Los Angeles - CraveOnline.com, a men's lifestyle destination, announced on Monday that it has acquired MyAnimeList, an anime and manga social networking site that counts over 4.4 million anime and 775,000 manga entries. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. MyAnimeList was founded in 2006 and currently sees over 10,000 active daily users. CraveOnline's network of sites attracts over 36 million unique monthly users.

Tokyo - Japanese media firm Kadokawa Group has partnered with YouTube to legitimize the user-posted cartoons on the site, and will now split ad revenue from the pages with YouTube and the poster of its content, Variety reports. Kadokawa has produced manga including "Cowboy Bebop," "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Full Metal Panic."

San Francisco - Crunchyroll, a video-sharing site that features anime content, has raised $4.05 million in its first round of funding, led by Venrock, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing.

Los Angeles - Manga Entertainment, a unit of Liberty Media's Starz Media, on Friday announced the launch of Manga.com, a site that will feature streaming video, product-related information and other editorial content on Japanese manga. The site will offer original entertainment, as well as clips from Manga Entertainment's library, which includes TV and movie titles such as "Ghost in the Shell," "Ninja Scroll" and "Street Fighter."

Hong Kong - Animax, the Japanese anime satellite TV network owned by Sony, plans to launch a mobile TV channel in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Variety reported. Animax Mobile will offer four anime series at launch: "Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo," "Blood+," "R.O.D. the TV" and "The Last Exile."

New York - Liberty Media's cable TV venture Starz Media said on Monday that it has licensed 40 hours of popular Japanese manga content for distribution on its soon-to-relaunch Manga.com, as well as to independent site Heavy.com. The deal includes popular franchises "Ghost in the Shell," "Astro Boy" and "Ninja Scroll."

San Francisco - Japanese game developer Sega has announced plans to publish two titles based on VIZ Media's anime series "Bleach," which appears in the U.S. on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. "Beach: Shattered Blade" is in development for the Nintendo Wii, while "Bleach: The Blade of Fate" will be released for the DS.

Minneapolis - Navarre Corporation, a publisher and distributor of physical and digital home entertainment and multimedia products, announced on Friday a $110 million debt refinancing, consisting of a $95 million credit facility with GE-Corporate Lending, and a four-year, $15 million loan facility with Monroe Capital Advisors.

Fort Worth, Texas - AnimeOnline has announced the beta launch of its social networking site and news resource for fans of anime, manga and Japanese entertainment. The site is headed by Rob Bricken, the former editor of anime industry publication Anime Insider, and backed by FUNimation, a top distributor of Japanese anime in the U.S. News articles on AnimeOnline will cover anime, manga, videogames, music and all Japanese culture, while the social network will allow users to present their favorite anime series on their personal pages.

Minneapolis - FUNimation Entertainment, a unit of Navarre Corporation that distributes Japanese animation in the U.S., announced on Wednesday that it has made episodes of top-rated anime series available for purchase and download from Apple's iTunes Store. Episodes of "Desert Punk," "Speed Grapher" and Akira Kurosawa's "Samurai 7" will be available for $1.99 each.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Azureus, a BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer file-sharing application, announced on Monday that it has signed an agreement with Liberty Media's Starz, to distribute Starz video content on its Zudeo file-sharing network.