In a press release this week, Canadian television station Super Channel announced that they’ll be played the anime series of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. The first episode of the 74 episode series will play on March 15 at 10pm and continue playing each Monday evening at the same time. The episodes will be available on both Super Channel’s standard channel and in high definition. (Source: AnimeNewsNetwork)

Super Channel is a specialty channel available through most digital cable services across the country. Along with the pay-to-view channel, they also provide a subscription feature that allows viewers to watch episodes and movies previously played on the channel at their leisure. This also isn’t the first time Super Channel has added anime to its line-up. It currently has Descendants of Darkness and Gurren Lagann on its programming schedule.

After last week’s disheartening news regarding YTV’s removal of Bleach and Naruto, it’s great to see that Canadian TV still has room for anime on its digital-waves. Though I haven’t seen the Monster anime myself, I have read the manga and it was fantastic so I look forward to the opportunity to watch the series on a weekly basis on Super Channel.

Click here for full promotional poster

A little plugging for my hometown event – as a part of our Animinitime convention in Halifax, Nova Scotia, we’re excited to announce that we’re now selling tickets for a special midnight showing of Cowboy Bebop The Movie: Knockin’ On Heavens’ Door.

The movie will be played on the big screen at downtown’s Parklane Theatres on the evening of April 24. The showing falls between the two events planned for that weekend – one is a picnic the day before while the convention itself follows the day after. Each ticket is on sale for $5 (taxes included). You can currently buy tickets for the movie event at Strange Adventures and upcoming Anime@Large (a local anime club) events.

According to YTV’s website, Canadians will no longer have episodes – new or old – of Naruto and Bleach to look forward to on cable TV. Both anime series have been removed not only from the channel’s daily schedule but also entirely from their show database. (Source: AnimeNewsNetwork)

Their website section AnimeMaster, where information and blog-style posts were shared from their resident of the same name has also been removed. Both these changes came without advance warning from the station.

YTV has seen a distinct drop in the amount of animated shows it plays in recent years, in favour of playing a line-up of predomiantly live-action comedies and dramas aimed at a younger teen audience. Anime on the station has been in decline for some time and its shaky future on the channel had the final nail in the coffin for most fans when their evening Bionix line-up was moved from its primetime slot on Friday to Saturday mid 2009.

YTV’s OnDemand service, a special feature available on digital cable stations, has also removed episodes of Naruto and Pokemon while limiting the available episodes of Nickelodeon’s Avatar the Last Airbender.

Canadian television in general is a far cry for anime from what it was only five years ago when there were over 15 different anime series playing on television at a time. This included the beginning of YTV’s Bionix line-up which at the time played weekly episodes of many newly English broadcasting series including Inu-Yasha, Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, Witch Hunter Robin, Gundam Seed and Bleach. At one point the station was even in talks over an anime-only channel, which though approved at the time, was never launched.

Anime currently still playing on YTV is Dinosaur King, Pokemon and the more recently added Pretty Cure. Teletoon, another Canadian station, currently plays episodes of Bakugan and Domo-kun and Friends. Some digital cable users in Canada also have access to the subscription-based AnimeNetwork service which allows subscribers to watch weekly updated lists of anime series at their leisure.

Last night was the first of two showings across Canada of Evangelion 1.0, part one of a four-part retelling of the popular Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, revamped with new scenes and new graphics for an old, an undeniably well-loved, story.

I went to the showing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with over 200 fellow fans –  not only did the show almost entirely sell out but we also made up the biggest turn-out across the entire country! Way to come out and show your support, Haligonians – you guys rock! Winning moments include a fun pre-show with lots of prizes and trivia and an impromptu light show during the film’s closing credits where everyone took out their cell phones and swayed them to the lovely Utada Hikaru song.

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Today’s AnimeNewsNetwork has posted its list of winners for the recently held Canadian-exclusive contest for tickets to Evangelion 1.0. Congrats to all the winners!

And as another reminder, the first showing of Evangelion 1.0 hits Canadian theatres across the country September 30th (next Wednesday!). The Empire Theatres’ website has information on participating locations including word that each theatre will again be holding cosplay contests for attendees with prizes and goodies for the winners on the premiere night!

I’ll be attending the Halifax showing as both a fan and promoter for 2010’s Animinitime events, so I hope to see lots of friendly and familiar faces there :)

Reusing the above graphic because it’s cool and relevant. AnimeNewsNetwork is holding a contest giving away tickets to 67 showings of the upcoming Evangelion 1.0 film, coming soon to Canadian theatres. ANN is giving away 310 tickets in total and it’s one ticket per location per winner. The giveaway ends on September 19th so head on over for a quick and easy chance to see the movie compliments of ANN and Eleven Arts Inc.

