First revealed at Anime Expo 2003, and confirmed earlier this year, the sci-fi anime series Titania has finally received a broadcast start date - October 2008 - as announced on the newly opened official website. For some reason, though, the project's title seems to have gone through a slight change, and is now known as Tytania.

Other than that, the anime will still be based on Yoshiki Tanaka's series of "space opera" novels, about a soldier who flees the spacefaring Titania Tytania empire and seeks refuge with a rebellion force. Tanaka previously authored other novels that went on to receive anime adaptations, such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Sohryuden: Legend of the Dragon Kings, The Heroic Legend of Arslan, and Ryoko's Case File.

Some details about the anime's cast can be found on ANN, but suffice to say that the series will be animated by the veteran studios Artland, while the CG effects will be done by Sanzigen - the company behind Gurren Lagann's 3D computer graphics.

Lolicon eroge maker Rune is slowly but surely heading for a total shutdown, after being around for nearly a decade - since 1999, when they made their debut with the game Fifth. From what Zepy reported last night, the company has been losing lots of people since early May, including, most recently, their two best known artists ever since the early days: Nonohara Miki and Akamaru. At least the latters' reason for quitting seems to have been money; or, rather, the lack of it from their supposed paychecks.

Rune's releases over the past couple of years were Fifth: Eternal Collection Box, Konya no Okazu wa Range de Marine and Yukinochi Fururu! in 2006, followed in 2007 by Purely, 8665^2 and Musume Shimai - for which we've just added some pictures in our gallery.


In light of all this, their upcoming eroge 8665^3, which luckily is mostly finished, could well be their last one. You can browse through Rune's entire catalogue on their website (or on Getchu), and they also have (had?) an imouto-brand called Cage, whose catalogue is filled with equally lolicious games; bar Pure My Imouto Milk Pudding, in which the fake lolis are actually boys. Eew.

I've left the best for last today: Kiss x Sis, a new anime announced over the weekend, based on a manga about sisterly love. And not just any kind of sisterly love, but a double step-sisterly love! That might sound a bit like Onegai Twins, but judging by the manga alone, the Kiss x Sis anime should be a lot more ecchi. Hopefully, anyway.

The original "romantic incest comedy" manga series, authored by Bow Ditama (Mahoromatic), is still ongoing, and so far it's been compiled into 2 volumes. As Zepy puts it, Kiss x Sis is "one of those manga that lies in the border between eromanga and normal manga". And you can certainly see why, if you take a look over the first chapter, available for online viewing. In short, the story (via ANN) goes like this.

"The story centers on Keita, a third-year middle school boy studying for his high school entrance exams. His two twin stepsisters Ako and Riko Suminoe - with no blood relation to him - help him prepare for the exams, but life gets too cozy between Keita and the girls."

We're still waiting for any kind of details about the Kiss x Sis anime. But I can say straight away that our incest seal of approval is as good as won.

Discontinuing today's feeble string of sequel announcements, Soul Eater is one of the ongoing animes which is not ending this month, nor is it getting a second season anytime soon (hell, there are still almost 40 episodes left!). What it is getting, however, is a Wii game called Soul Eater: Monotone Princess.

According to the official website opened by publisher Square Enix, the Soul Eater game will be released in Japan on September 25, and San'plex writes that it will be an action-adventure of sorts, featuring an original story and anime cinematics produced by studio Bones. You can see the first low-res screenshots scattered around the official website, plus a wallpaper which we took the liberty of adding locally.


Also newly announced is Macross Ace Frontier - a multiplayer 3D action game for the PSP handheld console, which will be released  (...)

 Continue reading 'Soul Eater Wii, Macross PSP Games'...

Another series ending right about now is The Tower of Druaga, and it, too, will be getting a second season. The story will thus continue with The Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk, as Gonzo calls it, but impatient fans might be disappointed to hear that the second season will start no sooner than 2009 - maybe even July 2009. And, quite frankly, we don't know yet if it will be another 12-episode series, or just a short OVA. For what it's worth, though, I'm betting on a full-fledged sequel. They should have plenty of time to make one.

Stay tuned for some artworks / fanarts of Coopa, the cutest (and only) loli from the first season of Druaga; and some with Fatina, too.

Update: There we go: Coopa and Fatina pics are now up in our gallery.

Vampire Knight, one of the anime series ending around this time of the year (on July 1), will be getting a second season, along with some sort of web-radio show hosted by fictional Cross Academy students. The announcement was made on the official website of the Vampire Knight manga and, via ANN's report, we learn that the second season will start airing in Japan during October.

