7/25/2008

Otakuthon 2008



This week-end PA will be at Otakuthon. Come and visit us if you can. We'll be glad to chat with you.

We will be in the dealers' room saturday & sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, table #400. Bring your wallet: we'll have lots of goodies.

We will also have a panel on Saturday, 15:00 to 16:00 in room “Panel 2 / 523b.” Come participate to our Q&A as well as our focus group!

6/26/2008

Fantasia 2008



The 12th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival, North America's premier genre cinema event, will be held from July 3rd to July 21st, 2008 in three theatres (Hall, J.A. DeSeve and D.B. Clarke) of Montreal's Concordia University. This year it offers more than 100 feature films, over 200 shorts, 7 documentaries and there will be also more than fifty guests present to introduce their movies. The Program Book will be on sale Sunday June 29th at the cost of $5. Tickets will be available from July 3rd for $8.00 or $70 for 10 tickets.

The programming includes 56 Asian movies: 23 from Japan, 1 from China, 10 from Hong Kong, 16 from Korea, 5 from Thailand and 1 from Vietnam.

The selection of anime is rather thin this year: Batman: Gotham Knight (a USA/Japan coproduction that give the Animatrix treatment to Batman with six animated shorts directed by Yasuhiro Aoki, Futoshi Higashide, Toshiyuki Kuboka, Hiroshi Morioka, Shoujirou Nishimi and Nam Jong-sik) and Genius Party (the experimental animated anthology from studio 4'C that we talked about in PA#96).

However, the selection offers more live-action movies based on manga. The most obvious is L: Change the World (Hideo Nakata's [Ring] prequel based on Death Note), but there's also Akanbo Shoujo (directed by Yudai Yamaguchi based on the popular Kazuo Umezu's popular manga), Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (dir. by Takashi Yamazaki and adapted from Yohei Saigan's manga Sanchome no Yuhi: Yuyake no Uta), Be a Man! Samurai School (dir. by Tak Sakaguchi, based on Akira Miyashita's manga Sakigake! Otoko Juku) and Le Grand Chef (a Korean movie dir. by Jeon Yun-su and based on a popular Manhwa).

The festival will also show three Nikkatsu action movies from the 60s: A Colt is my Passport (1967), Gangster VIP (1968), and Velvet Hustler (1967).

The other Japanese movies are: Accuracy of Death, Adrift in Tokyo, Black Belt, Chanbara Beauty, The Chasing World, Gachi Boy: Wresling with a Memory, Machine Girl (a coproduction with the USA), The Most Beautiful Night in the World, Negative Happy Chain Saw Edge, Robo Rock, Sasori (a coproduction with HK), The Shadow Spirit, Shamo (a coproduction with HK), Sukiyaki Western Django (the latest Takashi Miike), Tokyo Gore Police and X-Cross.

Another notable movie is The Midnight Meat Train (a USA movie dir. by Ryuhei Kitamura [Versus, Aragami] and based on a story by Clive Barker).

The Japanese guests will be Tak Sakaguchi (Tokyo Gore Police, Be a Man! Samurai School), Isao Karasawa (Be a Man! Samurai School), Ryuhei Kitamura (Midnight Meat Train), Eihi Shiina (Tokyo Gore Police), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) and we must also mention Mark Schilling (the movie historian, who will present A Colt Is my Passport).

Happy Festival!

Orders shipped 2008/06/26

All new orders received between 2008/6/20 and 2008/6/25 shipped today.

The next shipping for U.S. and International orders will be at the same time we ship / mail PA #97 around mid-August.

6/20/2008

Orders shipped 2008/06/20

All new orders received between 2008/6/13 and 2008/6/19 shipped today.

6/13/2008

Orders shipped 2008/06/13

All new orders received between 2008/6/6 and 2008/6/12 shipped today.

6/06/2008

Orders Shipped 2008/06/06

All new orders received between 2008/5/30 and 2008/6/5 shipped today.

6/02/2008

SPJA Nomination for PA

We were so busy working on the magazine back in April that we forgot to mention that Protoculture Addicts was nominated in the “Best Publication” category for the 2008 Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Industry Award.

It is an honor to be (finally!) a finalist nominated along with Anime Insider, Newtype, Otaku USA and Shojo Beat. It is unfortunately too late to vote (poll closed on May 15th), but the results will be announced during the SPJA Industry Reception at Anime Expo® 2008.

See Anime News Network for more details on the SPJA Industry Award.

ANN congratulates Claude J Pelletier

Anime News Network congratulates Claude J Pelletier, Protoculture Addicts' editor-in-chief, for receiving the Momiji Award. [Link]

6/01/2008

PA #92 Now Available As eBook

PA92There is now a total of 44 issues of Protoculture Addicts available in eBook format from Drive Thru RPG! The latest addition is issue #92.

Click the image to order it from Drive Thru RPG with a special discount ($3.99 US instead of the regular eBook price of $4.99 US or the print cover price of $5.95 US/CDN).

Issue #92 (Le Chevalier d'Eon, Paprika, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, 009-1, Gintama, Hell Girl, Ouran High School Host Club, Shonen Onmyouji, Ayakashi Ayashi, The Wallflower, etc.) is an excellent way to sample, at a great price, the new full color format of the magazine. It can also be ordered from Protoculture's online catalog.

