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Human Versus Machine Japanese Translation Mini Battle

Date: 2024 May 09 20:06 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The manga tech start up Orange Inc recently raised over 19 million USD in funding for machine translated manga. We were quite intrigued because machine translation hasn't always worked out in the past for manga titles. One recent example was the Ranking of Kings Manga that had to be pulled because the quality of the translations were so poor. What's worse was the lack of quality control from everyone involved in the publishing of the title.

As we were curious, we reached out to some professional translators to ask their opinions on the current state of translation.

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron Wins An Oscar

Date: 2024 March 12 17:41 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film 2024.

The highly coveted gold statue is considered the biggest award in Hollywood circles. Miyazaki is not only the first and only Japanese director to have won in this category, but he has also won it twice! Spirited Away won the Oscar in 2002.

Miyazaki's other movies Howl's Moving Castle and The Wind Rises have been nominated in the past, but did not win. While other Ghibli movies The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There and The Red Turtle have all been nominated previously too.

This is an exceptional achievement and marks another award on the shelf for The Boy and the Heron, which also won a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA.

Souce: The Oscars 2024

Akira Toriyama Manga Legend and Creator of Dragon Ball Dies at 68

Date: 2024 March 08 07:34 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

It's been announced today on X (the site formally known as Twitter) and on the official Dragon Ball site that Akira Toriyama passed away on 1st March 2024 due to acute subdural hematoma. He was 68 years old.

It's a massive understatement to call Toriyama a legend, the popularity and influence of the Dragon Ball Series by itself is huge. He's also had success with other projects including the artwork and character design for video games Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger. The up coming game based on his work Sand Land is due to be released on multiple formats this April too.

You can read the official statement from the Dragon Ball Official Website, BBC News, The Guardian also pretty much every news outlet has an obituary of some kind.

Akira Toriyama work was iconic and his passing will surprise many fans around the world. As news of his death spreads around internet many industry professionals are posting condolences and also admit that it's because of him they first got into manga and anime in the first place.

Souce: Dragon Ball Offical

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron Wins Golden Globe Award

Date: 2024 January 09 21:24 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Animated 2024. The coveted award forms part of Hollywood's Award season. Miyazaki is the first Japanese director to have won this category (which was established in 2007).

Anime has been nominated in the past (such as Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai and Masaaki Yuasa Inu-Oh), but has until now failed to win. This year the film went up against Makoto Shinkai's Suzume, Wish , The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Elemental.

The Boy and the Heron was also nominated for Best Original Score - Motion Picture for Joe Hisaishi's work, however he Ludwig Göransson won this category for the Oppenheimer score.

The Boy and the Heron has been shown in the US and UK will probably get a wider release due to award win.

Hayao Miyazaki was also the first Japanese Animation director to win an Oscar for Spirited Away.

Souce: The Golden Globes

Leiji Matsumoto 1938-2023

Date: 2023 February 26 11:05 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

This week it was announced that renowned manga artist Leiji Matsumoto had died on 13th February 2023 of acute heart failure in a Tokyo hospital, at the age of 85.

You may have encountered his highly influential works such as Galaxy Express 999, Queen Emeraldas, Space Pirate Captain Harlock or even Interstella 5555 his collaboration with Daft Punk.

You could read the BBC Obituary or equally well written Financial Times Obituary , but the best write up we've found is on Anime Limited's Blog it's written by anime expert Helen McCarthy, who has written numerous books on anime including a collection of Essays on Leiji Matsumoto.

Souce: Anime Limited

What's on NHK World?

Date: 2023 January 29 13:05 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > TV

Being a fan of anime, manga and Japanese stuff in general it's always good to find a great source of content. Most fans will hunt on DVDs and blu-rays for those extra features, read magazines and articles and various bonus features included in books and so on. They'll even read websites like this one, but one resource that we find that is frequently overlooked is NHK World.

NHK is the national state broadcaster for Japan. NHK World is it's international arm. It's content is available in a selection of languages including either dubbed into English or in Japanese with English Subtitles. The service is free to access and is available on a wide range of satellite and cable providers in the US, UK and further afield. You can also watch it free and legally on the website or app that's offered on many platforms including iOS (iPhone and iPad), Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android, Roku and more. You can watch the live broadcast or the video on demand service.

A lot of the content there is excellent for anime and manga fans.

Key Stateside Crunchyroll Talent Joins UK's Anime Limited in Expansion Move

Date: 2021 April 15 21:05 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks at anime distributors Anime Limited have just sent us details of their new hire and key leadership promotion.

