Three of the largest anime distributors have banded together in a joint venture for the development and marketing of "anime". John Ledford, Kevin Corcoran (CEO and COO of ADV Films respectively), Gen Fukunaga, Daniel Cocanougher (President and Vice President of FUNimation respectively), Yosuke Kobayashi, and Hideki Goto (President and Vice President of Geneon Entertainment, respectively) The joint venture will focus on producing material aimed at the child and young adult audiences, where it is speculated that the group can maximize its resources.

Del Rey has announced that it has acquired the rights to Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture and Nodame Cantabile manga. Both series will debut next April with a suggested retail price of $10.95US.

Bandai has started a replacement program for "defective" Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex volume 2 discs. The discs have been mislabeled in that the DTS version actually has the label for the Dolby Digital disc, and vice versa. Consumers who want to replace these mislabeled discs may do so by filling out a form at Bandai's website, and sending it to Bandai along with the original packaging.

Nintendo has announced that the company will be releasing a game on its upcoming Nintendo DS based around characters from Shonen JUMP. The game, dubbed Jump! Super Stars, will be a fighting game with several of the more popular characters from Shonen Jump's line of comics. These characters include Luffy from One Piece, Naruto Uzumaki from Naruto, and Goku from Dragon Ball Z, among several others. More details will be made available in Shonen JUMP's October 21 issue.

According to Anime News Service, Masamune Shirow's Appleseed will be the opening film of the 2004 Waterloo Animation Festival.

G4 TechTV is getting ready to introduce another series into its "Anime Unleashed" lineup. Starting tonight, R.O.D. the TV will be joining several other series in the Anime Unleashed line, including Serial Experiments Lain, Last Exile, Boogiepop Phantom, and Betterman. Two episodes of the show will be shown back to back starting at 12AM EST, then repeat at 3AM EST.