Anime Expo 2009 rounds up today down in Los Angeles which means it’s time for a quick news round-up. Industry presence seems considerably less this year, an observation that I make as someone who wasn’t able to attend mind you, and the announcement list is considerably smaller than the whopping 61 manga licenses that Anime Expo 2008 had for us. Goes to show how the industry’s changed over the past year I suppose, right? Anime Expo did continue its reputation as the largest anime convention in North America however with an attendence of over 44,000.

For the manga news, check out my round-up under the cut.

CMX Manga discussed a number of titles including some previously announced, a couple brand new and several as confirmations for listings previously found on Amazon.

A Tale of An Unknown Country by Natsuna Kawase (September 2009)
Deka Kyoshi by Kamio Baba (November 2009)
Diamond Girl by Takanori Yamazaki (April 2010)
My Darling Miss Bancho by Mayu Fujikata (March 2010)
Nadeshiko Club by Miku Sakamoto (June 2010)
Oh! My Brother by Ken Saito (October 2009)
Polyphonica: Cardinal Crimson by Ichiro Sasaki / Ocelot (May 2010)
Rampage by Yunosuke Yoshinaga (February 2010)
Stolen Hearts by Miku Sakamoto (January 2010)
The Battle of Genryu by Shouko Fukaki (August 2009)
The Lizard Prince by Asuka Izumi (November 2009)
The World I Create by Ayami Kazama (January 2010)

You can read more about the individual titles at Deb Aoki’s About.com manga blog.

Viz Media announced at their panel news that, in a bout to catch the popular One Piece up closer to its Japanese releases, the company will begin releasing four volumes a month from January to June 2010. That’s a lot of volumes in a short span of time! Great news for fans of the series, but perhaps not so much for their wallets.

Along with this news, they also had several new manga licenses to announce as well:

Biomega by Tsutomu Nihei (February 2010)
Cactus’s Secret by Nana Haruto (March 2010)
Crown of Love by Yun Kouga (February 2010)
Flower in a Storm by Shigeyoshi Takagi (May 2010)
Stepping on Roses by Rinko Ueda (April 2010)

Gia live-blogged the Viz panel so you can head over to AnimeVice to read the full panel start to finish.

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At the Yaoi Press panel, company owner Yamila Abraham discussed a variety of their existing titles and recent releases. She also announced their new boys’ love eBook imprint called Yaoi Prose. The Yaoi Prose placeholder website first went public a little over a week ago thanks to the communication platform that is Twitter.

You can read more about the Yaoi Press panel at AnimeNewsNetwork’s con blog.

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And though not manga, RightStuf’s new anime acquisitions have me excited enough to post about them when early in the weekend they revealed the licenses for Antique Bakery, Junjo Romantica and the Aria TV series and OVA. The image used in the banner of this post is from the Antique Bakery anime.

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So that rounds up this weekend’s con posting and the end of Anime Expo 2009. The next big event is San Diego Comic Con later in the month and for the first time I will actually be blogging about it while in attendance. Suffice to say, yay! I hope attendees, staff and exhibitors of Anime Expo all had fun this year :)

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About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.