Two star-crossed lovers--J-pop prince and a Shibuya girl--meet and fall for each other. Defying their warring yakuza families, they marry in secret but their doomed love affair ends in tragedy.

Sound familiar? Welcome to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"--manga style.

This March, SelfMadeHero, an imprint of the boutique British publishing company Metro Media Ltd., will release the Bard's romantic classic, alongside "Hamlet" (updated to outer space), retold in the distinctive Japanese comic book style known as manga. Further additions to the Manga Shakespeare Collection are planned.

The series is bound to excite purists and populists in equal measure, but it will also focus attention on a minor revolution that has been unfolding largely unnoticed on the shelves of British bookstores.

Manga, once a niche product available only in specialty shops, has gone mainstream. More than that, it has come home to roost. The Manga Shakespeare series will be available from Kinokuniya bookstores in Japan from April priced at 1,233 yen per volume

So new is the phenomenon that Nielsen BookScan, a leading book sales monitoring company, does not yet have a separate manga category for Britain. But in 2006, graphic novels, of which manga make up roughly half of all titles, sold nearly 900,000 copies grossing an estimated ￡7.6 million pounds (1.8 billion yen), up from ￡5.3 million in 2005 and ￡3.3 million in 2004, making manga one of the fastest growing segments in the publishing industry.

This growth is particularly impressive because in Britain comics have never had the respect they command in continental Europe, said Simon Spanton, editorial director at Gollancz, an Orion imprint. In 2005, Gollancz was the first homegrown publisher to distribute manga in Britain. "It is really quite a sea change for graphic novels to be taken up in the way they have been," Spanton said. "And manga has very much been the way into that."

The indirect evidence of a manga boom is even more compelling. Neo, a slick magazine that covers Asian cult entertainment, particularly manga, arrived on the shelves three years ago. It now has a monthly circulation of 15,000 and its companion Web site < neomag.co.uk > attracts over 130,000 page hits a month, according to The Bookseller magazine. Another leading anime fan site, < uk-anime.net >, receives about 80,000 hits a month.

"The manga scene is the largest it has ever been, with mainstream bookstore chains like Borders, Waterstone's and Heffers all having a manga section," Sonia Leong, 24, an award-winning illustrator and the artist behind SelfMadeHero's "Romeo and Juliet," said in a recent e-mail interview. "Nowadays, you can explain what manga is in less than two sentences, and people let out an 'Ah!' of recognition."

Manga conventions have played a key role in raising awareness, and there are now almost a dozen held regularly throughout Britain. Around 1,200 visitors to Ayacon, one of the largest manga conventions, attended screenings, lectures and participated in cosplay events in 2005. Throw in the London-based International Manga and Anime Festival that gave about $75,000 (9 million yen) worth of prizes in 2006 to manga artists and you have all the hallmarks of a craze in the making.

Explaining the new popularity of manga, Spanton points to the growing influence of Japanese culture more generally. "Card trading games, cartoons, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Akira--the young market is very heavily saturated by it, but until now there was no way into the bookstore for this. Manga have provided a way into the bookstore for Japanese culture."

On the other hand, Paul Gravett, a leading British expert on comics and the author of "Manga: 60 years of Japanese Comics," has argued that it is manga's innovative use of dynamic camera angles and visual grammar to tell stories, as well as complex characters and distinctive graphics that have made titles such as Osamu Tezuka's "Buddha" a critical and popular success.

Certainly, the publishers and artists behind Manga Shakespeare hope that those strengths will complement and clarify the passion and melodrama of the original for young and old alike. "Most people struggle with Shakespeare due to the difficulties of understanding Elizabethan English, but when the words are reinforced by so many storytelling devices, it becomes much clearer," Leong says.

"You can show if someone is being sarcastic, if someone has been misunderstood--using sweat drops, nerve bursts ・ou can illustrate someone's memories or visions by changing the frames, style of speech bubbles," and by using emotive background colors.

The fans themselves appreciate the sophistication of the manga art form. "Whether it be a high school romance, coming-of-age story, or a big old-fashioned intergalactic robot war, the creators and writers of anime and manga don't speak down to their audience or readers," says Dani Moore, 19, an avid reader of the "Ghost in the Shell" series and the business liaison officer for Tomodachi, a manga and anime convention based in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Manga has also managed to open up new market segments. Despite the image of comic book fans as geeky, 30-year-old men who live with their mothers, British manga readers are increasingly women. Kim Mackay, a Borders graphic novel and manga buyer, attributes much of the company's 33 percent jump in manga sales over the last year to young women interested in shojo or "girl" manga.

