Drug & Drop’s Kazahaya appears in Young Ace’s 100th issue cover

© 角川書店

© 角川書店

The February issue of Young Ace will celebrate its 100th issue with a special cover featuring the magazine’s all-stars characters.

Kazahaya is making an appearance representhing Drug & Drop.

The magazine will also give a QUO card as a present to 100 lucky readers via lottery.

Drug & Drop remains on hiatus but this bit of news probably means that Young Ace will still be the home of the series when/if the serialization is resumed.

The magazine goes on sale on December 31st.

Source: CLAMP-NET.COM.

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CLAMP to illustrate mystery novel & more

seikaisya

CLAMP will be in charge of drawing the illustrations for Nakamura Aki’s debut mystery novel called 〜Logic Lock Festival〜Tantei-goroshi Paradox.

The book will be released on November 14 by publisher Seikaisha, under its Seikaisha FICTIONS label. On October 12, the book’s key visual will be revealed in a special poster signed by CLAMP and Nakamura Aki to be on display at Machi Asobi.

More info at http://sai-zen-sen.jp/

• XXXHOLiC Rei/Drug & Drop

On other surprising news, Drug & Drop #2 will be released on October 23, on a simultaneous release with XXXHOLiC Rei #1. Check the covers below:

dd2 xxxholic_rei1
To celebrate the simultaneous release of both works, there will be a special campaign held at the Animate shops where postcards featuring the cover illustrations will be given as a bonus to purchasers.
CLAMP_DD_xxxholic

• Card Captor Sakura

ARIKA announced today on its Facebook page that the Card Captor Sakura and the Mysterious Card mobile game will terminate its services on December 12 of this year. The game was first introduced in December 2012 and CLAMP has been providing monthly new illustrations for this it. You can check the new illustrations that CLAMP did for the game so far in this gallery.

Drug & Drop #1, GATE 7 #4 sales report (Updated)

It's been 10 days since the joint release of Drug & Drop #1 and GATE 7 #4, the former landed on the 18th position of Weekly Oricon charts while the latter appeared on the 5th spot.

02/04/2013~02/10/2013:

1st – Kuroko no Basket #21
2nd – Toriko #23
3rd – Gintama #48
5th – GATE 7 #4
18th – Drug & Drop #1

Moreover, GATE 7 #4 sold 139.763 copies in its first week of sales, which represents a growth of 6,4% in comparison to the previous volume. This is the highest-selling first week for a GATE 7 volume so far.

Drug & Drop #1 sold 42.474 copies on its first second week of sales, which is around the same amount of copies that Kobato. #6 (final volume) sold in its first week of sales.

GATE 7 seems to be growing steadily on sales, while Drug & Drop started shy, but not a bad start. It is worth mentioning that Oricon lists Drug & Drop #1 as previously appearing on the 15th postion, that's probably taking into account pre-sales and stores that sold it shortly before the original release date.

Update: One correction in Drug & Drop #1 sales, the actual number of accumulated sales is 70.500 copies so far. That is because this is the second week of sales, having sold 28.026 copies in its first week. That's definitely good news!

I'll keep an eye open for next week's ranking, hopefully GATE 7 will make another appearance.

• XXXHOLiC TV Drama:

The official website of the XXXHOLiC TV Drama has launched its Characters and Episodes sections. Check them out.

• XXXHOLiC Artbook:

For those interested in buying the XXXHOLiC Artbook, it is already available for pre-order at CD Japan for US$ 70.30. They ship worldwide.

• Valentine's Day Greetings from CLAMP:

Happy Valentine's, from CLAMP!

Drug & Drop + GATE 7 schedule update

Seems like CLAMP will be taking a small break this coming month.

According to the tweet above, Drug & Drop will be taking a break in the next issue of Young Ace magazine. On the other hand, even though GATE 7 is not taking a break next month, the next issue of Jump SQ will carry a short story of 5 pages instead of a regular chapter.

The updated schedule is as follows:

02/04 – Young Ace #3 – Chapter 13.
03/04 – Young Ace #4 – Break.

02/04 – Jump SQ #3 – Chapter 21 (on sale).
03/04 – Jump SQ #4 – Short comic (5 pages).

03/04 – Young Magazine #14 – Chapter 1 or 214 (?).

Not sure if they will resume the chapter counting from where XXXHOLiC Rou ended or start a new counting for XXXHOLiC Rei (sounds more likely to me).

Drug & Drop #1 cover

The cover of Drug & Drop #1 was posted in CLAMP's official twitter account:

Click here to see a larger version of it.

I really like it! I am glad they've kept Gouhou Drug's black&white visuals, even the cannabis makes an appearance (which is nice, I thought it had gone for good). I don't understand why they didn't include the series' logo, but the title typography looks good too.

I think the art is slowly getting back to how it used to be, it might never reach the same level as Gouhou Drug, but it looks better than the first few chapters of Drug & Drop.

Drug & Drop #1 will be released on February 4, along with GATE 7 #4 (there is going to be a campaign for it!)

As I mentioned, this was originally posted on CLAMP's official twitter account. Since Janurary 1st, CLAMP-NET.COM is no longer being updated. The site is still online, it hasn't been shut down, but hasn't been updated since. All news are being posted on CLAMP's official twitter.

