Maids and Music Event at Tottenham Court Road, London in January

The London club WOTA London have announced on their site that they will be hosting a Maids and Music event on Sunday 22nd January (Over 18s only unfortunately).

 

 The event is in two sections, the first being from 1.30pm to 6pm, and this will be the Maid and Butlers Cafe section of the event. This section of the event, according to their website, will allow any guests to 'enjoy the service from lovely Maids and Butlers'. Later in the day you will then be able to 'dance to your favourite Anime / Game / Doujin tunes in the evening!'

The venue is at the Royal George Pub, which is near to Tottenham Court Road tube station. You can either buy tickets to the whole event, which cost £6 advance or £8 on the door, or can pay just £4 in advance to enjoy the maid and butler service (£6 on the door). Advance tickets can be bought here.

Japanese Anime Films of 2012 - List Released

The Japanese Anime website Anime Anime Biz recently posted a list of all the anime movies to be released in 2012. This list is just for the Japanese release of the movies, but hopefully the UK and rest of the world will get these movies as well, either at the cinema or in a DVD/Blu-Ray release.
The films are as follows:

January

7th January
Magic Tree House
Tibetan Dog
Sacred Seven: Shirogane no Tsubasu
21st January
.hack//Sekai no Mukou ni
28th January
Eiyu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki The Animation 


February
4th February
Berserk Ogon: Jidai-Hen I: Hao no Tamago
11th February
Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker (Dragon Age: Blood Mage no Seisen)

March

3rd March

Doraemon: Nobita to Kiseki no Shima Animal Adventure

10th March

Scryed Alteration II Quan

17th March

Precure All Stars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi

Strike Witches 

  

April

7th April 

Space Battleship Yamato 2199: 1st Chapter (note: The other 6 films will be screened throughout the year, dates to be confirmed)

14th April

Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker

Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi o Yobu! Ora to Uchu no Princess

21st April  

A Letter to Momo (Momo e no Tegami) 

June

2nd June

Blood-C: The Last Dark

23rd June

Berserk Ogon Jidai-Hen II: Doldrey Koryaku

July

14th July

Gekijoban Pocket Monster Best Wishes! Kyurem vs Seikenshi

TBC

Okami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki

August

18th August

Fairy Tail

Spring

Hana no Utame Gothicmade

Kami-Usagi Rope

Summer

Library War

Naruto (As yet untitled)

The Life of Guskou Budori

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 2nd A's

Autumn

Rebuild of Evangelion: 3.o (Evangelion Shin Gekijo-ban O Quickening)

009 Re:Cyborg 

Berserk Ogon Jidai-Hen III: Korin

Sometime in 2012

Kizumonogatari

Blue Exorcist (As yet untitled)

Biohazard: Damnation (Resident Evil: Damnation)

Sakasama no Patema

2012, or possibly 2013

Steins Gate

Cencoroll 2

Toaru Majutsu no Index

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Mardock Scramble (3rd Part)

Tiger & Bunny (two films)

Niji-Iro Hotaru ~Eien no Natsu Yasumi~

Gekijoban Saint Seiya

Mass Effect  

Mobile Suit Gundam UC (Parts 5 and 6)
Rurouni Kenshin: Shin Kyoto-Hen 
Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Singer Natsuko Aso to perform at Hyper Japan 2012

The London Japanese Culture event Hyper Japan announced on both their Twitter account and Website that the anime singer Natsuko Aso will be performing at the event next year. She will be at the event on both the Friday and Saturday, being the 24th and 25th February. She will not be attending the Sunday date of the event.

 Natsuko Aso has quite a few anime titles to her name, including the opening songs to Baka and Test - Summon the Beast and Modern Magic Made Simple and the ending theme to Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Dai-Ni-Maku amongst other titles.

If you would like to purchase tickets to this event (which i will be ^_^) the Hyper Japan ticket site can be found here. Also, for more information on Natsuko Aso and her other works, you can check out her website here

K-ON! Film reaches 1 Billion Yen Milestone

New figures released on Monday 26th December have confirmed that the K-ON! Movie has now made over 1 Billion Yen! This landmark amount had taken only 24 days to be reached.