The anime firm have announced that they've hired Miles Thomas as their new Chief Marketing Officer. Miles was previously at the anime streaming giants Crunchyroll for 8 years making waves as he expanded their social media network and setup the Editorial Programming department. He brings his industry and domain knowledge to an already strong firm.

Internally there's been a bit of a restructure with Jessica Poce having also been appointed Chief Operating Officer and Kerry Kasim has been promoted from her position as VP Marketing to the role of General Manager, UK and Ireland.

The details of the expansion plan aren't fully explained in the press release, they hint at expanding to other territories and verticals. Reading in-between the lines we're guessing they intend to expand their music offerings and maybe their streaming services, but we're just inferring this from their press release.

It's interesting to see the next stage in the anime industry as Manga Entertainment fades away as it gets absorbed into Funimation, which in turn also owns Crunchyroll.

Anime Limited has always had excellently presented releases. Their collectors and ultimate editions always contain a ton of extra content and are fantastically packaged (we're eager to get our hands on their upcoming release of Violet Evergarden). They've also always been good at cinema releases, bringing Your Name and Mirai to name a few to the big screens. Anime Limited have also gone the extra mile at events as they tend to bring guests from Japan to events like the MCM London Comic Con. We hope they continue with these core strengths as they expand and are interested to see what they've got planned.

Sony Buys Crunchyroll for $1.175 Billion USD

Date: 2020 December 10 21:14 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The news is out! Streaming anime platform Crunchyroll have just been bought by Sony for $1.175 billion (USD). In their corporate structure Sony will put Crunchyroll as part of the Funimation Global Group.

This means Sony now own a substantial amount of the English speaking distribution companies, in the UK they own Manga Entertainment UK along with Funimation UK and in Australia they own Madman Anime Group (which was a part of Madman Entertainment) and in the US they own Funimation.

Crunchyroll's General Manager Joanne Waage says:

"We are excited to embark on this new journey. Crunchyroll has built a world-class brand with a passionate fan-base of over 3M subscribers, 50M social followers and 90M registered users. These amazing fans have helped to propel anime into a global phenomenon,

"Combining the strength of the Crunchyroll brand and the expertise of our global team with Funimation is an exciting prospect and a win for the incredible art form of anime."

Lots of people are publishing their own opinion on this acquisition. At Otaku News our own opinion on this is neutral to negative. We've been hearing whispers of this deal for at least a month. Funimation now have a large chunk of the English speaking anime distribution market and a monopoly of anime streaming services. Worldwide their competition includes Netflix which have been releasing some truly excellent and innovate anime recently. Also consider Amazon Video who do have some good titles such as Vinland Saga but is limited and discovery of decent anime on the Amazon platform is difficult at best.

Additionally less competition generally means less innovation and a lower likelihood of beating their rivals offerings. So those nagging issues with video play back on certain versions of certain players might not be prioritised to fix any more. The question remains what will happen now that Funimation has two streaming platforms with their own Funimation offering and Crunchyroll. Will they be merged under one brand? Will they be kept separate and the technology consolidated? When such technology platforms get merged, it isn't always the best platform that wins, there could be other internal considerations that don't always present as a good result to end users.

Will all the Funimation titles be ported across to Crunchyroll now or vis-versa? Will some titles where the streaming rights are owned by other companies be pulled from Crunchyroll now they're owned by a rival? What will happen to staff with duplicated roles in both companies? At this stage it's all speculation and we'll have to wait and see how it turns out.

Crunchyroll Voice Actors Dub from Home

Date: 2020 May 11 19:48 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us news about their current dubbing process. Dedicated to bringing you anime under lockdown their current cast of voice actors are currently recording from home to ensure you'll still keep getting English dubbed versions.

They've now switched to a fully-remote workflow. We wonder if this will become the new normal for voice actors? Normally most anime voice actors in the US are based in industry hubs near LA, Texas and sometimes New York, but now will they be able search for new talent further afield?

Call For Papers - Anime and Manga Fandom Before the Year 2000

Date: 2020 February 09 11:09 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Culture

Readers in academic circles may be interested to hear about this call for chapter proposals. It's for a book devoted to archival research in anime and manga fandom before the year 2000. Co-edited by anime and manga expert Helen McCarthy and Dr. Darren-Jon Ashmore, Professor of Anthropology, Yamanashi Gakuin University.

Helen McCarthy tells us "Independent scholars are welcome to submit, you don't have to be attached to an institution, anime and manga don't have to be your primary areas of study if you are. We're really keen to get new thinking and rigorous archival research"

Details can be found on https://cfplist.com/CFP/25594.