Typical is the popular "Fushigi Yugi" (Mysterious Play) series by Yuu Watase, published by Gollancz, that tells the story of a high school student transported to China when she picks up an enchanted book. Fantastic adventure and epic romance follow. For older women yaoi manga, also known as "Brokeback Mountain manga," which features tales of male homosexual love aimed at a female audience, are also successful.

Major publishing houses are betting on growth as manga becomes more familiar to the public.

In summer 2006, Pan Macmillan signed an exclusive deal to distribute titles produced by U.S.-owned Tokyopop, the largest manga publisher outside of Japan. Random House launched its own Tanoshimi manga imprint at the same time. Both are ramping up their releases.

Still, there is a long way to go. Manga represent a tiny fraction of the ￡1.7 billion spent on books in Britain in 2006, according The Bookseller magazine. And this pales in comparison to the market in Japan itself.

According to the Research Institute for Publications, the manga market, comprising manga magazines and books, totaled about 502 billion yen in 2005 in Japan.

Potential pitfalls are everywhere. In December, Hachette Partworks, launched Manga Force, a biweekly DVD and magazine collectors' series backed by a ￡500,000-plus advertising blitz.

However, fan sites were unimpressed when the commercial's voiceover narrator mispronounced the name of a classic series.

The vibrancy of the British manga scene is not in question, though. Indeed, emphasizing the grip the media has achieved on the public, designers based in Britain are beginning to create their own manga-style comics.

At the forefront of this development is Sweatdrop Studios, a collective of about 20 manga artists that has produced around 80 titles and helped foster the artists behind the current Manga Shakespeare series including Leong.

Whether truly authentic or not, the response to international manga artists from Japan itself has been surprisingly warm.

Last May, Leong exhibited at the Japanese Embassy in London, and the Japanese foreign ministry, led by admitted manga fan Taro Aso, is looking to manga and other elements of pop culture to improve Japan's standing abroad. Current proposals include sending anime or manga creators overseas as cultural ambassadors and creating a "manga grand prize" for foreign artists.

Clearly, Leong is not the only one who believes that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."(IHT/Asahi: February 3,2007)

After months of internal debates about which of our two potential guests to go with we finally made up our mind and picked Mike McFarland. I can’t wait, we have already started getting bookings! >_< 

TOMO-DACHI SET TO BRING MIKE MCFARLAND TO THE UK AS PRE-REGISTRATION OPENS

February 7th 2007. Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Following the success of 2006’s Tomo-Dachi event and the announcement of Tomo-Dachi 2007, Ireland’s premier anime convention opens the New Year with special announcements and the opening of pre-registrations for the convention!

Guest of Honour:
2006 saw Tiffany Grant and Matt Greenfield’s first ever visit to the United Kingdom and in 2007 Too-Dachi is offering another first. We are excited to announce ADR director, scriptwriter and voice actor Mike McFarland as our guest of honour for Tomo-Dachi 2007.

Mike has worked as ADR director on series’ including FullMetal Alchemist, Trinity Blood and DragonBall for FUNimation Entertainment, as well as lending his voice to characters in DragonBall Z (Master Roshi), Fruits Basket (Ritsu Sohma), FullMetal Alchemist (Jean Havoc) and countless others. Mike also worked in a fairly unique role as the Music Director on BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad.

Change of dates:
Circumstances outside our control mean that the convention has had to be rescheduled from the original dates. Tomo-Dachi 2007 will now be taking place on Friday 24th through to Sunday 26th of August 2007, at the University of Ulster’s Magee Campus in Londonderry.

Booking system / forums
As Wedensday February 7th pre-registrations for the convention have gone live, so you can now book your place for Tomo-Dachi 2007! Convention memberships are limited to 250 places, so book early to avoid disappointment. Book online at www.tomo-dachi.com now. Full en-suite accommodation is available on-campus for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

The costs of the convention are as follows:

2 day entry - £25
3 day entry - £25 [Up to March 31st, £30 thereafter]

En-suite Accommodation - £25 per night

Yesterday was fun, well it might have freaked some people out but being in Northern Ireland we’re used to it ^.^

 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6291079.stm

Yesterday afternoon there was a huge security alert in central Belfast where they believed that an Ulsterbus outside of the City Hall had been bombed. I was just on my way back from work when we found ‘Chechister Street’ where I work very empty. It links upto the City Hall so we saw the Cordons go up.

