Broccoli Books Blog

Hello, blogger Shiz here.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests from individuals who are asking for promotional goods.

I’m sorry, we will NOT be sending you anything.

We are only sending promotional items to libraries & anime clubs.
NOT to individual consumers.

If you are interested in receiving the promotional goods, please ask YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY to contact pr(at)bro-usa.com. The information they need to provide is in the previous posts.

PS. Libraries who have sent kind words about the dissolution of Broccoli USA and/or information about their libraries are getting larger packages than those who just request for stuff. Those who are preparing the packages (= me) are human beings too.

PPS. To be less vague, we’re really busy trying to tie all loose ends & cleaning up the office. We (=me) are providing promotional goods because we would like the fans of Broccoli Books to get their hands on these things. Otherwise, the promo goods would be tossed into a trash bin. Don’t waste our time… er, we are taking the time to send these packages, so please be considerate of our situation.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

I forgot to mention last week that I did a short interview for Publisher’s Weekly. I’m guessing it’s going to be on the online edition, so you should be able to see it soon (if it’s not up already).

Both Kaname (Broccoli USA president) and I answered questions about the reasons why Broccoli USA will be closing the US office, as well as what’s happening to the various licenses.

But I’ve laid out most of the information in the post on Nov 20, so please make sure you read through that before making comments or asking questions.

Hello, blogger Shiz here.

I sent small packages of promo goods to the following libraries.
If you want any of the stuff, please go visit them.

Aina Haina Public Library (Honolulu, HI)
Cook Memorial Public Library (Libertyville, IL)
Cumberland County Public Library (Fayetteville, NC)
Mililani Public Library (Mililani, HI)
Mineola Memorial Library (Mineola, NY)
Pasadena Public Library (Pasadena, CA)
Providence Public Library (Providence, RI)
Richton Park Library (Richton Park, IL)
USAFA Base Library (CO)
Zearing Public Library (Zearing, IA)

Mostly stickers (E’S, Kon Kon Kokon, My Dearest Devil Princess, etc), Juvenile Orion keychains, Piyoko figures & various Di Gi Charat things.

Enjoy!

I’ll pack up more stuff next week.
If your local library isn’t on the list, have the youth librarian email pr(at)bro-usa.com with the subject line “Broccoli Books Promo Goods.”

PS. I’ve received over 50 emails requesting promo goods. Right now I’m prioritizing libraries because the US Postal System has a lovely thing called “library mail” which lets you send packages to libraries and schools at a lower cost.

PPS. If you’re not an officer of an anime club, please don’t email w/ requests.

Here are some questions I received in the last few weeks.
I don’t have a lot of good news for most of you… sorry about that.

If you have any other questions, please email editor(at)broccolibooks.com.

* * * *
Q. I’m wondering whether Sola volume two is out yet. If not, when will it be released?

A. sola vol 2 has not been released, and will not be released by Broccoli Books.

Q. Titles Such as Galaxy Angel II and Disgaea II, What is going to happen to the remaining volumes? Are they going to end where they left off, and leave it’s readers in the dark, or is there still hope for these titles being released to the very end? Being a faithful reader of Galaxy Angel II, and having a local bookstore special order the soon to be released Volume 4, I am very curious as to what will happen with this title. I just wanted to know if any other company will pick up these titles to finish their release, or will they just be left as is?

A. Unfortunately Broccoli Books will not be releasing the rest of Galaxy Angel II or Disgaea 2. We are working with each of the respective licensors in Japan to help facilitate the titles to be picked up & released by a different US publisher. We’ll keep everyone posted if any of the titles are picked up.

Q. I am writing you is to ask if you have any merchandise (not manga or dvds) that you still have stock of that you will need to take care of before you end operations. Like I said, I am quite a fan of your properties and would appreciate a chance to get any remaining items from you.

A. We are planning to have one last warehouse sale on December 12, 2008 at our Los Angeles office. We haven’t decided on the format yet, but it will most likely be “make your own grab bag” format.

If you live in the Los Angeles area, please come to the warehouse sale. We’ll make an announcement about it in the first week of December.

If you don’t live in the Los Angeles area, maybe you can have a friend come by?

Q. Can I check with you when will Disgaea 2 Vol 3 released ?

A. Disgaea 2 vol 3 has not been released yet, and will not be released by Broccoli Books anymore.

Q. Are you able to ship dust jackets/stickers to England?

A. The official answer is “no, we cannot ship dust jackets & stickers to England.”
It’s because we only have the license to sell the English language version of the manga in the United States & Canada.

But since we have plenty of dust jackets & stickers on hand, we can ship you the ones you need. I might not get around to it until Jan/Feb 2009, though.

Q. Were volumes 3 and 4 of _Leave it to Piyoko_ ever released?

A. Leave it to Piyoko manga is only two volumes. Only the first volume was released, and we were starting to upload bits of vol 2 in BROCOMI.

Leave it to Piyoko anime series has a total of 8 episodes, and two volumes long. Both volumes have been released for the anime series.

Broccoli Japan has announced the dissolution of Broccoli International USA.
This means that Broccoli Books will no longer publish books in North America.

As the operations manager overseeing various aspects of the company, I have lots to do in the next several months. But I’d like to continue to give updates on Broccoli Books production blog periodically about specific titles.

