Life Size Hatsune Miku Statue at Sapporo Snow Festival

There will be a special guest at this years Sapporo Snow Festival, in Hokkaido, which will be a life size statue of vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku. The statue will be on display at the festival between the 6th to the 12th February.

Hatsune Miku will also have a line of Snow Miku goods produced that will only be available at the festival. These will be co-created with the Hello Kitty company Sanrio. This will include two plush dolls and a limited run of 3,000 Nendoroid Snow Miku Fluffy Coat Ver. figures.

Another collaboration with this event is a special railway service called Yuki Miku Densha (which translates as 'Snow Miku Train') which will be running between 19th December and 30th March. This is completed by Hokkaido Prefecture Sapporo City, who also redesigned the trains last year with Hatsune Miku.

Playstation Exclusive Characters Announced for Street Fighter x Tekken

Capcom have released a short trailer showcasing their upcoming title Street Fighter x Tekken which shows off the Playstation exclusive fighters that will be available. These include Pacman (who fights on top of Tekken's Tetsujin's body), Mega Man, Cole from PS3 title Infamous, and the Japanese Playstation mascots Kuro and Toro.



Street Fighter x Tekken will be released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 on 9th March in Europe. It will also be released on 6th March in North America, and 8th March in Japan. Playstation Vita will also be getting the game, but the date for this has not been set yet.

New Black Rock Shooter Anime to be streamed Worldwide

 

The Japanese Anime streaming site Nico Nico Channel have recently announced they will be streaming the television series of Black Rock Shooter from 3rd February. They have also announced the series will be streamed with subtitles in 8 different languages so that foreign fans can now enjoy the anime. The series itself will be first shown on Fuji TV on 2nd February.

The anime will be released in foreign languages every Friday evening at 11pm. The languages it will be streamed in are English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. None of these subtitles will be available inside Japan.

The Black Rock Shooter franchise started as an OVA, and has since grown to include figures, computer games, and a four-panel manga called Black Rock-chan and another called Black Rock Shooter ~Innocent Soul~.

The franchise appears to be one of the most popular new releases of last year, and i personally cannot wait for this series to be released in English.

The official website for the anime can be viewed here.

UK Anime Release - 30th January to 5th February

It's that time of the week again to have a look at the upcoming Anime releases for the next week.

There are only 2 releases this week, but both are full series anime releases, so if you do intend to pick these up you will have quite a lot of Anime to get through.

Monday 30th January
Samurai Girls - Complete Collection
Nabari no Ou - Complete Collection

There are also a two Manga releases this week, which is the first time in a while that i have seen any scheduled release dates for them, so thought i would share it too

Tuesday 31st January
Negima! - Volume 33

Friday 3rd February
Highschool of the Dead - Volume 5

Updated Blog Design

Just a quick post to update you all, as i am assuming you may have already seen the graphical overhall of my blog.

It has taken me quite a while to try to get to grips with GIMP, the Open Source equivilant of Photoshop, and as of writing this i still haven't perfected the background images etc so have decided to have a play with the template tools of Blogger. The design is quite different from what i am trying to work on at the moment, but it looks cool enough to stay until i finally perfect my photo editing skills.

What do you think of the update?

Japanese Studies - 21/01/2012

Wow, I've just realised how late this post is, it should have gone up at the weekend, going to make this a quick one then...
This lesson was about an insurance salewoman cold-calling people, trying to get them to take out an insurance policy. As you would expect however, most of the people just hung up or said 'no thanks'.
The grammar note of this lesson was about talking to yourself, and that you should only use the plain form (which is quite obvious, as you would never talk to yourself politely!). Oddly, the plain form is one of the forms I struggle to use, but is quite a common problem for beginners to Japanese as it is similar to informal Japanese, which I really can't use!

K-ON branded Pet Food bowls and Golf Club Covers

The online shop of Japanese production company Pony Canyon, Canime.jp, have begun selling new K-ON! merchandise, including branded cat and dog food bowls. These will be selling for 1,500 yen for the smaller bowls, and 2,000 yen for the medium sized bowls.

