Back in the old days of translated anime in the United States, fans who wanted to buy anime on VHS tapes had to choose whether they wanted to get the version with English-dubbed audio or the one with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
A rather large envelope arrived at "Cel Shaded" Central last week containing two unexpected surprises: "Ghost in the Shell" and the first volume of "Akira," the first two manga bearing the Kodansha Comics imprint in the U.S.
Last week was an unusually busy week in terms of announcements of new anime and manga, with three companies unveiling new products within days of one another.
I must confess that I'm usually not one to toot my own horn, preferring to stay in the background while others spread the word about what I write every week.
Your humble columnist has been reporting on anime and manga news since June 2005 — or, in terms of today's column topic, for four Halloweens and a fifth one on the way next Saturday. Yet for all that time, I can't remember a year as chock-full of fan-related events leading up to and including Halloween as this year.
Prying news out of people in the anime and manga industry — aside, perhaps, from new-product announcements — can be a tricky proposition at times. So it went for Kodansha, one of the major players in the manga-publishing market in Japan.
The Hawaii International Film Festival has had some pretty nice treats for anime and manga fans over the years, and this year's edition is no exception.
Whenever the big guns of the anime and manga industry show up at an anime convention, big announcements are virtually guaranteed to follow. Such was the case last weekend at the New York Anime Festival, when Viz announced plans for its newest online anime simulcast: "Inu-Yasha: The Final Act."