Hey, just a quick reminder that I've got two more articles in Otaku USA Magazine this month: a review of Allison & Lillia and a feature article on Serial Experiments Lain (one of my favorite series of all time!). Caleb Dunaway also has the cover feature on Steins;Gate, Erin Finnegan took a look at The Book of Bantorra, and Daryl Surat wrote up the Dragon Age anime. The issue is set to hit stores on May 22, so go check it out!

Yes, yes, there are a lot of great blogs and websites about anime on the Internet, but believe it or not, there are still a few people writing about anime in print form! I recently joined their ranks via my first ever article in Otaku USA Magazine, a feature about the Fate/Stay Night anime. I'm super-excited about being the newest Otaku USA contributor, and I recommend everybody check out the latest issue of the magazine (June 2012), as it also includes a bunch of great articles from other anime bloggers and podcasters whom I have a ton of respect for. (Dave Cabrera has the cover story about Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Erin Finnegan did a great write-up of Fractale.) If you're particularly interested in Fate/Stay Night, I also recommend you check out Ink's 2010 Secret Santa review of the series.

Furthermore, if you're not already subscribing to Otaku USA, please do! It's a great magazine all-around (my contribution notwithstanding) with a stock of really excellent writers.

Do you like to receive your news a week late? Do you enjoy not being able to read what you pay for? Do you have a large stack of money just sitting on the table with no place to spend it? If you answered “yes” to all of the above then have I got a deal for you! National Console Support, Inc is offering yearly subscriptions to the highly popular (and Japanese-language), biweekly gaming publication, Weekly Famitsu, at a price only a real fan could afford.

At the very least, and with the longest wait, the subscription will set you back $480 for 52 issues, and at the most you can overnight the magazine for whopping...wait for it...$2860! Personally, I would just stick to reading the news sites – but then again maybe I’m just not hardcore enough.

[via Kotaku]

Mere months after the abrupt end of ADV's Newtype USA magazine, its successor, PiQ magazine, is reportedly ending its four-month publishing career. ICv2 reports that the primary reasons for the magazine shutting down are "low advertising revenue, poor business management, and a lack of proper marketing and promotion."

Regardless of PiQ's more diverse, less anime-centric approach and the fact that Newtype subscribers carried over to the new mag, it apparently failed to achieve a large enough readerbase, and the magazine's staff calls it "an exercise in futility."

ADV's website is under maintenance right now, so we have yet to hear from them on if they will be replacing PiQ with yet another magazine. However, prospects seem grim for this once-giant of the American anime scene as it grasps to make some sort of revenue from a sinking market.

[via ICv2]

(Sorry for the lack of images, but Blogger is being dumb right now)

ADV's wildly popular anime magazine Newtype USA, in publication for five years and 66 issues, will cease publication this February, as its last issue hits newsstands. Word is that ADV will be replacing Newtype with another magazine. No information has been provided as of yet on the currently untitled publication. Newertype anyone?

This is definitely good news for the competing American anime magazines, namely the veteran Protoculture Addicts, Anime Insider, and the startup Otaku USA. Newtype has been a significant force in the American anime industry for the past few years, and it will be a shame to watch it disappear.
[via Anime Explosion]