Daily Intake 06.06.11

I’m back! It’s good to be wired again and be able to dive into the deep end of anime news and otaku culture again. This is going to be a pic-heavy Daily post!

⚫ Animator @nitsuka51 (猫柳亭耳楽) tweeted that after working on Madoka Magica, his job prospects have increased (Source)! As I talked about in my review of the anime, it does seem like Madoka Magica has had a rippling rejuvenating effect on the TV-anime industry, both for fans and people working in it. It may not be revolutionary, but it had a timely success as an original anime. In his recent public lecture, Yamakan (Yamamoto Yutaka) commented that Madoka Magica is opening up a new dimension for anime, which is a good thing. I had a quick skim over a report for that lecture and it seems some interesting things were said. He reiterated the problem with fans now appraising anime in terms of whether or not it will sell, rather than how much they enjoy it. He mentions that Haruhi was probably the genesis for this way of thinking because its popularity gave a fun sense of community and unity. I might have more of a read over the coming week and see if it’s worth doing a short post on..

⚫ A quick update on the Tamayura (original anime conjured up by Junichi Satou about cute girls and photography) TV-anime: the title is Tamayura~hitotose and it will start airing in October. There will also be an event for the show in August! (source)

⚫ In its first week (shown on 22 screens), the Sengoku Basara movie got 5,200,000 in the box office, which is pretty favourable. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 got approximately 700 million. By the way, some other movie Box Office takings (source):

Macross F: 8,815,000
Haruhi: 8,901,000
Nanoha: 6,129,000
Fate Stay Night: 3,769,000

⚫ The character designs for Sunrise’s upcoming original mecha anime project, Sacred Seven, have been put up on the official website! You can check them out more easily here. Personally, I think they look pretty good. It’s definitely a good sign that the girls are cute, and some of them are maids! So the bishoujou cast is covered, but the guys seem to lack a good hero aura. Especially the stereotypical glasses-wearing bishounen.

 
 

## Both you and I will be able to sleep easy tonight: my cold has receded! I’d like to say it was the healing effect of Hanasaku Iroha’s latest episode, but the truth is I had become well before then, while I was still having a brief but intensely fun holiday in Melbourne. I caught up with some old friends, had plenty of great beer and food and some some cool shows (including Cirque Du Soleil, actually). In between all the normal stuff, I crammed in time to scout out the local otaku hotspots and meet as many people as I could.

I hit the town with @Jeroz on Friday and met someone at the expansive geek hub, the store Minotaur, who was good for a laugh but turned out to be a bit too softcore for me (only just starting to watch subs? MADNESS!). Then we went to the next level, the small but very win store Ozanimart. The guys there were really friendly, and I got into a good chat with them about all kinds of things. @Jeroz suggested visiting a nearby Japanese magazine shop, Kanga Kanga, which sounded intriguing. But it turned out to be much better than intriguing! The store had a great range of Japanese magazines on all topics: fashion, cars, idols (including some nice looking AKB48 mags) and of course anime! The owner was really friendly and we were united in our dissatisfaction with being unable to by Anime Style from amazon (or his suppliers, apparently). I took a few pictures of the store:





Check out their website here! And definitely give it a visit if you’re ever in Melbourne. I bought a copy of Megami and Dengeki Moeoh there.

After that I went back to hang out with @Jeroz at his place, which was really cool. We watched Steins;Gate, and I picked up some doujinshi he bought me last comiket (thanks again, bro!).

The following day I went back to Ozanimart and met some new guys as well as some familiar ones I’d met at a convention last year. I got talking about Weiss Schwarz and after only about 1 minute I was being taught how to play Bushiroad’s new cardgame, Vanguard. Vanguard was actually a really good strategic game with an original style of play. It’s a shame it doesn’t have the appeal of WS – playing with characters you know and love!

 

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka season 2 announced! *dances around the room*

Screencaps from the Infinite Stratos OVA ep~ niiiice

IS event

IS event

IS event

Beautiful Gainax top-page image (houkago no pleiades)

lol damn scary bird

www Yamakan figma. I would actually buy it.

At the IS event

The IS race car made an appearance at the event!

The level 5’s drawn by Haimura himself!

Meet the 5th-ranked level 5! She’s been recently introduced in the Railgun manga.

Dangerous??

QB suicide exhibit at the store Tora no Ana

Stitch from the latest Astarotte episode. Nurses = win~!

 

KyoAni CM

KyoAni still has money to burn! But I’m not complaining, this promotional CM of theirs is really great with superb animation. The character deisgner and director was a prime KyoAni asset, Shoko Ikeda. I guess this is there answer to the Young Animator training project if they got less season animators to draw it.