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Tokyopop shutting down US manga publication efforts

Travis Bruno
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It is a sad day today for fans of Japanese manga. Longtime publisher Tokyopop who has brought fully translated manga to U.S. shores for many many years has announced that they will be closing down their manga publishing operations in the U.S. at the end of May. You can read the announcement itself below:

“Today, we are sad to inform our loyal community of manga fans, our passionate creators of manga content, our business and retail partners, and other stakeholders who have supported us through the years that as of May 31, 2011, TOKYOPOP is closing its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations.”

This news comes as Comics Beat reports that Tokyopop only ended up with six people being employed and working on publishing after recent lay offs. The devastated company will maintain to publish manga in Europe and maintain any current television projects but no word has been spoken about what will happen to a number of publishing licenses that the studio holds.

NIS America brings Katanagatari and Arakawa Under the Bridge to the US

Travis Bruno
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You may have noticed that with the release of WAGNARIA!! NIS America had no upcoming releases under its anime branch. But that has changed because yesterday NIS America announced that they will be localizing Katanagatari Volume 1 and Arakawa Under the Bridge and will be releasing both on July 5th of this year. In a first for the company they will be releasing each series in a Blu-Ray and DVD combo pack and as you can see in the below and above images that each will feature a hard collector’s box with an impressive hardcover art book. Arakawa will also receieve some bonus commentary tracks which feature interviews with the voice actors.

Katanagatari is an anime adaptation from the light novel series of the same name and was released monthly between January 25th and December 10th, 2010. There will be two volumes released for Katanagatari with the first volume containing six episodes that will run for 308 minutes roughly. The series itself follows Shichika Yasuri who is the head of the Kyoto-ryu school of martial arts. Both him and his sister are tasked with finding the final 12 swords that were forged by a legendary swordsmith.

Now Arakawa under the Bridge was aired from April 4th 2009 until June 27th of 2009. The 13 episode series is based off of a gag comedy manga and recently has received a second season announcement in Japan. As the original series only had 13 episodes which means that this pack will contain all the episodes aired to this date. The story follows Ko Ichinomiya who is saved by a homeless girl named Nino by the bank of the Arakawa River. Both of these titles are great acquisitions by NIS America and should be a great addition to their growing list of titles.

Blazblue: Continuum Shift II arrives on the PSP and 3DS May 31

Travis Bruno
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Blazblue: Continuum Shift II arrives on the PSP and 3DS May 31

Fans of the fast paced fighting series have already gotten their hands on the revamped Blazblue: Continuum Shift II handhelds and they will soon be seeing a title update that will upgrade their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions to II, but what about the rest of us in the United States? Well it turns out that the handheld versions of the game for the PSP and for the 3DS will be arriving in a month and a half.

Yes, on May 31st Aksys Games will be releasing Blazblue: Continuum Shift II for the PSP and for the 3DS on the same day. They have commemorated this news with a release of screenshots for both systems as you can see below. THe top gallery contains screenshots from the 3DS version of the game while the bottom one contains the PSP screenshots. Also released was a trailer featuring gameplay footage from the PSP version of the game which you can catch below.

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Green Lantern gets first gameplay trailer

Jack Joly
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We already know it will mark Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment’s 3DS debut, but it is still coming to the big screen formats of PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii as well.

And now Green Lantern: Rise of The Manhunters has been given its very first gameplay trailer. The trailer showcases the kind of things you’ll be doing in the game, running on one of the console versions, rather than the 3DS handheld.

It looks like the game could use the hero’s special powers in some interesting ways, so despite being a movie tie-in, it’s not worth ruling it out yet.

Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters hits shelves June 10th on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS.

Blazblue Continuum Shift II coming to North America

Adam Tabor
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Blazblue Continuum Shift II coming to North America

Last year we got treated to one of my favorite fighting games Blazblue Continuum Shift while Japan just recently got treated to it’s sequel. Now Aksys Games has confirmed they will be bringing Continuum Shift II to North America. The game will be an update to Continuum Shift and feature all the balancing changes made.

You can also get a new character as well, Platnium the Trinity will go on sale around the time CS2 comes out in May. The character will go on sale for 7.99 on PSN or 560 Microsoft Points.

