Archive for 'Anime' Category

Gundam Cafe to Open at Tokyo Station

Bandai announced that it will open a third Gundam Cafe in Tokyo in Tokyo on December 20.

The branch at the main Tokyo Station’s First Avenue area will serve some of the same menu items as those at Akihabara and Odaiba, including Jaburo Coffee and Haro Latte Milk.

The 50-odd food and drink choices, the 26-seat cafe at Tokyo Station will offer about 15 different goods, such as petit glasses and silcone rubber coasters in a limited red variant to complement the red-brick exterior of Tokyo Station. Read the rest of this entry »

Gundam AGE Sketch for New Project

The official Twitter account for the Mobile Suit Gundam AGE anime posted a rough sketch of the characters Asemu and Zeheart by designer Michinori Chiba .

According to producerMasakazu Ogawa, the staff is considering plans for presenting more of the two characters’ story in some form. The staff did not say that more anime has been green-lit. Chiba drew this sketch for these tentative plans, which Ogawa previously mentioned in September.

Asemu was the main character of the second generation in Mobile Suit Gundam AGE anime, and Zeheart was a major antagonist of his. The television series premiered in October of 2011, and itended on September 23, 2012, shortly before Ogawa mentioned the tentative plans.

Ｓｏｕｒｃｅ：GundamAGE

One Piece Film Z ｘ Armani Exchange　

The fashion label A|X Armani Exchange collaborated on suits that the One Piece anime cast will wear in next month’s One Piece Film Z. In part of the film, Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and the other Straw Hat Pirates will don outfits designed by A|X Armani Exchange and selected by original manga creator Eiichiro Oda.

The Shibuya branch of A|X Armani Exchange in Tokyo is sell some of the real outfits. Plus, models will pose in the outfits when they are unveiled in Shueisha‘s fashion magazine Men’s Non No on December 10. Luffy was the first manga character to appear on the cover of this magazine three years ago, in a tie-in with 2009’s One Piece Film Strong World film.

One Piece Film Z will open in Japan on Saturday, December 15 with Avril Lavigne‘s covers ofNickelback‘s “How You Remind Me” and Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” as theme songs. Oda is personally overseeing the production of the film, just as he did for One Piece Film Strong World.

Source:fashionsnap.com

Louis Vuitton X Hatsune Miku

For THE END opera that will be held on December 1 and 2 at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media in Yamaguchi City, director Toshiki Okada and digital music artist Keiichirō Shibuya decided to collaborate with French fashion brand Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton artistic director Marc Jacobs is designing the outfits that Vocaloid idol character Hatsune Miku will wear onstage.

No humans will appear onstage during the opera, even to play the instruments. Instead, Vocaloids will take their place, taking over every aria and recitative. The “actors'” onstage images are designed by artist YKBX (also known as Masaki Yokobe), who is known for his video “amazarashi.” Shohei Shigematsu, an architect and a partner of OMA New York, is designing the stage.

The clothes Hatsune Miku will wear are clothes based off of Mark Jacobs’ spring/summer 2013 collection that were altered in order to fit the virtual singer’s body type and unique style. As this is the very first time that outfits from Louis Vuitton will lack the label’s signature monogram symbol, the outfits will instead be using a pattern similar to the Louis Vuitton’s familiar diamond pattern. The purses have been altered from the standard Louis Vuitton bag into cubical and square shapes to accentuate to the geometric themes. Read the rest of this entry »

Kuroko’s Basketball Threats Cancel Animate Café Event

The Animate Café Tennoji in Osaka announced on Tuesday that the café’s planned Kuroko’s Basketball collaboration event has been cancelled. The event was scheduled to open on November 23.

Animate apologized for the inconvenience to customers and for the late notice. Animate added that due to the recent string of threats related to the Kuroko’s Basketball franchise, the company decided to prioritize the safety of its customers and cancel the event.

