BOOKS/MANGA Sakaiminato municipal government in Tottori Prefecture–hometown of Shigeru Mizuki, a cartoonist known for the “Gegege no Kitaro” series–has applied to register the trademark of Yokai Jinja shrine, a privately run tourist attraction featuring characters from the series, with the government’s Patent Office. (1) [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA A budget panel of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly on Wednesday approved a controversial plan to invest an additional 40 billion yen for Shinginko Tokyo on condition that the metropolitan government strengthens its surveillance of the heavily indebted bank and spends no more taxpayers’ money on it. [KYODO]

BOOKS/MANGA Popular manga artist Naoki Urasawa, who probably is best known for such works as “Yawara!” and “20th Century Boys,” will teach at an art university starting in April. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA The story of a police officer hit and killed by a train last year in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, while trying to rescue a woman on the train tracks has been turned into an illustrated book. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA In a brazen and ironic new fraud, swindlers are pretending to be victims to gain “compensation” from a law set up to protect bank depositors. [ASAHI]

BOOKS/MANGA Unpublished manuscripts of the late novelist Sakunosuke Oda (1913-47) have been discovered at a bookstore in Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku. [MAINICHI]

BOOKS/MANGA Professional singer Mieko Kawakami has been selected as the winner of the 138th Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most coveted literary award, for her work titled “Chichi to Ran” (Breast and egg), while “light novel” writer Kazuki Sakuraba has won the Naoki Prize. [MAINICHI]

BOOKS/MANGA The story of a 50-year-old Tokyo professor’s efforts to fulfill the dream of a deceased student by developing a rescue robot will appear in a high school English textbook starting next school year. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA Japan’s Foreign Ministry began accepting applications from Friday for the 2nd International Manga Award contest for manga artists based overseas, as part of its bid to boost Japan’s diplomatic profile through pop culture. [KYODO]

BOOKS/MANGA Lawyer Saburo Abe, the court-appointed administrator overseeing the Aum Supreme Truth cult’s bankruptcy, recently published an autobiography titled “Wishes at Different Times,” which reflects his career of nearly half a century. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA Comedian Hiroshi Tamura’s autobiographical novel “The Homeless Junior High School Student” (Wani Books) has in the only two months that have passed since its Sept. 3 release sold more than 1 million copies, the Sports Daily reported Monday.

BOOKS/MANGA “Soon there will be no hibakusha left alive,” says Masahito Hirose, 77, to a group of about 20 senior high school students visiting Nagasaki from Tokyo. “You and I are linked by a very slender thread of fate.“ [MAINICHI]

BOOKS/MANGA Japan’s largest publisher, Kodansha Limited, will release exclusive manga content viewable on the internet for free starting Wednesday. (6)

BOOKS/MANGA Fifty-two percent of people have not read a single book in the past month, an increase of three percentage points from last year and ticking over 50 percent for the first time in two years, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA Princess Kiko’s translation of a series of animal stories for children will go on sale later this month. This is the first time she has translated a commercially available English-language book. [YOMIURI]

BOOKS/MANGA The popular anime, comics and game event Akihabara Entamatsuri returns for its third year, this time as a part of the big Japan International Contents Festival.

BOOKS/MANGA A manga-illustrated canned coffee product that went on sale during the Comic Market (Comiket) 72 convention in August has turned out to be a hit among visitors to the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition venue. [MSN MAINICHI]

BOOKS/MANGA Edward G. Seidensticker, renowned American translator of Japanese literature, including a 1975 rendering of “The Tale of Genji,” died Sunday in a Tokyo hospital, sources close to Seidensticker said. He was 86. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

BOOKS/MANGA Nine municipalities in Japan and South Korea kicked off a “manga” festival in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Saturday to promote youth exchanges between the two countries through the Japanese comic books. [THE JAPAN TIMES]

BOOKS/MANGA Author and copperplate engraver Mayumi Hattori died last Thursday in lung cancer, at an age of 58, it was reported on Tuesday.