Bandai Entertainment has announced that it will no longer publish new manga, DVD, or Blu-ray titles as of February 2012. The company will be restructuring, taking its dedicated staff down from five to three, and will entirely change focus. Instead of new releases, the Bandai Entertainment will shift over solely to merchandising, broadcast licensing, and digital distribution.

I’ve always had this sneaking suspicion that there was a Japanese high school manga about everything, and the existence of “Sweet Android High-School” is as good as proof in my book. “Sweet Android High-School” isn’t exactly what it sounds like, but at the same time, it sort of is; it’s a high school manga in which all the characters are personified Android phone vendors. They aren’t actual androids, as far as I can tell, but frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Today is the 70th birthday of renowned Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, known to some as “Japan’s Walt Disney,” known to all as the creator of some of the most successful animated features in recent memory. His 2001 release, Spirited Away, was the first Japanese movie to win an American Academy Award and was produced after a short retirement following his previous effort, Princess Mononoke in 1997. In other words, we probably haven’t heard the last of him.

Bleeding Cool has the scoop on what, if true, is an enormous deal in the world of manga: It’s reported that Akira Toriyama, creator of the venerable Dragon Ball franchise, is about to relaunch Dragon Ball comics.

Bleeding Cool:

This morning we received word that Shueisha Publishing Company of Tokyo has convinced legendary manga creator Akira Toriyama to come back and restart the Dragon Ball comics franchise.

…

Akira Toriyama has been persuaded to return to creating new chapters. Partly to help promote the [forthcoming Dragon Ball Online MMO] game, partly to earn the boat load of cash he has been promised.

Something that will make this event even more spectacular is a simultaneous fully translated worldwide launch of the new book.

Toriyama wrote the 519-chapter, 42-volume manga series from 1984 to 1995: On television, it was split into two very successful animated series, Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, which successfully managed to combine humor, action, and, yes, interminably long fight sequences and increasingly ridiculous (but still charming) Power Levels.

(The Dragon Ball GT animated series was not based on any manga by Toriyama, and it showed; and darnit, AF was an urban legend.)

While Bleeding Cool’s report is focused solely on the comics business, if Toriyama does indeed write more Dragon Ball comics for the first time in 15 years, it seems hard to believe that these new storylines wouldn’t ripple over into other media. The Dragon Ball franchise has made more than four billion dollars in merchandising sales, and the franchise is still strong enough that the likes of Nickelodeon and The CW can still slap “Kai” on the name and repackage old DBZ episodes and have a hit. If there are more comics, could there be a new animated series as well? If so, expect Power Levels that make 9000 look positively paltry by comparison.

If you think #9 is an exaggeration, you may not be acquainted with something called “shōjo manga.”

(via 9gag)

At the Cultural Typhoon conference at Komazawa University this month, anime writer Dai Satō had ominous words to say during a round table discussion. Joined by film director Tomita Katsuya and music journalist Futasugi Shin to discuss “Living in the City: Hip Hop, Anime, Housing Projects,” Satō—whose esteemed oeuvre includes Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Wolf’s Rain, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex—believes anime will die out in Japan in a few decades, Otaku2 reports.

“No one wants to hear about NEET [the unemployed],” he said, expressing his frustrations with the Japanese anime industry. “They’d rather watch a group of high school girls in a band asking, ‘How do I play this note?’”

You may loathe him for his handle-revving pheonomenon “Crank That,” but DeAndre Cortez Way–better known as the rapper Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em–probably thinks he’s doing anime fans worldwide a favor by recording two tracks for his upcoming Dre album titled “Anime” and “Goku.” Rejoice: We’ll no longer be thought of as oily hermits that wear large-breasted anime maids on our oversized t-shirts! Now we’ll just be thought of as oily hermits that wear large-breasted anime maids on our oversized t-shirts and listen to Soulja Boy!

This is the same guy that told Daily Beast columnist Touré, “Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we’d still be in Africa.” And not to compare this issue in the slightest, but I’m just sayin’: Without Soulja Boy, otakus would still be in their parents’ basements; or still in America, instead of their study abroad programs in Japan. So shout out! I have to give them where they’re due.

(The rest of this post contains some NSFW lyrics.)

Sometimes, things get into other things that they don’t belong in. There could be a fly in your ointment or a bear in your oatmeal, for example. Well if you live in Japan, you could soon find some manga in your Magic: the Gathering decks. But here’s the thing. As bad as that idea sounded when I first heard it, I’m actually kind of a fan.

Manabu Miyazaki is suing police over a ban on manga based on the yakuza, the Japanese mafia. The ban has caused a graphic novel based on his memoir to be pulled from shelves, in an effort to lessen the influence of the yakuza in Japanese culture.

Miyazaki is currently a writer, but he is also yakuza royalty. His father was a boss in Kyoto, and his mother was also a member of a yakuza family. The banned manga memoir is the story of his upbringing, violent student activism, and management of a Yakuza run demolition business.