Since last month, more than 20 locations linked to Kuroko’s Basketball creator Tadatoshi Fujimaki, including the Comic Market dōjinshi event, have received threat letters with powdered and liquid substances. A source in the investigation of Kuroko’s Basketball threat letters said there is a high possibility that the liquid sent to Sophia University on October 12 could emit a lethal dose of hydrogen sulfide if vaporized. Read the rest of this entry »

“TOKUSATSU-Special Effects Museum” of Hideaki Anno

Hideaki Anno(http://www.khara.co.jp/hideakianno/), a popular film director as well as an animator was  in charge of management of  a temporary art museum of “TOKUSATSU- Special Effects Museum”  wihich is a special exhibition at  Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in Koto-ward Tokyo Jul.10-Oct.8.   (http://www.ntv.co.jp/tokusatsu/english.html)

The venue has displays of a lot of and various items, data, and movies. Diorama of houses ,towns and other scenes used in Sci-fi movies, models of spaceships, robots, masks and figure dolls and other items of monsters, super heroes etc… were all around there which attracted  visitors some of whom were adults , some of  whom were children. As you walk by you could learn a lot of details about famour or popular  sci-fi , fantasy, or action types of TV shows  ,movies animation as well as a long history and general flows of that industry’s  developments for decades.  In addition, audio recording  guilding service was available. i myself visted there and it was so intresting that it took more than three hours to finish it.

Anno has joined prohects such as “Nausica of Vally of winds”, “Gundam”,”Evangelion” and other worldwide popular anime and works.His great career directly reflected to the exhibited items. In addition, His newest work which Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki joined was released and shown for the first time to the visitors. It is a 10-minute long special effects movie called “Kyoshinnhei Tokyo ni arawaru”(/ Giant soldiers of artificial creatures showed up in Tokyo )  and the colossal robot soldiers destroy Tokyo which was a description of The seven Days of Fire depicted a bit in Nausica, an anime of Miyazaki 28 years ago.   I visited there and saw the movie and found them qute good and interesting.

Though the temporary museum was already closed, as the event was so popular that now Anno and his staf are considering  of  hosting the same event in many venues nationwide as a moving art museum, which may attract even more people from now on.

“TAF 2012 AUTUMN” is to be held in this October

“Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012 Autumn” (TAF2012 Autumn) will be collaborately held by Ministry of Economy,Trade and Industry (Meti) (http://www.meti.go.jp/english/index.html) and The Association of Japanese Animations(AJA)(http://www.aja.gr.jp/)  this Oct.23-25 at  Grand Pacific LE ODAIBA(http://www.grandpacific.jp/eng/) in Odaiba bay area Tokyo.

TAF this time is the third one, whose series  has been held every year these three years, but the previous two events were both held in Akihabara, the mecca of subculture. However, this time the event is going to be held in Odaiba-out of Akihabara for the first time. Odaiba,which has long been popular as a beautiful and refined bay area even among foreign visitors, is becoming famous and popular as well as a new center of Japanese subculture, such as with Gundam models and hotel rooms featuring those anime- related concepts.   The Japanese government and relating hosts expect Odaiba to gather more people who love Japanese anime works.

“TGS 2012” marked its record high of the number of visitors

“Tokyo Game Show 2012″(TGS 2012) was held Sep.20-23 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba City.http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/index.html

This time the show marked its record high of the number of visitors with 223,753. This year the event was the 22nd and gradually it has received increasing number of visitors every time. Every time  new  video games are introduced or demonstrated at TGS and this time, new popular game soft wares such as,”Monster Hunter4″,   “Ark Sphere” and others. The number of the companies joining the event was also a record high with 209 and the number of the games was a record high with 1043. 

70% of the game titles introduced at TDS 2012 were so-called “social games”,which implies a game played by multi players through their mutual communications via such as smartphones or tablet computers.  There were also some stage performances of such as cos-play.  young female staff clad in colorful attires of video-game- world- like manner served the visitors.

Dragon Quest 10

“Dragon Quest 10”, the newest number game of one of the moste popular Japanese role playing game series, was released on Aug.2nd.