Souce: CFP List

Tragedy at Kyoto Animation

Date: 2019 July 19 22:09 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

On Thursday 18th of July at 10:30am tragedy struck Kyoto Animation. An arsonist started an explosive fire. The resulting fire killed 33 people and injured 35 others, with most of the victims dying from carbon monoxide posing as a result of the fire. This attack is the deadliest in post war Japan, killing more people than the 1995 sarin nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo Subway system.

Kyoto Animation is affectionately abbreviated to KyoAni. They've produced many hit anime titles including The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On, Full Metal Panic, Free!, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and Violet Evergarden. They've had success with movie adaptations of various series plus have created popular movies such as A Silent Voice.

KyoAni are renowned for their animation quality and for producing memorable titles with a gentle charm to them. They are a studio with a special relationship with their staff, the staff hired as salaried employees and not paid by frame like some other animation houses.

There's been an outpouring of grief and support from fans all around the world.

US distributors Sentai and Aniplex have both set up crowd funding campaigns help.

You can read more about this story on:

Souce: NHK World

Funimation Acquires UK Anime Distributor Manga Entertainment Limited

Date: 2019 May 29 21:00 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Press Releases

The good folks from anime distributors Manga Entertainment UK have just sent us some interesting news. They've been acquired by anime distributor Funimation. The details of the acquisition have not been revealed.

It's not exactly clear at this stage what will happen to Manga Entertainment UK in the long term. They're strong anime brand in the UK releasing popular shonen titles including Dragon Ball Z, Bleach and Naruto. They frequently have a big presence at events like MCM Comic Con London. They've always been around in one form or another on the UK anime scene. Clearly the executives at Funimation have a plan for Manga Entertainment UK, but at this stage it's not clear what it'll be. Will they slowly be rebranded and absorbed into Funimation? Or will they remain a subsidiary? Only time will tell.

Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai Gets An Oscar Nomination

Date: 2019 January 26 21:17 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

Mamoru Hosoda's latest movie Mirai has been nominated for an Oscar for Animated Feature Film. It made the the list of final nominees which also includes Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Mirai's nomination is significant as it's the first anime film to be nominated that isn't from Studio Ghibli. Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away was nominated in 2002 and won the Oscar, being to date the only animated movie from Japan to win the prize.

ReedPOP Acquires UK MCM Comic Con

Date: 2017 October 23 17:14 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Press Releases

It's almost time for the MCM London Comic Con! It hits this weekend from Friday 27th October to Sunday 29th October 2017 at London's Excel Centre. Traditionally we post news about what's happening at the event, but this time we're going to post something about the MCM Comic Con itself. MCM Comic Con have been acquired by ReedPOP, the worldâ€™s largest producer of pop culture events.

ReedPop are boutique group within Reed Exhibitions, part of RELX Group who are behind events such as New York Comic Con. The press release states that its impact will begin to be seen and felt on all 2018 events. What this impact means exactly remains to be seen.

Forbes have an interesting analysis of the acquisition and the article quotes "Right now we are still in the discovery stage of really getting to know the MCM team and their shows so I don't want to make any assumptions [about operational changes]," said Lance Fensterman, Global Head of ReedPOP.

From a business perspective, if you're looking to gain new markets internationally it makes sense to buy an existing established business. If you're looking to set up a Comic Con in the UK why compete with the biggest when you can become the biggest by buying it? It also means you'll get an established team of event runners. You can observe what they do well and fold it into your other operations too.

Having attended MCM events for years now, we've noticed how they will refine and tweak things to make them better for attendees. Last London Comic Con in May 2017 they had to change the whole entry process and include bag and security checks following the tragic attack in Manchester. They did this at very short notice, we believe they made it work well and whoever was working behind the scenes to make this happen did a stunning job.

MCM London Comic had a over 130,000 people attending the event in May 2017 alone. We must admit we're curious what ReedPop will do to the event.

Trouble for DMP's Tezuka Kickstarter projects?

Date: 2014 December 07 23:30 | Posted By: Eeeper

Category > Current Affairs

Digital Manga Publishing have been trying to realign their plans to publish all of Osamu Tezuka's works on Kickstarter but things are not going well for them. Otaku News looks at the latest problem and the campaigns in general.

Johnnys' World: Top of the J-Pops

Date: 2013 January 25 15:36 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Culture

J-Pop fans who can access NHK World will want to tune in for Johnnys' World: Top of the J-Pops.

