Kodansha Will Begin Rolling Out New Manga Next Summer

With the departure of Del Rey from the manga scene this month, many of us have been wondering what will become of all of Del Rey's series that are being left in publishing limbo. Most of Del Rey's licenses came from Kodansha, and Kodansha US will begin publishing some of these licenses directly next year.

Kodansha will begin to shipping the following titles in May 2011 under the new Kodansha Comics imprint:

Kodansha Comics imprint launches:

Phoenix Wright—Ace Attorney (new series) Volume 1 in June, Volume 2 in August
Monster Hunter Orage Volume 1 in June, Volume 2 in August
Rave Master Omnibus in May
Deltora Quest in July
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Until the Full Moon in July (this one formerly belonged to Brocolli)
Mardock Scramble in August
Animal Land in August
Gon in August (formerly from CMX)
Bloody Monday in August
Cage of Eden in August
Negima Omnibus (Vol #1-3) in June

Continuing series picking up from where Del Rey left off will be:

Air Gear Volume 18 in June, Volume 19 in August
Arisa Volume 2 in May, Arisa Volume 3 in July
Fairy Tale Volume 13 in May, Volume 14 in July
I Am Here! Volume 2 in July
Negima Volume 29 in May, Volume 30 in July
Negima!? Neo in June
Ninja Girls Volume 5 in May, Volume 6 in July
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Volume 9 in June, Volume 10 in August
Shugo Chara! Volume 10 in May, Volume 11 in July
The Wallflower Volume 25 in June

Of course, all backissues of the above series should be considered OOP as of this month, so if you need any volumes for any former Del Rey licenses (say like any Negima 1-28 or Ninja Girls 1-4) you should buy them as soon as you can before the existing inventory starts to dry up.

Surprisingly, Del Rey will continue to publish the Clamp titles Tsubasa and xxxHolic under its own label, so they are not 'completely' exiting that market like we thought. Always good to keep your foot in the door...

Wagnaria!! (Working!!) Premium Boxed Set Now Available for Pre-Order!

The upcoming Wagnaria!! (Working!!) Premium Edition Boxed Set coming from NIS America is Now Available for Pre-Order!

Details:

Synopsis: The family restaurant “Wagnaria” stands by itself in Hokkaido. One day Sota Takanashi, who loves all things small, meets tiny little Popura, who offers him a job working part time at the restaurant. Attracted to her petite stature, Sota accepts her offer. To his surprise, the restaurant is filled with eccentric characters. Get ready to dish up some wacky comedy together with Sota and his coworkers!

This 2-disc premium edition includes a 32-page Hardcover Artbook filled with character introduction and relationships charts, illustrations, background and character rough sketches, and four-frame comic! Premium Showcase Package.


Street date for the new set is March 22, 2011.

Tron Legacy - I'm All About This!

I remember watching the first Tron movie when I was 13, and it blew me away. Back then home computers were new (I was the proud owner of an Apple IIe at the time), no internet, no cel phones, working on DOS was a bitch, and Load Runner was the best video game ever produced. At the time the Tron movie was so far ahead of the curve of things to come. People that have issues with the first movie, like those that criticize ground breaking shows like Evangelion, just don't seem to get it. In 1982 Tron represented the pinnacle of movie making, not just for the technical aspects of it's production, but about what it represented. It was one of those rare moments when you were actually looking at something new, something that no one has every thought of before.

All that said, when they announced a Tron sequel, I was pretty skeptical, but it looks like they have done everything right - especially getting Daft Punk to do the soundtrack. I'm going to go see it at the theater next weekend, and frankly, it looks pretty awesome!





UPDATE (12/19): Saw at the theater this evening. In 3D. My thoughts?

First, I wonder what 3D really adds to the movie experience that offsets the annoyance of wearing the glasses. When they invent 3D movies that look like that without the glasses, I'll feel like they have created something more than a visual trick to get me to pay $5 bucks more for a movie ticket. Given the choice I'd skip it, so I don't see a 3D TV in my future anytime soon.