Canada’s Empire Theatres recently put up a landing page for the upcoming special event screenings of Evangelion 1.0. The threatres and dates were announced by Funimation earlier in the summer but Empire Theatre’s page has a few additional locations and times than those originally listed from ET (including two locations now playing it in Halifax, yay!).

Two times are now listed for the showings as well: Wednesday, September 30th and Saturday, October 3rd. The movie itself will be dubbed and will not have any special featurettes playing before or after it (unless specifically added by the individual threatres).

Along with this new information, you can also now pre-order your tickets for Empire Theatre showings, something worth doing in the near future thanks to the notority of large anime screenings selling out. Most theatres will also be hosting cosplay contests in connection with the film and will have some goodies on hand for prizes and freebies, including posters and postcards, and even a few surprises.

Empire Theatres will also be playing Studio Ghibli/Disney’s Ponyo in select theatres across Canada later in the summer with final showtimes and any-applicable special event information coming soon.

Another fantastic year of being both Canadian and incapable of being any prouder! A big Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians and birthday-wishes to our beautiful country.

I hope everyone gets our there and enjoys all the festivities across the country. I’ll be spending the day meeting new people, hanging out with old friends, watching a flurry of culture in Halifax’s Tattoo parade and concert, checking out the Canada Day deals at our local Canadian-comics icon Strange Adventures and then keeping my fingers crossed that Mother Nature allows us a short enough respite from the rain to allow the fireworks finale I always look forward to so much!  Have a wonderful day everyone :)

It comes as little surprise anymore when us Canadians get the short end of the theatrical anime-stick. Those of us who don’t live in the big cities of Vancouver and Toronto, and occassionally Montreal, can usually count ourselves out of many big Japanese animated film releases. However, in a news release from Funimation, it seems that Canadians are getting the good end of the stick this time.

On September 30, 2009, the first of four Evangelion remake films, Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, will be playing across Canada in 67 different theatres. The film, rated PG-13, will sport a dub bringing back many of the voice talents from the original Evangelion series’ dub.

You can watch a trailer for the movie on Funimation’s Eva 1.0 website, and see the full list of Canadian theatres under the post cut.

News Source: AnimeNewsNetwork (FUNI Press Release)

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For my fellow Canadian Maritimers out there, the 2010 Animinitime site went live last night, outlining the set-up for CanCon East’s first one-day event! Most of you are likely more familiar with its parent-convention, Animaritime, the 3-day convention that is currently on one-year break until 2011 for planning purposes.

“We at CanCon East are excited to announce the official launch of the Animinitime 2010 website! Along with this we have exciting news to share about our 2010 one-day event: Animinitime 2010 will consist of two events celebrating fans’ love of anime and gaming across the Maritimes!

For the first time since Animaritime began seven years ago, CanCon East is holding an event in Halifax, Nova Scotia along with our classic New Brunswick event.”

Yay for an event in Halifax! Long time coming, no? I hope others are as excited to attend the events as I am about running them :) Hard to believe they’re a year away though, but that just means more time to prepare and anticipate, right?

Almost a month after the event, here I come with my earlier-promised recap of Free Comic Book Day at Strange Adventures in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Waited these weeks to get my pictures uploaded onto my computer, and you know what? The majority of them were horrible! Ah well, that’s what I get for not getting to know my camera better before taking ‘er out, right?

This year Calum, manager of Strange Adventures, set out to top his incrediable feat of last year’s FCBD where he gave out over 15,000 free comics to eager readers. Well, success was had and faster than any of us expected.

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Regretful that I’m so last minute reminding folks about the glory that is Free Comic Book Day! On the first Saturday of May, comic book stores around the world offer just what the name would suggest: free comics!

Tomorrow being the 2009 date (May 2nd), definitely make time to check out your local comic book stores and pick up some goodies, meet some people and have fun with the deals, atmosphere and good times that can only be achieved with free swag enjoyed by many!

If comics aren’t your thing, there’s something for manga fans as well (though admittedly not as much as has been made available in the past by publishers). This year Viz will be offering a 32-page Shonen Jump edition that includes a chapter of Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei’s collaboration piece: Ultimo. You can see a preview of the free booklet here.

As a volunteer, I’ll be lending a hand to the amazing folks of Halifax’s Strange Adventures in handing out over 20,000 free comics! If you’re in the area, be sure to stop by. Along with free swag there’ll be some surprise appearances, artists on-site to draw some goodies for the young ones (including Faith Erin Hicks, creator of Zombies Calling, and MTCopyright, artist of Whore of Turfan) and a bunch of great in-store deals!

