This summer, Viz Media celebrates its 30th birthday firmly entrenched as North America's foremost exporter, and promoter, of Japanese manga and anime.

There will be no big party in the streets by all accounts.  Yet fans can look forward to special offers and goodies given out as a thank you for for thirty years of support. 

However, those deals currently announced are only available to indivduals attending anime conventions across the USA.  Kicking off on July 1st-4th 2016, at the Los Angeles Anime Expo, and continuing throughout the summer and autumn season.  More on all that when we know further.

More to the point, Kelts discusses the effect of such global popularity success on the domestic market in Japan. With its shrinking population population and declining consumerism, the business opportunities at home were always limited.  The injection of worldwide capital turned out to be very timely and very welcome for the overall prosperity of that island nation.

Not bad for a notion mooted by a San Francisco hippy, which turned out to be quite a fabulous one at that.  Happy 30th birthday, Viz Media; the celebrations may run worldwide.

It's hard to imagine British distributors reinventing the wheel, when an English language blu-ray Death Note edition with that exact specification already exists as Omega. Available for US consumer viewers since March 1st 2016, created, packaged and promoted by Viz Media.

Talking of which, the Viz newsletter recently ran a piece reviewing precisely that Death Note blu-ray box set!

Urian Brown provides a pretty thorough synopsis of the story and what we may expect by revisiting its anime again in blu-ray.  The main event is earmarked once again as the unbelievable quality on display through blu-ray's famed high definition focus.  There's much talk of the detail in L's strawberry or Misa Amane's frills in his Viz blog entry - entitled Death Note: The Omega Edition with the tag-line Death Note finally gets the proper Blu-Ray treatment! (Viz, May 17th 2016).

Worth a read if you're wondering what all of the fuss is about.

Viz Media reps were also busy promoting its Omega Death Note blu-ray box set in Illinois last week.  The company had a booth at Anime Central 2016 convention, held from May 20th-22nd at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare and Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Fans stopping by to say hello could walk away clutching a free give-away Death Note poster.

A theme park in Osaka will be taking day-trippers into the Death Note universe with L right alongside to ensure no-one gets themselves killed.

Because he was always so good at that...

Universal Jump Summer marks a collaboration between Weekly Shonen Jump and Universal Studios Japan.  Running throughout the summer months of 2016 at the latter's tourist attraction, the event will bring to life major characters from manga and anime.

That includes Death Note detective L, who'll be recruiting rookie investigators (that'll be you) to accompany him through a role-playing, puzzle-solving, live action game entitled Death Note: The Escape.  It will be built on the back of other Death Note themed Real Escape games, that have been running in cities around the world to mark the manga's 10th anniversary.

Additionally, the theme park will regularly host theatrical performances featuring another stalwart of the genre.  One Piece Premier Show 2016 tells a story especially written for the event.

Unfortunately, visitors to Universal Studios Japan will have to pay extra to enjoy either of these anime-based attractions.  However, their general admission price allows for free access to the third one - Dragon Ball Z: The Real 4-D.  Not too much further information there, other than our hero Goku will be fighting the evil Frieza.

Yeah, whatever.  Our lot will be with L, taking on the truly nefarious designs inherent in a locked door.  And if you don't think that's dangerous, then you seriously never read Another Note.  Hold on.  Ok, so our guide looks like L. Fine. But someone must have double-checked his jam eating propensity.

Haven't they?

Enjoy going beyond in the Universal Jump Summer 2016 Death Note Real Escape event.

Hot on the heels of the Omega Edition hitting English language stores, there's a heads up that the Spanish dub Death Note anime is getting its own Blu-Ray formatting - available from July 6th 2016.

Death Note - Box 1 (Episodios 1 A 20) - Edición Coleccionista [Blu-ray], as the box set is entitled, apparently covers only the first twenty episodes of the anime. Presumably Box 2 will finish off with the remaining seventeen.

Selecta Visión - the anime's distributors in Spain - hinted at the fact to fans during their recent tenure at Japan Weekend (Selecta Visión Confirma Las Licencias de Death Note y Assassination Classroom, report by Víctor González Valle, Region PlayStation (Feb 14th 2016)).

However there's been no official announcement as yet, beyond vague references via Twitter.

Like that on March 24th, when a fan asked if Selecta Visión would make available a Catalán version of the Death Note anime, someone from the company responded that the new Blu-Ray edition would be in Catalán. 

Though representatives at the convention suggested that it would appear in May, retailers across the board have since attached a release date of July 6th 2016.  Moreover, their attendant information uniformly names the language as being Español, not Catalán, for this Blu-Ray Spanish Death Note dub. 

