AnimeNation Anime News Blog

The independent symphonic rock musical group Shoujo Byou (Girl Disease) will make its major label debut when the Lantis music label releases the group’s CD single “Sohaku Shisuferia” on December 23. The 3 track CD will include a bonus DVD featuring an original anime video with limited animation and voices provided by veteran voice actors Kana Hanazawa (Zange in Kannagi, Angelica in Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-), Aki Toyosaki (Yui in K-On, Kana in Kanamemo), Tetsuya Kakihara (Simon in Gurren Lagann, Akiba in Kannagi), and Miyuki Sawashiro (Puchiko in Di-Gi-Charat, Mint in Galaxy Angel). The anime video will be animated by design studio Alice From Japan.

Source: Anime News Network

An unconfirmed magazine article appears to reveal that the Chu-Bra!! anime, first announced last June, will be a TV series animated by ZEXCS (Rental Magica, Wagaya no Oinarisama) and directed by Hiiro Yukina (Gakuen Heaven). The show will premiere on the AT-X satellite network in January.

The adaptation of Yumi Nakata’s “middle school girls x underwear = slightly H girls comedy” is the story of Nayu Hayama, a middle school girl with an affection for sexy underwear who joins an “underwear club” at her school to tout the benefits of sexy undies to schoolgirls worried about how their undergarment choices will affect their body development.

Source: Moon Phase Diary

According to an anonymous post on Japan’s 2chan message board, next week’s issue of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine will formally announce that a Gintama motion picture, based on Hideaki Sorachi’s bestselling comedy manga, is now in development. It’s not clear if the feature is being developed in anime or live action. Warner Bros. did register the Gintama-movie.com domain name earlier this month. Warner produced the live action film adaptations of the Death Note manga that ran concurrently with Gintama in Shonen Jump magazine.

Short Gintama anime films were screened during the 2005 & 2008 Shonen Jump Festa promotional tours.

Source: Anime News Network

The live action feature film adaptation of Nobuyuki Fukumoto’s Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji gambling manga has topped the Japanese box office for a second straight week. The anime film Rebirth of Buddha opened this week in second place. Imagi Animation’s Astro Boy movie entered the Japanese box office charts last week in 10th place and fell out of the top ten this week. Manga adaptations 20th Century Boys Chapter 3 and Kamui dropped to the 9th and 10th box office spots this week as they begin to wind down their theatrical runs.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Article provided by Daniel Zelter

The trailer for Watchm… er, Watashi Desu wa, the latest film from director Morita Yoshimitsu, has premiered. The film is a gentle drama about a young woman moving home from Tokyo to rural Hakodate, Hokkaido. Hakodate happens to be one of Japan’s major producer/exporters of squid, so the Hakodate Tourism Board decided to playfully alter the Watashi Desu wa trailer by adding in invading alien squid, spaceships, and giant robots. The edited trailer is the latest video clip in the Hakodate Tourism Board’s Project Ika-R promotional effort to make invading alien squid a regional mascot.

The sci-fi elements in this trailer do not appear in the actual movie. They’ve been edited into the trailer as a joke.

The movie looks much more fun with the squid than without.

Source: Twitch

Question:
The 2nd season of Haruhi Suzumiya. Any idea of when it might make its way to the US?

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The official website for next January’s Seikon no Qwaser anime television series is now streaming a 60 second trailer in 1M & 2M bandwidths.

Tokyopop announced at last month’s New York Anime Festival that it acquired the English translation & publication rights to Hiroyuki Yoshino and Kenetsu Satou’s original Seikon no Qwaser manga. The “fan service” heavy story revolves around antagonistic element manipulators attending a religious school.

If nothing else, the trailer does reveal some very slick design.

Source: Anime News Network

Musician Kazuhiko Katoh, best known to anime fans as the composer of the songs “Ai, Oboeteimasu ka?” (Love, Do Your Remember?) and “Yakusoku” (Promise) – the theme songs for the 1984 Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Windaria anime motion pictures – was found hanged in his hotel room in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture on Saturday. Investigators reportedly also found a suicide note. Katoh was 62.

Source: Kyodo News & Anime News Network

The Japan Times has published a new interview with Astro Boy film director David Bowers.

“My job wasn’t to reinvent what Atom is. My job was to make a great movie with Atom in it.”

Article provided by Daniel Zelter

Director Mamoru Oshii has confirmed that at least one unspecified Hollywood film production outfit has inquired about obtaining the rights to produce an American re-make of his upcoming sci-fi action film Assault Girls. Oshii has reportedly said that he’s not opposed to the possibility of an American remake, and would even like to see the film’s Japanese stars – Kikuchi Rinko, Kuroki Meisa, Saeki Hinako – headline an American remake.

Assault Girls hits Japanese theaters on December 19.

Source: Twitch

Question:
Exactly how much involvement do the original authors of a manga have in the filler episodes of the anime adaptation? I know that filler episodes are used to create a larger gap between the latest episodes of the anime adaptation and the latest chapters of an ongoing serialized manga like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc. But filler episodes just don’t seem to have as much weight to them as the ones that stick to the content of the published manga chapters. My conclusion has been that the original creators must not have had any hand in the writing or even creation of the filler episodes or even the theatrical movies which also tend to veer from the original narrative.

I recently went back to check where the Bleach anime had left off in relation to the ongoing story arc in the manga. Turns out they’ve cut into the middle of the story arc to focus on a story that’s not in the manga, in which the shinigami have to battle against the materialization of their respective zanpakutou. I don’t recall ever seeing any of the designs – save for Ichigo’s – in the manga, so someone must have designed them. So that made me wonder whether Kubo Tite designed them or someone else did. Do other manga artists also have any involvement in the creation of filler episodes for their respective creations?

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Japanese producer/distributor Starchild’s official website for Gainax’s upcoming television series Hanamaru Yochien (Hanamaru Kindergarten) now features a streaming trailer. Click the flashing “PV wa kochira!” button on the site’s top right corner to view the trailer. The series will debut next January.

The official homepage for the Nodame Cantabile anime franchise is now streaming a 30 second trailer for this January’s Nodame Cantabile Finale television series. Click the red button at the website’s top left corner to watch the trailer.

Source: Anime News Network

First edition copies of this week’s new Anime Shakugan no Shana II no Subete guidebook to the Shakugan no Shana anime franchise include a bonus DVD featuring an exclusive “Shakugan no Shana-tan: Revenge” anime short and a trailer for the upcoming Shakugan no Shana S OVA series. The first Anime Shakugan no Shana no Subete guide book released in 2006 also included an exclusive bonus DVD. The first Shakugan no Shana S OVA goes on sale on the 23rd.

“Shakugan no Shana-tan” is the parody version of Shakugan no Shana starring a miniaturized Shana.

Source: Anime News Network

Hello Kitty was launched 35 years ago November 1st with a coin purse bearing her image. Now the character generates billions of dollars a year in sales.

Upper Deck has obtained a multi-year license from Sanrio Global Consumer Products to produce a Hello Kitty collectible game. The game will include collectible miniatures and stickers, and will be marketed as a trading card game beginning next March.

Source: ICv2

Question:
Who have been the most influential people in the anime industry over the past 20 years?

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