Daily Intake 23.02.11

⚫ Nice 2channel-translation report on the recent Keion concert at Mangajet! LINK

⚫ The Keion TV-anime has broken a record by selling over 500,000 thousand Blu-rays in total! That’s pretty impressive, but don’t forget that it’s a 2-cour anime. So on a per-volume sales basis, there are certainly TV-anime with stronger BD sales, such as Bakemonogatari. source

⚫ Anime announcement: based on a light novel, Ben・Tou is an action-comedy story about a guy who gets stuck in a ‘supermarket survival battle’. I dunno, even if it sounds kinda dumb, it is very popular. It hit fifth in the 2010 light novel ranking. Funny that this news came out just as 2channel was talking about how light-novel anime announcements are dying off (the theory being that original is coming back into popularity, or that they’re running low on popular titles). Maybe the explosion of light-novel anime is slowing, but they’ll be around for a long time to come. source

⚫ The OP for next-season anime, Hidan no Aria will be done by May’n (the singing voice of Sheryl)! #1

⚫ The author of the Infinite Stratos light novel says he’s troubled by how to make Rin a cuter character. He says, although he likes Rin, she does give off a cute vibe at all, which he admits may be due to his lack of skill. He apologises to Rin fans. Of course, I wouldn’t take these comments too seriously. The blog entry has an up-beat tone, so I don’t think there’s too much angst behind it. This is just the latest and most official thing I’ve heard about Rin not being a very good character, so I think it’s about time I came out and threw in my support for her! I find her really cute already! Not on the level of Charles, obviously, but she’s cuter than England! source

⚫ Zero no Tsukaima ending at volume 22. It’s had a good run, and it’s nice to know it’s ending. I have to admit, I’m kind of curious about what note it’ll end up on in terms of the Louise/Saitou relationship. source

⚫ Although the Sisters arc is finished, the Railgun manga will be continuing on, and it will feature a new character designed by Haimura Kiyotaka (the Index novel illustrator)! Can’t wait for it! source

⚫ The new TV-anime for kids starring the seiyuu unit, LISP, Pretty Rythmn, will air at 10am every Saturday morning. source

⚫ Upcoming anime R-15 about an ero-novel student writer is officially set to air in Summer season! #1

⚫ Kannagi will be re-aired on Tokyo MX! Could this be a sign of more Kannagi coming our way, now that the author is back on her feet and doing the manga again? #1

##Once again, I didn’t get the chance to watch any anime today (sigh). Actually, I tell a lie; my day was brightened up somewhat with 1080p versions of the Sakura memorial specials (Cardcaptor Sakura), which I might do a brief post on after this. The first ‘true end’ OreImo episode came out today, which has got the net all fired up. I’m pretty excited to see that tomorrow! More Kuroneko, more Saori, and more Kirino – sounds like a recipe for fun!

Discussions on a possible Kannagi season 2 got me thinking .. about the infamous directory, Yamakan. So I added a controversial poll today! Follow your heart!

 

---

 

OreImo true end #1 Saori.. the goddess who can calm the storm of two battling otaku. Fearsome.

OreImo true end #1 Sexy~

Trading straps from the same company for Railgun. Must. Not. Fanboy.

These are the designs for some trading straps coming out this month. I just find all the chibi-Sabers too cute not to post!

A TV-show profiled Akiba-culture otaku..and somehow ended up with this. 2ch got a good laugh out of it, but it’s kind of annoying to see a poor otaku image like this. Wish I could find the video..

Anime heroines height and weight. The odd one out is Kirino.. for being so light! But I guess she is a model. I’m not expert on figures or weight, so make sure you point out any interesting observations you might have!

Fan-made clay charlotte! This is really well-done.

The latest BD volume of Yosuga no Sora was released today, fully uncensored, of course! For a closer inspection of all the ero wonders of this disc, check out this link.

The new issue of Dengeki Daiou appears to come with those four Railgun straps. Maid Misaka, lingerie Kuroko … I am compelled to buy this :(

 

---

 

Daily Intake 25.01.11

⚫ The new Keion character song singles have been a big success on the weekly oricon charts! Ui placed 5th, (13,000 copies), Jun 8th (12,000) and Nodoka 9th (12,000)!

