Old news

From September 2005 thru October 2005.


10/31/05 The official website for the Evangelion 10th Anniversary Angel-XX figures has revealed that the fourth and final figure in the series will be Lilith=XX, also known as Ayanami Rei, which is what I'd call a cop out.

According to The Magic Box, The Naruto: Narutimate Hero 3 action RPG for the Playstation 2 will include a bonus original anime DVD produced by the Naruto TV series animation staff. The game is scheduled for Japanese release on December 22nd.

The current issue of Japan's Dragon Magazine includes an announcement that Hoshino Akira's swords and sorcery fantasy novel series "The Third" will be adapted into an anime series.

Seven Seas Entertainment has announced their first Japanese license. Kouhei Kadono original Boogipop novels, the Boogiepop Doesn’t Laugh manga, illustrated by Kouji Ogata and the Boogiepop Dual manga illustrated by Masayuki Takano. The first novel is due out in February 2006.

Official promotional material for the third Zeta Gundam movie lists its English title as "Love is the Pulse of the Stars." The second Zeta movie, recently premiered theatrically in Japan.

According to Anime News Service, Akira and Steamboy director Katsuhiro Otomo will helm a live action film adaptation of Yuki Urushibara's award winning supernatural fantasy manga series Mushishi. The film is scheduled for Japanese release in winter 2006. Mushishi will be Otomo's second live action film. Otomo directed the live action film World Apartment Horror in 1991.

According to Anime News Service, Japanese multi-media publishing company Kadokawa has revealed that the American Cartoon Network has plans to produce an American Gamera animated series for North American broadcast in 2007. It's certainly no Godzilla!



10/28/05 The previously scheduled title Phantom, which was due in August and then re-scheduled to late October, now has a February 2006 release date that is probably due to their adding in a bundle version where the DVD and the PC game are together.

10/27/05 The official Japanese GUNxSWORD website now offers the series' entire first episode for free viewing online. The streaming episode is available for narrowband and broadband connection speeds. The episode will be available until October 31st.

Gainax's official website for the upcoming Evangelion 10th anniversary Angel-XX figures now hosts close-up photos of the Sachiel-XX and Zeruel-XX figures, from multiple angles.

Viz Media has announced that Tonik Barber has been appointed as Senior Vice President, Business Affairs and General Counsel. Barber comes from a 10-year stint as Director of Business Affairs for Lucasfilm.

Originally solicited for a September release by Toei, One Piece will now be released on DVD by Viz Media under the Shonen Jump Home Video line. The first DVD will street on February 28th and will only have the English dub.

NTV will air a live-action version of Grave of the Fireflies on November 1st. The live-action film is based on the same partially auto-biographical book that spawned Isao Takahata's movie. The live-action film will be told from the point of view of Seita and Setsuko's aunt.

Kids'WB! has announced their November Saturday schedule. Starting on November 5th, the Viewtiful Joe TV series will air Saturdays at 11:30am eastern.


10/26/05 Turner Classic Movies has published its January broadcast schedule online. The network will broadcast two different Ghibli films on January 5th, 12th, and 26th, and three different films on January 19th.

The official Japanese website for the Hellsing OVA series now hosts thumbnail size images of the first Japanese DVD cover in standard and limited edition versions, a close-up photo of the figure included in the limited edition Japanese DVD, and a promotional poster illustration.

The official Japanese website for the forthcoming anime TV series Magikano is now open.

An official website for Nerima Daikon Brothers has opened and announced that the brand new manga series will be developed as an anime TV series by Studio Hibari. The series will be directed by Excel Saga director Shinichi Watanabe. If Nabeshin makes an appearance, it will undoubtedly be good.


10/25/05 The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka City, a suburb of Tokyo, has announced that 3 or possibly 4 new short films by director Hayao Miyazaki will screen exclusively at the museum. The first of the short films, "Mizugumo Monmon" (Water Spider Monmon), will begin screening at the museum in January 2006.

TOKYOPOP has announced that it will comply with a request from Japanese publisher Kodansha to not publish an English language translation of Suetsugu Yuki's 13 volume manga series Flower of Eden. All of artist Suetsugu Yuki's manga was withdrawn from publication in Japan recently when controversy over Yuki copying art from other manga artists was discovered.

At this past weekend's Oni-Con in Houston, Texas, AD Vision announced that original Japanese voice actress for Lynn Minmei in Superdimensional Fortress Macross will also play Minmei in AD Vision's upcoming English language dub of the series.

