Canned Dogs

spike niconico channel launched

Zepy — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:58:50 +0000

Niconico douga has announced today that they are starting a new video service called spike niconico channel which will be for games that are being distributed by spike in Japan. It currently has trailers games such as Bioshock and Tomb Raider, and they hope to expand to have gameplay videos and interviews.

Now I’m sure it’s completely unrelated but on the same day, niconico has started deleting tons of gameplay videos of Nintendo-owned games due to “requests from the copyright holder” such as the videos of people playing modified versions of Mario and Pokemon, and the videos of fully automatic Mario which had been pretty popular, and especially the recent one of the gumi kyoku. (it’s still up on youtube)

As a result of the deletions, the total number of videos viewed across all videos in niconico douga has dropped by 20 million views today.

I don’t know if it’s just Nintendo or if they’re planning to eventually remove all gameplay videos from the site, but this sucks.

Anime TV viewership from 5/5 to 5/11

Zepy — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:45:25 +0000

It looks like arresting anime encoders that distributed Code Geass worked because Code Geass’s rating are finally going past the 2% barrier again after spending two weeks at the bottom!

Percentages in the brackets are last week’s viewership ratings.

17.6%(14.4%) 05/11 18:30-19:00 CX Sazae-san
13.5%(10.0%) 05/11 18:00-18:30 CX Chibimaruko-chan
8.9%(12.4%) 05/09 19:30-19:54 EX Crayon Shin-chan
8.7%(5.9%) 05/11 9:30-10:00 CX One Piece
8.5%(6.1%) 05/11 9:00-9:30 CX Gegege no Kitarou
8.1%(11.0%) 05/09 19:00-19:30 EX Doraemon
8.0%(7.2%) 05/05 19:00-20:00 NTV Yatterman
7.2%(–.-%) 05/08 19:00-19:59 TX Pocket Monsters DP
6.3%(–.-%) 05/08 19:59-20:54 TX NARUTO Shippuden Special
5.1%(5.0%) 05/11 8:30-9:00 EX Yes! Precure 5 GoGo!
——————————-
4.8%(4.7%) 05/10 9:00-9:30 TX BLUE DRAGON
4.7%(4.5%) 05/10 10:00-10:30 TX Keroro Gunso
4.6%(3.2%) 05/08 24:45-25:15 CX Toshokan sensou
4.5%(4.6%) 05/10 11:20-11:45 EX Atashinchi
4.5%(4.1%) 05/10 8:30-9:00 TX Oha coliseum
3.7%(4.2%) 05/08 18:00-18:30 TX Gintama
3.5%(4.1%) 05/11 7:00-7:30 EX Kyouryuu King
3.4%(3.9%) 05/10 9:30-10:00 TX Shugochara
3.4%(2.6%) 05/11 9:30-10:00 TX Onegai my Melody kirara
3.1%(–.-%) 05/07 19:26-19:55 TX BLEACH
3.1%(2.5%) 05/11 10:00-10:30 TX Zettai karen children
2.7%(3.0%) 05/09 18:00-18:30 TX Kirarin Revolution
2.7%(2.6%) 05/08 25:25-25:55 TBS xxxHOLiC
2.7%(2.4%) 05/09 25:23-25:53 TX Golgo13
2.6%(3.0%) 05/06 24:59-25:29 NTV RD Sennou chosashitsu
2.6%(2.0%) 05/08 25:55-26:25 TBS ToLOVEru
2.5%(2.6%) 05/05 18:00-18:30 TX Soul Eater
2.4%(1.8%) 05/11 17:00-17:30 TBS Code Geass R2
2.2%(2.3%) 05/06 25:29-25:59 NTV Top Secret
2.0%(2.5%) 05/11 6:30-7:00 EX Hatarakids My Ham gumi
2.0%(1.9%) 05/09 25:55-26:25 TBS Macross FRONTIER
1.9%(3.1%) 05/11 8:30-9:00 TX Net ghost PIPOPA
1.9%(2.9%) 05/09 16:30-17:00 NTV Soreike! Anpanman
1.8%(2.0%) 05/08 17:30-18:00 TX Prince of Tennis (repeat)
1.7%(1.4%) 05/05 17:30-18:00 TX BLEACH Best Selection (repeat)
1.6%(1.3%) 05/09 26:25-26:55 TBS Itazura na Kiss
1.0%(1.8%) 05/11 25:30-26:00 TX Nabari no ou
1.0%(0.8%) 05/08 26:15-26:45 TX Soul Eater Late show

