NY Children's Film Fest to Run Spirited Away May 8-9
The New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF) will be screening Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away film this Saturday and Sunday at the IFC Center in New York. The movie will be shown in English. The 2001 film is the only anime to have won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Earlier this year, the NYICFF hosted the U.S. premieres of three anime features and several shorts, including the Summer Wars family anime film from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time director Mamoru Hosoda, MADHOUSE's Mai Mai Miracle anime film, and Production I.G's Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror fantasy film.



7:13 AM | Category: , |

Tono to Issho Anime DVD Bundled with 5th Manga Volume
The official website and blog of the Tono to Issho anime franchise has announced on Thursday that the fifth volume of Ohba-Kai's original 4-panel gag manga will bundle a new anime DVD "volume 1.5" on August 23. The manga follows the humorous exploits of generals during Japan's tumultuous sengoku (Era of the Warring States) period. The anime DVD's voice cast remains largely unchanged from the one used in the previous drama CD, but the character Honda Tadakatsu (pictured at right, played by Raikō Sakamoto) will debut on the anime DVD.
A video anime adaptation had already shipped in March, and the official website has also announced that a television anime series adaptation will premiere in July. Mankyuu is directing, scripting, and storyboarding the "volume 1.5" anime DVD, just as he did for the earlier video anime. Frontier Works is producing the music, and Gathering is producing the animation.



Keyword : Anime DVD, animation,
5:59 AM | Category: , |

Winter Sonata DVD's add Unaired Scanes Live Action End
The Japanese media distributor Avex has announced that it will ship the two "no-cut" DVD boxes for Winter Sonata anime on August 25 and September 22. The boxes will contain the uncut, complete versions of the anime episodes with unaired scenes. It will also include the live-action finale that will air at the end of the 26th and final anime episode on May 1. Yong Joon Bae and Ji Woo Choi, the stars of the 2002 live-action Korean television drama that inspired the anime, filmed the new live-action footage which cover a part of the story that was not in original Korean drama.

The first DVD box will contain the "episode 0" special and the first 13 episodes along with a making-of video, candid shots, and a poster. The second DVD box will contain the last 13 episodes with a making-of video for the ending scene.





Keyword : Anime, DVD box, The Japanese
5:54 AM | Category: |

Shonen Jump, Jump Square to lunch New Spinoff Mags
This year's 19th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine announced on Monday the title of its relaunched spinoff magazine for new manga creators. Shonen Jump Next will ship its first issue on April 30. Each issue will contain one-shot manga stories by new manga creators, as well as side stories based on manga series currently running in the main Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Creator Hiroshi Shiibashi is illustrating the first issue's cover and contributing a side story from his Nurarihyon no Mago story.

The May issue of Shueisha's Jump Square magazine announced on April 3 that an another spinoff magazine called Jump SQ.19 (pronounced "Jump S Q Ichi Kyū") will launch on May 19. The first issue will contain one-shot manga such as Mizuki Kawashita's G-Maru Edition, Usamaru Furuya's Teiichi no Kuni, the return of Yasuhiro Nightow's Kekkai Sensen, and Kentaro Yabuki's adaptation of Tomohiro Matsu and Peco's Mayoi Neko Overrun! light novel series.

Ichijinsha has dated the launch of its previously announced WAaI! boys in skirts magazine for April 24. As the English subtitle of the magazine suggests, the magazine will focus on "male maidens." The first issue will contain several manga stories, how-to tips on women's clothings, and coverage of anime and games with the theme of males in women's clothes.




4:30 PM | Category: |

Anime Expo to Host 6 Japanese DJs
Anime Expo has announced that it will host six Japanese DJs at the July 1-4 convention in Los Angeles. Anime Expo will host DJ CHUCKY, M-Project, m1dy, GUHROOVY, NO+CHIN, and DJ Schwarzenegger. These DJs will be performing for Anime Expo's dance events on both Friday and Saturday night. DJ CHUCKY on Anime Expo has created music for the game series Beatmania IIDX, and GUHROOVY has been featured in Beatmania Gottamix, Beatmania IIDX, GuitarFreaks, and DrumMania.
In Anime Expo The six DJs will join previously announced guests: director Shinichi "Nabeshin" Watanabe (Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemy, Tenchi Muyo GXP), voice actress Yuu Asakawa (Love Hina, Azumanga Daioh, Bubblegum Crisis 2040), animation director and co-founder of the BONES animation studio Toshihiro Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain), and J-rock band SOPHIA.


Keyword : Anime Expo, Anime, DJ





11:21 PM | Category: |

Astro Boy goes to School

Time has caught up with the world's most-beloved boy robot. Tetsuwan Atom, the popular character created in the early 1950s by the late manga artist Osamu Tezuka, "attended" the entrance ceremony of an elementary school in Tokyo's Takadanobaba district on Tuesday.
Tezuka, who died in 1989, cast Atom as having been created "at the science ministry in Takadanobaba on April 7, 2003." This would make the character 7 years old today and ready to start elementary school. A costumed Atom, known as Astro Boy in the United States, joined the ceremony and greeted his 20 "classmates," as proposed by Totsuka Daisan Elementary School in Shinjuku Ward and its PTA. Designated as an honorary student by the ward office, Atom is expected to appear at the school's future events. The original versions of the science-fiction manga and anime series "Tetsuwan Atom" ran in the 1950's and 1960's.


Keyword : Manga, Anime, Technology Feature

12:29 AM | Category: |

The Changeling Shoujo Manga's Shio Satou Passed Away
Shio Satō, the pioneering Shoujo and science-fiction artist best known for One Zero, The Changeling, and other literary works, passed away on April 4 due to a brain tumor. She was 59.
Satō was born with the given name Chiyoko, but she adopted the pen name Shio Satō as a wordplay on "sugar salt" (pronounced "Satō Shio" in Japanese). She made her professional debut in 1977 and soon focused on contemplative science-fiction stories such as One Zero and Yume-miru Wakusei.
The North American manga publisher Viz released Satō's The Changeling in its Four Shōjo Stories manga anthology — one of the first attempts to translate and print Shoujo manga into English.


Keyword: Manga , Japanese
2:08 AM | Category: , |