The previous figures were announced last week showed that the film had made almost 1 billion yen and had sold over 700,000 tickets. The week before that figures were released that showed the film had made 691million yen and sold 523,274 tickets in the nine days after it's release.

With these figures now released, it appears that the K-ON! movie is still very much a fan favourite, and is still one of the most popular films in Japanese cinemas.

'Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Battle Destiny' game announced for PS Vita

In the most recent issue of the Weekly Famitsu magazine, released in Japan, an announcement has been made that Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Battle Destiny will be released for the Playstation Vita handheld console.

The game will include network play (I cannot find anywhere that says if this will be both AD-HOC and Infrastructure, or just one of these as yet, but this will no doubt be released soon) and will include mobile suits such as Destiny Gundam, Impulse Gundam, Freedom Gundam, Strike Freedom Gundam, Justice Gundam, Infinite Justice Gundam, Akatsuki, Providence Gundam, Gundam Astray Blue Frame Revise, Gundam Astray Red Frame Kai, and Destroy Gundam. This will obviously include the mobile suits respective pilots.

Hopefully more information will be released for this game soon, in the mean time here are some more scans from the magazine:

UK Anime Releases - 26th December to 1st January

I hope you have all had an amazing Christmas, and haven't spent too much in the Boxing Day sales yet as this week has a few new anime releases, including a few big titles as well. The newest releases this week are:


Monday 26th December
Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor
First Squad
Legend of the Millenium Dragon
The Girl who Leapt Through Space - Volume 3
The Tatami Galaxy

Saturday 31st December
Gundam 00 2nd Season - Volume 3

Manga Entertainment announces UK Anime Best Sellers of 2011

Manga Entertainment have announced their best-selling anime titles of the year through their twitter feed, @MangaUK. The top 7 are as follows:

1: Akira (Blu-Ray - 2011 re-release)

2: Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D: Bonds Beyond Time (DVD)

3: Summer Wars

4: 5 Centimetres per Second

5: Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance

6: Highschool of the Dead

7: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Volume 3

In further discussions with fans on their twitter feed, they mentioned that the placing of Yu-Gi-Oh in the second spot was most likely due to it being 'available in Asda and Morrisons, came with a free rare card and was stupidly cheap on shelf'. 

They also noted that, although the top 5 were all feature films, anime series were still their main sellers, stating that Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, D.Gray-Man, Eden of the East and Darker than Black were all 'going strong'. Going in to further detail they then said that the Naruto Shippuden volumes 5-7 sold 'over 16,000 copies this year' and Bleach seasons 6 and 7 'sold over 8,000 units this year combined '.

'Dragon Ball Kai' Postage Stamps on sale January 2012

The Japanese Postal Service have announced that they will be selling stamps inspired by the Dragon Ball Kai anime series, and will be on sale from 23rd January 2012.

The stamps will feature well-known characters from the series, such as Vegeta, Son Goku, Son Gohan, Piccolo and Trunks. There will be 1.5 million sheets of these stamps on sale, and each sheet will include ten 80 Yen stamps. Also, every branch of Japan Post will stamp envelopes with a special Dragon Ball Kai date stamp, featuring Son Goku.

This is not the first time that Japan Post have released Anime postage stamps. The Dragon Ball Kai set are actually the 17th set released, in a series of stamps including Pokemon, Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

In case you are not aware, Dragon Ball Kai is another version of the Dragon Ball Z anime that more closely follows the original Akira Toriyama Dragon Ball manga. It also included scenes from the Dragon Ball Z series that were remastered and updated, along with a re-recordeded soundtrack.

Capcom to open a Capcom Entertainment Bar in Tokyo, January 2012

The Japanese computer game company Capcom, famous for titles like Monster Hunter and Devil May Cry, will be opening an Entertainment bar in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo. The move is a collaboration with Karaoke chain Pasela and will be located on the first floor of the Pasela Resorts Building.

