Scifi Channel To Air ‘Rave Master’ Anime in March

The Sci Fi Channel will begin airing the 51-episode Rave Master anime series on its Ani-Monday block starting on March 16th. Two episodes of Rave Master will follow repeated episodes of Gainax’s Gurren Lagann. The first season of Gundam 00, the current mainstay of Ani-Monday, will end with a flourish. Four episodes will be shown back-to-back on February 2nd, and the final episode will air on February 9th followed by the Appleseed anime movie. According to Nebs Blog, the 1996 anime movie X, directed by Rintaro, produced by Madhouse, and based on the Clamp manga will be shown on February 16th, followed by the Street Fighter Alpha movie on February 23rd, Manga Entertainment’s Straight Jacket on March 2nd, and the classic Ninja Scroll anime feature on March 9th. Gurren Lagann and Rave Master then take over on the 16th.

Rave Master, which was heavily edited for a previous run on the kid-centric Toonami and Miguzi blocks on the Cartoon Network, appears to be a rather bizarre choice for a midnight run. The Cartoon Network did show all 51 episodes of Rave Master (though the series ended its run buried on the milkman’s shift at 6am). Many anime fans were hoping that Sci Fi Channel would run the second season of Gundam 00, which is currently airing in Japan, right after completing the first season, but apparently they will have to wait and hope that unlike the Cartoon Network, which never ran Gundam Seed Destiny (after airing Gundam Seed), the Sci Fi Channel will follow through on its Gundam initiative. Certainly the Gundam anime with its science fiction plot and plentiful mecha action is an excellent fit for the Sci-Fi Channel.

Produced by Studio Deen, the Rave Master anime is based on Hiro Mashima’s 35-volume Groove Adventure RAVE manga series, which Tokyopop has published here in North America as Rave Master. Volume 32 in the series is due out from Tokyopop on February 3’rd.

Source: icv2.com

Manga Publisher TokyoPop Lays Off Eight More Staffers

The Beat blog of the Publishers Weekly trade magazine confirmed with Marc Pavia, the marketing director at the manga publisher Tokyopop, that eight more Tokyopop staffers were laid off this week. Pavia cited the recent, dramatically low sales in the publishing industry as the cause. Pavia acknowledges that Tokyopop will have to space its upcoming releases for some titles, and the company plans on providing more details later. Pavia emphasizes, “Tokyopop is still in business, and we are still focusing on our core business.”

These layoffs come after Tokypop restructured its organization and laid off 39 other employees in June. The Beat reported last week that another seven employees, including an editor, the chief technological officer, the human resources manager, and two more from its Media division, were laid off last month.

Source: Anime News Network

Tokyopop Publishing ‘CSI’ Manga

Tokyopop has announced that it will release CSI: Interns, a full length OEL manga tied to the hit TV property, next September. The new work will not be a straight adaptation. Written by Sekou Hamilton, who has a TV background, with art by Steven Cummings (Pantheon High), CSI: Interns will tell the story of one of a group of teenagers taking part in an internship program at the Las Vegas Criminal Investigations Unit under the eyes of Gil Grissom and Catherine Meadows. When one of the bodies in the morgue turns out to be a classmate, things get too close for comfort.

The CSI manga will be one of a number of such OEL titles that Tokyopop is publishing, including its Blizzard titles, as well as Star Trek, Labyrinth, Ghostbusters, and Battlestar Galactica. As is the case with Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and BSG, there’s also a licensee producing American-style comics based on the property; IDW has the CSI comic license.

Source: icv2.com

More Info On Tokyopop’s Ghostbusters

Benjamin Ong Pang Kean over at Newsarama has an interview with some of the creative team behind the Ghostbusters Manga from Tokyopop…

So yeah, who ya really gonna call?

Last weekend at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, IDW Publishing unveiled a new Ghostbusters comic book series and we spoke with writer Keith Champagne about it.

This follows TokyoPop’s announcement at Anime Expo early this month that they are producing a manga version of the Ghostbusters. Read more

Galactica Manga Coming In 2009 From Tokyopop

Tokyopop announced at Anime Expo that it will publish Battlestar Galactica: Echoes of New Caprica, in March of 2009. The OEL manga volume will be an anthology title with stories from a variety of writers and artists. Storylines will be built in close consultation with writers from the show, according to the announcement at the Tokyopop panel.

Dynamite has had the license for ongoing American-style Battlestar Galactica comic and trade paperback collections since 2005, which continue.

Source: icv2.com