Aug 27
Crunchyroll has announced the first slate of speakers for its inaugural Anime Future Forum, an invitation-only industry summit set for Oct. 7 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. The event runs one day before New York Comic Con opens at the same venue. Filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and James Gunn headline the lineup, joined by senior executives from Japan's anime and manga industry, including MAPPA president and CEO Manabu Otsuka, Toho executive officer Taichi Ueda, Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ digital editor-in-chief Yuta Momiyama, and Sony Music Entertainment Japan president Atsuhiro Iwakami, who also chairs Aniplex. Sony Pictures Animation president Kristine Belson will moderate a panel with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse directors Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson. Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn, rapper Big Sean, and content creator Jordan Howlett will participate as anime superfans. Sony Group president and CEO Hiroki Totoki delivers opening remarks, and Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini closes with remarks and news. Themed "Designing for Anime's Future," the summit expects more than 400 industry figures and will organize discussions around fandom, technology, storytelling, and intellectual property protection, with sessions on transmedia storytelling, theatrical experiences, manga's future, and influencer roles.
Aug 19
The roguelite 2.5D fighting action game Shot One Fighters for PC (Steam) has raised over 20 million yen on Kickstarter, more than double its target. The campaign runs until September 12, 2026, and the game will support Japanese. Fighting game streamer John Crofts and pro player Justin Wong are cooperating in development and will appear in the game.
Aug 18
TheOASG Podcast Episode 250 covers a distressing investigation into Shogakukan's Manga ONE editorial department, a Kumamoto earthquake, and multiple manga hiatuses due to creator health issues. It also reports the deaths of voice actor Michael Donovan and manga artist Yoko Umezu, plus Shueisha's new digital platform MANGA MILLION.
May 16
Yen Press announced a new imprint called Avocado House, focused on international novels that fall outside its Japanese light novel line. The launch list includes Keigo Higashino's Laplace's Witch and Aya Saito's The Curse Called Mother, the Prison Called Daughter. The publisher also revealed several new manga licenses at its Sakuracon panel, including Ryoko Kui's The Dragon School Is Atop the Mountain and a Fate/Prototype manga adaptation. The imprint gives Yen Press a dedicated label for non-Japanese fiction, kept separate from the Yen On brand that remains focused on translated Japanese light novels. The split means a reader can tell at a glance which line a title belongs to: Avocado House for international fiction, Yen On for Japanese light novels. The Sakuracon panel paired the imprint news with the new manga licenses, so the company laid out both its novel direction and its manga pipeline in the same session.