The entertainment bar will allow fans to try out the latest Capcom games, buy goods from various Capcom franchises, and purchase food from a Capcom-themed menu. The bar will also host events with the development staff of Capcom and their live web-cast Hagitoko!

Capcom have also released some concept images of the bar, which are below:

K-ON! Film has made almost ¥1billion, sold over 700,000 tickets

I posted last week that the K-ON! Movie had sold over 500,000 tickets and made ¥691million. The same site has now updated it's figures on the film, and latest data shows that it has now sold over 700,000 tickets and made almost ¥1billion yen in the 16 days since it's release.
The film was also ranked fifth in the Japanese box office, after having strong competition from Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki which is currently in fourth at the box office.
Unfortunately there is currently no anticipated release date for any other areas, but I personally hope it does make it to foreign cinemas as K-ON! has a very large fanbase the world over.

Playstation Vita sells 321,407 units in first 2 days

The Japanese publisher Enterbrain announced today that Sony Playstation Vita has sold 321,407 units in just the first 2 days of being on sale in Japan (from 17th December).

By comparison, the Playstation Portable (PSP) sold 166,074 units in its first 2 days on sale, and the Nintendo 3DS sold 371,326 units in its first 2 days of sales.

Hopefully this will mean a bright future for the Playstation Vita, especially after the piracy issues and lack of developers later in the PSP's life cycle.

'Kingdom Hearts 3D' - New 8min Trailer

Today Square Enix began streaming an 8min trailer for their newest Kingdom Hearts title, Kingdom Hearts 3D (Dream Drop Distance), which will be released on the Nintendo 3DS in March 2012. The trailer was first shown at the Jump Fiesta 2012 event, which happened in Japan at the weekend.

The trailer shows that there will be new characters coming to the series from another Square Enix title, The World Ends With You. It will also include worlds from classic Disney films Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Three Musketeers, and Tron: Legacy. The title will also make use of the new Expansion Slide Pad accessory for the 3DS.

Trailer Below:

'Black Butler' manga anticipating over 10 million sold by end of the year

Yana Toboso's manga series 'Black Butler' (Kuroshitsuji) has its 13th volume set for release on the 27th December. With this release, along with the spin-off series, they are anticipating to have sold over 10 million copies.

For a relatively new series that is a brilliant milestone to have reached.

UK Anime Releases - 19th to 25th December

As my usual sources of news are a bit slow today I thought I would start informing you all of the upcoming anime releases for the UK. As it is the christmas season you may find it hard to get these delivered on time for christmas day, but they will also be released in stores nationwide.

19th December
Casshern Sins: Complete Series Collection
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Complete Series 2
The Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya / Nyoron! Churuyu-san Part 1

Unfortunately those appear to be the only releases this week, but at least there are two releases to tide over any Haruhi Suzumiya fans to the new year, and the Casshern boxset looks HUGE (7 discs and 600 minutes of footgage) so that should take any fan a while to get through.

'Only Yesterday' Review

'Only Yesterday' was shown as one of the films in Film 4's Studio Ghibli Season. Right from the start of the film it appears to be a break from tradition for the team as the film is based more on normal life than the fantasy worlds or situations that Studio Ghibli are famous for.

The film revolves around an office worker from Tokyo called Taeko Okajima, who wants to finally make a second trip to the countryside to pick safflower plants that she had been dreaming of ever since she was a girl. During the trip she reminisces about her school days, and all the trivial things that adults wouldn't think twice about any more. For example, the girls get told that they will start having periods soon whilst in a school assembly, and the boys then start diving at the floor to look up the girls skirts to see if they have their period, or telling one of Taeko's friends not to pick up the ball as they will 'catch her period'.

Once in the countryside Taeko begins work on a farm with her friend Toshio, who has worked on a farm for a large amount of his life, and the other woman who pick the safflower plants. 

