Saturday's manga publisher panel marathon kicks off with VIZ Media's panel, and there a healthy dose of new manga releases announced for the rest of 2008. From the sounds of it, the rest of 2008 will be big for Tite Kubo's Bleach, and manga from superstar manga-ka Takehiko Inoue, Arina Tanemura and Akira Toriyama.

Bleach Books and Movie News - The full-color Bleach artbook, All Color But the Black and the Bleach fan book, Souls: The Rain Drags Black Sun Down will both be released in October 2008. As previously announced, the Bleach Movie, Bleach: Memories of Nobody will get a special nationwide theatrical release on June 11 and 12, 2008, with the DVD release to follow in October 2008.

Takehiko Inoue Manga Goes BIG - In addition to the previously announced releases of Inoue-sensei's amazing basketball-themed manga, Real in July 2008 and Slam Dunk in September 2008, we got our first look at the VIZ BIG edition of Vagabond, which will also land in the bookstores in September 2008 --and with over 700 pages of manga, including numerous color pages, this big hunk of seinen manga goodness will be worth every penny of it's $19.95 cover price. And to just put the cherry on the Inoue sundae, VIZ will also be releasing two of Inoue's Vagabond artbooks, Sumi and Water in September 2008.

More Shojo Manga Fantasy Fun from Arina Tanemura - Two more magical girl manga from Tanemura-sensei are on the way -- Time Stranger Kyoko Volume 1 will be out in July 2008 and a one-shot, Short Tempered Melancholic will be on sale in August 2008.

Akira Toriyama: Dragon Ball to Blue Dragon and Beyond - While the Dragon Ball movie's release date has been pushed back from it's original Summer 2008 release date to its current Spring 2009 theatrical release, that won't stop the Akira Toriyama manga bonanza this summer -- Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z will get the VIZ BIG treatment, with 3 volumes-in-one editions due in the stores in June 2008. But that's not all -- COWA!, a one-shot story about a boy who's half-vampire, half were-koala, his friends in monster village and their hilarious adventures. I've seen previews of this and it's absolutely adorable and funny -- more like Toriyama's Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump comedy / adventure stories than his action adventure epic, Dragon Ball Z. On top of that, we got a preview of the Blue Dragon anime series, which is based on the XBox 360 video game and features character designs by Toriyama-sensei.

New Seinen Manga: Black Lagoon and Solanin - Newly announced on the 2008 roster are Black Lagoon by Rei Hiroe and Solanin by Asano Inio. Set for August 2008 release, Black Lagoon is based on the anime series, and is Rated M - Mature, for its "Quentin Tarantino-esque" mix of "big guns, babes in short shorts and explosions." Volumes 1 and 2 of Solanin will be released concurrently in October 2008. "This one is a bit hipper," and it's geared toward readers age 17 - 34. "It's incredibly good."

More Naruto Movies - While the big Naruto Nation push of 2007 is over, there's still more ninja fun to come. VIZ announced release dates for more Naruto movies, Naruto The Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel will be out on DVD on July 29, 2008, and Naruto the Movie 3 will be out on October 11, 2008.

See the more new manga from VIZ in the VIZ New Manga Preview Gallery -- and look for more updates to the gallery, including these new titles to be added here soon.

Image credits: © Tite Kubo, © Takehiko Inoue, © Akira Toriyama / Bird Studio