Now, the movie. I thought it was great (and that means you probably won't like it). Every review I read said it was light on plot. That is definitely correct. Did they recycle about 100 ideas from other sci-fi flicks? Absolutely. I doubt folks that aren't cultish fans of the first movie like me will get as much out of it, but for those of us who are happy to relive the visual experiences from the first movie against the backdrop of what is possible digitally in 2010, it certainly delivers. The music is great. If Disney had decided to make the movie a 100 minute music video for Daft Punk, I would have been fine with that. Visually it's just stunning. I'm starting to think that digital technology has come far enough where really anything is possible. Was there the sort of existential discussion that appeals to computer geeks like in the first movie? Does it make you think? Not really. But it at least lives up to what Tron is supposed to be - both movies take the limits of existing movie making technology and use it to develop a story in an environment where anything is possible. There are a lot worse ways to waste $15 bucks. And it will become a great pizza and bear movie once it hits home video.

Now I just need someone to invent a Quorra app that I can download - she can utilize all the free memory on my digital device anytime...

It Takes an Irishman to Tell it Like it Is (PNSFW)

What does an Irishman think of the current global ecomonic situation?

Well, I'm glad you asked, because this is what he thinks:

What We DON'T Do to Your Packages...

Sometimes all that high tech, high volume package moving equipment can work against you. Ships fast? Yes. Ships well? hmmmm... Here is a parcel at Amazon, and a great example of what WON'T happen to your package here at RACS:


Just imagine if that one had your Anime figurine order inside...uggg.

Section 23 March 2011 Releases - Now Available for Pre-Order!

Section 23 has sent over their March 2011 release schedule and we've now got them posted to the store site for pre-order.

Here's what's coming:

Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-12)
Clannad the Movie (Theatrical Feature) DVD
Ghost Sweeper Mikami TV Series Collection #3 (Eps #24-34)
Guin Saga Collection 1 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13)
Guin Saga Collection 1 DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-13) (BLURAY)
Shin Koihime Muso Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-12)

Notables: The Clannad Movie and Guin Saga will be getting a dub, and Guin Saga will be published in both DVD and BD formats - and will be priced accordingly! The Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka & Shin Koihime Muso releases will both include their respective OVA episodes. And, the sequel to Shin Koihime†Musō (Shin Koihime†Musō Otome Tairan) is planned for release in May.

Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka
Junichi Nagase was a real delinquent in middle school, one nasty enough that he earned the nickame "Geno Killer," and it's by this less than flattering epithet that Yuuhi Katagiri first comes to know him when he rescues her from two thugs one evening. Needless to say, both are stunned when not only does Yuuhi find herself transferred into the same high school class as "the Killer," but that shock grows into outright stupefaction when Yuuhi shows up at Junichi's house with the mind-blowing announcement that she's supposed to move in with him! It seems that they're engaged, and since this is the first that Junichi and his younger sister Minato have first heard of the arranged marriage set up by their parents, it's an idea that's going to take a little getting used to. Get ready for ties that bind and gag as bad boy and good girl collide cohabitationally while the entire school gets to watch! Truth IS stranger than fiction in Akane iro ni Somaru Saka!



Clannad Theatrical Feature
Plagued by a seemingly endless stream of haunting dreams, Tomoya drifts through life with an almost overwhelming sense of anger and emptiness. Then, one fateful day, he meets the mysterious and beautiful Nagisa, and his world begins to change. While helping Nagisa revive the defunct Drama Club at their high school, Tomoya discovers that she has the same dreams. Their story starts beneath the cherry blossoms, but where will fate lead them? Discover a stunning new vision of one of anime's classic love stories in Clannad Theatrical.



Guin Saga
He awakens in the dark forest of a mythical land with some type of leopard mask that he cannot remove. The only thing he remembers is his name - Guin - and that he is a warrior of unimaginable power. And when the two twins of Parros, innocent victims of a civil war arrive, Guin knows what he must do. But the journey to save the children means much more than just slaughtering a few hundred well-trained Mongoul soldiers. Victory means he must battle magical desert tribes, assemble forces that have fought each other for hundreds of hears, and divine a mysterious plan that he is central to. Prepare for a sweeping anime epic of mystery and magic! Of violent clashes and dark double-crosses. Ready yourself for the battle with GUIN SAGA.



Shin Koihime Muso
What do you do once you've made your epic journey and accomplished the legendary quest you set out for yourself. Well, you could hang around the village looking important, but when Kan'u and Chouhi's rescue a mysterious girl, they find that a more enjoyable option may be a brand new quest! Especially when it turns out that this new girl is Ryuubi, and the Ryuubi that Kan'u and her sword-sisters faced previously was an imposter who stole this Ryuubi's name and heirloom sword! Meanwhile, the three Chou sisters have gotten their hands on a magical book of spells that's just a little more dangerous than they think. Get ready for an inspired new journey in search of magical arts and artifacts as the ancient Chinese epic Romance Of The Three Kingdoms puts on an all new, all-female front in Shin Koihime†Muso!

