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The government is aiming for 55% of women to continue working after having their first baby by 2020, up from 38% in 2005, sources familiar with the matter said Monday. Under its employment policy to be included in its growth strategy, the government will also aim to improve employment conditions for women and reinforce growth amid the declining birthrate and the aging of society.

The government will also seek to raise the ratio of fathers taking childcare leave to 13% from 1.23% in 2008 and to increase the rate of annual paid holidays taken by employees to 70% from 47.4% in 2008, the sources said.

The government will aim to reduce the number of part-time workers to 1.24 million, about 40% lower than in 2003, when it hit a peak of 2.17 million, the sources said.

The goals were agreed Monday at a working group meeting of government officials, experts, and labor and management representatives. The working group will work out the details of how to achieve the numerical targets.

During a web seminar in Tokyo on Wednesday, founder and CEO of North American manga publishing house; Tokyopop, Stu Levy and editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl were curious if fan translators were interested in working for Tokyopop.

Levy was particularly interested to garner the feelings and reactions of fan translators and professional translators on the subject. He said Tokyopop is currently in talks with a scanlation website regarding a possible collaboration. The idea came about after seeing how popular streaming site Crunchyroll went from a fan run operation to a legitimate website which can charge for membership.

The collaboration with fan scanlators is intended to be used on series which are currently on hiatus due to low sales.


Source: Anime News Network

Meiji University announced on Thursday its proposed aims to build a manga library in 2014. The tentatively titled Tokyo International Manga library will be home to two million items of manga, anime, games and other media. The collection is said to include tie-in books, magazines, doujinshi, manga and anime artwork, cels, game software and consoles, character goods, figures, and more.

The library will be built at the Surugadai campus in the central Tokyo ward of Chiyoda, with the university aiming to have a five-storey complex featuring 8,500 square meters (~2.1 acres) of floor space. The university has yet to decide if it will build an entirely new facility or renovate existing buildings for the project. In addition, the planners are exploring the prospects of including a museum and theater.

The work is in collaboration with the Comic Market dōjinshi convention's preparations committee, Tokyo's Contemporary Manga Library, the Arcade Game Museum Project, the model kit company Kaiyodo, and the Comic1 and Comitia dōjinshi conventions' preparations committees.

Ahead of the larger library, Meiji University will open the Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subcultures on October 31. This institution will house the personal collection of over 140,000 items of the late Comic Market founder

In anticipation of the anime premiere of Hiro Mashima's Fairy Tail manga, TV Tokyo's official Fairy Tail website has posted 88 seconds of special footage. [Click the "movie" link]

Fairy Tail follows the adventures of young sorceress Lucy Heartfilia who longs to join the famed magical guild; Fairy Tail. In her quest she meets Natsu Dragneel a Fairy Tail Guild member in search of the dragon Igneel, who disappeared mysteriously many years before.

The anime will premiere in Japan next Monday, and Crunchyroll will stream each episode for 30 days to its subscribed Anime Members. The following is the main voice cast:

Natsu: Tetsuya Kakihara
Lucy: Aya Hirano
Happy: Rie Kugimiya
Gray: Yuuichi Nakamura
Erza: Sayaka Ohara

In the second online discussion panel ("webinar") on Wednesday Tokypop announced that it will publish .hack//4Koma on April 6, 2010. Koichi Sumimaru's manga is a four panel gag comedy which re-imagines Kite, Atoli, Haseo and the other characters from the .hack//G.U. role-playing game trilogy. While Tokyopop has published most of the other manga tie-ins from the .hack franchise, Bandai Entertainment released most of the animes including the .hack//G.U. trilogy movie. Amazon's retail website informs us that Ryan Peterson is translating this 192 page manga as he did for .hack//G.U. and .hack//XXXX.