Another novelty item they have started to sell are Golf Club covers, which are plush dolls of the girls with the cover behind them:

I personally am quite tempted to get my dog one of the food bowls, but am not too sure how my wife will take it ^_^

Akihabara Cafe has Idol's Serving You Instant Ramen

 A shop in the 'Electric Town' of Tokyo, Akihabara, has started to hire Idol's as waitresses, who will serve any customers their instant ramen. The cafe is called Noodol Cafe and is due to open tomorrow (Wednesday 25th January). For 800 yen you will be able to get an Idol to pour boiling water on your instant ramen, and they will then talk to you for 3 minutes whilst the ramen is prepared.

The idols are all signed up with the Platinum Production agency, and you can choose which idol you would like to perform this service from the vending machine at the entrance of the store. This is a very common way for Japanese food establishments to get orders, but they have never been used to request an idol as well!

In the news report (below) one of the customers actually points out that it is cheaper to eat at the Noodol Cafe than a typical Maid Cafe, also found at Akihabara, as they usually charge 1000 yen for a similar service.

UK Anime Releases - 23rd January to 29th January

It's that time of the week again to look at the anime releases coming to you this week.

Unfortunately there are no new releases again this week, as the mid-January anime drought continues. Starting from next week I may begin looking at the online streaming releases for Crunchyroll as then I would be able to post something worthwhile if there are any future weeks that have no new releases.

Next week, however, will be different as there is at least 1 release coming to you.

Students in Netherlands build World's Largest NES controller

A group of engineering students at the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, have built that worlds largest NES controller as part of a promotion for the 2012 Guiness World Records Gamer's Edition. The control is fully functional, and is built to a 30:1 scale. The students have said that it cost them around £4,000 to build.

I personally would love to use it, but i bet it makes the games a LOT harder to play, and you will need a friend to play as well. Who needs party games when you can play NES at 30:1 scale?

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? Season 2 Teaser Trailer

The official website for popular anime series Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? (or Is This a Zombie? in English) have uploaded a teaser trailer for the second season of the show. The full name of the second season will be Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka? of the Dead. The new season will premiere on Japanese television in April, and will hopefully be streamed on Crunchyroll shortly after.

Japanese Meals - Teriyaki Chicken with Mushroom and Pea Rice

In a bid to eat healthier, and to have more varied lunches instead of just sandwiches (or the same 2 or 3 meals I have been making for a while now), I decided last week to start making myself japanese food for lunch. I do this as I prefer having a larger lunch so I can burn most of it off during the day and then have a light dinner, all part of losing the christmas weight and keeping my energy levels as high as possible for as long as possible throughout the day.

For my first attempt at something a little bit more creative, and basically combining two recipes, I made shitake mushroom and pea rice with teriyaki chicken. I had made teriyaki chicken before, so knew how to make this quite well, but the rice was something I had never made before. In the 2 Japanese recipe books I had they only mentioned making pea rice or mushroom rice, but I wanted to combine the two and realised the preparation and recipe were almost the same. I did however burn the rice a little bit as I turnt the heat up higher than normal and for a bit longer than mentioned, but I'm sure I'll get it right next time.

The hardest part I found was the cooking of the rice. For most rice based dishes you use an uncovered saucepan and add more water if necessary whilst stirring occasionally. With sushi rice however you use a large saucepan with a lid, and use 1 part water to 1 part rice (which I will modify a little bit next round to be 1 and 1/4 water to 1 part rice) and boil it for 3-4 minutes then take it off the heat, leaving the lid on, and leave to rest and steam for another 10mins.

I believe I may have thought of why it burnt yesterday. I was using basmati rice, instead of sushi rice, alond with turning the heat up too far for too long as mentioned previously. I think I will make it again next week with sushi rice just to make sure I get it right in future.

Hironobu Sakaguchi to appear at MCM Expo in February 2012

If you happen to be attending this years MCM Midlands event, taking place on 18th February, the legendary game designer Hironobu Sakaguchi will be there to see you all. Sakaguchi-san is the man behind games such as Final Fantasy and Blue Dragon.

In the press release alongside this announcement it says that he will be talking about his career and his new Wii game The Last Story, which is due to be released in the UK on 24th February. Sakaguchi-san will also be answering questions from fans about his newest game (the press release doesn't mention questions about his other series though), and these would need to be emailed to david@mcmexpo.net prior to the event.

