One of the first things they talked about at the panel was the Blackjack manga. As it is, the manga looks incredibly sexy, and they waved it around in our faces just to entice us ("Oh, and by the way, it's on sale in the dealer's room!" they say!). The manga is going to be a bi-monthly release, meaning that to release all 17 volumes, the series will run for nearly 3 years.

The super-special hardcover editions are only going to be for the first three volumes, and those will contain an extra story, and the third volume will also include an essay on Blackjack that they translated. They showed off the covers for most of the volumes, which look super-sexy: super-simplistic art with part of the cover being splayed open to show you a surgery going on inside.

Moving onto the mainstay of Vertical's releases, first up was Aranzi Aronzo. These are some super cute characters created by two sisters, and have started butting up against Sanrio and their empire of cute. On October 21st, they'll be releasing The Complete Aranzi Hour, a collection of short manga stories using various cute characters, both in drawing and through photographs that... well, isn't too exciting for me. But then again, I'm not a huge cute person.

On the other hand, their Aranzi Aronzo Baby Stuff book IS to die for. Basically, it's a bunch of cute stuff that you can make for mothers-to-be or newly-made mothers. This includes stuff like adorably cute bear and duck diapers. The audience had a collective "aww" when this slide came up. The book is set to come out in Spring, and might pop up in your local Michael's craft store, as some of Vertical's previous Aranzi Aronzo titles have been featured.

Next up is the Vertical Horror section. They rapid-fired several titles at us, which you can peruse at your own pleasure: Body by Asa Nonami, Summer of the Ubune by Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Biogenesis by Tatsuki Ishiguro (who's a real doctor!), and Death & The Flower by Koji Suzuki.

On the fiction front, the first title they pimped to us was Blade of the Courtesans by Keiichiro Ryu, who has perviously had his work turned into manga by Tetsuo Haro -- the creator of Fist of the North Star. The Poison Ape by Arimasa Osama is part of the Shinjuku Shark series, which is a rather famous detective novel series that sounds rather exciting. Then there's also Cat in the Coffin by Mariko Koike and Fallout by Tetsuo Takashima. There's also Takeshi Kitano's book A Guru is Born, which is on my DO WANT list, and Shall We Sumo? by Masayuki Suo, which was turned into the film Shiko, Funjatta!

On the non-fiction side, there's The Toyota Leaders: An Executive Guide by Masaki Sato, which is just as the title describes. Sayonara, Mr. Fatty is a memoir/weight loss guide by Toshio Okada, who was one of the co-founders of Gainax, and how he managed to lose a ton of weight. Finally, there's North Korea Kidnapped my Daughter by Sakie Yokota, which I'll be reviewing soon. So, be prepared to see that pop up on the site.

And finally, to Gia and my delight, they went onto the cooking section. Starting in the Spring, they'll doing a series of five simple cooking books. The first title up is Donburi Mania by Kentaro Kobayashi. And the epic win of the night? Iron Chef Chen's Knockout Chinese.