Creepy news day

May 29, 2007 in Manga Minutiae, Potpourri | 7 comments

Well, just these first two will give you that “ewww” feeling inside…

+++ 

ANN has a headline from Japan that is eerily similar to an eromanga plot cliche… Sakumi Matsuda, the chairman and founder of talent agency giant Arts Vision, has been arrested for sexual assault.  Matsuda has purportedly admitted to fondling a 16-year-old girl who was auditioning to become a voice actress.  Police are still investigating whether there have been other victims, which unfortunately is very likely given the number of starry-eyed seiyuu that have moved through the company’s doors hoping to land a job at one of the top agencies for voice acting talent.

Arts Vision’s website is currently replaced with a single message that promises to address the arrest, once lawyers are consulted…

+++

Comipress reports that Japanese police are now investigating whether the mystery/suspense manga MPD Psycho had inspired a 17-year-old man to kill and dismember his mother.  (Is this the guy that took his mother’s head to the police station?)  Police found the manga in the man’s room, as well as chat logs on his computer about the accuracy of the murders depicted in the book.

So uhh… grab this book if you haven’t yet.

+++

This is everywhere, but I read it on MangaBlog first… UDON Entertainment, which made a name for itself first with original comics, then licensed comics based on Capcom properties, is now also a Korean manhwa publisher.  Three licenses have been announced, the first of which will street in October.

I might be mistaken on this, but for some reason I recall UDON as having some professional ties to ICE Kunion, which may or may not be in trouble.  (Well, their website is down, so that’s not a good sign.)  We might be witnessing again the birth of a publisher from the ashes of another, a la ComicsOne/DrMaster.

Or not.  I could just be pulling all this out of my nether-regions.

Edit: Ed digs up tantalizing details on the relationship between ICE and UDON, including the fact that the koreanmanhwa.com domain was previously owned by ICE.  Phew, so I’m not just paranoid.  Well, about this, at least.

Edit 2: Ah, if I had paid more attention to ICE Kunion’s forums, then this wouldn’t have come as a surprise at all… the ICE Kunion forum has moved to a new url, icekunionforum.com, and posts all but confirm that ICE’s dissappearance is to make way for UDON’s debut as a manhwa licensee/publisher.  But at the same time, the ICE Kunion website is still there, just not publically accessible at the moment, so they might not be gone after all.

+++

Manga is now officially high-brow, as a Osamu Tezuka exhibit is opening up at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.  PreCur has all the info and links, including to an interview with manga scholar Frederick Schodt.

7 comments

  1. ed chavez on May 29, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    Yup ICE did work in some capacity with Udon. Udon actually lists ICE as a client on their site.

    Umm, I just posted about this but if there is any relationship here between the two, I hope its more like Udon buying ICE’s licenses and not a partnership. Udon taking over Ice’s KoreanManhwa domain though concerns me. And I wonder if the Baek HyeKyung license (she did Bring it On!) is only a coincidence…

  2. ed chavez on May 29, 2007 at 12:36 pm

    Oh and I forgot… I’ll be at the Tezuka exhibit tomorrow. Hopefully Jack and I can get a podcast made out of the trip.

  3. Simon on May 29, 2007 at 1:11 pm

    Yeah, I’m thinking it’s more along the lines of ICE shutting down, and UDON salvaging the staff and working relationships they already have with companies in Korea.  What better way to build up a licensing publisher fast than to absorb the experienced professionals of another?

    All conjecture, of course. But that’s a lot of peculiar coincidences there.

  4. Simon on May 29, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    Ah, now I remember why I thought there was a connection here…

    Eric Ko and Charles Park, who represent the American side of the ICE Kunion consortium, were both original founding artists of UDON.

  5. ed chavez on May 29, 2007 at 2:02 pm

    What better way to build up a licensing publisher fast than to absorb the experienced professionals of another?

    Good point, but as I noted at my blog I wonder why Haksan, when ICE was a Seoul/Sigongsa collaboration? Why not go after those pubs instead? Haksan makes sense when you look at their overall catalog – lots of action. But then why launch with shoujo? Make more money that way, maybe? But what about all of Udon’s existing readers? Are they going to read a bishonen title? Or a romance-comedy that doesn’t involve Sakura and Ryu?

    With this and Jarred retiring from AoD my head is spinning! Its enough to make someone of weak spirits turn to violence…

  6. Simon on May 29, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    Hmm, I thought ICE was a joint venture of all three…

  7. ed chavez on May 29, 2007 at 2:55 pm

    Maybe. I don’t know whats up or down anymore… Looking at the ICv2 profile from 2005, I guess Haksan is the other mentioned in that article.

Comments are now closed.