This setting looks very peaceful, and is very well animated as some of the scenes show an amazing amount of detail on all of the greenery. All of the flashbacks actually feel older, as the palette used seems to be paler than the modern parts of the story, giving the feeling that the memories are possibly a little cloudy in Taeko's mind.

The story is very easy to follow, and as such is a film that can be put on at any time of day and enjoyed. The flashback sequences may take up a large part of the film, but they do not detract anything from the storyline (which has been the case in a few other films) and are implemented incredibly well.

All in all, it may not be one of Studio Ghibli's best and most enjoyable films, but it is a very good film none-the-less, and shows a slice of the Japanese lifestyle, something that Otaku's love.

New 'Redline' english dub trailer pre-US release

Hyper-speed, death defying, amazingly beautiful film Redline is yet to hit the US shores yet, after having been released in Asia and Europe, and with the release date of 17th January creeping ever closer entertainment website 'Buzz Focus' has posted a new clip to tantalise more fans.

The clip is of the climatic race of the film, with JP trying to win the Redline race. If you have not seen the film I would recommend you buy it on blu-ray, as the film looks absolutely amazing in high definition.

The new trailer is viewable here

'Street Fighter' charity tournament for 'Aid for Japan'

The charity 'Aid for Japan' have arranged a Street Fighter tournament this coming Saturday (17th December) in London, UK. All the proceeds will go to their charity, which will help children who were orphaned after the March Tsunami.

The tournament will be a 2v2 format on Super Street Fighter 4, with each team needing to pay a minimum of one pound for entry. The prize for the top 3 teams will be an Xbox 360 console and accessories.

The tournament is being held at Beaufort House, 354 Kings Road in Chelsea (near Battersea Bridge). The venue will be open between 1pm and 6pm, with the tournament starting at 2.30pm.

Source

'Little Norse Prince' Review

One of the films as part of the Studio Ghibli season on Film 4 is one of the earliest titles created by the studio, and that is Little Norse Prince. Released in 1968, it is a prime example of how Studio Ghibli have become one of the most loved anime studios in the business.

'Little Norse Prince' starts with our hero Horusu trying to escape a pack of wolves, with nothing more than his hatchet that his father passed on to him, and the rope it is attached to. This is brought to an abrupt end by an appearance of a Stone God who quickly overshadows all the wolves, who know better than to attempt to take him on just to get the boy. Horusu then helps the Stone God with a 'thorn' in his shoulder that is actually The Sword of the Sun, which when forged properly will become a tremendously powerful weapon. And so the quest begins...

Horusu travels to another village in search of someone to help him forge the sword, and in the process meets Hiruda, a girl with a beautiful singing voice but hides a sinister side, and an evil sibling who forces her to do his dirty work.

Although the character design does look dated, and the animation does look a little worse-for-wear when the action really kicks off, it is still a really good example of what Studio Ghibli do best. There are scenes that tug at your heart-strings, scenes that shock you (the first time you realise everything is not as it seems with Hiruda is prime example of this) and scenes that make you think 'so this is where *insert anime title* got an idea from then!'. Definitely not one to be missed.

'Metal Gear Rising' becomes 'Metal Gear Revengeance' - Interview

Recently Kojima-san of Kojima Productions came out to tell everyone that 'Metal Gear Rising' was still in works but now called 'Metal Gear Revengeance'. The original trailer for the game was shown a while ago now (remember Raiden cutting up the watermelon with his sword?), and all press sources had been very quiet since that day. Kojima-san also came on to twitter to tell all the fans that it will NOT be a direct sequel to MGS4, and will merely be a side story of the franchise focusing on Raiden.

Now, Konami have posted a video online of both Hideo Kojima and Atsushi Inaba, of Platinum Games, giving more information regarding the project. The game is now being developed by Platinum Games, who already have stylised action game Bayonetta under their belt, and is looking very promising.