According to Anime News Service, Magicu ("Magical Cute") Magazine volume 20, scheduled for Japanese release on the 25th, will officially announce an anime TV series adaptation of artist Taguchi Sennendo's manga series Yoshinaga Sanchi No Gargoyle.

Anime News Service and Moon Phase both report that Ken Kitashiba & Yasuhiro Watanabe's political intrigue detective manga serial Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro ("Naikaku Kenryoku Hanzai Kyosei Torishimarikan Zaizen Jotaro") will be adapted into a 13 episode anime television series next year. Neither website cites a source for this announcement.

Moon Phase reports (they're so busy) that Tokyo Kids will produce an anime adaptation of Takeaki Momose's current manga series Majikan.

Japanese publisher Futabasha has announced that Towa Oshima's manga series Girl's High School Students will be adapted into an anime TV series.

Japan's Bandai Visual, Bandai Channel, and Sunrise Studios have formally announced the release strategy of the upcoming anime series Wings of Rean. The series of six 30 minute long episodes will be available online on a pay-per-download basis.

The Simon’s Rock Anime Club has announced the launch of a 1-day anime convention in Great Barrington, MA. Llamacon will take place on February 25, 2006 and will focus on fan-created projects such as AMVs, fandubs, documentaries, artist alley and things of that nature.


10/24/05 All Miyazaki people, Turner Classic Movies appear to be pushing the Miyazaki angle pretty heavily according to this article at ICv2 in which they indicate they'll be broadcasting Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart.

10/21/05 WOOOOOOOOOO!!! The October issue of Neo magazine (A UK Anime magazine) includes an interview with Studio Madhouse's founder and President, Masao Maruyama. In it he says the studio is working on a Trigun Movie that should be released in a "couple of years".

REMINDER: Adult Swim will broadcast episode 1 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Angel Attack tonight at 11:30 pm.

The 2004 Gigantor (Tetsujin 28gou) television series will premier on Adult Swim on October 31st at 5:30 AM. What? That's not too late to premier and expect good ratings, what are you talking about?

Yu Yu Hakusho episode 89 will premier on the Cartoon Network at 5:30 AM on Saturday, October 22nd. The Cartoon Network has previously aired Yu Yu Hakusho episodes 1-88, but reportedly pulled the show from its broadcast schedule due to low ratings. Which could have been partially due to the fact that they kept moving its timeslot and pulled it every two weeks.

In preparation for the English language release of the expanded, re-issued Yoshitoshi Abe illustration book "ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired," Digital Manga has issued a request for fans to share their recollections, anecdotes, and thoughts about Serial Experiments Lain, and suggestions for the English language commemorative book, on the Digital Manga Forum.

Namco has opened its official website for the Kyou Kara Maoh Playstation 2 adventure RPG.

Galaxy Anime now hosts a streaming audio interview with FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga in which Fukunaga discusses plans for the FUNimation Channel.


10/20/05 Digital Manga, America's self proclaimed "biggest publisher of BL [boy's love] manga," will be attending the fifth annual Yaoi-Con with special guest artist You Higuri. Digital Manga will be sponsoring a raffle during the con with some of the proceeds going to the American Red Cross charity. The raffle winner and a guest will have lunch with Japanese yaoi manga creator You Higuri. Scary.

According to Anime News Service, plans for the production of a Harukanaru Toki No Naka De anime motion picture have been announced in Tokyo. The film will be directed by Inuyasha movie director Toshiya Shinohara and produced by animation studio Yumeta.

The 3 minute long Japanese language documentary about the making of the hand-made 35mm film frame cube to be included with pre-ordered copies of the Japanese Howl's Moving Castle DVD is now available from Itoi Shigesato's homepage. Have fun finding it, or you can just click here.


10/19/05 It is a great day for anime as A.D. Vision has registered a trademark for the term "Jiggle Counter" with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The "Jiggle Counter" is a gimmick first used on ADV Films' release of Plastic Little. If you can't figure out what the "Jiggle Counter" does, well then, you haven't seen enough anime.

The prestigious Spanish Sitges International Film Festival has recognized Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children with the Maria Honorifica award, an excellence award selected by a jury of international judges.

Manga artist Setsugu Yuki has admitted to copying art from Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk manga for her manga Eden no Hana. In response to public controversy over the discovery of the artistic similarities, Kodansha has ceased publication of Yuki's completed 12 volume Eden no Hana manga series and the monthly serialization of the artist's current work, Silver. Setsugu Yuki's official homepage was closed on October 16th. Her website has also been closed. It is unknown whether the American release will be affected.