K-ON Fans Celebrate Mio Akiyama's Birthday

For Japanese fans of the cutesy anime K-ON! today, 15th January, is more than just a normal day, as it is also Mio Akiyama's birthday. To celebrate this the online shop of the station that broadcasts K-ON! in Japan, TBS, are selling exclusive Birthday Cards in honor of her birthday. They will be selling 1,150 cards whilst stocks last. To get these cards the first 650 people to spend at least 5,000 yen will receive the birthday card, the other 500 will be distributed randomly amongst other online customers.

Fans have also started to post their own celebratory cakes and items online, many of which can be seen on this site here

Capcom Entertainment Bar - Four Menu Items Released

The Capcom Entertainment Bar that i posted about previously have started to show some of the game related items that will be on the menu, and they are both impressive and odd at the same time.

The first item shown is from the series Sengoku Basara, which is a very colourful Maeda Keiji's octopus carpaccio salad and soup appetizer.

The next item that took my fancy, mainly because i am a HUGE fan of the series, is from Monster Hunter. They will be selling a Well-done Steak, which looks almost identical to the same item found in the games:

The third item they have shown is from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and is a Make-It-Black-and-White seafood cream pasta.

The final item on the menu that has been pre-released is from Resident Evil and is....wait for it.... a Brain Cake! Now you can finally fulfill your inner urge for brains without getting infected with the T-Virus.

UK Anime Releases - 16/01/2012 to 22/01/2012

It's that time of the week again where we have a look at the most recent anime releases coming out this week. I have however had a look through a few different sources for this, and can see that there is not a single release this week, which is a shame.

There will be a couple of releases over the next couple of weeks, including the delayed release of Samurai Girls, which was pushed back to the 30th January. It does however seem that it will be a rather quiet period for new anime releases. Hopefully it will all pick up again in February.

Crunchyroll now streams in 1080p

Legal anime streaming site Crunchyroll have started to stream their material in 1080p. As of writing this it seems that not all of the series are available in 1080p, but are still available in 720p which had been available for a while. I would personally assume that they will be changing this soon and show all of their shows in full 1080p glory.

The most popular series' of the site, such as Bleach and Naruto, are available to be streamed in 1080p now, but this appears to only be available to premium members. You can get a 14 day trial of this before signing up.

I admit that I used to only use 'fansub' streams for my anime previously, but after seeing the difference in quality I don't see me ever going back to them, and this new change will keep me there even longer!

Japanese Studies - 10/01/2012

I have just realised this post should have been put up last night, but I seemed to not stop last night/yesterday. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that I downloaded the PS1 classic 'Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee' which I have barely put down, and as such is ruining my japanese study (I didn't study yesterday because of being hooked by it lol).
Anyway, my studies this time was double what I normally do, as I completed 2 lessons in the same day (which I hadn't done since the run up to my JLPT). These lessons were part of the same storyline of a couple going out to a date and calling the babysitter, so the dialogue included both informal and formal tracks. I still have a little trouble completely understanding informal dialogue as, to start with, most Japanese students will learn the formal style of speech well before learning informal speech.
With regards to the vocab, there were quite a few words that I learned through these lessons, with surprisingly only a few that I already knew (recently it has been the opposite for most of the lessons).
Here are the pictures of my studies:

Fullmetal Alchemist will 'hopefully' release in UK Cinemas in May

Manga Entertainment, the UK based Anime distributor, recently tweeted that they will be releasing the upcoming film Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos at some point in 2012, but also added "Hopefully first theatrical screenings in May".
The film, which was released in Japan in July 2011, is a spin-off of the more recent series Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and is an untold adventure of Ed and Al Elric where they become involved in a rebellion in a distant valley.

The english trailer for this film is below:

'Binary Domain' Promotional Trailer Released

The trailer for Sega's newest title Binary Domain has been released recently on a DVD that came with the Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu. The game is being developed by the Ryu ga Gotoku Studio, which has brought to you the Rya ga Gotoku series (or Yakuza if you are outside of Japan) and the footage shows that the character models do look quite similar to the Yakuza universe.