If portables are your thing how about a portable version of the game? Aksys announced that Blazblue Continuum Shift II is heading to the PSP and 3DS this Spring. We will keep you posted on any solid release dates as we get them.

BBCS patch Link

BCSII portable Link

Club Nintendo of Japan Gets Giant Augmented Reality Card as a Reward…

Dustin Spencer
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It looks Japanese residents who are members of Club Nintendo are in for quite a treat as a giant Augmented reality card has now been listed as a new reward available for redemption. The card itself is two-sided and has the ability to produce a Giant Mii as well as a life-sized Mario which comes on the other side. As you see in the picture above, the final result looks amazing and should be awesome for some nice photo-ops.

Augmented reality cards have a ton of potential and this alone gives me hope we will be seeing even more in the future from this nice little add-on that the 3DS delivers. Now we just need to see something like this put in our Club Nintendo shops rather than Wii-Mote straps or a deck of cards. Not that the straps and cards are not nice as they do make for great gaming swag, but personally I prefer items I can use to better enhance my games in general, such as the couple of exclusive WiiWare titles that Nintendo of America have listed as rewards for Club Nintendo in the past. You never know though, with the way Club Nintendo has been improving as a whole over the past year, it could be very possible to see more AR rewards listed (looking at you…Nintendo of America/Australia/Europe).

Check out a new Shang Tsung Vignette..

Dustin Spencer
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Mortal Kombat is now just days from release and with that Netherrealm studios have released another trailer to display one of the true staples of the Mortal Kombat universe, Shang Tsung. The clip shows off Shang Tsung’s classic abilities such as lunging flaming skulls, soul stealing and the usual transformations which all look fantastic in the brand new gameplay engine.

I really just can’t get over how spectacular this new Mortal Kombat is looking as everything seems very polished and fluent, as well as keeping the same charm that made the series so popular back in the 90’s. Check out the video below and let us know just which character you will be selecting first when Mortal Kombat arrives on April 19th.

Reinhart Manx bends the forces of creation to his will in Dungeon Siege III character trailer

Travis Bruno
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Reinhart Manx bends the forces of creation to his will in Dungeon Siege III character trailer

Square Enix has revealed yet another character for Dungeon Siege III and this time around he is a wielder of the arcane arts. Being a mage though doesn’t mean that he has done things conventionally. Then again what about magic is conventional in the first place? Reinhart Manx controls dynamic magic through his gauntlet and unleashes powerful magic on whoever he wishes to destroy.

Reinhart is a descendant of Legion Mages he spent most of his life at Collegium where he studied magic and how to put it to use in the city of StoneBbridge. Because of this he uses very innovative magical techniques and has a unique way of thinking about the world around him. Looks like he will be another great addition to the cast of characters when the title releases on June 21st in the US and June 17th everywhere else.

One-Day only sale on XBLA titles from Microsoft

Travis Bruno
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Earlier you may have noticed that Castle Crashers had went up for sale at 50% off the 1200 Microsoft Point cost. But it looks like that won’t be the only title on sale for half off today. In a one day only sale from Microsoft a number of titles have been placed on sale for 50% off their asking price. And better yet all of these games were originally $15 or 1200 MSP which means they have now been dropped down to only $750 or 600 MSP.

The games that are up for sale are:

Each of these titles are definitely worth a look, but the sale is only for today Friday April 15th so you best act quickly if you have been waiting for one of these titles to go on sale.

Sony sells 50 million PS3s worldwide, ships 8 million Moves

Travis Bruno
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Looks like Sony has been making a big push in sales lately because they have announced today that they have reached 50 million units sold worldwide. This figure comes from a report in March 29th and is certainly a great milestone for the company and the console as a whole. The better news for Sony is that their Move controller has shipped 8 million units. Now although this figure only marks shipped units it still is a good sign that retailers require that much stock.

With such a large number of units around the world Sony also states that they have 79 million different PSN accounts across 59 countries worldwide. This news certainly bodes well for Sony which has been seen as the console bringing up the rear of this generation. With Blu-Ray built directly into the system it can serve as more than a gaming console at that.

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