⚫ Seiyuu unit LISP (featuring Asumi Kana, Hara Sayuri & Kataoka Azusa) will be starring in and singing the theme song for an upcoming TV anime aimed at elementary kids, “Pretty Rythmn Aurora Dream” (プリティーリズム オーロラドリーム). The anime is apparently about three girls who want to become idols, who are played by LISP. The original character designs have also been revealed. #1 (played by Kana Asumi), #2 (played by Azusa Kataoka), #3 (played by Sayuri Hara).

⚫ It looks like Yamakan has closed his blog after a tussle with commentors about his retirement that started yesterday (see yesterday’s post)… this is kind of sad. To someone just reading this news it might sound like Yamakan being stupid, but given the number of negative comments he gets on 2channel, I’m not surprised it got to him (even if he did kind of get into this mess himself). It’s a shame to see a driven director be beaten down by so-called anime fans. source.

⚫ A newspaper interviewed the Yumekui Merry author. Both him and his house look very plain, don’t they? #1

⚫ An Akihabara sushi store used Ika Musume illustrations on their menu source+pics

⚫ I watched Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka 3, and really enjoyed it after being slightly disappointed by the second episode. The storyboard (by Yasunori Ide, director of Please Teacher, Please Twins, and others) was very effective at delivering many funny moments, and the timing was spot on. I laughed quite a bit. There was also some great fanservice, which I’m sure Yasunori wasn’t opposed to!

⚫ Star Driver 16 was indeed a great episode! For possibly the first time, my attention didn’t waver for even a second. The animation was pretty superb, with contributions from Hironori Tanaka and Hiroshi Tomioka. On the downside, I think the show lost a big part of its appeal to me from here on. I won’t be specific but… BAWWWW.

⚫ Ken Akamatsu‘s website for online distribution of out-of-print manga, Jcomi, which is currently in beta, finally found a success with the distribution of “After School Wedding”! It obtained a revenue of 525000 yen! source. Maybe this model has hope after all. Personally, I think it’s a great idea which will work much better if the advertisements are better targeted.

 

---

 

Pantsu challenge 2011! Someone has put together this collage of pantsu screencaps from various anime and the challenge is in guessing as many of the girls or anime as you can. I actually do quite poorly.. I recognise 14 anime!

KoreZom 03: Orito’s keen perception of character allowed him to do a panty-profile on Asumu’s three supernatural boarders! What a guy! Now, the question is, are his visions correct? We know he’s correct that Haruna wears stripes, so if we extrapolate from that then we can conclude that Yuu wears black string panties~!

KoreZom 03: Point of order: I hearby lay claim to Haruna! Sexiest loli of the season!

Haha, Tenshi and Miyafuji make a cute couple!

Haha, Victorique could see through Kyubee in under 5 seconds.

A Week in Otaku News 2 – Prepare for Third Impact

A visual guide to the week in anime/otaku news and distractions! Hopefully this new post format is useful and fun for people. Please comment to share your thoughts, observations, additions, corrections, et cetera! Let’s get a discussion going! I really want to know what people think of this post format, so I’m encouraged to continue doing them every week.

Note: I’m going to do a separate article for highlights in current anime and manga!

Thank you for the comments last time! Please comment again to keep me motivated, and share the link if you like the post (please!).

MAG・ネット 28

MAG・ネット is a television program aired on NHK which delves into the realm of otaku culture on a weekly basis. They cover a wide range of things, from seiyuu, games, animators, manga artists, etc and do a very good job creating a professional and illuminating weekly documentary. They’ve had a number of excellent interviews and other insights in the 28 episodes that have been produced so far. My favourite episode was dedicated to the now-deceased old-school animator, Yoshinori Kanada. That opened my eyes up to a lot about the world of animation in Japan and gave me a deep appreciation of the man’s work. Each episode has a special focus, but they also have a segment which briefly covers other events/news of the week. From here on, whenever I stumble across something interesting in one of their episodes, I’ll relay it on this blog!