5/30/2008

Orders shipped 2008/5/30

All new orders received between 2008/5/21 and 2008/5/29 shipped today.

5/29/2008

Update

The distribution and subscription information sections of the web page have been updated.

Protoculture Addicts is now available in the U.S. in over a thousand bookstores, mostly Borders (including subsidiaries like Waldenbooks or Brentano's), but also Barnes & Noble, Follett and a few others.

International / overseas standard subscriptions (surface mail) seem to work fine for most of Western Europe and Mexico, but for other overseas destinations (Asia, Australia) or countries with "slow" postal service (like Africa, Italy or the Middle-East) -- where delivery can take up to ten (10) weeks -- we STRONGLY recommend subscribing to the more expensive Overseas Air Mail option to avoid long delays or problems.

5/21/2008

Anime North

Claude J Pelletier and Miyako Matsuda will be at Anime North this week-end. Come and meet with them if you can!

PA #96 in stores

Protoculture Addicts #96 has now been shipped or mailed to all distributors (last week) and subscribers (this week). Therefore, in most cases, it should be on your doorsteps or in your local stores by the end of the month -- if not already.

Please keep in mind that regular subscriptions are sent by surface mail (unless you have a first class or air mail subscription), so subscribers should expect to receive their copies within a few days to a week in Canada, 2 to 4 weeks in the USA (within a few days for First Class subscribers) and 3 to 6+ weeks overseas (1 to 2 weeks for Air Mail subscribers). Please don't email us to inquire about the status of your order until this shipping period has passed. Check the order status note on our blog or our Ordering & Shipping Policy for details.

As usual, your feedback would be greatly appreciated. Please let us know of any sighting of PA #96 in your local stores, how long it took for your subscription copy to arrive or what you think of this issue, by e-mail or in the forum!

We are quite satisfied with this issue (the best we've ever made!!!) and hope you will enjoy it.

New orders shipped 2008/05/21

All new orders received between 2008/3/21 and 2008/5/20 shipped today along with the last bits of #96's mailing (small distributors & stores, First Class & Air Mail subscriptions, comp list).

5/14/2008

Delay in orders

Our small staff was so busy with the production of the magazine that we couldn't process orders for a while. All orders received since 2008/3/21 will ship with issue #96 next week. We apologize for this delay.

PA#96 available for order

PA96Protoculture Addicts #96 is on its way (it has shipped to all major distributors) and is now available for order.

To get a copy you can either order it directly from us, get a subscription or check your local store. If they are not carrying the magazine, please encourage them to do so. Retailers can order it directly from us or they can order it from several distributors (our web page has a list of distributors that carry the magazine). Remember: the best way to support the magazine is by the word of mouth. Tell your friends about Protoculture Addicts and encourage them to buy it as well.

We have just updated all the information related to Protoculture Addicts #96 on the web page (click the links for details).

The magazine will ship next week (to small distributors, stores and subscribers) and should be in stores by the end of the month.

5/13/2008

PA#95 Survey

With Protoculture Addicts #96 due out any day now, Anime News Network is once again running a survey to see what readers thought of issue #95. Please let us know so that we can continue improving the magazine.

Link to survey

Thanks!

Movie reviews

We've just put online a bunch of movie reviews from last year's Montreal World Film Festival.

You can access them either on the eZine's live-action reviews, festival reviews or directly at the Montreal World Film Festival 2007 review page.

5/08/2008

PA's Editor-in-chief to receive Momiji Award

Anime North will honor Protoculture Addicts' founder and Editor-in-chief, Claude J Pelletier, with the Momiji Award at the May 23-25 2008 convention in Toronto, Canada.

This Canadian Award honours “people who laid the foundations and helped to nurture the world-wide love of anime and manga that we all share.” The Award was previously presented to Fred Ladd (2001), Tezuka Studio's Takayuki Matsutani (2002), Frank Miller (2003), Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli (2004), Carl Macek (2005), Go Nagai (2006), and Peter Fernandez & Corinne Orr (2007).

Claude J Pelletier will also be a guest at Otakuthon (July 26-27) and Chibi-PA (September 27-28).

More information on Anime News Network.

4/16/2008

Fantasia to get subsidies from the SODEC [updated]

The free newspaper 24 Heures announced today that the Festival Fantasia will finally received governmental subsidies from the SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises culturelles / Society for the development of cultural ventures).

The subsidies were announced by the SODEC yesterday.

Six movie festivals in Quebec (including four in Montreal) will share subsidies of $825, 000.

The other festival include the Montreal World Film Festival (getting $225,000), le Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (getting $220,000), le Carrousel International du Film de Rimouski (getting $120,000), le Festival du Cinéma International D'Abitibi-Témiscamingue (getting $115,000) and Les Recontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal (getting $95,000).

Fantasia will receive a $50,000 subsidy from the SODEC. It is an improvement since they only got $35,000 in 2007 from the Municipal & Regional Affairs Ministry. It is a little disappointing, since the festival deserves more, but it will certainly means a few improvement to the festival this year (more movies? more guests?). Fantasia has yet to comment or emit a press release on the SODEC announcement.

The 12th edition of Fantasia, the North American Premier Genre Film Festival (known for showing lots of edgy Japanese live-action and anime), will be held July 3-21 2008.

[updated 2008/04/17 with details from The Gazette 2008/04/16: D5]