Via: ○今週のテレビアニメ視聴率○その347

Increasing oil prices and the gashapon industry

Zepy — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:36:10 +0000

Zakzak reports that the increasing oil prices recently are starting to hurt the 30 billion yen gachagacha/gashapon industry as rising costs for the production of the plastic containers to keep the gashapon in are starting to thin their profits.

Even the biggest gashapon maker Bandai who has about 65% market share has changed the 65mm containers that they’ve always used to 50mm containers since April this year so as to save costs.

Yujin which is under the other major gashapon maker Takara Tomy who owns 35% market share is also considering switching from their usual containers that use a combination of both soft and hard plastics to using containers made of only soft plastics to save in costs.

The gashapon market had been expanding at every year hitting a peak of 33.5 billion yen in 2005, but shrank to 30.5 billion yen in 2006, and with the problems of increasing oil prices also adding to the problem, gashapon makers have no choice but find ways to cut costs.

Fate/Tiger Colosseum Upper and Shinkirou

Zepy — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:39:46 +0000

The release date for Fate/Tiger Colosseum Upper has been announced along with the contents of the limited edition set MEGAMORI BOX. They’ve also revealed that Irisviel will be playable in the game, and at this rate I guess Iskander and moe moe Waver Velvet will be appearing in the game too.

Also the limited edition set will contain tarot cards from 23 different illustrators including ex-SNK illustrator Shinkirou, master of Charlie Sheen faces. Together in the set is a binder book for the tarot cards, a 72 page settings book, a drama CD, and a special DVD.

That’s almost enough extras in the limited edition set for people to buy the set for the extras and ignore the actual game!

Other

Zepy — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:17:16 +0000

Eroge brand Abogado Powers has updated their site revealing their first game Sukusuku mizugi as their first comeback title for release in July. They’ve also announced that they’ll be releasing two other games. The first game looks incredibly… generic.

I was going to write about pixy but a quick google says that Heisei Democracy already wrote something about it so I don’t have to do anything! Though, I wouldn’t be too surprised if pixy was dying even if p2p and piracy weren’t prevalent…

Tetsudou musume DS

Zepy — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:49:01 +0000

Takara Tomy has announced that they’ll be releasing a Tetsudou musume game for the DS where you play as a magazine reporter who travels around Japan to interview girls working in the Train industry. Tetsudou musume was a semi-popular line of figures made based on girls in train worker uniforms.

Appearance of Nagato Yuki

Zepy — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:06:05 +0000

The Haruhi website just updated, taking away Haruhi from the front page and replacing her with Nagato. Also the staff has been partially announced, and it looks like Ishihara Tatsuya is the director again with Takemoto Yasuhiro as assistant.

Police arrest 3 people that shared anime on Share

Zepy — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:51:37 +0000

The Kyoto police have arrested 3 men on suspect of having shared anime on the Japanese p2p program Share. I originally ignored this piece of news thinking it was another one of those arrests that don’t really have anything to do with the actual p2p sharing that’s going on, but…

The three guys arrested were apparently 92JeyRfcya, YS2YSUOe1cLtf, and YnXmHqtxqS, popular anime encoders that have encoded huge amounts of anime for p2p for a long time. So… basically, there aren’t going to be many people that will dare to encode anime for release on p2p anymore.

The future of Japanese animation is saved! (?)

Zwei II screenshots released

Zepy — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:57:54 +0000

Falcom has updated their site today announcing that Zwei II will be released in the summer this year and has released several screenshots of the game. But man, the game is in 3D! Not that I have anything against 3D, but I wish they’d continue Zwei in those awesome 2D graphics.

Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi

Zepy — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:59:49 +0000

From the June issue of Newtype. Looks like info on Haruhi season 2 is going to be in next month’s issue of Newtype (July issue).

Via: Syu’s quiz blog