Announcing the Release of “CyberManga#1” for iPad & iPhone

TOKYO, JAPAN – March 18, 2011 - CyberManga#1, the newly released app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, is an unprecedented new application for enjoying manga, i.e. Japanese-style comics. You can move it, make it talk, or interact with it! It's a manga for next generation to be viewed on digital devices. You can obtain this app from Apple's App Store via the link below, or by searching it with a key-word “cybermanga.” http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/id393513599?mt=8 You can view CyberManga#1 for free. In the app, you will find the first two episodes of a comedy-manga “Zombie-kun,” available in Japanese, English, Chinese and Spanish.

Here's the brief summary of the story; In Shikabane-cho, the town full of zombie residents who had turned into zombies after a terrible chemical-weapon accident, the residents lived a happy life despite their fate. One of them, our protagonist Romero-kun (voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama), had a mysterious capacity that had prevented him from becoming a zombie, but he also lived there happily with his girlfriend Furuchi-san (voiced by Yui Horie) and other residents. However, their fate will change dramatically when a government-dispatched Zombie-hunter appears in their town…

You think a zombie story is scary? No, it's a heart-warming story!

What distinguish CyberManga#1 from other manga products are its features that symbolize the next-generation manga experience: unlike mangas and comics drawn on paper, it has animation-like movements, conversations voiced by professional voice actors, and a feature that allows the viewers to change the casting of the voice actors according to their preference. They have been implemented to be viewed specifically on digital devices.

All the characters are voiced by popular Japanese voice actors, who are all well-known among anime-fans: Nobuyuki Hiyama (voice of Hiei in “Yū Yū Hakusho”, Guy Shishio in “The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar”) Megumi Ogata (voice of Shinji in “Neon Genesis Evangelion”, Kurama in “Yū Yū Hakusho”) Yui Horie (voice of Naru Narusegawa in “Love Hina”, minori Kushieda in “Toradora!”)

CyberManga#1 is equipped with the “Multi-casting System,” that allows viewers to assign voice actors to the characters they choose. For example, in the second episode of “Zombie-kun,” you can switch the voices of the three main characters among the voice actors…you can even assign one voice actor/actress to all the three at the same time. In this way, you'll enjoy the total of 27 combinations. The contents will surely have a great appeal to manga- and anime-fans. Another innovation is its profit-earning system called “Arigato Doll.” If a viewer enjoyed our works for free, he/she can purchase “Arigato Dolls,” a miniature (“chibi”) version of the characters he/she can display on screen like icons. What we??re trying to do with this project is to get back to the root of entertainers.

We'll give away our show first, and charge those who have found it worthwhile, or who are willing to see its sequences. The word "Arigato" is the most beautiful word of appreciation in Japanese language. We have given our dolls this name to show our appreciation to the viewers who are willing to pay for those dolls.

We also plan to release the beta-version of CyberManga Studio for free in near future, a software we developed for creating CyberManga. Kohei Nishio will be teaching a class of manga production for iPad this year employing this software, in the Story Manga Course of Manga Department, Kyoto Seika University in Japan. We hope that the release of this tool invites manga artists of the same aspiration to participate in this experience, creating many works all over the world by encouraging and inspiring each other, and that the movement will eventually grow to open the new stage for manga culture via such digital devices as iPad.

We will be releasing more new episodes with CyberManga from now on. Please look forward to our on-going CyberManga project.

ABOUT Konohana Sakuya: "CyberManga#1" was released by independent manga artists "Konohana Sakuya". (This is the alias of the working partnership between two manga artists, Kohei Nishino and Tsugumi Nishino) Kohei Nishino has the other profession as an associate professor at Manga Department of Kyoto Seika University, the only 4-year university that has a department teaching manga production.

CyberManga#1 URL: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/id393513599?mt=8
Cost to Read: Free
Official Web Site: http://cybermanga.com/