Moving on to more animated licensing news, a North American distributor has finally picked up Clannad. About time! The brave one in question is ADV Films, but as for which of the various Clannad anime projects they placed their eyes and finances upon... that part is still uncertain. The annoucement was confirmed on the official website of Sogen Con (the event that started this whole mess), bluntly stating that "ADV Films has licensed CLANNAD for US distribution!". I guess we can safely assume it's not the Clannad After Story sequel; so it's either the Clannad anime, or the Clannad Movie. We'll see how this one turns out.

Meanwhile, FUNimation acquired "varied rights" for the Mushishi live-action movie, furhter squeezing their grip on the albino-emo franchise (they already had the anime version). The film will be released stateside on DVD at some point in 2009, and don't be too surprised if you see the less-poetic title "Bugmaster" slapped on its cover.


Speaking of FUNi,  (...)

 Continue reading 'Clannad Anime, Mushishi Film Licensed'...

Time for some editorial backtracking again, and we'll start with some notable licensing news from the past couple of weeks. First off, the Gurren Lagann manga was picked up by Bandai Entertainment (who else?!), as announced during the recent New York Anime Festival 2008 - which, by the way, had over 9000 over 18,000 horny attendees. The deal only covers ASCII MediaWorks' version of the manga, as illustrated by Kotarou Mori, not Kabao Kikkawa's "Gurren School Edition" version. Not yet. An all-out press release also followed one week later, but it didn't bring any new info, other than the manga's vague release timeframe - 2009.

The most abundant manga licensing deal revealed at NYAF (afaik), however, was the one announced by Yen Press. In a "burst of licensing announcements", as they put it, the company expanded its future portofolio with titles like Hero Tales (a Square Enix manga based on Chinese folklore, to be serialized in Yen Plus and collected in the first volume in October 2009), Welcome to Wakaba-soh (a school romance / slapstick comedy manga from the creator of sola), and - the most eye-catching, pants-enlarging one - Spice and Wolf (Ookami to Koushinryou). The furry fantasy novels are coming in December 2009. But if you can't hold it in that long, just use a napkin.


(Note to self: update that f...urry Horo gallery already!)

While this month's unplanned-for loli did indeed take a notable amount of my leisure time, that's not the only reason for our latest lack of activity. In a fit of workaholic rage, I finally dug up one of our old, unused domains - Scikon.com - and pieced together a modest news website which you might find useful, if science happens to be one of your fetishes, too (though I won't deny its apparent uselessness, given the alternatives out there).

Anyway, where was I... Loli-tops, aye! As I was saying, we had no particular plan for this month's loli, but while browsing some galleries for that recent Macross F movie announcement,  it  she hit me. And boy, would I hit her! So without further ado... Klan Klein, or however you want to spell her name. Enjoy!


Fine (and flat) as she may be, however, I doubt we'll find time to squeeze Macross Frontier in our shrinking anime-watching schedule, anytime soon. There are, after all, much more tempting titles out there. Which brings me to this month's top: "Best recent sci-fi anime film". Many of you seem to have enjoyed the Rebuild of Evangelion project's debut with Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. But I'm just sorry I didn't include another title in that top earlier: Gin'iro no Kami no Agito (Origin: Spirits of the Past). I've just seen it tonight, and it's quite superb!

Ah well, before we wrap this up, don't forget to throw a vote for your favorite anime format, as well. It's this month's poll, and so far the results are crushing: almost everybody would rather watch a solid series, rather than a film or OVA. Not counting ero-animes, of course.

The more I browse Internet sites in search of gaming and loli enlightenment, the more jealous I get. Really, all those wonderful Japanese games that are constantly being released make me cry a little inside and make me curse the fact that big badass publishers are refusing, on a daily basis, to release most of the said games in Europe. Or, if they somehow, by unknown and unforetold means, do it, it happens years after the game came out. But enough ranting.

Platinum Games (a studio formed in 2007, after the merging of ODD and Seeds) and Sega are planning yet another role-playing title for the Nintendo DS, namely Mugen Kouro - Infinite Space, which will supposedly find its way into stores somewhere next spring. For the game to be a big hit or, most likely, for the audience to know what the hell they are buying, the ladies at GONZO and Production I.G. will be working their asses, producing short animation movies to promote this sci-fi space butt-spanking experience. The first movie will premiere at Tokyo Game Show (yet another space-time continuum that we will be unable to attend, due to financial issues) on October 9, while the official game site will air it starting October 17.


While the game's story is quite a simple one, a Mass Effect-ish space saga, featuring a dude named Yuri and his quest to wipe the universe clean of all the renegade non-loli lovers, we are, for the moment, more interested in the visual quality of the movies. You know, since they are made by GONZO and the likes. Also, for those interested, there are some game screenshots over at IGN.

