Go! Comi Announces New Manga for 2008

At their Friday afternoon panel at the New York Anime Festival, Go! Comi CEO David Wise and Creative Director Audry Taylor announced several new manga series scheduled for release in 2008, including:

• Three in Love by Shioko Mizuki - A new series from the creator of Crossroad. As the cover art and the title would suggest, this shojo story is about a love triangle between three friends that Taylor described as "just adorable."
• Bogle by Shino Taira and Yuko Ichiju - According to Taylor, Bogle is "detective, adventure mystery with great romantic overtones."
• Song of the Hanging Sky by Toriko Gin - Set in an alternate reality that's not quite America, Song of the Hanging Sky is about a group of native bird people who hide from the general populace because they fear persecution. Then one day, a young boy discovers their existence...
• Yggdrasil by Lay Mutsuki - A fantasy about a boy and a girl who play a virtual game that has some "strange stuff going on." The story also weaves in details about their real lives and how it affects their actions in the game.
• Kurogane Communication by Tomomasa Takuma - The manga version of the anime series about a young girl who discovers she's the last human left on earth.
• Ultimate Venus by Takako Shigematsu - "This is our favorite," raved Taylor, as she showed a multimedia trailer of this new series from the creator of Tenshi Ja Nai. Described as a kind of Pygmalion story, Ultimate Venus focuses on a klutzy girl who's homeless, and an aristocratic mentor's attempts to turn her into a princess. Along the way, our heroine get kidnapped (constantly) by hordes of handsome hunks -- and, need I say this? Romantic hilarity ensues!

Creators Wendy Pini (Elfquest, The Masque of Red Death) and Aimee Major Steinberger (Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan) were also on hand to promote their projects and had a few announcements to share:

• The first volume of the graphic novel version of Pini's multimedia Webcomic The Masque of Red Death will be published in Summer 2008.
• Steinberger's Japan Ai is now available in better bookstores everywhere, but not all of her charming vignettes about her trip to Japan made it into the book. So 60 pages of outtakes (extras or "omake") are available to view and enjoy on the Go! Comi Web site. A cute extra: if you click through to the Japan Ai pages, the whole Go! Comi site turns pink!

Stay tuned for more New York Anime Festival updates tomorrow, and if I really get my act together, I'll start posting some photos!