Their twitter account has become more active since then, tweets beginning with "★【CLAMP】" were tweeted by CLAMP members themselves, so make sure to follow it if you haven't done so yet: http://twitter.com/CLAMP_news

GATE 7 #4 and Drug & Drop #1 campaign!

To promote the simultaneous release of GATE 7 #4 and Drug & Drop #1 on February 4, Kadokawa, Sueisha and CLAMP will join forces to launch a collaboration campaign.

Exclusive goods will be released using as a motif the below image newly drawn by CLAMP, featuring the characters from both series:

More details about this campaign — what the goods will be and how to participate — to be announced soon!

I love the illustration! *-*

New XXXHOLiC manga series to begin in February

It was announced today at the CLAMP FESTIVAL 2012 NAGOYA that a new series of the XXXHOLiC manga will begin in February.

The new series will be called XXXHOLiC ◆ Rei (XXXHOLiC ◆ 戻 ) and will be published in Young Magazine. The kanji for 戻 roughly means “return”.

This will coincide with the release of the XXXHOLiC artbook, the TV Drama and also the series’ 10th Anniversary.

All of this makes a lot of sense, if you ask me. There couldn’t be a better time, strategic-wise, to resume the series. I would presume that Kodansha and CLAMP already knew that there would be a live action adaptation and decided to put the series on hiatus in order to wait for it. I’d say that everything was planned from the start.

So CLAMP is back to weekly magazines, and back to 3 works simultaneously. Very nice!

In other news, we now finally have the release dates for GATE 7 #4 and Drug & Drop #1. It will be a simultaneous release on February 4. Drug & Drop #1 will cost 588 yens.

GATE 7, Drug & Drop on break until December

Uh-oh, some bad news for those who were expecting GATE 7 and Drug & Drop to be resumed in November.

Today’s update of CLAMP-NET.COM shows that both series have been given an extra month on break, postponing their return now for December.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

10/04 – Young Ace #11 – Break (on sale).
11/04 – Young Ace #12 – Break.
12/04 – Young Ace #1 – Chapter 11.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

10/04 – Jump SQ #11 – Break (on sale).
11/04 – Jump SQ #12 – Break.
12/04 – Jump SQ #1 – Chapter 19.

Perhaps CLAMP hasn’t fully recovered from the illness that made them put both works on this pause. The last chapters of GATE 7 and Drug & Drop were published in August.

XXXHOLiC artbook to be released in January 2013

From Young Magazine‘s website comes the news that the XXXHOLiC artbook will finally be released at the end of January, 2013:

160点以上の極彩イラストを完全収録した
『xxxHOLiC』美麗原画集は2013年1月下旬発売予定!!

The artbook will have a total of 160 illustrations.

In other news, CLAMP-NET.COM has the updated schedules for Drug & Drop and GATE 7 — they are both back in November.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

09/04 – Young Ace #10 – Break (on sale).
10/04 – Young Ace #11 – Break.
11/04 – Young Ace #12 – Chapter 11.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

09/04 – Jump SQ #10 – Break (on sale).
10/04 – Jump SQ #11 – Break.
11/04 – Jump SQ #12 – Chapter 19.

UPDATE: CLAMP drew Joylene Kujo for the JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure 25th Anniversary Book, check it out! Thank you drakonika for the info!

New mook “CLAMP Pia”! (Updated)

There will be a new mook/fanzine by CLAMP entitled “CLAMP Pia” (CLAMPぴあ) to be released on September 22, in celebration for the CLAMP FESTIVAL 2012 events.

[Contents]
● CLAMP NEWS
The latest information about XXXHOLiC, Drug & Drop and GATE 7.

● CLAMP WORKS
Introduction to all 23 CLAMP works, and some works outside the comics.

●CLAMP FESTIVAL 2012 information
Map access to the venues, tickets information.

[Specifications]
CLAMP will draw a new illustration for the cover.
Price: 1,200 yens.
A4 / full color / 96 pages.
☆: Appendix: 24 postcards featuring illustrations from all 23 CLAMP works + the magazine cover with new illustration.

[Campaign]
Booking through Pia Book you get an exclusive clear file.

Sounds exciting! In this uneventful era that we are currently living. Looking forward to the news that will be published in this fanzine and the cover illustration 😉

UPDATE: Also, there has been some changes in the chapter schedules for both GATE 7 and Drug & Drop: more breaks ahead.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

08/03 – Young Ace #09 – Chapter 10 – 3 color pages (title page + spread). First chapter of tankoubon 2 (on sale).
09/04 – Young Ace #10 – Break.
10/04 – Young Ace #11 – Break.

Drug & Drop will be resumed on Young Ace #12.

– Next scheduled chapters (red means new):

08/03 – Jump SQ #09 – Chapter 18 (on sale).
09/04 – Jump SQ #10 – Break (CLAMP changed that. Chapter 19 was at first scheduled for this issue).
10/04 – Jump SQ #11 – Break.

First break for GATE 7 in a very long time. And a double break, on top of that!

Is CLAMP taking some time off? Nothing new from them before November.