As for the web-radio show, since we couldn't care less about it, we'll just quote ANN to the letter and move on to more interesting news.

"A Vampire Knight: Cross Academy Broadcasting Club web radio show will also premiere on July 7. On the radio show, Mamoru Miyano, Daisuke Kishio, Susumu Chiba, Junichi Suwabe, and Sōichiro Hoshi will play their fictional counterparts Zero Kiryū, Kaname Clan, Takuma Ichijō, Akatsuki Kain, and Senri Shiki, respectively."

We've been slacking on the news front over the weekend, due to more pressing issues - like splitting our trailers website, TVkon, over two servers (yeah, it's getting THAT big), and moving Animekon to a faster (and more reliable) server. Which meant coding, coding, and more coding... and, inevitably, a few tiny little mishaps along the way, which hopefully not too many of you noticed. But anyway, we're all done now, so let's get back to loli business.

- Innocent kids juices for sale! *Slurp, slurp*

- The flying mecha-lolis anime Strike Witches will also be aired online on Crunchyroll and YouTube, as announced by Gonzo (via Giapet). The TV series, which continues last year's Strike Witches OVA, is part of the Summer 2008 anime season, with a Japanese premiere set for July 4. And, presumably, it will also be rolled out online at the same time.

- If, like us, you're a fan of Makoto Shinkai (5cm per Second, Beyond the Clouds, Voices of a Distant Star), you might want to read this report from a screening event in London he attended on June 20. The focus was on 5cm (since it was screened there), but Shinkai talked about other things, as well, hinting that his next film will be a full-length feature.

- Miyazaki plans museum anime shorts after Ponyo. Whatever, Miyazaki is so last century, Shinkai for the win.

- Another week, another round of Akihabara killer copycats: a 19-year old boy was arrested (backup) after he posted an online threat saying "I will go to [Tokyo] Disneyland to stab visitors to death", and the police also took interest in a 16-year old girl (who wouldn't?) after she threatened (backup) on the Internet to commit mass murder in Tokyo's Shibuya district. For the first time since this month's Akiba massacre, however, somebody went one step further, slashing 3 people with a knife at the JR Osaka Station (backup). They only suffered minor injuries, but the attacker hasn't been caught, yet.

The catchingly-titled manga Kodomo no Kodomo (Child's Child), about an 11-year old girl who gets pregnant, is being adapted into a live-action movie, and ANN reports that the Japanese premiere is set for September 2008. An unrevealing trailer is up on the movie's website, and ANN has the background story if you're curious about it.

An interesting thing about this film is that, even though the subject of child pregnancy is not new, Kodomo no Kodomo pushes it far beyond below previous cinematographical takes on the issue - such as the American film Juno (about a pregnant 16-year old, played by the lolicious Ellen Page), the unrelated Korean film Jenny, Juno (15-year old), or the Japanese TV drama 14-Sai no Haha (14-year old).

The other interesting thing about the movie is the newcomer actress playing the lead role: 12-year old Haruna Amari, pictured below. Interesting from... various points of view; rotated or otherwise.


In totally unrelated "Kodomo no nyuuzu", Kodomo no Jikan appeared (sort of) in an American newspaper, as part of an advertisment for a digital TV converter box, with parental controls. The irony...

A typically sporadic update today on encubed informs us that the fan group mirror moon has finished the English translation for the third and final route of Fate/stay night - Type-Moon's best known visual novel game, along with Tsukihime (both of which, by the way, paved the way for the world in which Kara no Kyoukai takes place).

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the game is fully playable in English just yet, as there's still some editing left to do. But that shouldn't take too long, hopefully. And once it's done, Nihongo-challenged fans will finally be able to play the third route, called "Heaven's Feel", which focuses on Sakura Matou as the main female character.

Mirror moon previously released the first route called "Fate" (focusing on Saber) last year, and the second route called "Unlimited Blade Works" (Rin/Archer) in March 2008.

- Zepy exhibits a slew of details about Little Busters! EX - the ecstatic edition of Key's game which will be released on July 25 - which he extracted from the new issue of Push!! magazine. And some NSFW scans, too.

- The eroge Aneimo will be getting an adult OVA adaptation, with the first episode set for release on August 25. Needs more flatness.

- Konami will exclusively manufacture and distribute the Blue Dragon trading card game (and accessories) in North America, according to a freshly announced licensing deal with VIZ Media. What the world needs right now... is not another TCG.

- Skip Beat!, the anime adaptation revealed this week based on a girls' manga, has been officially confirmed and it will start airing this autumn.