Expect an overview and photos of the day here in Halifax soon after. All the best to everyone out there; enjoy your free comics!

Animaritime is fan-run anime and gaming convention that has taken place in New Brunswick, Canada for six years. Each year it grows with more events and more attendees and this year was certainly no exception. With over 1000 attendees, Animaritime enjoyed its highest attendance numbers yet and brought with it a whole lot more of the fun, activity and lack of sleep that staff and attendees alike have come to expect. I myself am a three-year attendee and two-year staff member, with no plans on stopping being either anytime soon.

You can check out Animaritime’s forums if you’d like to learn more about the convention, including people’s thoughts, photos and videos of the recent event. For the curious, Animaritime’s official photographer also has lots of photos for online viewing. Under the cut I share some of my own experiences at Animaritime 2009 which happened earlier this month, including a short peek at some new purchases and a mish-mashed overview of my panels.

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As I work on a round-up post of Animaritime 2009, I’ve been making the manga blogosphere rounds to see what goodies I missed over the weekend.

On the manga licensing front, there were a few new titles I came home to read about:

Brigid has information about five new yaoi titles from NetComics and Ed over at MangaCast posts about new listings in Diamond previews: Peach! by U-Jin, put out Aurora Publishing, and Fujita Maki’s Trill on Eden being put out by GoComi. Trill of Eden is a title first spotted on Amazon in December.

Lys-chan found some new CMX titles on Amazon which she posts about on her LiveJournal: A Tale of an Unknown Country by Natsuna Kawase and Oh! My Brother by Ken Saito. I also came across a listing for Deka Kyoushi by Tamio Baba (pictured at left).

And though I didn’t have time to post about it before heading out for convention-y goodness, Digital Manga has a post about YouTube manga previews they’ve put together as promotion and preview for several of their recent and upcoming boys’ love releases. These titles include the previously released Black Sun and the long-awaited sixth volume of Our Kingdom.

Taking a brief moment to catch up on the anime-world in Canada, those who watched the premiere of Pretty Cure on YTV over the weekend have good things to say about it, including a pleasant dub job and, from what they can tell, no edits or censoring. I can’t wait to catch an episode but the 7:30am and 4:30pm on Fridays showtimes are likely going to make this a difficult thing to manage. Darn you work and school!

On the less positive anime front in Canada,  Bandai Entertainment’s free YouTube streaming of Gundam 00’s first couple of episodes isn’t available in Canada. Phooey. Then again, Code Geass did become available to us eventually…

And to finish this round-up post with something else anime-related (crazy, no?), I have to post a link to ANN’s news that Takako Shimura’s Aoi Hana is getting an anime. I love the manga so I’ll definitely be adding it to my short of list of animes I look forward to previewing when they become available.

Keep your eyes peeled in the near future for a post about this past weekend’s Animaritime including a quick peek at my newly acquired swag, which will be a very good indication of the reviews you can expect to see here at Kuriousity over the next month or so :)

As a staff member of the very-shortly-upcoming Animaritime, my time has been pretty split this year thus far with final preperations. I hope visitors haven’t minded the older boys’ love reviews I’ve imported over from Manga Jouhou in recent weeks. I always want to provide atleast something new for my loyal readers each day :) For those looking for my thoughts on some more recently released titles, expect those to pick-up again next week.

In the meantime, I can’t wait to see all the new and returning attendees at Animaritime this year. Our pre-registration numbers this year were incrediable as the convention grows more and more each year. As during last year, I’ll be running several panels and I’m also the manager of this year’s Artist Alley. I’ve doubled the size of the Alley this year as well so definitely drop by to see the amazing talent we have in there. It’s going to be tons of fun, I guarantee it!

The panels I’ll be running this year are:

Shonen-Ai/Shoujo-Ai (Friday, March 6th, 8pm-9pm)
Yaoi (18+) (Friday, March 6th, 9pm-10pm)
Yuri (18+) (Friday, March 6th, 10pm-10:30pm)
All About the Wii (Saturday, March 7th, 1pm-2pm)
How to Get Manga (Saturday, March 7th, 9am-10am)
Digital Illustration (Aid to MTCopyright: Saturday, March 7th, 11am-12pm)

For more information and scheduling on Animaritime (Moncton, NB), you can pop in on the website and check out the information there and on the forums as well.

Only one day left until I pack the last of my things and head on up, but of course there’s still a million things left to do!