AnimeNation Anime News Blog

The official website for the Sengoku Gyojin Dullahan: Kagen no Keishosha (Dullahan: The Inheritor of the Crescent Moon) anime (TV?) project has launched, featuring a streaming Flash intro teaser. Dullahan depicts Japan’s warring states period as a time when warriors fought in mecha rather than conventional battle armor. Visual novel creation group Ra-Sen developed the Dullahan concept last year. The concept then won first place in the Sendai-Miyagi Animation Contest last October.

Source: Anime News Network

The official Japanese homepage for the Pokemon movie series is now streaming a 15 second teaser for the franchise’s 13th film. The Pocket Monster: Diamond & Pearl Platinum movie will premiere next year.

Source: Anime News Network

Question:
Why do Hollywood and certain domestic anime companies continue to assert the value of BD when it’s clearly an overpriced gimmick? With the advent of the Matrix on the format, DVD was instantly accepted two years after it officially made its debut. BD only makes money when the manufacturers slash the price every few months. Yes, certain titles do sell well enough for certain studios, but it’s clear that they should be selling a lot higher.

$15 more for a prettier version of the same 50 minute schoolgirl vampire movie I can get for half that price? If I want to pay $5 more for an exclusive 15-minute Oshii interview on Sky Crawlers I’ll also have to buy a new player to watch it. Bandai Visual thought Jin Roh was popular enough for me to pay $100 for it on BD, when I could get it for a quarter of that price on DVD. Manga thinks that version of Ghost in the Shell with the new dye-job is worth paying extra for, just to hear Oshii justify the pointless endeavor on the commentary track. So, if I have to be coerced or bribed into buying these titles, and companies are still discounting their Blu-rays at rates they wouldn’t for DVD, where exactly is the profit in this format? When are shareholders for these companies going to admit that, when it comes to BD, their execs have no clothes?

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An unspecified American production company has reportedly filed suit in Tokyo District Court against Japanese publisher Futabasha and Old Boy manga creators Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. The American plaintiff claims to have signed a contract with Futabasha for exclusive rights to produce a cinematic adaptation of the Old Boy manga. The American producer began work on an animated adaptation of the manga in 2007, but stopped work after learning that Futabasha had previously sold Old Boy adaptation rights to Korean studio Show East, which produced director Park Chan-Wook’s 2003 live-action Old Boy movie. The American plaintiff claims that the agreement between Futabasha & Show East was still in effect when the American contract was signed, thus Futabasha did not actually have the authority to negotiate a valid American licensing contract at the time.

The Sankei News reports that Futabasha has admitted some oversight, but claims that the contract signed with the American studio was valid at the time it was signed; therefore Futabasha is not responsible for the American studio’s decision to stop development of its animated adaptation. The American plaintiff is seeking 245.7 million yen (US $2.74 million) in compensation for its uncompleted work.

Source: Anime News Network

The ending animation of Sora no Otoshimono episode 2.

Source: Itai News

Question:
It seems some other anime news site believes that Queen’s Blade is ruining the anime industry. Do you feel Queen’s Blade is destroying anime?

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Although Viz Media is the domestic licensor and home video distributor for the Monster anime series, Manga Entertainment is now streaming the series’ first episode. Manga Entertainment sponsors the Syfy television network’s Ani-Monday broadcasts. Monster premiered on Ani-Monday last night.

Source: Anime News Network

Kodansha is now streaming a trailer for Production I.G’s one-shot anime adaptation of Yoko Nihonbashi’s girl volleyball manga series Shoujo Fight. The OAD will be released with limited edition copies of manga volume six on the 23rd.

Source: Moon Phase

Publisher Softbank Creative has announced that Flash animation production studio DLE (Eagle Talon) will produce a Flash Haiyoru! Nyaru-Ani anime adaptation of author Manta Aisora’s “high-tension, chaotic comedy” light novel series Haiyore! Nyaruko-san. The novels star high school boy Mahiro Yasaka who encounters the Cthulhu mythos god Nyarlathotep, who inexplicably chooses to appear as a cute silver-haired girl. Aisora’s H.P. Lovecraft & moé inspired light novel series premiered this past April. The third book hits Japanese shelves this month, along with a new drama CD.

The “Cthulhu mythos” created by American writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) has been quite influential in anime. References to the mythology Lovecraft created have appeared in anime including Iczer-One, Armitage the III, Digimon, Dirty Pair, Demonbane, and Soul Eater.

Japanese fan created moé Cthulhu comics here.

Source: Anime News Network

During this past weekend’s Bizan Summit Fall Festival publicity event, animation studio ufotable announced its development of a mobile phone anime series titled Yawarakame, loosely, “soft shelled turtle” (not to be confused with the Yawaraka Sensha Flash anime series). The production is a collaboration between ufotable and manga creator Yu Yagami, co-creator of ufotable’s 2003 anime series Sumeba Miyako no Cosmos-sou Suttoko Taisen Dokkoider. Miyuki Sawashiro (Puchiko in Di-Gi-Charat) will provide all of the primary character voices for the Yawarakame anime.

Source: Anime News Network

Gwashi! Umezu Kazuo Desu (Gwashi! I’m Kazuo Umezu), a documentary film about 73 year-old living legend manga creator Kazuo Umezu will open theatrically, in Japan, on November 23rd. Since his professional debut in 1955, Umezu has created popular and award winning manga including Hyoryu Kyoshitsu (Drifting Classroom), Nekome Kozo (Cat-Eyed Boy), Makoto-chan, and countless horror manga stories. The documentary movie, directed by Umezu’s official webmaster Koji Ito, is a culmination of three-years of documenting Umezu’s work and life.

Umezu will also teach the basics of creating manga in the NHK Educational channel’s 8 episode instructional mini-series Chukonen mo Gwashi! Umezu Kazuo no 4-Koma Manga Nyumon which premieres on November 5.

Source: Tokyograph

Chinese bloggers and forum users (oh, the irony) are reportedly accusing the Taiwanese television program Wo Ai Hei Se Bang Bang of having copied music from the K-On anime series and imagery from the Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei anime series for its own animated opening sequence.

The similarities are unmistakable, but I have to question whether they’re significant enough to be worth a big fuss.

Source: Anime News Network

The DC Anime Club will host a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament this Saturday, October 17, at the Martin Luthur King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC. Registration for participats age 13 and older opens at 2pm. The tournament will officially begin at 2:15pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Cosplayer Peter Kokis dropped us a line about the impressive Transformers Bumblebee costume he created and wore in the June 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade.