Otaku, No Video

ANN:  The new Astro Boy film premiered at a low #6 in the U.S., bringing in a mere $7 million dollars in its opening weekend. Awwww, poor Astro. However, you can read Frederik L. Schodt’s quite positive review as the 4th comment on the NY Times review of the film. Schodt translated the Astro Boy manga and was a personal friend of Astro creator Osamu Tezuka.

ANN:  Meanwhile, Ponyo has now made a full $15 million in the United States. Separately, the film’s American producer announced that Ponyo will hit American DVD in March of 2010.

AnimeNation.net:  We now have a release date for the upcoming Gundam Unicorn, plus more details. It’ll be a 6-episode OVA, released on both DVD and Blu-Ray.  The Blu-Ray will have English and Japanese dubs, and subs in Japanese, English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. The DVD will just have the Japanese dub with an optional English sub. The first episode will be released March 12, 2010, and will be set three years after the events of Char’s Counterattack.

AnimeNation.net:  In other mecha news, Bandai has announced that the last-ever Votoms anime (an OVA, this time) will be released starting March 26, 2010. Votoms was the ”other serious mecha show” besides Gundam back in the 1980′s and 1990′s. No word on exactly why they’re killing Votoms.

AnimeNation.net:  The new sequel to Kiddy Grade, the oddly-named Kiddy Girl-and, is now available on YouTube. Kinda. Kadokawa is placing each (raw) episode on YouTube for precisely 24 hours after the show airs. After that, it’ll get pulled. Kinda…weird.

KotoUS.com:  Kotobukiya, the highly-respected Japanese model kit maker, has launched an English website, in the interest of expanding their U.S. presence. So head over to KotoUS.com for beauty shots of their Evangelion, Dead or Alive, Gurren Lagann, Index, Shuffle!, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars figures. You can even buy their model kits from there!

AnimeNews.biz:  Viz has announced they’ll release the first volume of Rumiko “Goddess of Manga” Takahashi’s latest work, Rin-ne, on October 20th (you may know her from such little-known works as Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2). So, it’s already out! Go get it!

ANN:  Do you love manga? Do you love it so much that it’s your preferred media? Would you like to get your world news in manga form? You’re in luck! The Japanese-only Manga no Shimbun will give that to you, and according to ANN, plans to translate its works into English (and French and Korean) in about six months! You can see what they’ve got now at NewsManga.com, and I’ll admit it looks darned polished.

ANN:  If you love manga that much, you’ll adore the newly-announced plans for the Tokyo International Manga Library, planned for 2014 and (hopefully) home to 2 million items.

ANN:  Several anime fan-favorites will be given awards at the next Digital Content Grand-Prix. Mamoru Hosoda, director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars will get an award, as will Kyoto Animation (of Haruhi, Lucky Star, and K-ON!), and the full-size Gundam statue in Odaiba.

Until next week: Stand up to the victory!