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Well, it’s that time of the year again, so here’s a list of topics that may be of interest before Anime Expo starts:

• MangaGamer
• JAST USA
• Nitro+
• ZERO ZIGEN

Relevant information on these topics will be updated as needed.

MangaGamer
According to their post, MangaGamer will be host to six companies officially this year, a bit cut down from last year due to the recent crisis in Japan. In addition to the standard CIRCUS, OVERDRIVE and NEXTON, they will be bringing three new faces — AKABEiSOFT2, Debonosu Works and Clochette. Debonosu Works has several games with involved gameplay, and it is illustrator Kazue Yamamoto’s new company after she left Studio e.go! Clochette is a smaller company that recently put out a game featuring well-endowed girls called Kamikaze Explorer, although it appears that their website was recently invaded by OVERDRIVE’s latest game, Dengeki Stryker. AKABEiSOFT2 started out as a doujin group and is well known for its Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo game. Although they instituted restrictions for foreign IPs accessing their website, they are visiting Anime Expo this year to take a look at the foreign market, like the other new companies.

• For OVERDRIVE, bamboo and Shinji Katakura will be coming.
• For CIRCUS, tororo will be attending.
• For Debonosu Works, Kazue Yamamoto will be coming to Anime Expo.
• According to a tweet, minori will be sending a “gift” to Anime Expo via bamboo.

MangaGamer will be located at booth numbers 711, 713, 715, 810, 812 and 814 in the dealer’s room, which places them next to J-List and Nippon Ichi Software. At their booth, they will be offering various game-related goods for sale. They will be selling several games in hardcopy form as well. The catalog includes Higurashi ($25), the Da Capo ($55) limited edition package as well as the all-ages version of Kira Kira ($25). Furthermore, they will also be offering three new titles as well – Higurashi Kai for $35, Guilty ~The SiN~ for $35 and the limited edition package of Da Capo II for $50. Like its predecessor, the Da Capo II package will also contain a soundtrack and small artbook.

JAST USA
JAST USA has summarized the current status of their game pipeline before Anime Expo:

• Demonbane is currently shipping.
• Yukkuri Panic: Escalation is expected to be available during Anime Expo.
• My Girlfriend is the President is currently being debugged for technical issues by the Japanese developer and is being aimed for a late July/early August release.
• Aselia the Eternal needs installer bug fixes, compilation of manual and extras, and is expected for “end of summer”.
• School Days HQ has its translation at more than halfway done, but release estimates will have to be revised towards first half of 2012.
• Yumina the Ethereal has script translation finished and image translation next, and an official website of the English version is slated for July.
• Moero Downhill Night Blaze, the final installment of the Moero Downhill Night series, has a finished translation, but unfortunately the original developer “dissolved after the March earthquake”, so they are still trying to quash bugs with “alternative assistance”.

JAST USA will be in the dealer’s room at booths 819, 821 and 823, and the company is also expecting to give a panel on July 2 at 11PM in LP3. Beforehand, however, they have already publicized (at least some of) their announcements in a post on their blog. They’ve managed to secure Nitro+’s okay with releasing five more of their 18+ games: Saya no Uta ~ Song of Saya, Kikokugai: The Cyber Slayer, Hanachirasu, Sumaga and Outlaw Django ~ Zoku: Satsuriku no Django. These games will be produced in commercial collaboration with TLWiki staff, who have previously worked on most of these games. In addition to these Nitro+ titles to be released under the Nitro+ USA brand, JAST USA will also be releasing Aselia the Eternal’s sequel, Seinarukana in collaboration with the current group working on it on TLWiki. Lastly, the brand Peach Princess will also be updated with a new game entitled Starless featuring artwork from Sei Shoujo. However, this is claimed to not be all of the announcements as “a project in the works that [JAST USA] think female fans will be particularly excited about” will be discussed at their panel.

Nitro+
And while we’re on the topic of Nitro+, the president of the company is coming to Anime Expo as an industry guest, with guest of honor Danny Choo having had a hand in sealing the negotiations.

ZERO ZIGEN
The doujin circle ZERO ZIGEN created a visual novel titled Koenchu! The Tale of the Voice Actress ~You, the Sky, and that Summer~ about voice acting and had set out to create their own international version of the game. They are actually coming to Anime Expo this year to sell an English/Spanish/Japanese trilingual release in their Artist Alley booth located in Row C. Each copy will come with a special poster made especially for this event and there will be postcards available at the booth as well. Images of the game as well as the other merchandise can be seen near the bottom of the doujin circle’s post on the Anime Expo trip. Mania also wrote a review of the bilingual version of the game a year back that gives more background on the game itself.