon is a proven multi-billion dollar brand in specialty and mass channels, with products ranging from toys and games to clothing and school supplies. Sailor Moon appears Monday through Friday at 4:30 p.m. on the Cartoon Network during the “Toonami” block of programming, and is seen by over 1.1 million viewers a day. Cartoon Network also airs Sailor Moon on Saturday mornings at 11:00 a.m. Founded in Paris in 1971, DIC Entertainment is a leading entertainment company that develops, produces, distributes and merchandises animated content for children and families worldwide. With more than 3,000 half-hours of programming, DIC maintains the second largest library of American animation in the world. DIC’s library consists of evergreen properties such as “Inspector Gadget,” “Madeline,” “Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?” “Sonic The Hedgehog,” “Super Mario Bros.” and “Captain Planet,” which have won numerous Emmy, Cable Ace, Humanitas and Environmental Media Awards. ADV Films, the premiere label of A.D.Vision, Inc. formed in 1992, is North America’s #1 distributor of top-of-the-line Japanese animation (“anime”), with titles such as Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Samurai X and Neon Genesis Evangelion. ADV Films, along with distributing top-quality, computer-animated titles such as ReBoot® and Shadowraiders™, and Weird-Ohs™ and the live-action sci-fi hit Farscape, also produces American and Japanese live-action programming for theatrical and broadcast release. Check out ADV Films on the web at www.advfilms.com.
Green Eyed Monsters! And In This Corner – Sailor Venus!
Street Date: 05/01/01 Street Date: 05/01/01
Price: $12.98 Price: $12.98
Running Time: 100 minutes Running Time: 100 minutes
Rating: G Rating: G
"Will there be a 4th Devilman OVA to finish off the saga?"
"I recently found out that the sales figures for Amon The Apocalypse Of Devilman sold very few copies in Japan at the end of 2000 (dont know the EXACT figure). The sales were much much lower than the comsumers and copywright holders had anticipated too. Infact it was shown that Fewture gained a larger share hold from their Devilman toy sales, than Kodansha did from the actual OVA!! The third OVA was rushed too, and contained a mangled plot focussing on screwed in elements from Devilman volumes #4 & #5. The only way they could bring a 4th Devilman OVA onto the market, would be for them to adapt it from the newly published "AMON: The Darkside Of Devilman," or the 1987 manga "NEW DEVILMAN (Shin Devilman)." And for this to happen, there would have to a VERY large out cry and demand for Dynamic to make one (the kind of thing where freaked-out fans bombard Nagai & Dynamic Pro. with emails and SA fan letters, etc)"
Also, for fans, there's more info on Devil Man toys, and pictures covers of manga that contain the edited scenes from the original Violence Jack manga.
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