Beyond that, all that we know is that Death Note Edición Coleccionista will be spread over four discs with a total running time of 500 minutes.  No word on any special features, additions nor even cover art as yet. We'll keep you posted as soon as we know anything else at all.

See Blu-Ray Death Note - Box 1 (Episodios 1 A 20) - Edición Coleccionista on Amazon Spain.

Adam Wingard's Death Note is likely to start filming in June 2016.  But it won't be Warner Bros behind the production anymore.  At the moment, it's highly likely to be Netflix.

That is the startling news circulating today.

It's unknown why Warner Bros. has decided to surrender the project, which it's held firmly in abeyance since 2009.  During that time, the studio has ordered script rewrites; actors have been linked with various roles, but the rumours rarely came to fruition; while directors have come and gone, one - we're indebted to you, Shane Black - with horror stories of Warner Bros. US attempting to sanitize the Death Note story out of all comprehension.

By the end of 2015 through early 2016, it seemed that Warner Bros. finally had a format which worked for them and all concerned.  Adam Wingard was directing; Nat Wolff had signed up to play Kira, with his real life girlfriend Margaret Qualley poised to become the movie's Misa Amane.  There was much talk of initial photography beginning in the spring.

Hence the shock nature of the news (broken by Justin Kroll at Variety) that Warner Bros. chose now to put their Death Note film 'into turnaround'.

Opening up a bidding war which Netflix currently seems set to win. Though SFX and Lionsgate are also strongly in the running.  (Anyone else think that something about a Lionsgate Death Note feels so right?) 

However, there is some speculation that giving up Death Note is part of Warner Bros. previously declared cull on 'homegrown movies', in order to concentrate its resources upon extant franchises known to be successful.  The monetary profit for Warner Bros - raised by the sale of its film rights to Death Note - is expected to fall into the ballpark of $40m-$50m.

Adam Wingard, Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley are all apparently still on board, whichever company snaps the movie up.

Netflix, of course, already has some data concerning the popularity of Death Note.  It recently started streaming full episodes of the anime, so can see for itself how many Western viewers are interested in this particular story.  However, it's not yet game over for the other bidders.  The current status for Netflix and Death Note is 'in final negotiations', which could pretty much mean anything, besides what it says on the packet.

As for fans, it's mostly looking like we will finally get our US live-action Death Note movie, whomever produces it, though it remains to be seen whether that will be available online only, or also released as a theatrical run.

It may be the tenth anniversary of its initial publication, yet manga editions of Death Note sales remain evergreen in the US, Canada and Mexico. 

In fact, this far down the line, Death Note manga volumes are still one of the Top 10 best-selling titles within the c0ntinent for the genre.  It pretty much seems lodged there; camped in all perpetuity.

That's according to ICv2 - the North American pop culture news magazine for retailers - reporting in the April 4th 2016 issue of Publishers Weekly.

While Death Note may lack the current mega-sales of latest releases like Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul and One-Punch Man, that's because they are new and trending fashionably. But that's more than made up for by the steady drip-drip of continued Death Note manga editions purchased throughout the last decade.

It even survived well during the overall manga slump in North America, which saw the trade in Japanese titles fall from a high of $210m in 2007 to a mere $65m by 2012.  The market had bounced back up to $75m by 2014 - mostly on the back of Tokyo Ghoul and One-Punch Man - with early figures suggesting that North American manga sales rose by another 13% again during 2015.

Yet even during the down days in manga consumerism, interest in Death Note there never really wavered.  ICv2 stated that it, along with Dragon Ball, went on 'selling well'.

So why should Death Note stand out so much amid all the rest?  ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp has an answer for that too.  "I think it all comes down to quality," He said, comparing Ohba and Obata's epic manga with iconic graphic novels of the West, like Alan Moore's Watchman or Batman: The Killing Joke. "Death Note is a good series."

And sometimes it really is as simple as that.

However, we might all be jumping the gun here somewhat.  After all, Viz Media has a rather large anime, manga and gaming portfolio, which includes many more big names than merely Death Note aside.  There's Bleach for a start, and One-Punch Man, Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, Pokemon... in fact, you name it and Viz probably has the US rights to hand.  Ready to turn it into a live-action project with new business pals UTA.

Meanwhile, each company's respective executives are coming up with broad sweeping soundbites, which look good in print but tell us nothing of real import at all.  Like if there will be a Death Note US TV show?

