Manta Opens Platform to Independent Creators on November 16
Manta is turning Tapas's shutdown into a reader migration and a creator intake at the same time, pairing a free library rebuild with a new section for independent work.
Anime News Network
Industry
Wuxiaworld Founder Buys Platform Back From Tapas Before Shutdown
The buyback keeps Wuxiaworld running independently while its former parent winds down Tapas, but the site returns with a monthly gross loss where it once made more than US$300,000 in monthly gross profit.
Anime News Network
KOKUYO and SCIEN Launch Office AI Measurement Project
The project puts a measurable feedback loop after the design phase, where KOKUYO says surveys, interviews, and visual observation alone have not made continuous quantitative tracking easy.
ASCII.jp
SORACOM Wins 2026 Porter Prize for IoT Democratization Strategy
The prize puts an academic stamp on SORACOM's core bet: that building its mobile core as cloud software, rather than renting carrier infrastructure, is the strategy that lets it sell IoT connectivity from one SIM up.
ASCII.jp
HK STYLE Patents Two-Trigger AR That Requires a Second Match Before Content Opens
The patent covers the pairing condition itself, so the same gate can be licensed to goods makers, tourism operators and security vendors rather than staying a single AR feature.
ASCII.jp
Ukie and Sheridans Launch AI Certification Mark for UK Game Studios
Ukie is formalizing AI governance into a document studios can show investors and partners, which turns compliance from an internal policy into a business credential at exactly the moments money changes hands.
GameBusiness.jp
Netflix Replaces Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria With Peter Rice
A new content chief and a 6% staff cut land on the same day, which means the executive who signs off on Netflix's anime partnerships now answers to a different boss.
Anime News Network
Lezhin Launches Teaz AI Character Chat Service in Korea
Lezhin is putting its own webtoon characters behind a chat interface rather than licensing them out, which makes the platform itself the gatekeeper of how readers interact with the IP.
Anime News Network
Hanabushi Draws Key Visual for CGWORLD 2026 Creative Conference
The session slate puts overseas VFX houses, a game studio and a Japanese ad-agency-produced horror game in the same program, which tells you where CG creators are being asked to look for work right now.
KAI-YOU
Microsoft Cancels GPU Lease At Nscale's Essex AI Data Center
A grid operator's power notice, not a change in AI demand, is what broke a project billed by Keir Starmer as a step toward UK AI leadership, and the chip lease was the load-bearing contract.
GIGAZINE
Yostar Opens Mid-Career Hiring Across 3D, Marketing, Anime Roles
The openings sit in anime production and promotion as well as 3D and marketing, which shows where a game operator best known for running titles is putting its hiring weight.
Automaton
Felix Film Edits Animator Job Listing After Generative AI Backlash
The studio kept the AI question open in both the edited listing and its statement, and limited itself to a promise to weigh rights issues before any implementation, so the revision answers the wording rather than the underlying plan.
Anime News Network
Chugin Fund Invests In SoVa Again, Underwrites First Bonds With Share Options
A regional fund adding a debt instrument to its equity playbook on an existing portfolio company shows a funding approach for the gap between equity investment and lending at a single firm.
ASCII.jp
GEO Suspends Online Services After Unauthorized Access
The breach interrupts GEO's own app-based membership and ordering while its physical stores keep trading, and the workaround shifts the customer record to the Ponta card rather than the GEO app.
ASCII.jp
Cash Japan to Run Tax Refund Counters at Six Airports from November
The system revision turns the airport refund desk into the choke point of the tax-free experience, and Cash Japan is positioning itself as the neutral layer that consolidates transactions from rival operators into one procedure before any of that traffic arrives.
ASCII.jp
Aniplex Producer Yuma Takahashi Trains Four Voice Actors As Event MCs
Takahashi is building a bench of voice actors trained to host Aniplex events, and he is doing it openly as an alternative to existing professional MCs rather than a replacement for them.
GIGAZINE
Japan Actors Union Sets Generative AI Rules for Vocal Audio
The union's rules put written consent, notification, and compensation on the table for a field where voice actors have already heard their own voices reused without their say, and it treats animation and dubbing as special cases.
Anime News Network
Sega Fave Opens Booth Details for AMUSEMENT EXPO 2026
Sega Fave is using AMUSEMENT EXPO 2026 to show medal machines and prize games, the arcade floor that sits apart from the consumer console business, and it is doing so with a first round of booth information released more than two weeks ahead of the show.
4Gamer.net
VisionCraft Forms Capital Alliance With Unison Capital And A3 Capital
The deal gives a small 2022-founded buyer the balance sheet of a private equity firm founded in 1998 and an AI partner, which is what it says it needs to absorb Japanese businesses whose owners have no successor.
ASCII.jp
Getworks Opens Orders For Four-Container Data Center Built For Large GPU Clusters
A vendor shipping interconnected 40-foot container units for 100 kW-plus racks signals that AI cluster builders are treating power density and water cooling as procurement problems rather than site-construction problems.
ASCII.jp
GembaHub Selected To Pitch At B Dash Camp 2026 Fall In Fukuoka
Selection puts a construction-specific vertical AI in front of an invited audience of startup executives, listed-company officers, and venture capitalists, a setting the source describes as a route to funding, partnerships, IPOs, and M&A for participating startups.
ASCII.jp
URALAA Brings 8K Immersive Live to Standard Fiber Lines
Immersive live venues have been held back by the cost and lead time of dedicated lines and relay trucks, and URALAA now claims a delivery method that works on the fiber connections venues already have.
ASCII.jp
SIGQ Ships Incident Lake Self-Hosted For Closed-Network AI Response
The pitch answers a constraint that keeps incident records out of cloud AI: the organizations most exposed to ransomware are often the ones contractually or physically barred from sending intrusion data to an outside service.
ASCII.jp
Live2D Releases 20th Anniversary Brand CM for Shape the Future
Live2D is celebrating 20 years by putting its anniversary message on Netflix and TVer, addressing creators directly rather than the studios and games that license Cubism.
PANORA