The video itself is 12 minutes long, and shows quite a bit of the story of the game. With the help of my JLPT N5 level Japanese, and the onscreen subtitles, the game is set in the year 2080 and robots are serving humans as many anime and movies predicted before it. Then something happens (Which i couldnt quite translate) and now the robots have turnt on their human overlords. It appears that it falls down to a crack five-man squad to neutralise the robots, and this consists of Roy Booten, Fay Lee, Charles Gregory, Rachel Townsend, and the robot Kain (i translated all of these from the subtitles onscreen, so these may change in the Western releases).

The trailer itself is quite fast-paced and shows plenty of action that will be possible in the game when it releases in Japan on 16th February. The studio have also announced that it will release a short film called Binary Domain Assault-Kan on 13th January also.

Japanese Studies - 06/01/2012

Once again, I am a day late with my post about my studies, but here is the nihongo that I studied yesterday.
Yesterday's lesson dialogue was a the third part of series where the two main characters were meeting again after not seeing eachother since graduation. The lesson had a few new words I was unfamiliar with, and one that I seem to be having a LOT of trouble pronouncing (damasareyasui / だまされやすい , or 'Gullible' in English) but I am starting to get the hang of it.
Today's main lesson point was how to say 'too much', which oddly enough my friend at my Tae Kwon Do club ('Bekkii-Sensei' as I call her) taught me the night before! At least I had a head start on the lesson thanks to her ^_^
Here are the pictures of my notes:

Arrietty Interview Clip, and Opening Sequence

The UK Magazine recently uploaded an interview with the actor Mark Strong, who plays the role of Pod in UK dub of Studio Ghibli's newest film Arrietty which is due out this coming Monday (9th January). Mark Strong has also appeared in films such as Green Lantern and Sherlock Holmes. In his interview he describes Pod as "a very traditional, very manly guy who takes care of his family and, like a miner, on regular occasions has to go out into the big world and find stuff for his family to survive."



The second clip uploaded by SFX was of the opening sequence to the film, which shows Arrietty hurrying to her house under the floorboards of the human's home. If you have ever seen the live-action film The Borrowers you will notice a few similarities with it, as they are both the same story.

UK Anime Releases - 09/01/2012 to 15/01/2012

Time for another look at what releases are due to land this week. It looks like quite a good week this week, and even includes the latest offering from Studio Ghibli. I may have to buy 2 of the releases this week, and there are others i want later in the month aswell, it seems this month is a good month to be an Anime fan ^_^

Monday 9th January

Arrietty (Studio Ghibli)
Welcome to NHK! (Complete Series - 4 Disc)
K-ON! Volume 4 (Episodes 12-14) 
Whisper of the Heart (DVD/Blu-Ray Double Play Edition) 

Manga UK announces Anime Blu-Ray Cancellations

In a rather upsetting and unforeseen piece of news, MangaEntertainment UK have announced that quite a few popular series blu-ray releases are being cancelled. The affected series' are K-ON!, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. They have, however, announced that many other blu-ray titles will still be released as planned, and includes titles such as the first three spinoff Bleach movies (Memories of Nobody, The Diamond Dust Rebellion, and Fade to Black), Samurai Girls, and Mardock Scramble: The First Compression.

A Manga UK representative stated that the cancellations were purely economic, due to the costs of remastering and manufacturing the titles on to the blu-ray format. The representative also acknowledged that UK anime fans would be disappointed by the news, and that it had been a very hard decision to cancel these titles.

In a statement after this announcement Jerome Mazandarani, of Manga Entertainment UK, released this statement:

"I personally, fought to maintain these Blu-ray releases against stiff opposition from my superiors, but the commercial considerations of running a successful company overruled my objections about the damage to our brand's credibility should we not release these titles. In summary, I would say that while we have made a sensible commercial decision, we have created a situation that is alienating to a good deal many of you and I sincerely hope that over time we can make it up to you."