All of the book licenses revert back to the Japanese publishers at the end of this year. And we are working w/ them so that the titles can be released by other US publishers sometime in the future. We are gathering all production material, including finished books that haven’t been printed yet, so that the new licensees will be able to use the materials if they choose to do so.

There are a few titles that are currently in talks already, so hopefully I’ll be able to provide updates until the end of this year.

Also, we still have a lot of requests for dust jackets & stickers for all of our books, and we’ll continue to mail them out until they’re all taken care of. If you want the dust jackets & stickers, please make sure you mail them to us by early December.

Thanks to all of you who read Broccoli Books over the years.
We enjoyed working on every single one of them.

We have a lot of promo goods that will be tossed out at the end of the year, and I’d like to send them to libraries & school clubs as much as possible. If your local library (or school club) is interested in receiving promo goods, please have the librarian or club officer email pr(at)bro-usa.com with the subject line “Broccoli Books Promo Goods”

More updates coming soon.

PS. I’ll leave the comments open & will be reading them, but may not have time to respond. Please play nice. If comments start getting unpleasant, comments option will be closed.

Hi, blogger Shiz here.

Sorry for being AWOL for almost 2 weeks. I was sick all of last week with some weird sinus-related cold-like illness. I’m not 100%, but I crawled into work since there’s a lot of bills to pay.

I need to catch up on the status of our production work. Where are we on everything? I’ll be sorting them all out today and tomorrow… so more posts coming soon!

Oh, I need to announce the winners of the last Broccoli Books fan club mailer, don’t I?

Busy, busy, busy.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

Graphics assistant Cno updated the top banner of this blog w/ an image of Ky.

He’s preparing tsukimi dango, or dough balls for moon viewing in mid-September. Tsukimi = tsuki (moon) + mi(ru) (viewing) = moon viewing.

Mmmm, dango.
I liked them glazed with sweetened soy sauce.

Hello, blogger Shiz here.

Forgot to mention this on Tuesday, but graphics assistant Cno uploaded the newest issue of BROCOMI.

This month is Nui vol 1.

I think next month we’ll feature the first 19 pages from Leave it to Piyoko vol 2. Since it was the most requested title in the August 2008 Q&A blog entry.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

Questions that have been coming into pr @ bro-usa.com & editor @ broccolibooks.com.
I wish I had time to answer all of them individually, but I want to get those FLCL Ult Ed t-shirts out… and work on these books that needs to be printed ASAP… so please forgive my mass reply.

Q. Do you know if the last two volumes 10 & 11 of Kamui will be released soon. If so when?
(from Dawn + Lisbeth who was concerned about the series, Debra)

A. KAMUI vol 10 and vol 11 production are currently on hold. The book market is changing a lot these days, and as a small publisher we need to wait and see how the big players are going to tackle the issue before jumping into the waves ourselves.

We hope to get them back on track by the end of 2008.

Q. I was wondering if Broccoli Books was going to translate the Juvenile Orion doujinshi, Worlds End Garden. And is Broccoli going to be translating anything else from Sakura Ashika?
(from Melissa)

A. We don’t have any plans on translating Juvenile Orion doujinshi.
If Broccoli Japan ever makes a Juvenile Orion anthology book, we will most likely license it.

And no, we don’t plan on licensing any of Sakura Ashika’s any time soon. Her works are too “hardcore” even for Boysenberry ^_^
For those who don’t know, Sakura Ashika is another pen name of Sakurako Gokurakuin.

Q. Do you still have any plans for Pandora Hearts, or a rough estimated realese date?
(from “a fan”)

A. We’ve been mentioning Pandora Hearts in our production meeting, but we’re still trying to figure out which one of our translators will be best for the project. We need to get our butts moving on this project… I’ll try to post an update here soon. Sorry!

Q. I’ve been interested in the release of Koreaki Kamuro’s Sex Friend. Is it going to be releasing soon?
(from Mary + Andrea)

A. Sorry, Sex Friend been sitting on my desk. I recently had another set of copy editors go over the book, because I wasn’t satisfied with how the last story was handled… and I haven’t looked it over yet. But I’ll wrap it up soon. Sorry!

Q. I’ve been waiting since nearly February for this book. Is there any information on when this will truly be available?
(from Jermaine + Chuck, Charles)

A. Hopefully you’ve found World of Disgaea 2 by now. We just got it right before Anime Expo 2008.

Q. I purchased a manga entitled “Kon Kon Kokon” from your publishers a while back. The vol 1 was released in Japanese back in the beginning of ‘07. I was wondering if you happened to know why the manga halted, or why there is no mention of a vol 2 being released anytime soon.
(from Jon)

A. Kon Kon Kokon serialization was halted in Japan for a while, because ComiDeji+ decided to cross-promote Kami-chama Karin in their magazine while the anime was out. I haven’t talked to the Comic Dept of Broccoli Japan in a while, so I’ll ask what the status of the series is.

Since there’s no book out in Japan, we can’t release one here. Sorry!

***
I hope that answers all of the questions you guys may have. I went back to early May for all the emails. If I deleted your mail by mistake, please send an email to editor @ broccolibooks.com.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

Did you notice the new top banner image for August?
This month it’s Dejiko with an ukiwa (floating tube thing?).

Thanks to graphics assistant Cno for updating the banner!