 

The newest version is played with Nintendo Wii ,and online register is essential. Those features are produced for the first time for that RPG series. So far about 42,000 sets have been sold.  http://www.dqx.jp/

Animate liner bus services “Ani-ten Special Express 2012”

Animate, one of the biggest store chains of anime and manga related items, will temporarily provide special services of  liner buses between its stores and the venue of  Comic Market, the big manga event. This service is called “Ani-ten Tokkyuu 2012″(/アニ店特急2012, anime store special express ).    http://www.animate.tv/news/details.php?id=1341304868

The service started in 2007 and has been provided periodically since then. The tickets were available through a lottery for those who buy specific items. And passengers will receive special presents, services such as  radio broadcasting on the bus related to some works.

The routes and schedules are as followes;

Shinjuku line, Ikebukuro line : Aug.10-12 , Shibuya line:Aug.11-12

 

 

 

 

a “GUNDAM guest room” at Hotel Grand Pacific LE DAIBA

A new luxurious guest room featuring Gundam’s world  came into service on this June 29th at Hotel Grand Pacific LE DAIBA in Tokyo (http://www.grandpacific.jp/eng/). Gundam is a worldwide popular sci-fi big robot anime  works series. This hotel service plan is the first case of collaboration of that anime work and an accommodation business.

The rooms are “PROJECT ROOM-G Special type” of 84㎡ consisting of a bed room and a living room and “PROJECT ROON-G Standard type” of 42㎡ of one room. The rooms are furnished with  wall paper, carpets, beds and other parts and furniture having special Gundam-related designs or items.

The room fees are as follows;  the Special type・・・52,000 yen or higher for two people, the Standard type・・・27,000 yen or higher for two people.  The max population of  a room is three and  currently the hotel has one Special type and two Standard type rooms but as they are extremely popular and reserving them is quite difficult, the management resolved to prepare  six more Standard type ones soon. The room guests are provided with special gifts of  card room keys of Gundam design and other related 20 sorts of goods. In addition, the room charge includes the fee of  admission tickets to Gundam Front Tokyo in Diver City where huge Gundam model stands at the moment. A guest can order special Gundam-related dishes on the special menu.

 

 

‘Astro Boy’ vs ‘Rei Ayanami’- Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum to host exhibit on Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum (手塚治虫記念館）in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, will host an exhibition on the popular “Neon Genesis Evangelion” comic series from June 29.

Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum

At the show through Oct. 22, visitors to the museum, which displays original sketches of “Astro Boy” and other items, will be able to see items such as storyboards from Evangelion’s 1995 debut on television, replicas of costumes and a life-size figure of the popular character Rei Ayanami.
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G-Shock x Madoka Magica Kyubey watch to be sold

Kyubey (キュゥべえ) is a mysterious character from the popular fantasy “magical girl” anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ). Kyubey (キュゥべえ) Due to the show’s popularity in Japan and Kyubey’s characterization as a deceptive, evil creature with an angel-like appearance, it quickly grew into a target of obsession for the Japanese anime fans and illustrators. Kyubey is well known by its ASCII form. The electronics manufacturer Casio will offer a watch under its G-Shock brand that features Kyubey.  Read the rest of this entry »

Collaborative campaigns with Evangelion are popular

Collaborative campaigns with Neon Genesis Evangelion are popular these days in Japan.

Guide dog day poster 2012

Evangelion Female lead Rei Ayanami (綾波レイ)appears in the Spring 2012 promotional poster for the National Federation of All Japan Guide Dog Training Institution’s International Guide Dog Day.
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Tetsuya Komuro performing at Life-size Gundam

The ceremony began at Tokyo’s Odaiba with Tohru Furuya (古谷徹）, the voice actor of the first Gundam anime’s lead Amuro Ray, showcasing the life-size statue of the original RX-78-2 Gundam.

He noted the 18-meter-tall (about 59-feet-tall) Gundam was customized for Amuro with his personal insignia and magnetic coating on the joints.

Tetsuya Komuro (小室 哲哉 ), a keyboardist, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and music producer, is recognized as being the most successful producer in Japanese music history. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop throughout the 1990s. Read the rest of this entry »