Dengeki Online has some new info for the upcoming DS game Doki doki majo shinpan! and has revealed three more characters who are witch suspects. This is all very normal aside from that fact that it has revealed that one of the suspects is a guy. Lots of friendly male bonding within!
I couldn’t find anything to write about for today and there isn’t anything interesting about Arts Vision announcing that Matsuda had quit. So lets have a post about Ochiai Yurika (Yurishii) instead! This is something of a follow-up to the news regarding Arts Vision.
As already mentioned, Yurishii had rejected Matsuda Sakumi’s while she was at Arts Vision. Because of that, she had been continuously receiving unfair treatment in the seiyuu industry since 2006 such as not getting a mike and being ignored by the camera during their internet radio show or not having a costume and not getting any close-up shots during an IDOLM@STER concert. She had also been dropping a lot of hints on her online blog regarding the kind of treatment that she gets.
Now that the Matsuda conspiracy has been revealed and everyone finally understands why she had been treated so badly, she can rejoice with her fans.
Kodansha BOX has announced through their members-only newsletter that Higurashi no naku koro ni will be novelized by original creator Ryuukishi07. The first four chapters of Higurashi will novelized and released in sequence starting this summer.
Author Tajima Yasue has officially apologized to publisher Shougakukan and manga company Fujikopro for a Doraemon doujinshi that he made in 2005 and will pay an undisclosed amount of money for the settlement. The amount of the settlement is rumoured to be several million yen.
The Doraemon doujinshi in question was a 20 page comic originally released in 2005 and illustrated the final chapter to the Doraemon story, which does not officially have an ending. It started getting attention on the internet and on blogs for the high quality of the work which looked very similar to the original Doraemon.
However the doujinshi got too popular and was so well done that people started asking publisher Shougakukan if the story was true. The publisher realized the situation was getting out of hand and decided to take action.
The doujinshi sold a total of over 13,000 copies before being stopped by Shougakukan and currently fetches high prices on online auctions.
Edit: The doujinshi can still be viewed here
According to anime sales ranking blog Aniran, Lucky star OP Motteke! Sailor fuku has barely missed placing first in the Oricon weekly singles charts by 2,000 units. In first place was Jasmine/Rainbow by V6, selling 68,000 copies, while Lucky Star sold 66,000 copies.
Comparison of previous attempts at getting Oricon 1st:
Happy Material (Magister Negi Magi) - 45,000 units
Hare Hare Yukai (Suzumiya Haruhi no yuutsu) - 35,000 units
Motteke! Sailor fuku (Lucky Star) - 66,000 units
Happy Material and Hare Hare Yukai had the support from the infamous VIP board in 2ch, however both titles did quite badly as compared to Motteke! Sailor fuku, which did not have much support from the VIPPERs. However, Motteke! Sailor fuku had received a lot of attention on the Japanese video sharing site, niconico video, which apparently was very successful in increasing the sales of the single.
Newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun had published the results of a survey regarding middle school students and the amount of anime that they watch, and has surprisingly found that more than 50% of middle school students watch less than an hour of anime each week. The following are the results of the survey:
Don’t watch anime - 18.9%
Less than 30 mins each week(1 title per week) - 16.9%
30 mins to 1 hour each week(2 titles per week) - 22.3%
1 to 2 hours each week(3~4 titles) - 16.0%
2 to 3 hours each week(5~6 titles) - 9.5%
More than 3 hours each week (more than 7 titles) - 14.5%
The survey was carried out on a group of approximately 1000 students from 22 schools across Japan.
The article points out that this could be the result of less anime at the prime time slots of 7 pm to 10 pm in recent years, and also the fact that children have been spending more time on video games and online games, reducing the amount of time that they spend watching anime.
These results seems to agree with the other article from last month.
via: Yuuyuu nikki
An anonymous post on 2ch from a seiyuu had pointed out back in December 2006 that many seiyuu and seiyuu newcomers alike get sexually harrassed by Matsuda in his office and even go into hotels with him, adding that many have quit because of him.
Also, Ochiai Yurika(Yurishii), a seiyuu that left Arts Vision in October 2006 apparently also because she was sexually harassed has updated on her blog today saying that she’s very lucky. She didn’t dare come out into the open regarding the problems with Matsuda because she was afraid that her seiyuu career would be crushed. Yurishii has become the big winner in life today!
Matsuda Sakumi(58), chairman of seiyuu talent agency Arts Vision, has been officially charged on the 28th with the molestation of a 16 year old girl. He brought the girl into his office and commited acts of indecency when she auditioned back in December 2006, promising that he would make her a seiyuu. Matsuda has admitted to the charges. The police are continuing their investigations on suspicion that this is not the only case that he has committed.
List of well known seiyuu with Arts Vision(possible victims?)
Horie Yui: Kanon(Tsukimiya Ayu), Nagasarete Airantou(Suzu)
Kuwatani Natsuko: Rozen Maiden(Suiseiseki)
Tamura Yukari: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha(Takamachi Nanoha)
Asano Masumi: Ikkitousen(Sonsaku Hakufu)
Ueda Kana: Fate/Stay Night(Tohsaka Rin)
Saitou Chiwa: Pani Poni Dash!(Rebecca Miyamoto)
Kugimiya Rie: Shakugan no Shana (Shana)
Takahashi Mikako: Hayate no gotoku (Nishizawa Ayumu)
Nakahara Mai: Higurashi no naku koroni (Ryuugu Rena)
Morinaga Rika: Rozen Maiden (Souseiseki)
Recently on the 25th, the Tokyo High Court had ruled against company Image City that their service MYUTA was guilty of copyright infringement. MYUTA was a service which allowed users to use CDs that they own to upload their music onto an online server and then download the music into their cellphones for personal use.
The thing about this is that the court ruled it was an infringement of copyright even though the users cannot download the music into any cellphone other than their own. The reasoning behind the ruling was that by uploading the files onto a central server, the users were distributing the music files to the company that owns the server, even if the users were the only ones that would be able to access the files.
Gigazine has taken a close look at what this actually means and has concluded that all online file storage services such as Yahoo! Briefcase and Apple’s .mac were all illegal, since users use them for online storage.
And we only have JASRAC and their music copyright whoring to thank for all this.
…Somebody needs to save Japan’s internet.
The bit about half of each Doujin Work episode being a live action shot of the seiyuu making a real doujin has been erased from AT-X’s description of the Doujin Work anime. It’s not known if it was erased because they wanted to keep it a secret or if they realized it wasn’t working.
If they actually changed their minds and decided to make it 100% anime I’d be kinda relieved, but also sad at the same time…