Other titles that had be revealed thrugh retailers such as .hack//Alcor, .hack//CELL, Deadman Wonderland and Hanako and the Tellar f Allegory have now been officially annoucned by Tokyopop. This official annoucement comes at a time where there has been some pretty bad news from Tokypop.

Kodansha refused to renew TOKYOPOP's Germany licenses, rumors floated that Kodansha has made it's own entry into the US manga market (no confirmation) and now the official announcement has come from TOKYOPOP that Kodansha has severed ties with them and refuses to renew a number of titles.

Hakkusensha's monthly LaLa magaize will announce on Monday that a television anime adaptation of Kaichou wa Maid-sama! shoko manga has been given the green light. The romantic comedy about a student council head named Misaki Ayuzawa who secretly works at a maid cafe is written by Hiro Fujiwara.



Misaki despises the mostly male, sloveny population at her school, which was once an all-boys school. Now one of her most handsome schoolmates has discovered her secret. Misaki works after school at a maid cafe.

Tokyopop will be publishing the second volume of the manga this month under the Maid Sama! title.

Source: Anime News Network

Tokyopop annoucned on Friday that it has begun an online manga program that will see new chapters added online on Wednesdays. The Program has launched with the first chapter of PSY*COMM volume 3, on August 12th. Boys of Summer, with it's graphic content is scheduled to begin online serialization on September 23. Volume one had been released in 2006 but was pulled due to its graphic content and volume two was postponed indefinately.



Earthlight, Patheon High, Undertown, Gyakushuu, Kat & Mouse, all world manga titles that had been previously discontinued by Tokyopop are set to be included as a part of the program.

Anime Innovation Tokyo has begun streaming a 90 Second short trailer and a two-minute long trailer for Picograph's Tailenders project on its YouTube channel. An earlier trailer was posted on the same website last summer. Anime Innovation Tokyo describes the plot of the anime as:

The destiny of Tomoe Shiro, a formidable racer with a very promising career, experiments an U-turn when a serious accident puts his life at stake. He recovers miraculously , though, when his heart is replaced with the engine of his own racing car. However, because of that very reason, race regulations demote him to the category of a mere mechanical part of the vehicle and is deprived from the right to participate as a pilot in regular races.
Only in a far away colonial planet, along with a multitude of other charismatic pilots also vetoed from participating in regular competitions, he will be given the opportunity to race for his pride and the money of the prize. And so this exciting rally starts!!

Source: Anime News Network

What is being described as the "Theatrical version of Fate/stay night" has a new teaser site opened. The film version of Type-Moon's game and anime franchise is "Coming soon." according to the teaser site. While there is not much there at the moment, the domain is registered under the name Geneon Entertainment by the GMO Internet service provider.

FUNimation Entertainment released a Fate/stay night anime series box set last September as a part of its distribution deal with Geneon and Tokyopop has been publishing Datto Nishiwaki's manga version in North America since last October. Geneon has ceased its in-house distribution of its own titles since 2007.

Source: Anime News Network . Com

Gonzo can continue to run and produce anime but the Tokyo Stock Exchange has announced that it will proceed with delisting the company from it's Mothers section on July 30th. (The Mothers market is for high-growth and emerging stocks.)

A process that began last July, when the stock exchanged notified investors that Gonzo's financial liabilities exceeded it's total financial assets for the fiscal year ending in March of 2008, will conclude with the official delisting of the company. As Gonzo failed to improve it's finances at the end of its last fiscal year, March 31, the paperwork for the delisting was submitted at the end of June.

Gonzo can, however, continue to operate regardless of the delisting. On April 1st (nice day for this, the beginning of the fiscal year in Japan) Gonzo's former parent company, GDH, absorbed its subsidiary to consolidate management resources. The newly restructured company is now known simply as Gonzo.

Gonzo had previously announced that it would be working on The Tower of DRUAGA -the Sword of URUK-, Slap Up Party -Arad Senki-, Shangri-La, and Saki television anime series in 2009.

Source: Anime News Network

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