Here is the link to the interview: Source

K-ON! Movie makes over ¥600million in just 9 days

Figures released earlier this week show that the K-ON! Movie, the first full length film of the Light Music Club, made ¥691million yen and sold over 523,000 seats at the cinemas.
If there was any doubt about the popularity of K-ON! I believe these figures will prove it is still as big a fan favourite as when we first saw Yui, Mio, Ritsu, Mugi and Azu-nyan on our small screens, enjoying cake and tea more than their music.

Film4's Christmas Studio Ghibli Season

This may be old news to some of you, especially as it is now four days in, but Film4 (a digital television channel in the United Kingdom) announced recently that they will be screening a Studio Ghibli film everyday from the 10th to 25th December.

The films on offer are a mixture of popular and well known Ghibli titles, like My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service, and the lesser known titles of their extensive and impressive back catalogue, like Castle of Cagliostro or The Little Norse Prince. Film4 have also made the decision to run all the films with their original Japanese voice talent with English subtitles. This Christmas season definitely has a treat every day in the run up to the big day!

The full list of titles is as follows (all times are GMT):

Ponyo - 10th December 6.55pm
Princess Mononoke - 11th December 4.40pm
Tales from Earthsea - 12th December 4.25pm
Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro - 13th December 4.45pm
The Little Norse Prince - 14th December 5.10pm
Only Yesterday - 15th December 4.10pm
Whisper of the Heart - 16th December 5.05pm
The Cat Returns - 17th December 4.50pm
Kiki's Delivery Service - 18th December 4.25pm
Castle in the Sky - 19th December 4.25pm
Pom Poko - 20th December 4.15pm
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds - 21st December 4pm
Porco Rosso - 22nd December 4.55pm
Ocean Waves - 23rd December 5.30pm
My Neighbour Totoro - 24th December 5.15pm
Ponyo (Repeated) - 25th December 5.10pm

I personally am surprised that the other two Studio Ghibli films that received a cinema release in the UK (Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle) are not part of this schedule, but this looks like a brilliant season none-the-less.

Studio Ghibli Season on Film4

New Title, New Goals, New Ideas, Fresh Start

Hello All,

For those of you that read my blog regularly will have noticed, it has all now changed. I decided this last night after a lot of consideration of what to do with my blog to make it more appealing to other people, and more interesting to myself to make me want to post even more regularly. The decision I made was to focus on my favourite past-time of all, Japan!

In this rebooted blog I will be talking about anime, manga, computer games, music, otaku culture and all things Japan inbetween. All of the above, I realised recently, are things I interact with everyday which is where my decision for change came from, as I do study everyday but sometimes not enough to make a decent blog post from (who wants to hear about revision?!?!?!).

I already have plans for quite a few posts, and will be sharing them in the next few days. In the meantime, the site design is still a work-in-progress and will hopefully be complete by christmas.

Thanks for joining me,

That Brit Otaku (previously paulp1988)

JLPT N5 done

Hello All,

Just thought I would update my blog whilst waiting for my train (just missed one by about 30seconds and now have to wait 30mins for the next one due to Sunday service...). As the title of this blog suggests, I have just come out from my JLPT N5 examination and I feel slightly positive about it.

For those that don't know, the JLPT is an examination on your understanding of the Japanese language. There are 3 sections to this test, vocabulary, grammar, and listening.
The first section I found really easy, as it was effectively just a test of your kanji knowledge, which I have gotten really good at.
The second section tested your knowledge of Japanese sentence structure and particles. This onee I found a bit more difficult than the first section and by the end I was almost guessing the ones I weren't sure on (it's a multiple choice examination with generally 4 choices per question, had a good chance of getting it right lol).
The last section was a whole lot harder than I had anticipated. The language used seemed higher than JLPT N5 to me, but I may be wrong. There were a few easy questions there, and then I just tried my hardest to have an educated guess at the rest lol.

Unfortunately I won't find out until March 2012 if I passed, and I'm hoping the questions I was confident on are enough to get me through. Either way I'm going to take a few well deserved days off from studying and then prepare for JLPT N4 next year.