ANN scoop.

Strike Witches is teh yummy. The awesome quantity of panties on square inch was so overwhelming, that each and every decent otaku hurried recently to Akihabara, to witness the commemorative event held there, after the DVD edition was released to the public. And, as any other event of such apocalyptic standards that wants to make a difference, this one featured the whole cast on the stage, plus several interesting announcements that left the audience drolling.

The bad news is that no second season was yet linked to the press. With emphasis on YET. But, knowing how things work in this lolicious industry, I am willing to bet half of my loli idol DVDs that such an announcement will be coming soon to... ease the pressure on our hands.


The good news is that Strike Witches is getting a brand new video game, specially designed for Nintendo DS and PS2 - and while the DS version may provide us with some interesting content, mostly due to the intelligent use of the touch pen (poking little girls in various places IS fun), the PS2 one will probably stick to being a classic action adventure. Not that we have too many action adventure games on the PS2, no Sir.

Not too many details emerged so far, but we will keep you posted if any screenshots of naked and horny witches come out.

Thanks Sankaku for ze scoop.

MMO games can surely cover quite a few genders. From strategy to RPGs, from FPS to military warfare... I myself indulge in such casual activities now and then (read: more than often, or more than I should be), although restricting myself to the good ol' classic fantasy universe of World of Warcraft.

 (...)

 Continue reading 'D.A.T.E. Online, Korean Wanking MMO'...

What do we know about anime series? Well, first of all, anime series must contain lolis, lots of them, if they do not want to suck incredible amounts of ass. Second, and this seems to me just as natural as going to Japan and visiting the first kindergarden, an anime series must be successful. In Japan. Well, this seems not to be the case of Bakugan Battle Brawlers, whose immense popularity was somehow diverted towards the North-American fandom, and which, according to AnimeNation, is cleverly receiving a sequel for the same anime-addicted English speaking people.



We have here one big badass coalition, with the Canadian animation studio Nelvana Enterprises, Sega Toys Ltd., Spin Master Ltd. (another toy company), and TMS Entertainment joining hand in hand to produce this show. TMS will take care of the long and excruciating animation process, while the show will debut in North America next spring. Nothing so far about a Japanese release.

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka, the eroge-to-anime adaptation we mentioned at some point in our self-glorified history, will premiere online for free one day before its October 2 TV debut. That's the good news. Now, the bad news is only the first episode will enjoy this hot streaming treatment, stripped naked of its opening & ending animations. Aaand only the first 10,000 viewers will be allowed to enjoy the episode: first-come, first-served. If that's the case, the "service" had better be good!

So then, set your alarms for October 1 (Japan time), and make sure you have a Nico Nico Douga account before you start mashing that Refresh button, once the link goes public, cause that's where Episode 1 will be streaming. We still have that registration process walkthrough for Nico, by the way.

Veteran anime studio Ghibli is teaming up with game developer Level-5 (Dragon Quest VIII, Rogue Galaxy) for a new Nintendo DS game going by the name of Ni no Kuni: The Another World, or simply Ninokuni. It seems like a pretty cute-, albeit childish-looking fantasy RPG - as can be seen below - and it's scheduled for release in Japan during 2009.



You won't find much else about it on the official website, but the original announcement made in the latest Famitsu magazine does shed some light on what to expect from Ninokuni. Shameless copy-paste from Gamekyo (via AnimeNation) follows.

- The animation in the game is all by Studio Ghibli.
- Level-5's first 10th Anniversary product.
- There will be a book bundled with the game filled with information on various magic crests and spell recipes. This 'Magic Master' book is something that the main character in the game has, and the player will need to refer to from time to time while playing the game.
- There will be a console version of the game, but the hardware is not decided yet.
- They want the console version to offer something different for people that have already played the DS version, the selection of the hardware will be based on which is most suitable for this purpose.
- The exact same book will be packaged with the console version as well.

First delayed, and now cancelled... That's just great! Surely, one cancellation story wasn't enough for today. But anyway, Gia scribbled a death note from the ongoing New York Anime Festival 2008, to let us know that Bandai Entertainment has officially dropped both Sola and True Tears, after having licensed them for North America at the beginning of this year.

Cancellations make lolis sad. And pandas, too.

Update: ANN has an update on this issue, clearing things up a bit. As it stands now, Bandai only cancelled the English-language release of Sola and True Tears, but will still release them as single-DVD boxes with Japanese audio and English subtitles. No idea when, though, and still no word on Shigofumi's status.

"The sola anime will ship with all 13 television episodes and two video episodes with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles for US$44.98. The entire true tears series will ship with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles for US$39.98."