Canned Dogs

Chunsoft has announced that “428″ (pronounced Shibuya) is in the works for the Wii and it looks like it is the spiritual sequel to their legendary sound novel “machi” which was ranked #5 in Famitsu’s top 100 games ranking as voted by readers during their 900th issue.

The game involves the player playing from the viewpoints of multiple people in the city whose seemingly meaningless actions end up affecting each other in big ways. It is not known how many main characters this game will have, but the original game had 8 characters.

Though it doesn’t look like the original writer Nagasaka will be back to write the story since they didn’t get him for Imabikisou…

Scans: 1, 2, 3

Online streaming site Gyao has announced that they’ll no longer have online streaming for Kanokon from ep 7 onwards because it’s getting too extreme. Another streaming site Biglobe has also announced that they will no longer be offering free streaming of Kanokon and will start charging for it.

All this probably has something do with how Kanokon was the no.1 most popular anime on Gyao among elementary school students both males and females for the past weeks…

In August 2002, a 34 month old baby had swallowed a gashapon container 40mm in diameter causing permanent physical disabilities due to brain damage caused from the lack of oxygen. So the parents went after the maker Bandai Namco for compensation.

The Kagoshima District Court has ruled on the 20th that Bandai Namco will have to pay 26,260,000 yen (US$260,000) in compensation as the gashapon container was found to be unsafe for children.

Bandai Namco had argued that the safety guidelines by the Japan Toy Association were that toys for children under 3 had to be larger than 31.8mm, but the judge ruled that the size requirements in the guidelines were not adequate in preventing accidents.

Via: Mainichi news

Little Busters! Ecstasy is going to be 2 DVDs and the recommended disk space is now 5gb, up from 3.5gb in the original.

Gamepot’s Pangya collaboration event with Hatsune Miku was a new song and a new in-game Hatsune Miku costume. Though it sounds like there is still more to the collaboration that will be revealed on the 22nd of May when it officially launches.

The Xuse guys have formed Eternal and announced their first game after moving to Will. The other Xuse scenario writer has released a doujin game. Still waiting for Xuse to announce that they’re closing…

Sekai de ichiban NG na koi took only 40 days to make. Basically only the scenario was done on September 20th when they started the project, and they aimed to complete it by 22nd November. They actually needed to hire 9 other colouring guys to keep up with the pace that the artist was producing the art at.

After making her appearance in China for the Beijing Olympics, Haruhi is still continuing to expand her influence as people discover that a Russian candy wrapper has another version of Haruhi on it, complete with a new nose! Haruhi is becoming an international superstar.

Also, completely unrelated, but KyoAni has a Nagato mousepad for sale. That is all.

Via: Waranote

Japanese blog Katsujichuudoku reports that the book “Manga note” has a part on magazine editors where they revealed the reason why Inoue Takehiko made the strange decision to leave Shounen Jump after Slam Dunk ended to start a manga on Miyamoto Musashi in the magazine “Morning”.

Apparently, editors from various magazines had approached Inoue Takehiko to start a new serialization on their magazine after Slam Dunk ended.

The reason for why he picked to go to Morning was because amongst all the editors that approached him, every one of them told him that he can draw anything he likes on their magazine, however, the editor from Morning was the only person who had a plan on the manga that they wanted Inoue to do in their magazine. The editor asked him to do a manga adaptation of Yoshikawa Eiji’s Miyamoto Musashi.

Though the author of the book also adds that the story was not heard directly from Inoue Takehito himself, so he is not 100% sure if the story is completely true.

The story is definitely very plausible considering the unexpected move and the completely different genre that he started on at the time. And if it is true, it is a great story, showing a different side to the manga industry, since there are more than a handful manga authors in the industry that wish they were free to draw whatever they want to instead of being forced to do topics imposed by the editors.

Edit: corrected a big mistake. Morning magazine, not Evening!

Himawari is a Science fiction ADV doujin game by blank-note that was released at the end of 2007 during the winter comiket.

I originally bought the game during the last comiket but I threw it in the pile of doujin games that I’ll never actually get around to because the game description of “ADV game about living with loli aliens” made it sound like a chara moe game which isn’t my kind of thing.

But after seeing raving review after raving review for the past 5 months, to the point where one blog said it was as good as Higurashi or Tsukihime, I decided I had to try the game out.

(more…)

Melty Blood Actress again was shown at the Sega private show 2008 spring, but yeah, nothing really new that wasn’t already known before. No additional characters revealed yet, still scheduled for summer release.

Scans of the flyer from am-net: 1, 2

Omo made a post about Momotato so that’s a sign that I should be doing one too! It has been years since the last time Momotato updated his blog regularly, but I’m still waiting every day for him to make a sneaky return! The anime industry will slowly die every day if Momotato doesn’t update.

The world of anime and video games is lonely without Momotato Daioh

Omo says to leave a “Momotato” in when commenting on any blog just as a show of the number of people that appreciate Momotato, and I think it’s a great idea, if just to make him feel embarrassed.

I’m not any good at writing posts the way Omo does, but I hope I helped to add to the Momotato appreciation somehow.

I couldn’t find anything interesting today so I’m posting about the wonderful Kodansha 32nd manga awards! So basically Kodansha’s panel of judges has decided on the winners and they will be holding the awards ceremony on the 20th of June where each of the winners get 1 million yen (US$10,000).

Best children’s manga
Shugochara by Peach Pit
Currently running in Nakayoshi (Kodansha)

Best shounen manga
Saikyou! Toritsu aoizaka koukou yakyuubu by Tanaka Motoyuki
Currently running in Shounen Sunday (Shogakukan)

Best shoujo manga
Kimi ni Todoke by Shiina Karuho
Currently running in Bessatsu Margaret (Shueisha)

Best general manga
Moyashimon by Ishikawa Masayuki
Currently running in Evening (Kodansha)

Here’s a quick history on the Kodansha manga awards though for those who aren’t familiar with what they do. The awards were created to award the best manga that was produced each year.

Which is why of all the awards given out in the past 32 years, over 80% of the awards have gone to manga published by Kodansha.

The other publisher that had received the most number of awards next to Kodansha is Shueisha, who got about 8% of all the awards in past 32 years. And none of the manga in Shueisha’s most popular magazine Shounen Jump has ever won a single award. (Shounen Jump manga doesn’t even get nominated anymore)

On the other hand, Shogakukan’s manga awards that has been going for 53 years usually gives awards for Shounen Sunday and Shounen Jump, but has never ever given an award for manga running in Shounen Magazine, Kodansha’s most popular magazine.

But for the first time in the history of the Shogakukan manga awards this year, Shogakukan gave a manga award to a manga from Kodansha’s Shounen Magazine, which is why a Shounen Sunday manga also received an award for the first time in the history of Kodansha’s manga awards. And the reason for this sudden change is because… Shounen Magazine and Shounen Sunday had a collaboration project.

Japanese blog 12 year old Tiyu has a more detailed analysis of all these awards stuff.