It has been an incredibly exciting week for Death Note fans, and now we find out that Takeshi Obata has been overseeing the artwork for Death Note 2016's brand, new shinigami(s) too.

On the 4th of February 2016, the official Twitter account - for this new Japanese live-action Death Note movie - announced the actors involved in the film, character introductions, as well as posting comments from Obata and Ohba themselves!

The comments, translated from the original Japanese, state:

Japan's new Death Note movie will be released sometime this year, and cast comments are available at the official movie website.

So you think you've read (and probably own) every book about Death Note? Check out our store, you might be surprised.

We certainly have been.  During a whole weekend of hunting down errant manga and other literary Death Note works, there were tomes we'd never heard of, let alone read.

And coming from a gang of such Death Note obsessives, that's quite saying something.

For example, did you know about L: File Number 15?  A canon book of short Death Note cartoons created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.  Half of our team did not.

Or what about Notes of Reasoning, the Chinese novel by Zao An Xia Tian? Which may or not not be a canon work taking the Death Note universe and adapting it to a Chinese setting.  Or it may be an elaborate and published piece of fan-fiction.  We don't know. None of us speak Chinese.

How about the hardback special editions of Death Note manga that exist out there in the English language?  Some of those even took us by surprise, missing our radar entirely.

As you may have surmised, this weekend has been a time of skipping interesting things and putting our nose to the grind of finding, collating, formatting and arranging  Death Note books everywhere, in various languages, across the board of genres.

All now beautifully arrayed in the Death Note News book shop.

It's worth nipping inside, if only to discover what you may have missing from your own library collection.  But also to purchase a volume or two to help with the costs of running this website.  Enjoy!  And if you buy, thank you.

In addition the anime/movie Death Note store has been tidied up, hence will be easier to open, load and navigate.  While the music merchandise has had one or two updates too.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, no mention was made until Christmas Day proper, when someone still at work Tweeted, '¡Oficial! El TPB de #HitGirl llega en enero y #DeathNote regresa a México en febrero de 2016 ¡#FelizNavidadATodos!'   (Another general translation - 'It's official!  The TPB (trade paperback - or manga, to the likes of you and me) of Hit Girl is coming in January and Death Note returns to Mexico in February 2016.  Merry Christmas all!')

Then continued on earning their overtime in reTweeting the excitement of Death Note fans in reaction to it all.

To their credit, Panini staff didn't ignore such pointed queries, spending the Christmas period addressing comments amassing Facebook and Twitter.  The policy of no competing reprints was only ever a 'short or medium term' one, and Death Note is their most requested manga volume set in Mexico.  That latter reasoning repeated time and time again.

Its very popularity means that Panini Comics Mexico can make an exception for Death Note.  It's only a short manga series, already concluded and extremely well known.  No hassle really to reproduce and market.  It's all for the fans. The fans want it.  We're just here to deliver, was the general essence of Panini's response across the board.

So you see, nothing to do with the potential of a nice little earner later in 2016, when the franchise explodes under the glitz and frenzy of a Hollywood movie set to propel Death Note's popularity into the stratosphere.  In theory. It's Mexican manga collection coming out now is just a big coincidence; rewarding fans with what they want for Christmas.

Panini Comic Mexico's manga Death Note volumes will be on sale in February 2016, priced at MXN 75,00 each.

Are you loving the Death Note Christmas gift shop gif that's over there on the sidebar being all festive?  Wonderful, isn't it? 

Orangepunch created it for us and it's been gently snowing away in that corner, calling people in to remember that seasonal Death Note decorations do exist and all that.

Whilst also reminding me that I never did get around to finishing half of the stores that it's inviting people in to visit.  Plus some of them went up with way too big images attached to every pretty product, rendering them too long to load for the average sense of patience to withstand.  If it doesn't crash the prospective buyers internet first. 

What can I say, I was young and foolish, followed by forgetful and lazy.  Swiftly introducing, 'Oh no! All of that should have been fixed months ago!' *cue pulling an all-nighter* into the bargain.  One unfathomably long night later, we have a much improved Death Note Gift Emporium (though granted, that might have been more useful a few weeks ago BEFORE you bought all your Xmas presents), plus some new departments entirely.

You will still find flaws in there (size of pics in DVDs and books pages, we're all looking at you), but I also found something quite intriguing to bring to the table.  Plus some gossip.

First let me run you through what's changed and sparkly new in our Death Note shopping area, plus a 'to do' list of what's coming up, so you can check if the issue you've found is already known.  If not, then naturally we'd be very grateful to get the heads up. 

