We've just sat in on Blu's panel now, and the first thing they note is that their website is actually going to start being updated regularly. Yay!

By the way, it turns out that a Blu employee has been cosplaying from Gakuen Heaven. Woot!

New announcements from Blu:

• The Nakajima version of Gakuen Heaven by You Higuri
• Ellie Mamahara's Baseball Heaven
• Ellie Mamahara's Alley of First Love Love
• Temari Matsumoto's Sensei no Jijou - The Cause of My Teacher*
• Dekiru Otoko ga Sukinanda by Hinako Takanaga (surprise!)
• Kimi ga Koi ni Ochiru, also by Hinako Takanaga
• A novel: Flesh & Blood by Matsuoka Natsuki (Take note, bingo players!)
• An OEL book by Studio Kosen (creators of Yaoi Press' Saihoshi and Stallion) called Daemonium, actually a TOKYOPOP title, not Blu-- so it's more slashy than BL

* All titles after this, any U.S. names are only tentative. Just FYI.

They are kind of evaluating if they're doing any more original boys love, and I'm willing to bet that it'll depend on how Daemonium does.

Now, the Q&A!

• If you want to suggest a license, go ahead and send off an e-mail and the company will consider it, etc.
• And the first price-raise question: will there be anything to warrant the price increase? They are trying to include as many "bling bling" as they can, and they will definitely have color inserts. Possibly color stuff from previous books as well. Some other mature non-yaoi books from TOKYOPOP will also be bumping up in price as well. The increase is starting in 2008, btw.
• Earthian is NOT going to be reprinted, apparently, so buy it quick if you want it!
• They may add translation notes-- if you want to see them, email them and tell them! But no dust jackets still, "too risky" for the American market.
• TOKYOPOP may or may not do more yuri in the future (they currently have the Kannazuki no Miko license).
• For fans of the OEL book OffBeat, the author is apparently too distracted by her romantic life to actually finish up the book, but it's still coming.
• One person asked about advisory notes on the books; they're buying into TOKYOPOP's new content indicators, especially for shrink-wrapped titles, so there's going to be a lot more of that kind of thing.
• And now, Fake 2: they're definitely interested in it, going after it-- but it's owned by a different company, so they have to start the licensing process from scratch.
• On the new continuation of Gorgeous Carat, there's complications because DMP has Gorgeous Carat Galaxy, and Blu would love to do it, so odds are good ONE of 'em will get the book.
• They'd love to license Gravitation Remix, but there's probably no way they could get them into stores, so it doesn't look too good. But the creator (Maki Murakami) wants them to do it, so we'll see!
• They're also definitely going after the new Black Knight and hopefully they'll get it.