Canned Dogs

A few days ago the Japan Doujinshi Printing Group released new guidelines that all doujin circles that produce adult oriented material have to adhere to or the books will not be accepted for printing. Basically, they need to clearly mark on the cover that it is for adults and provide on the final page of the doujinshi their circle name, contact info, release date, and the name of the printing firm that printed the doujinshi. The reason for needing the information on the final page is because the author will have to take responsibility should any problems arise with the book.

There have always been a lot of adult doujinshi that never had any markings to indicate if they are adult oriented, it is still unclear as to exactly why these guidelines have been announced all of a sudden.

Somebody tried the ad cost simulator at Asahi Shimbun’s site and found that it costs at least 39,855,000 yen (323,000 USD) to put a full page black and white ad in Asahi Shimbun like they did for Haruhi. Man how much are they actually earning with Haruhi to be spending that much money on a single ad…

So yeah, it has been confirmed that Yamakan is out. A lot of people seem to have been confused about Yamakan’s role in Haruhi, basically he was in charge of enshutsu for the entire Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu series, which can be loosely translated to mean that he was in charge of direction/presentation, or for a longer and more detailed description, ex.org had a pretty good english description. If you have an account with niconico video, you can check this small collection of scenes by Yamakan too.

If you’ve had a chance to see any of the promotional material or looked at the game CG published in magazines, you’d have trouble believing that Key’s upcoming game, “Little Busters!” isn’t an eroge. Somebody needs to tell them that they don’t have to force themselves to make it all-ages.

Sources used: Kagikko blog, Akibaos

The Haruhi surprise that was announced in the newspapers was a live action video of the security cameras at Higashi chuugaku (Haruhi’s old school) taping the entire process of the Sasa no ha rhapsody chapter from book 3 of the novel. You can watch the video at Anime NewType Channel or nico nico video.

Come to think of it, I didn’t really catch the “私は、ここにいる。” reference until I saw the vid…

Edit: got removed from Newtype already, but you can check the official site… maybe. I haven’t gotten it to load yet.

Edit 2: It’s not on the official site anymore either.

The big Haruhi 2nd season announcement today was a full page ad in the newspapers. Man I knew something was up when they didn’t update their website at 12am! They also announced in the papers that something will happen to the official site at 9pm tonight.

Lucky Star ex-director, Yamamoto Yutaka, has apparently left Kyoto Animation since June and has become freelance, according to his official mixi community and an interview in Otona Anime magazine. Yamamoto Yutaka is often known by fans for having been responsible for 50%~70% of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu’s success, and many have expected him to have become the director for the 2nd season. The reason for leaving Kyoto Animation is not yet known.

I can’t really call 100% reliability on this yet because I haven’t seen the magazine interview myself however.

As we already know, Utada Hikaru is singing the theme song “Beautiful World” for the first Evangelion remake movie. It had garnered a mixed reaction from fans of the series with some saying that she isn’t a suitable choice for an Evangelion theme song.

According to Cinema Today, Utada Hikaru was offered the chance to sing the theme as she had once proclaimed herself to be an Evangelion otaku and also once spoke in detail about the world of Evangelion during a special feature in a magazine.

In Utada’s blog, she says that she thought that she would probably make some fans unhappy that the movie’s theme song isn’t Takahashi Youko’s Cruel Angel Thesis, but this is probably the only chance for her to sing for Evangelion and she cannot pass it up even if she gets beaten up by otaku when she is in Akiba or Nakano Broadway.

She says that she is extremely happy that she has managed to get involved with Evangelion and quotes Raoh from Hokuto no ken saying “I have no regrets!”

Gotou Yuuko has posted her thoughts today on her Anime Expo experience and says that although certain parts did not go as planned during the event, it was to be expected as it was the first time that these people were working with language and cultural differences. She adds that people should not focus only on the negative and that the most important point is that the audience managed to enjoy the event and that the staff had tried their best to make it work. She believes that nobody was really at fault for how the concert turned out and that although it wasn’t perfect, she believes the concert was a success.

She also writes about how the drug sniffer dogs kept staying around her when she was at the airport but they went away after a while and she didn’t run into any trouble.

Some of the Japanese audience that were at Anime Expo would probably disagree with this as there have been some opinions that thought it was very disrespectful and irresponsible for Anime Expo to have not released a public apology even after all this. Adding that it could even affect the sales of the DVD of their live Japan concert that will be getting released later in the month.

Weird time to announce when Clannad hasn’t even started yet… Clannad can’t be less than 26 episodes given the length of the story so Haruhi will start… earliest Spring 2008? It’ll be great if the final ep for the 2nd season airs on tanabata 2008, that’ll be cool.
Magazine scans from 2ch: 1, 2, 3