Gantz Live Action Movie Coming to US Theaters!

Just FYI, the new Gantz live action movie is going to playing at theaters in January:

NEW PEOPLE and NCM Fathom are bringing the world premiere of GANTZ to movie theaters nationwide for a one night live event on Thursday, January 20th at 8:00 pm ET/ 7:00 pm CT/ 6:00 pm MT/ 8:30 pm PT (tape delayed).This live-action feature, based upon the popular Japanese manga and anime series, is the ultimate survival game. It will be English over-dubbed exclusively for this big screen event.

Following the feature, the two stars, Kazunari Ninomiya and Kenichi Matsuyama will participate in an exclusive live interview that can only be seen at this event.

Showing is for one night only on January 20th. Here is a full list of participating Theaters!

Zen Wisdom

Ten Thoughts to Ponder:

10: Life is sexually transmitted.

9: Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

8: Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

7: Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks - they'll bother me instead.

6: Some people are like a Slinky - not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

5: Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals, dying of nothing.

4: All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

3: Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800.00, and a substantial tax cut saves you $30.00?

2: In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

And The Number 1 Thought:

1: Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers - what you do today might burn your ass tomorrow.

PS: Don't worry too much about old age - it doesn't last long.

HEH. Hat tip to Jerry for sending.

Angry German Kid Watches K-ON

Hey, I know how he feels...



This explains some of those e-mails that I get... LOL!

Funimation Pushes the Date on Chobits

Funi continues to reschedule their February releases today. This time they have bumped back Chobits about three weeks:

Chobits Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-24) (Classic Anime) - Feb 1 to Feb 22
Chobits Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-24) (Classic Anime) (BLURAY) - Feb 1 to Feb 22

That's it for now!

Store Outage - Resolved!

Just a quick FYI to everyone who had trouble getting on the store Saturday afternoon. And no, it was not network overload - I wish!

We use Yahoo's servers in Houston (with a backup in San Diego) to host the primary store site, and they experienced a pretty nasty DoS (denial of service) attack across their whole infrastructure today. Our store is one of the big ones and sits across a distributed network so I'm not exactly sure how long it was down for any one DNS, but it looks like the attack caused the RACS store to be at least intermittently down for about 3 hours between around 12:50 pm and 4:02 pm PST (that was around 3 to 6 PM here).

Anyway, their engineers at the NOC center in Houston did a great job and have now resolved the issue and we are back up and running.

Apologies to anyone who could not get on the store, or was trying to place on order during that short window on Saturday.

PS: And yes, it's 1:58am and yes I am just finishing up my day. Thanks for asking. :-)

UPDATE: Looks like the DoS attack that took down Yahoo's e-comm servers was related to Operation Payback. I wonder if these people actually know who they are hurting when they do this stuff.

Business: Competing for a Future

Man, I'm am right there with this guy. Even though our businesses are so different, everything he says is right on target, especially what he says about 2009, how his income taxes are structured, and about 'privilege', because we've been there too. WOW.

Funimation Lowers the Price of Case Closed Movie 5 / Pushes Feb Titles

Funimation has reduced the MSRP on the Case Closed Movie #5 Countdown to Heaven DVD from $19.98 to $14.98:

Case Closed Movie #5 Countdown to Heaven DVD

We have lowered our regular price of the Case Closed movie from $14.98 to $10.98 and it's in stock and shipping at the new price today!

Funi has also rescheduled a few February releases by a week or two. Here are the changes:

Sgt Frog (Keroro Gunso) Season 1 Complete DVD Boxed Set (Eps #1-26) - Feb 8 to Feb 15
FLCL (Fooly Cooly) Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Classic) - Feb 8 to Feb 22
FLCL (Fooly Cooly) Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (BLURAY) (Classic) - Feb 8 to Feb 22

Slammed!

Hey there, just checking in.

After a rather typical and routine Thanksgiving weekend, including Black Friday, we got SLAMMED starting around Sunday afternoon. Order volume increased somewhere around 300% between Sunday evening, and this morning, and continues to increase - right on schedule.

We are ready of course, and orders are being processed quickly and efficiently in our warehouse. I'm just glad we worked over the holiday weekend, otherwise we'd be behind today.

