First TokyoPop got on the mobile manga tip. Next Digital Manga Publishing put their hat in the ring, with the addition of Vampire Hunter D for the iPhone. Now Agoura Hills, California-based Go! Comi has jumped into the fray by making Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan, Aimee Major Steinberger's charming Japan travelogue / sketchbook available on the iPhone.

Okay, so you may be saying, why should I get the iPhone version when I could get the book instead? Or maybe you've already purchased it when it first came out last year. For the introductory price of 99 cents, you'll not only get all the charming illustrations and commentary from the 190-page print version of Japan Ai, you'll also get a few nifty extras:

San Francisco, California-based Last Gasp Publishing recently released their latest catalog and one pleasant surprise was the announcement that they'll be releasing a new hardcover edition of Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms in September 2009.

Originally released in Japan as Yūnagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni in 2004, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is the touching story of two generations of young women whose lives are affected by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. This gentle yet moving graphic novel has won numerous awards in Japan, including Grand Prize for Manga at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival and the 2005 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Creative Award.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms also earned critical acclaim in its 2007 U.S. release. Publishers Weekly named it as one of ten best manga of 2007, and it received two Eisner Awards nominations in 2007. The American Library Association also included it in its 2008 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, so for librarians, a hardcover edition is a welcome sight indeed because it means this book will be able to better endure daily wear and tear from many readers.

After ending Shojo Beat, VIZ is showing strong signs that they haven't given up on magazines -- they're just opting to move their publishing online. Now that their first online manga magazine, VIZ Signature - IKKI has debuted at sigikki.com, they've recently announced that they'll be adding another to their line-up: Shonen Sunday.

Shonen Sunday is a weekly Japanese manga magazine for teen boys from Shogakukan that has brought fans hits like Inu-Yasha, Kekkaishi, Yakitate!! Japan and the currently serialized Rin-Ne. The print edition of Shonen Sunday recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and is heading into Year 51 with a new venture that will offer readers simultaneous publication of manga straight from Japan. The U.S. online version of Shonen Sunday will be launched just in time for San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2009. You can get a peek at the site and bookmark it for debut day at www.shonensunday.com.

While it was fascinating to see Q&A's with manga artists like Yun Kouga, Yasuhiro Nightow and Takashi Okazaki, quite possibly the most intriguing panel at Anime Expo 2009 was Friday's industry-only discussion about the commercial potential (and limitations) of manga that's made in America.

I tweeted some of the highlights as they happened, and that generated a lot of comments from fellow tweeters and comic industry pros. So to try to expand upon those 140-character Twitter sound bites, here's a somewhat meatier report on what was discussed at the unwieldly-named "Can Manga Be Created in the USA and Be Commercially Successful?" panel for pros and press.

It's been a while in the making, but the anime versions of Nana and Honey and Clover are now available to U.S. viewers exclusively through iTunes.

Just to make it extra enticing, the first episodes of both series are available for free download between now and August 31, 2009. Each episode of Nana or Honey and Clover costs $1.99, or get the whole first season of Nana plus the bonus "episode 11.5" or the whole first season of Honey and Clover plus bonus "episode L" for $19.99. These bonus episodes aren't available if you only buy the episodes one singly. You can visit the iTunes Honey and Clover shop at www.itunes.com/tv/honeyandclover. or the iTunes Nana shop at www.itunes.com/tv/nana to download and watch now, or to get more details.

After four straight weeks in the #1 spot, two blockbuster books finally pushed Bleach Volume 27 by Tite Kubo off the top of the heap of New York Times Graphic Books / Manga bestseller list. The two newcomers that duked it out for first? The lastest volume of Naruto and the final volume of Fruits Basket in what must have been a very tight race.

Naruto Volume 45 marks the last part of the big Naruto Generation Ninja accelerated release blast of the last few months. Now after this release, new volumes of Naruto will be out on its regular quarterly release schedule, with Volume 46 due in the stores in October.

While its no surprise that Naruto continues to rule the charts, it was a little surprising that the highly anticipated final volume of mega-popular shojo series Fruits Basket wasn't able to claim the top spot in the week of its debut. But this won't be the last you'll see of this volume -- Furuba fans will likely generate strong sales for this volume for weeks to come. You can also check out a free online preview of the first 21 pages of this fabulous finale.

Last weekend, over 44,000 fans came from places near and far to check out four days of fun at Anime Expo 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Now that the party's over, what's left? How about a bunch of photos of the festivities? I give to you, better late than never, my Anime Expo 2009 Photo Gallery.

AX '09 welcomed a star-studded roster of guests, including Yun Kouga (creator of Loveless, and character designer for Gundam 00), Takashi Okazaki (creator of Afro Samurai) and Yasuhiro Nightow who gave fans a peek at a new trailer from the Trigun movie that's now in the works. There were exciting concerts from visual kei rockers Moi dix Mois and pop songbirds Morning Musume, and tons of awesome cosplay.

At their Friday afternoon panel at Anime Expo, the VIZ Media marketing bunch (a.k.a. Mark Chang and Candice Uyloan) kicked things off with a very big announcement for manga fans. Starting in January 2010, Shonen Jump Manga / VIZ Media will be speeding up releases of One Piece by Eiichiro Oda, similar to how they accelerated releases of Naruto recently to get the U.S. volumes closer to the most recently released volumes in Japan. Beginning January with volumes 24 through 28, 30 new volumes of One Piece will be released at a rate of five per month through June 2010, until they get up to volume 53. One Piece is currently up to Volume 54 in Japan.

Why do this? Well, possibly to give readers less reasons to rely on illegal scanlations to get their latest fix of this fantasy-pirate adventure series. As a series that’s featured in the U.S. edition of Shonen Jump magazine, One Piece was released much slower than other titles, because any given volume would only appear only after the stories in any given volume were serialized in VIZ’s boys manga monthly.

It's Day 4 of Anime Expo, and the costumed fans and American otaku who looked so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Thursday are starting to show signs of con-fatigue (and maybe a hangover or two). But that won't stop them from heading back for another day of fun at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Southern California today.

The exhibits hall is open today from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm to fulfill your last-minute need to shop 'til you drop, and the same goes for Artists Alley and the Manga Cafe. There's also several panels featuring some of this weekend's top guests summing up their AX experiences. Read on, here's the short-list of things to do and see today:

Happy Birthday U.S.A.! While the rest of the general population is off grilling, heading to the beach or poppin’ open a beer, there are some of us (who are not camped out at the Staples Center for Michael Jackson memorial concert tickets) getting ready to check out Day 3 of Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Southern California.

What’s on tap for today? For me, it’s all about seeing manga artist Yasuhiro Nightow talk ‘bout Trigun, but for many, it’s a day for dressing up for the Masquerade and checking out a huge Power Rangers reunion. Oh America. You are so strange and wonderful. Here's the rest of today's manga-centric must-sees / must-do's: