News
Weekly Wrapup 27/Feb - 3/Mar
posted on by Georgia Blair
This week, two famous mystery manga series coincidentally revealed new serialisations will begin this month. Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine announced that Kindaichi Case Files, partially released in English by Tokyopop, will resume regular serialisation after a 12 year break. This year marks the series' 20th anniversary, and original series creator Seimaru Amagi will relaunch the manga with Fumiya Sato's art on March 7.
The eighth "complete edition" volume of Naoki Urasawa's (Pluto, Monster, 20th Century Boys) Master Keaton announced that Urusawa will draw a sequel titled Master Keaton Remaster set twenty years after the original series, with a story by his editor and collaborator Takashi Nagasaki (Monster, Pluto, Billy Bat). Shogakukan's Big Comic Original, which first serialised Master Keaton in 1988, will begin the sequel on March 18. The series received an anime adaptation released in North America by Geneon.
Composer Yoko Kanno, well-known for her work on soundtracks for anime and video game titles, is collaborating with film writer and director Shunji Iwai on a song for the anniversary of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster with all earnings to go to earthquake relief efforts. Both Kanno and Iwai's hometowns, located in Miyagi Prefecture, were affected by the disaster, and the song will feature vocals from 33 singers, celebrities and sports figures who hail from Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima Prefectures. The full song will debut at a concert presented and screened by NHK on the disaster's anniversary, March 11.
Goro Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's film From Up On Poppy Hill won the animation category in the 35th Annual Japan Academy Prize, beating out K-ON!, Buddha: The Great Departure (Tezuka Osamu no Buddha - Akai Sabaku yo! Utsukushiku-), Tōfu Kozō, and Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence. The animation category was formed five years ago with previous winners including The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Tekkonkinkreet, Ponyo, and Summer Wars. Studio Ghibli's film won last year's animation category with The Secret World of Arrietty, and has previously won the overall Best Picture award with Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke.
In the United States, The Secret World of Arrietty is now the highest-grossing Ghibli film, having taken in US$15,268,380 in cinemas as of March 1. The movie, based on Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers, was released in America and Canada on the 17th of February, and overtook Ponyo's earnings this weekend to become the fifth-highest-grossing anime film in the country. Arrietty opened in Australia and New Zealand in January and is still screening in select cinemas.
Finally, American production company 4Kids Entertainment has announced the long-standing dispute between it, Asatsu-DK (ADK) and TV Tokyo regarding the Yu-Gi-Oh! license has been settled "amicably". The dispute began last March with TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems filing a law suit accusing 4Kids of "underpayments, wrongful deductions, and unmet obligations", and claiming the company owed them US$4,792,460.36. In its announcement, 4Kids has stated it will continue to be the exclusive licensing agent for the popular anime and trading card franchise outside of Asia and that the settlement was not "amicably", without the involved companies accepting liability.