Mattel has reported their financials for the third quarter of 2005. According to the report, "Worldwide gross sales for the Entertainment business, which includes Games and Puzzles, were down 7 percent for the quarter, primarily driven by sales declines in the Yu-Gi-Oh! property and JuiceBox."



10/18/05 According to CPM's Website, they will begin releasing manga again in January 2006 with the release of The World of Narue volume 4. Over a year will have passed since the release of volume 3, in November 2004

Gundam: True Odyssey is to be released in North America under the new name "Gundam MS Saga." According to IGN the PlayStation 2 RPG game is expected to be released in February 2006.

According to an article in Big Comic Spirits Magazine, a Black & White animated movie, based on Taiyo Matsumoto's manga, is planned for release in 2007.


10/17/05 Just call it a long weekend but there wasn't anything to update about on Thursday, so it wasn't THAT long.

The Magic Box now hosts screenshots of the upcoming Japanese releases of Final Fantasy games 4-6 for the Gameboy Advance, as well as a new Yoshitaka Amano illustrated Gameboy Micro faceplate.

The news page on the official Japanese NANA live action movie website reports that a sequel film will be produced. The live action adaptation of Ai Yazawa's manga serial has been a blockbuster hit in Japanese theatrical release.

Big Comic Spirits Magazine has reported plans for a live action television series adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's Maison Ikkoku manga story.

Last week Viz Media officially announced its Shonen Jump Home Video Line. The first two DVD titles in the line will be Hikaru no Go and Naruto

Geneon has confirmed that some copies of the DearS volume 1 DVD have an English language audio track recorded in mono instead of stereo. Consumers my fill out this PDF form and mail in their defective discs for replacements.

CLAMP has officially announced on its homepage that a second Tsubasa Chronicle anime television series will air next year. Surprise.

Publisher Akita Shoten has announced that Akihito Yoshitomi's manga series Ray will be adapted into an anime TV series. The first volume has already been released state-side.

Tomy has announced that they will be releasing the following Naruto games in North America; Naruto: Clash of Ninja for the Game Cube and Naruto: Ninja Council for the Game Boy Advance.



10/13/05 Coming as a surprise to nobody, CLAMP has announced that a XXXHOLIC anime series adaptation will appear on TV next year.

The world premiere on Disney's English Language dub of My Neighbour Totoro will take place at the Hollywood Film Festival on October 23rd. The screening will be at the ArcLight Theatre at 6360 West Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, October 23rd at 7:00pm. Stupid California getting all the "events."

Japanese entertainment producer and distributor Avex has announced open Japanese auditions for casting in a live action film adaptation of Masahito Soda's popular manga serial Subaru, a story about the life of a genius ballerina.

Discotek Media has announced that their release of Animal Treasure Island, the 1971 anime film with key animation by Hayao Miyazaki, will street on November 15th.

YTV's schedules are currently indicating that the Canadian network will be airing the special OVA episodes of .hack//SIGN to conclude the series.


10/12/05 The official website for the Papillon Rose television series has updated with the first released promotional image for the show.

The website for the upcoming Mini Pato PSP game has been updated with information on the game, including character info and screenshots.


10/11/05 This is the "what the crap" moment of the month, maybe even the year, because Gainax has opened its official Japanese website promoting the Evangelion 10th anniversary "Angel-XX" project- a series of PVC plastic figures of Evangelion angels redesigned as anime girls. Yes, even Kawrou is turned into a girl (though it's not much of a stretch ZING!). The first of the figures is scheduled for Japanese release in December. The only pics on the site are for Sachiel (the first angel seen in the series), Zeruel (the one that gets eaten by Unit 1), and Kawrou. This has got to be a joke, seriously, tell me its a joke, the images on the site CAN'T be real. Gainax, WHY??? They basically give a girl Kawrou's shirt, hair color, eye color, and there the similarities end. The other two aren't any better. And you thought they had done every piece of merchandise available? HA!!

Sponichi Annex has reported that manga artist and adult movie director Tatsuya Egawa, best known to Americans as the creator of Golden Boy, will direct a live action feature film adaptation of his popular erotic, comical manga story Tokyo University Story (Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari).

Japanese publisher Media Works has announced a new multimedia project from creator Mari Matsuzawa titled "Inugami!"

Toynami has announced plans to produce domestic Naruto figurines, collectible and limited-edition statues, bookends and more.

According to ICv2 News, Yamato Toys has plans to begin releasing randomly packaged "trading figures" in pre-sorted complete sets. Yamato will release a complete set of six randomly packaged 4" tall Kujibiki Unbalance figures in January, and a complete set of six 4" Bubblegum Crisis trading figures in February 2006.

