Brighton Japan Festival - 23rd June to 1st July

The Brighton Japan Festival will be returning again this year, and their website has been updated for the 2012 event. The festival will be running between the 23rd June and the 1st July, so is 8 days long (much longer than most of the other festivals in the UK).
  
The festival events will be launched with a Moshi Matsuri on 23rd and 24th June, which will include "Japanese music and performances, traditional children's games, workshops and street processions, as well as a profusion of shitamachi-style stalls selling all sorts of street food and Japanese goods".
It will also include an Asahi Anime Festival, 30th June and 1st July, which is "A delirious and colourful celebration of all things anime, with Cosplay contests, manga drawing and karaoke competitions galore".
Lastly, there will be evening events at the Festival Hub, 22nd June to the 1st July (the official site states the 22nd June, yet the event starts on the 23rd June...) which will include "A series of classy, quality evening events held in a specially erected tent next to Moshi Moshi in Bartholomew Square"

For more information on the event please check out the official site. Performers, sponsors, stallholders and volunteers who would like to be involved can apply here.

UK Anime and Manga Releases - 26/03/2012 to 01/04/2012

It's that time of the week again where we look at the upcoming releases for this week.

There is only one anime release this week, but it is a full series release of a very popular series. There are however a lot of manga releases coming this week to keep you going.

Without further ado, here are the new releases:

ANIME
Monday 26th March
Black Butler: Complete Series Box Set
 
MANGA
Tuesday 27th March
A Bride's Story - Vol.3
Bamboo Blade - Vol.12
Bunny Drop - Vol.5
Is This a Zombie? - Vol.1
Negima! Omnibus - Vol.4
Pandora Hearts - Vol.9
Spice and Wolf - Vol.6
The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan - Vol.5

Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden - Promo Trailer Released

A trailer has finally been released for the Naruto spin-off series Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden, which is due to premiere on 3rd April in Japan.

If you are unaware of the series, it began as a spin-off manga from the Naruto series, but with a lot more focus on comedy than the standard manga. It is drawn in a chibi style, and as such all the characters look visibly different than their Naruto series forms.
This series is also being produced by the same studio who create the Naruto anime. The full name of the series is Naruto SD: Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden, with the SD in the title meaning 'Sugoi Doryoku' or 'Super Determined', although generally SD is used to mean 'Super Deformed'.

New Naruto Shippuden Movie Announced - Naruto: Road to Ninja

In the newest edition of Weekly Shonen Jump a new Naruto movie has been announced. The major announcement of this movie is that it will be designed and wrote by mangaka Masashi Kishimoto, who created the Naruto series.

The film, which is the ninth Naruto film in total, but the sixth Naruto Shippuden movie, will open in Japan on 28th July.

Unfortunately there are not many details regarding the plot etc at the moment, but as they are released i will post them here.

UK Anime & Manga Releases - 19/03/2012 to 25/03/2012

It's that time of the week again, albeit one day later than usual, where we have a look at the new releases coming to you this week.

It's quite a slow week this week, with only 2 releases, one an anime release and one a manga release. However it looks like that is set to change next week, as has been the recent trend.

ANIME
Monday 19th March
Bleach: Series 8 - Part 1

MANGA
Tuesday 20th March
Animal Land - Vol.4