Just a couple of quick reminders for between now and Dec 17th:

1) We'll be working processing orders 7 days a week through Dec 17th. Plenty of time to sleep later.

2) 'Super Saver' or free ship orders will get the LOWEST fill priority in our warehouse through Dec 23rd. This is typical of what we do during the holidays and allows us to better balance our daily fulfillment load - that's why we offer a free shipping option. So during this period don't get mad at us if your Super Saver order doesn't fill for 2-4 business days after you place it. Air Freight, Pri Mail, and Ground orders will fill first since those folks are paying for shipping, and I think that's only fair.

3) We will attempt as many 100% fills as possible during this period, so we reserve the option to hold a ticket for a day or two if it means mating it up with incoming inventory that will allow us to ship you 100% of your order all together, but we won't hold tickets any longer than that. This year the big problem child will be the thing with Media Blasters moving their distribution right in the middle of the holidays is going to cause plenty of shortages on their stuff (as you well know), and we won't be holding tickets for any backordered MB items, even if you request it. I doubt they will get their operations back up and running 100% until January anyway. Everything else should go pretty smoothly.

4) I'm going to try to answer every e-mail that comes the same day, so some of my answers may be short and to the point - expect it. Inquiries regarding orders will take priority over 'can you get this?' or 'when is this coming out?' e-mails.

BTW - our Cyber Monday sales items are still up, and will be until we have time to take them down today. Take advantage!

That's it for now, keep those orders coming and we'll do the rest! :-)

RACS BLACK FRIDAY SPECIALS - LAST DAY! (BUMP)

Cash in with savings up to 50% off MSRP on some of our best selling Anime DVD's, BluRay's, Figures, and Manga with our Black Friday 2010 Holiday Specials!

These prices will be good through midnight on Cyber Monday (Nov 29th), but only while our existing supplies last so don't miss out - get your orders in today!

WTF?

A clear case of Yui over indulgence...


Still, not quite as creepy as the obligatory 2D sleep over:


OMG! (Hat tip to Sean for sending!)

The Guild - Do You Wanna Date My Avatar

Brilliant!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Just wanted to post a reminder that we will be closed for business tomorrow, Thursday, November 25th for the Thanksgiving holiday, but we will be back at it on Friday filling and shipping all of your holiday orders and answering e-mails. Most of the other online Anime stores will be closed on Friday, so if there is anything you need we can take care of it for you.

While you are giving thanks this holiday season, and taking advantage of all the big box mover excess inventory giveaways, try to take a moment and think about all the small business people in America trying to hang on to their dreams during this resession. It's been another tough year, but we still have each other, and that's a lot to give thanks for. Stay safe this weekend, and enjoy your Anime!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :-)

Customer Comment

Comment sent in yesterday by Chris in regards to our fix to his Birdy set problem:

"Thanks Bob!

I'll be looking forward to getting the fixed version so we can continue watching Birdy the Mighty.

For what its worth what distinguishes a Great Company from an average company is not whether they encounter problems, but in how they handle and resolve problems as they arise.

I submitted my problem and you provided me with the solution in the same day and to me thats more than outstanding! So should the subject ever come up whether your company is so-so or a Great One you have my highest endorsement and future business.

Hope everyone at RAC has a wonderful Holiday spent with family and friends.

Thanks!
Chris P."

Thank YOU Chris! :-)

GET FREE 2 DAY SHIPPING THROUGH NOV 24TH!

With the holidays closing in, we know that time is of the essence for the delivery of your Anime orders. So from now until Wednesday, November 24th you can get free 2nd Day air shipping of any order over $100 of IN STOCK items listed on the store!

To get free 2nd Day air shipping on any IN STOCK order over $100, just select our FedEx 2nd Day Air shipping option and use the following coupon during checkout:

FASTSHIPFREE

As with all special shipping offers, this offer has a few restrictions:

1) Applies only to US customers shipping to a Street address within the continental US.
2) Applies only to orders in which your IN STOCK total = $100 or more.
3) Can only be used in conjunction with our FedEx 2nd Day Air shipping option.

This offer not valid for shipments going to APO/FPO, PO box, or any other addresses that we cannot use FedEx Air service to deliver to. Also not valid for shipments to AK, HI, or PR. Orders placed choosing FedEx Air service are usually shipped next business day.

Note: Valid for new orders of IN STOCK items only. Coupon code expires at midnight EST on November 24th so get your orders in ASAP!