Anime/manga guide: ICv2.com has released it latest Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga, with a focus on the rapid growth of sales through the bookstore market:

"In the manga market, one of the most important phenomena of the last few years is the rapid growth of the bookstore market, which has now passed comic stores as the primary sales channel for manga. The parallels between that channel shift and the shift from newsstand distributors to comic stores twenty years ago are strong. In both cases, the new channel serves a customer base under-served by the dominant channel, format and content shifts are tied to the new customers, and information systems and logistics fit the format and sales patterns better in the new channel than those in the dominant channel."

The guide also includes lists of the Top 50 manga for the second quarter of 2004, and the Top 50 anime for the first quarter. (It comes as little surprise that Rurouni Kenshin tops one list and Initial D the other.)