A.D. Vision has signed a long term agreement with Japanese publisher Kadokawa Shoten to localize, publish and distribute an English language version of Japan's premiere anime magazine, Newtype, on an exclusive basis thoughout America and the English speaking world.  When word of an English edition of Newtype first broke (see 'Newtype In English'), it appeared that Digital Manga would produce the English version of the magazine.  Now A.D. Vision, which has a much larger library of anime releases than Digital Manga, is on-board as the publisher of the American version of a key anime magazine that has a circulation of 300,000 in Japan.  The Newtype USA edition will debut with a special collector's edition 'Convention Teaser' at Anime Expo in July and the San Diego Comic-Con International in August.  The first regular monthly edition of Newtype USA will appear this fall and be available in specialty stores and on newsstands.

 

Newtype USA will be unlike its North American competitors Animerica and Protoculture Addicts in that it will be published in the Japanese right-to-left format, instead of the English language left-to-right format.  Here A.D. Vision is taking its cue from Tokyopop, which is publishing all its manga titles in the Japanese format (see 'Tokyopop To Publish In The Japanese Format' and 'Manga Right-To-Left, Will It Fly' for a discussion of the phenomenon), rather than Viz, which publishes manga in both Japanese and American formats, but does Animerica in the traditional left-to-right American fashion.

 

However the main advantage that Newtype USA will have over its domestically produced rivals will not be format, it will be content.  Though Animerica has been steadily improving its coverage of what's going on in Japan, Newtype's coverage of the Japanese scene is unparalleled, and with the time between when a show is aired in Japan and when it becomes available in the U.S. shrinking constantly, knowing what is going on in Japan is increasingly important.  Hopefully A.D. Vision will utilize as much of the original Japanese content of Newtype as possible, and it appears that they will. For example the Convention Teaser issue of Newtype USA features a cover story on RahXephon, the hottest new anime show on Japanese television.  Newtype USA should provide a useful flow of information about the latest Japanese TV series, OVAs, and theatrical releases, and the publication could become even more important as the number of anime and manga releases in the U.S. continues to grow.