The front page (screenshot above) got a redesign.  The thumbnails were all much reduced in size, in order to boost the speed at which the page loads.  Hopefully it is much more navigable now.

In addition, every Death Note merchandise page has been reconfigured with funky tabs - making finding things at a glance much easier and again dropping that load time a lot!  Check them out in any department clicked below.

GOSSIP STOP!  In filling up those cyber shelves, I found several new Death Note tribute tracks by other artists, including two available for pre-order on release dates later this month or January.  They are both in our gift store now, but I will be hunting down the musicians and featuring them as separate Death Note News reports.  Death Note's 10th anniversary, TV drama or upcoming movies, appear to have inspired a veritable flood of them!  Happy days.

These next two kick start a whole new category in Death Note memorabilia - collections based on merchandise for Death Note characters.  I'm sure that most people choosing which characters to begin would have gone for Light and L.  But I know my readership.

Anyone want to prod us towards which character to compile a collection for next?   If there's no broad hints in any other direction, we'll default to Light Yagami and work through the series from there.  Though I'm half tempted to be perverse and go Sachiko Yagami instead!  Reckon there would be anything out there to buy in honour of Light's mother?

But this brings us nicely to the salient question with which I led.

I know where my money is.  In fact, I've written twelve novels of Mello/Matt fan-fiction spelling it out - and one of them initially ran with the working title Cyberpunk.  Another had titles lifted from several Cyberpunk dictionaries and cultural references.  Matt in my universe ended up with a motorbike once, but we've barely seen it since.

Maybe that's because I've missed a trick.  In conjunction with most of the Death Note Matt fandom, I missed what was in plain sight, because I never thought to look certain things up.

Matt's gift shop was looking a bit sparse.  Mello's was jam packed.  I felt bad.  So I thought it would be a nice idea to hunt for that habitual Matt costume for Death Note cosplayers to buy, love and cherish.  After all, its probably the most ubiquitously seen, ordinary collection of clothes on any Death Note character. You could grab half the items in any given mainstream clothes shop.

Or could you?  It's harder than it looks, this cosplay malarkey.   I started with the gloves.  How do you search for those?  They're quite distinctive.  Racing gloves? Long, black gloves for men?   Finally, I found them.  They are officially known - in non-Death Note circles - as motorcyclist's gauntlet gloves,  or motorbike racing gauntlet gloves.

Next I went for the goggles.  Bog standard cyberpunk, I thought, with an option on steampunk, if that outfitting genre fell short.  Close, but no cigar.  Yet I was finding something similar, if not precise, in a whole new class of goggle sporting necessities.  Necessary, that is, if you happen to be a motorbike racer.  Like those wearing the gloves too.

Shoved some stripy, long-sleeved tops in and off into the jeans department.  Mmmm, several billion here, what to search in order to narrow this down?  Ribbed jeans?  Denim with circles around them? 

Turns out that there are some jeans created specifically with patchwork patterns surrounding each leg - just like Matt's wears in fact.  They're made especially for bikers.  Apparently it improves their saddle grip upon the seat.  Saves them slipping about, as ordinary jeans might.

So goggles, gloves and jeans all point due Matt the motorbike rider, with a strong nudge towards racing them too.  You going for that in your head canon?  Fan fiction writers, is that why he's beside a bike the first time we see him, and why Mello acquires one only after Matt's on the scene?  Death Note fan artists, what motorcycle does Mail Jeevas ride?  If this releases the throttle on anybody's muse, let me link the results, or show them  off here.

Or are you just going 'cyberpunk geek' like me, and dismissing this out of hand?  I'd be fascinated with your thoughts!

Death Note's copyright holders NTV seem to be going for world domination.  In addition to a recent collaboration deal with German distributors Red Arrow Entertainment, and teaming up with Sony to create GEM TV Channel (broadcasting across Asia), the company has just announced that its setting up an office in Singapore.

Nor is Nippon bashful about why.  It's all 'part of (NTV's) continuing pursuit to become the leading media content company in Asia', according to their press release on the subject.

The new venture will be called NTV Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd, with a start-up injection of $1m cash in US dollars, all contributed by parent company NTV.  Hidetoshi Hiramatsu - currently NTV's managing director of International Business - will assume command as NTV Asia Pacific's first CEO, naturally based in Singapore. Their new logo is below:

So what will this mean for fans of Death Note?   Too early to know really, though NTV Asia Pacific will have immediate access to the entire Death Note franchise - as owned by NTV - and an easy means to request more.  I guess it's one of those know that it happened situations, then wait and see.