Archive for 'Manga' Category

Wii U released

The newest version of  Nintendo Wii, one of the most popular video game sets on Dec.8th.

 

The new game set comes in two colors of black and white. And  there are two types of a Basic Set of ￥26,500 and Premium Set of ￥31,500.  In the first day’s morning,  a lot of people stood in line to buy one, at some stores more than 300 people.   Wii U is a next generation type of Wii, which has sold more than 9,700 sets. The new type has an excellent  color handy monitor and Wii U game soft wares have started released as well.  The Basic Set includes minimum items of game hardware, while the Premium Set includes a stand set and other extra accompanying items.

“Evangelion Q”, the newest episode of “Eva” released at movie theaters

“Evangelion Q” ,  the newest episode of  “Evangelion”, one of the most popular anime work series of  Japanese sci-fi anime was released at movie theaters on Nov.17th. http://www.evangelion.co.jp/news.html

 

 

“Manga Tottori Kingdom” – series of manga events

A series of manga related events are being held in Tottori Pref., which is the home area of  Shigeru Mizuki, one of the oldest working manga artist who is the creator of  Japanese monster manga works such as “Ge ge ge no Kitaro”.  http://manga-tottori.jp/?id=158

The series of  the Kingdom’s events will have been held  2012. April- 2013 March.

“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.

Atsuko Maeda’s graduation from AKB48

Atsuko Maeda, so-called “the steadfast center” ,or, “the absolute ace” of AKB48, graduated from that top female idol group of Japan at the moment on this Aug.27th.

Maeda was one of the original members of the group since its start on Dec.8th 2005, and  almost always performed at the central postition of singing and dancing formation on stage.   

On the very next day of the end of a series of live concerts at Tokyo Dome(http://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/e/) Aug 24-26 so successfully, which about 144,000 people had visited in total, AKB48 hosted the “graduation memorial concert of Atsuko Maeda” at AKB 48 Theater in Akihabara on 27th. The former was a glorious realization of  AKB’s dream-come-true since its foundation. And there had been a plan of Maeda entering the Theater for the concert after showing herself from a car in a parade on nearby roads of the area in Akihabara, which unfortunately aborted due to an instrcution of the police  for security’s reason.

On that day there was  a crazy situation of  so many passers-by and fans in Akihabara area. 

A lot of  posters of Maeda was put on various places in Akihabara station, special books, photo collections, items said to be available only on that day were sold at boolstores, AKB48 Cafe &Shop and other stores there.  The available number of  the tickets of  the graduation concert was just 250, and  more than 230,000 people applied for , so, the winning rate was  about one out of  916  !    Agter the concert, Maeda showed up on a balcony of the building and waved good- by and sent her final salute as a AKB member to the people there.

Coincidentally, I was in Akihabara on that very day, and bought a Maeda’s memorial photo collection for graduation at a special stall of  a bookstore in the station building. I felt  sepecial atmosphere of excitement in the town.

In addition,  three days later , to my huge surprise, I  just happened to witness two AKB48 members,namely Mina Ohba and Suzuran Yamauchi in Shibuya near the station while walking down there. Actually they didn’t stand out so much in the huge crowd there, but  accidentally my shoulder and Yamauchi’s shoulder touched in the busy crowd, when we passed each other. In that place Maeda’s big billboards were on the walls of nearby buildings, and ad-buses of the newest AKB’s song “Gingham Check” were driving around and their music was heard everywhere…  That was a quite strange and impressive situation ,and I have found Shibuya is also  an “turf”(?) of  AKB48 groups or popular idols in general.

 

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.

 

 

Nintendo 3DS LL

Nintendo is going to release a new portable game hardware, “Nintendo 3DS LL” on Jul.28th.

Currently “Nintendo 3DS” is around as a game machine for playing game softwares of three dimensional visions on the screen without special glasses. The new ones will have the same functions as the current ones but they will have a screen of  1.9 times as big as the current ones, with the upper screen of 4.88 inches and lower touching screen of  4.18 inches . The total size of the new ones when folded is 93mm(D) ×156mm(w)×22mm(H) with 336g.

3DSLL will come in three color varietions of  RED×BLACK, SILVER×BLACK,and WHITE.  The price will be 18,900 yen(≒＄238, €189).

“Sadako 3D” demonstration in Shibuya

Sadako is a fictitious popular Japanese evil ghost of  J-horror  “Ring” series whose movie editions were also remade in Hollywood.

Sadako’s movie “Sadako 3D”was made this year for the first time in 12 years and is going to be released on this May 12th.   As a promotion event of the newest movie of the popular series, more than 50 women in  “Sadako’s costume” made a “parade” in Shibuya station area in Tokyo ,where they all took a pose of  jumping out of a TV monitor, on May 6th.

The parade was divided into three groups and they distributed “a letter from Sadako” to passers-by at Shibuya entrance, Shibuya MarkCity, and Moyai statue respectively. There were 12 kinds of contents in the letters. Some are written as, “This time I jump out of a screen, for I have got fed up with coming out of a well”, “See my new movie, or I will curse you, even you will see it , I will curse you anyway”, ” I have a surprisingly nice body. ” and others. Totally 10,000 letters were handed there, while  promotion trucks of the movie were driving around the town.A lot of excited young people took photos of the parade, some being shouting , screaming in joy or fear…

 

Yotsuba & Danbo

Rondo Robe label has posted stop-motion short featuring the Yotsuba&! (よつばと! )manga’s cardboard robot suit Danbo as part of their “20th Anniversary with Danboard” campaign.

Yotsuba&! is an ongoing Japanese comedy manga series by Kiyohiko Azuma, the creator of Azumanga Daioh. Read the rest of this entry »

Thermae Romae manga, travel magazine team up on Japanese bath guide

Rurubu Thermae Romae, a collaboration between the Japanese travel magazine Rurubu (るるぶ）and Mari Yamazaki’s Thermae Romae (テルマエ・ロマエ）bathhouse manga, went on sale in Japan.

Travel magazine Rurubu

Read the rest of this entry »

“Hello Kitty”‘s special shop & “Miffiy”‘s special shop at Tokyo Station

“Hello Kitty Tokyo Station shop” and “miffy style Tokyo Station shop” are going to open, at the same time, on coming March 16th along Tokyo Character Street on First Avenue Tokyo Station in Tokyo Station. http://www.tokyoeki-1bangai.co.jp/en/

 

This Hello Kitty’s newest store(the second one in Japan after Kichijoji shop) is planned to sell about 1200 kinds of Kitty’s popular items, while miffy’s shop(the third one in Japan) is going to sell about 400 sorts of miffy’s items. The two stores are both to be run by Sanrio and the latter is to be managed jointly by Sanrio(http://www.sanrio.co.jp/english/index.html) and Dick Bruna Japan (http://www.dickbruna.jp/).

 

Hello Kitty(http://www.sanrio.co.jp/characters/hellokitty/english/index.html) and  miffy(http://www.miffy.com/) are quite popular animal characters worldwide, so,  Tokyo Station  which is the central station of  both Tokyo and Japan known as one of the most popular tourists’ destinations as well, is expected to be visited by a lot of  tourists and passengers. I hope those new stores will be  popular sites to draw people to contribute to enhancement of tourism in Japan  a lot.