Score has announced that they will release Showdown, an expansion to the Dragonball Z CCG, on November 23. The new cards introduced in Showdown will be derived from the Saiyan and Frieza saga, which features the end of Goku's fight with Vegeta and the first half of their trip to Namek.

Central Park Media has announced the repricing of their Maze, Demon City Shinjuku and Legend of Himiko DVDs to $9.95. The Maze and Legend of Himiko collections have also been repriced to $39.95 and $29.95 respectively. All of which will be released in December.


10/10/05 I got a comment that someone used to come here for anime news but no longer does since I've been... uh... lacking in updates. Well, it is most likely a trick by someone I know, because the updates have been inconsistent at past for quite some time now and I'm guessing that they would've stopped coming there since then. However, it has also worked in a way, and I find myself re-committed so to speak. I really want to revamp the site to make it easier to update but that would require altering the 500 or so pages very slowly as my computer has died since the site started and I don't have too many of them saved on my computer. However, I plan to start taking the time to try this though don't expect it to be uploaded for quite some time. On to news, I've done this several times before I know, but this time I'll try to be good.

The official Japanese website for the PC/console video game Kishin Houkou Demonbane has announced the development of a Demonbane anime television series. The series will be produced by Viewworks.

The 25 minute long, award winning 3D CG anime Kakurenbo will air on the Cartoon Network on October 29 at midnight as part of the network's Adult Swim Halloween Special.

Dark Horse Comics has publicly announced its acquisition of a number of new print titles:
Juon manga
Lullabies from Hell by Hideshi Hino
Museum of Terror by Junji Ito
Scary Books by Kazuo Umezu
School Zone by Kanako Inuki
Octopus Girl by Toru Yamazaki
Satsuma Gishiden by Hiroshi Hirata
Old Boy by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex novels 1-3, by Jun'ichi Fujisaku

According to Anime News Service, Bandai Visual of Japan has announced its estimated sales statistics for the second half of the 2005 fiscal year, which lasts from August 2005 to February 2006. Gundam DVD sales in America have decreased 17% compared to sales in the first half of the 2005 fiscal year. Bandai Visual claims that the decrease is part of a market slump affecting all anime sales in America. Denial.

According to 1Up, Bandai has announced plans to release the first Naruto: Narultimate Hero Playstation 2 fighting game in America early next year.

Japanese anime production studio TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha) has issued a press release announcing its acquisition by Sega Sammy Holdings.

An exclusive card from Joyride Entertainment's Fullmetal Alchemist trading card game will be inserted into the upcoming release of Fullmetal Alchemist volume 6. The card, Scar, Ishbala's Crusader, will not be available from any other source.


9/26/05 I was hoping to get everything revamped and that's what I've been working on but at this pace it'd easily take another twenty to thirty hours since there's so many seperate pages and I don't have it set up on a program like dreamweaver or something that would make changing them all a snap. At some point I may do this if I ever get around to getting a dotcom, but since I'm not right now, I've nixed the revamp idea. Sorry folks.

Japan-Zone reports that the live action film "Mayonaka no Yaji-san, Kita-san," an adaptation of Shiriagai Kotobuki's manga based on Jippensha Ikku's classic novel Tokkaidochu Hizakurige, will screen in 30-40 major American cities next summer.

IGN reports that the Playstation 2 RPG Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King will be released in America on November 22nd. 1up confirms that the game will include a playable demo of the upcoming Final Fantasy XII.

Infinity Studios has announced its acquisition of translation rights to Masayuki Takano' Blood Alone manga series.

The Akiba BB website has confirmed that production of a Papillon Rose anime television series will be officially announced at the "Dream Party Tokyo" publicity event scheduled for October 10th. The series will be directed by Matsumura Yasuhiro, who formerly directed the magical girl erotic anime series Magical Kanan.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX premieres on Cartoon Network's on Miguzi block October 10th at 5pm. New episodes will air 5 days a week, with 1 hour of repeats on Saturday and Sunday at 6pm (4 episodes on weekends, 5 during the week).

Manga series Spiral Suiri no Kizuna by Kyo Shirodaira and Eita Mizuna, will see its final chapter published in the upcoming issue of Shonen Gangan magazine. It has been licensed by Tokyopop

Narumi Kakinouchi, the manga-ka behind Vampire Princess Miyu and numerous other popular manga, has a new manga series, Ruby Blood, starting in the November issue of Susperia Mystery, which went to newstands in Japan on Saturday

Toei has announced that Saint Seiya ~ The Hades * Chapter Inferno ~ will be broadcast on SkyPerfect pay per view beginning in December.

Home