Paul [Aniki21], Catherine [Doesn’t have a live journal] and I went us to investigate and hung about for a while like the morbid people we are. We watched them bring in the ‘Wheel barrel’ a robot designed for controlled explosions and them detonating the suspected device.

On a more serous note these sorts of things haven’t happened in Northern Ireland for a while, this has caught a lot of people by surprise even catching many of the countries front pages. I doubt its anything to worry about however worry I do when anything happens that remind me of the old days.

Later!

Just got this across the wires from UKAnime and quickly following from the BBC.


As the supposedly left leaning Labour party continues to ban more and more forms of media, the latest target is "computer generated child abuse" images. Quite how you can say you're abusing someone that doesn't exist would make for an interesting philosophical discussion but John Reid is aiming to make possessing any Lolicon Manga or other drawn or rendered images of underage characters an offence.

We shouldn't care because lolicon is sick right? The trouble is it would be very possible to import what you thought was a perfectly fine hentai DVD or a doujinshi, get it checked by customs have them deem that, as a character is in a school uniform she's underage and you find yourself in jail and on the sex offenders register. What's worse if the law is vaguely it could make ANY anime which features fanservice illegal if it involves characters under 18.

Incidentally, following up on the possible violent porn ban (even if it's simulated or consensual), there's a confusingly worded petition on the Prime Minister's site that appears to allow you to vote against the proposed act.


Now let me start by making this clear, I have no affiliation with Lolicon and have no wish to have however this news comes with a great chill to me. Since the Labour governments come to power they shall shown us time and time again that their laws are untargeted and generalised. This is what I fear as like the story says there is a lot more material out there that we would not call "computer generated child abuse" but a general look will.  Puni Puni Poemy, banned. Excel Saga Episode 26, banned. Evangelion episode 23, cut! These are only a few things that would almost certainly be taken out of the UK.

Now we move onto what would be considered for this law, would fan service? I cant stand fan service myself however many shows I like have it, Full Metal panic, Bubblegum crisis, Chobits, Love Hina, etc, etc, etc. Would they be banned or cut? Considering the type of law the government would write I would think it is more or less likely that at least a couple of these shows will be removed from UK circulation.

Now more than that what is to happen if you buy something completely innocent and it turns out that its cover, as anime often is, is a lot more provocative than the series itself? The second box of Escaflowne is an example of this, she 14, will that be removed? A while ago I bought a box for 'I my me strawberry Eggs' which is a fun happy go lucky school comedy and the cover made it look like a Lolicon, where would that have left me if customs had opened it?

This government has a strong tendency to judge a book by its cover and unfortunately at this point anime and manga's covers are still not out of the Hentai bomb of the late eighties. That’s how many still view this industry and I feel this law could have a terrible effect on it. Of course I will hope otherwise. Thoughts?

Well I was over a Auki last weekend [Not as in yesterday] and picked up the full series of Planetes and .Hack//Legend of the Twilight. They were on sale at Beez stall and decided it worth the risk as I enjoyed the .Hack Manga and my friend [Aniki21] swears by Planetes.

Well late last week I finished Planetes, I watched it over 3 or so days and although I could have finished it quicker I decided to savor it. I was fantastic, and I don’t say that about many series’ I can assure you. Although the first disc is a little iffy the rest of the series is brilliant. Of course if you are not one for intellectual series' this is not one for you but for the rest of you out there I say march out and buy  it. Its also going to be the first series I have ever gone back right after watching it to watch again right the way though. [Also bought the Manga]

So I was in high Spirits for .Hack but they where misplaced. I enjoyed the Manga of .Hack//Legend of the Twilight but not the anime .Hack//Sign so I thought it would be nice to have a .Hack anime I knew I would like, unfortunately Twilight was not what I remembered. I was watching through the series and events I had no memory of where happening, characters from the Manga where not appearing and I was royally confused. I went back to the Manga and worked out what had happened.

What the creators of the anime have done is taken the style and basic characters from .Hackl//Legend of the Twilight and placed them into a cheaper, weaker storyline based on .Hack//Sign. There was little to no remains of the original storyline as well as altering characters personalities and even the loyalties of some of the main cast. I was pissed by the time I reached the end as the emotional climax was all but a carbon copy of sign. It’s safe to say I'm not amused.