The documentary focuses on Johnny Kitagawa of talent agency Johnny's Entertainment. The talent agency represents Tsuyoshi Domoto of Kinki Kids and Hey! Say! Jump!.

It'll be broadcast on NHK World on:
Saturday 26th January 2013 - 23:10 (UTC)
Sunday 27th January 2013 - 3:10/ 7:10/ 11:10/ 15:10/ 19:10 (UTC)

NHK World broadcasts content in English and is free to access. It's available in many countries.

In the UK if you have Sky you can access NHK World on Channel 507. If you've got FreeSat you can access it on channel 209.

Failing that, you can also watch the show on-line on the NHK Website, JIB TV, or on the NHK World App on iOS Devices (iPhone, iPad, etc) and Android Devices.

Souce: NHK World

Funimation sues former ADV company, Section23, Sentai Filmworks

Date: 2012 January 13 18:01 | Posted By: Eeeper

Category > Current Affairs

Funimation sues ADV, Sentai and others for alleged debt arising from ARM/Sojitz deal.

Bandai US and UK shuts down DVD/BD/Manga production

Date: 2012 January 05 13:34 | Posted By: Eeeper

Category > Retail

The US anime releasing division of Bandai has announced that from February they will cease publication of both new anime titles and manga titles. The company’s UK and French sister divisions have also released similar statements.

Cowboy Bebop Movie Script Charity Auction

Date: 2011 November 30 14:50 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

The folks at FrontTowardsGamer.com have got in touch with us to spread the word about their charity auction. They've got a copy of the Cowboy Bebop Movie Script, which has been autographed by the US voice actors.

The charity auction aims to raise money to build video game stuffed care packages for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Souce: FrontTowardsGamer.com

Mnet Premieres New Series Culture Japan with Danny Choo on July 5 2011

Date: 2011 June 21 15:30 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > TV

US based readers who can receive Mnet will want to tune in July 5th 2011 at 9:30pm ET/PT to catch Culture Japan which stars expert otaku Danny Choo. Each week Danny will explore different aspects of Japanese pop culture.

You can also catch the show on Crunchy Roll.

Multi-National Manga Anti-Piracy Coalition Formed

Date: 2010 June 08 16:47 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Multi-National Manga Anti-Piracy Coalition Formed

We've received some very interesting details from VIZ Media about the formation of a Multi-National Manga Anti-Piracy Coalition.It seems that the industry has grown tired of Scanlations - manga scanned into a digital format and distributed without the copyright holders consent. The coalition include the 36 members of Japan's Digital Comic Association, Square Enix, VIZ Media, TOKYOPOP and Yen Press.

Originally scanlations were manga translated by fans into their native language from Japanese. This can be seen as the manga equivalent of anime fansubs. Some scanlation sites branched out to scans of manga that was already official translated and licensed outside of Japan.

This has cost the manga publishing industry significant amounts of money, not just in lost book sales, but lost opportunities in the relatively new market of eBooks and mobile devices.

The coalition intend to target scanlation sites and aggregators of scanlation sites. They've drawn up a list of 30 sites to targeted for action. First they will ask the sites to cease distributing scanlations. If the sites fail to cease distributing further action will be taken depending on the jurisdiction of each site. Actions include legal injunctions against the sites, reporting the sites to governmental anti-piracy units of law enforcement, including the US Justice Department, local law enforcement agencies and the FBI.

Fans curious about piracy in the anime and manga industry should read the Pirate Anime FAQ.

This is not the first time the anime and manga industry has attempted to stop piracy in the industry, but this is the biggest and most coordinated international effort so far. With many companies in the industry forced to make cut backs, closing down offices, laying off staff, we wonder if this is the start of a new approach? Will more companies pursue legal options? Are fansubbers next?

CBLDF to take on manga obscenity case

Date: 2008 October 17 15:20 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Current Affairs

The comic book legal defence fund has agreed to take on the case of Christopher Handley. Handley has a collection of over 1,200 manga a handful of which the US government claims is obscene and contain images of minors involved in sex acts.

Totoro Forest Project

Date: 2008 August 12 17:26 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

Fans of Studio Ghibli and those concerned with conservation will be interested to hear about the project to save Sayama Forest, which is also known as Totoro Forest. The project aims to auction off original artwork and sell a book with the collected art, in order to raise money to protect Sayama Forest.

"A fund-raising exhibition / auction to benefit the Totoro No Furusato National Fund, the Japanese non-profit foundation established by Oscar-winning filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, which is leading efforts to preserve and protect the Sayama Forest. The auction will feature original art created by internationally-acclaimed artists in the fields of animation, comic books, and illustration."

