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Weekly Wrapup 15/Aug - 21/Aug

posted on by Georgia Blair
A new venture to promote anime in Hollywood, new Black Rock Shooter anime, One Piece time-skips on television and... wow, that's a lot of people buying doujinshi....

A new company will be established by a joint investment fund between the Japanese government and private sector to handle the overseas planning and development of anime, films and other Japanese content. The All Nippon Entertainment Works, announced last month will be established this October by the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) fund with offices in Tokyo and Los Angeles. One of the company's goals will be to attract interest for adapting Japanese content to Hollywood films and according to the INCJ, "experts with the proven track record and hands-on expertise in both Hollywood and the Japanese contents community will be brought on board." Several major companies are already collaborating with INCJ on the venture including anime studio Production I.G, toy maker Tomy and television broadcasters Fuji TV and TBS.

The original video animation Black Rock Shooter, based on a song and artwork by the doujin music group supercell, will be adapted to a television series to air during Fuji TV'S Noitamina timeslot in January next year. The franchise already includes an upcoming video game, two manga series and figures. While Yutaka Yamamoto, director of the original video animation, is not directing the new project, supercell members huke and Ryo will be involved in the television series according to the official website.

The One Piece anime will begin adapting the manga's New World arc at the beginning of October. Shueisha's V Jump magazine reported that the New World storyline, which began running in the manga last October after a four-week break by creator Eiichiro Oda and which takes place after a timeskip in the manga continuity, will beginning running in the anime adaptation in October 2. The manga has broken several sales records, with the recently-released 61st volume becoming the first manga to sell over 2 million copies of a single volume in three days.

Finally, this year's summer 'Comiket', Comic Market 80, reported a drop of 20000 attendees from its numbers in 2009 and 2010. The major doujinshi and industry convention, which takes place from August 13 to August 15 and from December 29 to December 31 every year at Tokyo Big Sight, reported a total of 540000 attendees at the latest event, compared to 560000 attendees for 2009 and 2010's summer 'Comikets'. The event organisers cited the effect of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster as the reason for the decline. Posters on the ANN forums speculated that the unusually hot weather Tokyo is experiencing may have also had an effect. Despite the drop in attendance, 200000 people visited the event on its third day, matching the current record for attendees on a single day.


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