Japanese Studies - 04/01/2012

It's been quite a while since I last posted about my Japanese language studies, and it's also been quite a while since I actually completed some 'real' studies anyway, thanks to Christmas and New Year celebrations with family.
Also, I do release this is dated as yesterday, but I had forgotten to take pictures of my notebook which I like to upload along with the post.
Yesterday's lesson dialogue started with a woman whose daughter's goldfish has died. She then went to buy another one before 'running in to' a groper (ちかん) on the train, and then beat him up before calling the police. It sounded a lot funnier when they had the english translation alongside the native dialogue aswell.
There were only a few words I learnt from this lesson though, and quite odd ones aswell, namely 'scream', 'punch/hit' and 'step on'. It felt good to be learning new japanese vocabulary though!

Rock Lee Manga to get an Anime series

The spin-off manga from the Naruto universe, Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden (or Rock Lee - Springtime of Youth as several scanlation and fansites have translated it), will be due to receive an anime adaptation by none over than Masahiko Murata, who directed several of the Naruto Shippuden movies. This will be seen as brilliant news for any fans of the Naruto series to know that the spin-off will be in very good hands.

For those that haven't read the manga, the series revolves around Rock Lee, the taijutsu user of the Naruto storyline who has no real ninja abilities. It is drawn in a 'super-deformed', similar to 'chibi' style, which makes the characters seem cuter than in the Naruto series. It is also a lot more based around comedy than the Naruto series, and tends to have a joke or funny sequence on nearly every page.

Final Fantasy X to be remade for PS3 and PS Vita

New information has been released regarding a PS3 and PS Vita port of the Square Enix classic Final Fantasy X, which was the first Final Fantasy title to be released on the PS2 console.


According to the producer of Final Fantasy X, Yoshinori Kitase, this game will not be just another HD port, but in fact a remake!  The game itself will still play and look the same, but will make use of the updated hardware that the PS3 and PS Vita provide. Kitase-San only mentioned one other specific point, in that the shadings will be upgraded from the original shadings.

I personally hope that they do not change the battle system to the new system used in Final Fantasy 12 and 13, but use the classic turn-based system which was used in this game when it was first released.

Bandai Entertainment to stop publishing anime and manga in USA

 

Bandai Entertainment, part of the company Namco Bandai Holdings, have announced that they will stop releasing new DVD, Blu-Ray and Manga releases in the USA from next month. They will however continue to distribute their existing franchises, but will no longer publish new releases as of February 2012. Their current franchises will still be available after February 2012, and they will still re-stock these items until the respective licenses expire.

This is part of a restructuring of the company, including most of the contracting companies being cancelled and 3 of their 5 full time staff will be made redundant. Bandai Entertainment will then focus on licensing rights to other companies, which will be in particular for digital distribution, merchandising, and broadcasting.

As a result of this news, the following releases have all been cancelled:



DVD and Blu-Ray
Gosick
Nichijo
Turn a Gundam

Manga
Code Geass: Renya (Code Geass: Shikkoku no Renya)
Gurren Lagann vol.7
Kannagi vol.4-6
Lucky Star Boo Boo Kagaboo
Mobile Suit Gundam 00I
Tales of the Abyss: Jade's Secret Memories vol.1-2

'Samurai Girls' to be released on 30th January

 

 UK Manga Distributor Manga UK recently tweeted that Samurai Girls will be released on the 30th January. It will be released in both a 3-Disc DVD edition, and a 2-Disc Blu-Ray edtion.

If you are not aware of the anime, Samurai Girls is a 12-part harem comedy-action series set in an alternate Japan, where the Tokugawa Shoguns never lost there power. The DVD cover is the 'safest' image i could find of the series, as a quick google search for Samurai Girls brings up a lot of skantily clad anime girls with large swords. The series has received a large amount of positive feedback and reviews, and was recently reviewed in the December edition of UK Anime magazine Neo.

UK Anime Releases - 2nd January to 8th January

Hello, and welcome to 2012! It has been a busy last year for me, and no doubt many of you too, and hopefully 2012 will be amazing year.

First post of the new year is for the new anime releases this week, and this will be a very short one as their appears to be only one release this week. It does however pick up a little bit next week, but it still seems quite slow at the moment (i suppose the Mangaka are allowed a little time off aswell ^_^)

2nd January
Cowboy Bebop Remix - Anime Legends Box Set (6 Disc)

It may be the only release this week, but i have just a quick look at what is on this disc and it will take over 10hours to watch all this collection, so will keep any Cowboy Bebop fans happy this week.