Fans will have to travel to Pixar Animation Studio in Emeryville, California.

Souce: Totoro Forest Project

Bandai Visual USA to be liquidated

Date: 2008 June 04 19:44 | Posted By: Eeeper

Category > Current Affairs

Bandai Namco Holdings has announced the liquidation of the American division of their Bandai Visual releasing arm effective July 1st 2008.

It's over for Nova?

Date: 2007 October 26 05:00 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

BBC News are running at story about Nova, Japan's largest chain of foreign language schools. Apparently the company is in financial crisis and has filed for court protection from creditors. 2,000 Japanese staff have not been paid since July and 4,000 non-Japanese instructors have not been paid their October salary, according to union officials. Nova has also closed all of it's schools.

The firm primarily offers English classes, being the largest foreign language school in Japan, Nova were always keen to recruit English speaking graduates eager for adventures in Japan and frequently attend graduate fairs. English Language schools are often used by otaku as a sort of gap year experience, many have extended their stay from just a year to a couple of years, and some even joining the company permanently making their chosen career path. Nova also advertised their lessons heavily in Japan and even had a mascot, the Nova Usagi, a cute pink rabbit who was enthusiastic about learning English.

For our readers who want to go to Japan for a year, we don't think the English language school market has collapsed, Nova lost a court case that had ruled it had misled customers in adverts about it's services, as a result student enrolment dropped, and Nova accumulated huge debts. There are other English language schools in Japan (we wonder if their enrolment has increased instead of Nova's), and failing that there are also a few government schemes for foreign nationals to participate in.

Souce: BBC News

San Francisco hotel to have Anime theme

Date: 2006 October 13 03:57 | Posted By: Davie

Category > Anime

Interesting news from Anime News Network, San Francisco's Best Western Miyako Inn Hotel is going to be turned into a Japanese pop culture persona, starting with a contest to rename the hotel. The new theme will be "an energetic, optimistic expression" of anime, manga, J-Pop, and street fashion, said Matt Harvey, Creative Director of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a boutique hotel operator that took over the 125-room hotel in May.

Souce: Anime News Network

New York - Tokyo Music Festival scheduled for this weekend

Date: 2006 September 23 15:58 | Posted By: Dallas Marshall

Category > Events

Fujisankei Communications International (FCI) and Sharp Electronics Corporation join forces to present you the New York-Tokyo Music Festival 2006 on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park a free, all-day, good old-fashioned outdoor concert that will have some inspired artistic talents from the East and the West. The festival’s focal point this year is on artists that are just beginning to make a name for themselves in several different musical subgenres, ranging from Turntablism to Dancehall, Hip-hop to Progressive Jazz.

Manga Added To Dictionary

Date: 2006 July 08 02:39 | Posted By: Davie

Category > Manga

According to Anime News Network the word 'Manga' was one of the latest words to be added to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. It joins words like Google, gastric bypass, drama queen, and about 100 other nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The new edition is expected to be released this fall in its original left-to-right format

Souce: Anime News Network

Japanese Prime Minister To Visit Graceland

Date: 2006 June 29 03:18 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

While attending talks between US President George W Bush and Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the two leaders will pay a special visit to a very American home. They will be visiting Graceland the famous house of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley.

According to BBC News this is widely seen as a thank you gesture from Mr Bush to Mr Koizumi, who is known to be a huge Elvis fan. Mr Koizumi has even released a CD with a selection of his favourite Elvis songs. The Japanese PM is such a dedicated fan he helped fund a statue of the King which now stands in Harajuku.

Souce: BBC News

US Game Pirates Arrested.

Date: 2004 December 12 18:20 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

Reuters are reporting on arrests of Game pirates in Washington D.C., for selling modified games consoles which are able to play pirated video games, the machines in question already had 15 games copied across. This is an interesting story, because it is not clear in the article if the modifications have been done for "backup purposes", or just for the sake of piracy. It should also be noted that Anime News Network mention that the retailer in question had been boycotted in the past at Otakon 2000 because they were selling bootleg anime.

Souce: Yahoo! News

US Army Troops Get Anime Goodies

Date: 2004 October 18 17:54 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Press Releases

In one of the more unusual press releases we received this week eigoMANGA have announced that they are sending anime and manga care packs to U.S. Army Troops destined for Iraq.

Apparently there is an anime club formed by the Army troops in Colorado Springs base called "A.N.I.M.E. Club". Independent media and publishing company eigoManga are asking for local otaku to donate anime and manga gifts to the anime fans in the US army.

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