- Soul Eater will get two anime specials, airing in Japan in a couple of weeks: "Clip! Clap!" on May 28, and "Ninki Bakuhatsu! Soul Eater Oitsuke! Oikose! Saki made Misemasu!" on June 1.

- Giapet has word from this weekend's internets-challenged Anime Central convention that ADV has cancelled their panel entirely, and apparently Viz didn't show up, either. So FUNimation pretty much ruled the show.

- Tales of Vesperia, the awesome-looking RPG known to be in development for the Xbox 360, was temporarily confirmed for PS3, as well... Until, that is, Namco Bandai fixed their bureaucratic blunder.

- "A most comprehensive comparison of the differences between Lucky Star's Tsukasa, as drawn by each animator of the series, as well as Haruhi's characters" can be thoroughly analyzed, via Sankaku Complex. Cool stuff, if only I wasn't so tired for playing "spot the difference" at this hour.

My epic lazyness has finally succumbed under the frustration of not being able to group news, images and trailers around games, like we're already doing with animes (call me a control freak). So after sacrificing a day with coding and nerve-wrecking database linking, we can joyfully welcome you to our new "Games" section here on Animekon. We'll be using it to better organize our wanking highly professional editorial and visual materials, be it gaming news, gaming trailers, or - more and more often - eroge images.

We hope you'll find it useful (and bug-less), and should you need more info about a particular game - such as release dates, producers, official website etc. - odds are you'll find them on VNDB (Visual Novel Database). There's an automatic link to them included on each of our game pages, unless the game in question isn't a visual novel / adventure / eroge / galge of some sort, and as a result can't be found on VNDB. Or in other words, the title is too mainstream (think Final Fantasy), in which case... just fucking Google it.

Now, back to our usual program.

How many kids on your block own a game console? Less than 20% if you live in a third'ish-world country? Over 50% if you're among the more privileged Earthlings? Well then, imagine a whole country where over 95% of kids (fifth-year elementary school kids, to be more precise) have at least one game console of their own. Welcome... to the land of Japan!

This utopic figure came up from a survey released by the National Congress of Parents and Teachers Associations of Japan (PTA), according to Mainichi (here's a backup of the soon-to-disappear report). The survey, called "Attitude Survey on Children and the Media" revealed a 2% increase from last year (when "only" about 93% of kids had a console), and a similar trend was observed among high-schoolers, almost 91% of them enjoying the same playful status.

Genre wise, action games seem to be the most popular ones (30.9%), followed closely by RPGs (28.4%). And, not surprisingly, adult games with sexual content are also played by elementary school kids, even though only 2.5% of them would admit it. There are a few more mobile- and TV-related stats in the report, if you're curious.

The solution for the new puzzling license hinted today on FUNimation's website comes from AnimeOnDVD, who uncontestedly matched it to a DVD cover for Shigurui - last year's samurai anime created by studio Madhouse. Although how exactly this qualifies as "OMG NO WAY"... is beyond me. Once again, since the anime is only 12-episode long, they will likely release it as a single DVD, during 2009. We'll get back after they make the official announcement later on today.

In the meantime, AnimeOnDVD also caught word that FUNimation will be "talking about all their new acquisitions at Anime Central at their panel this weekend at 4:30pm Central Time and that they still have a whole lot more to talk about in the... days ahead". Giapet says that the final new license will be revealed on Saturday at the Anime Central convention, but that FUNi also has another announcement reserved for Monday. More hints for it will be given at their panel on Saturday. Confused yet?

Update: Giapet thinks that Monday's license announcement will be Romeo x Juliet, based on some new hints sent by FUNi.

Update #2: The confirmation arrived (complete with a high-res poster art), and indeed it's coming in 2009 on a single DVD, under the title Shigurui: Death Frenzy. The press release claims there's a video on the newly opened website, but hell if I can find it.

Aside from going over the 4 new eroge released today, HD continues with his regular daily ero-news, among which lies a highly tempting link to the first Little Busters! EX trailer. The devs from Key (Kanon, Air, Clannad) stuffed over 3 minutes of visual goodness in it, and since none of it qualifies as hentai, we're fearlessly adding the trailer here on Animekon - along with more clear captures from it in our eroge gallery.

Also known as Little Busters! Ecstasy, this ecchi'fied version of last year's best-selling pseudo-eroge will be released on July 25. The game introduces a new heroine named Tokido Saya, adds new playable scenarios for two of the former supporting female characters (Sasami and Kanata), along with some new CG, mini-games and "a really big extra" hidden in the game. Oh, and adult content to all heroines.

P.S. Gief anime, already!

- The two-decade old Here is Greenwood manga (Koko wa Green Wood) will be adapted into a live-action TV drama series starting this July, as announced on its website. There was also a Greenwood OVA, but that was like 15 years ago, no way we saw it.

- Remember that "Clannad malware" creator? As it turns out, he was sentenced to two years in prison. And that's basically just for "violating Clannad's copyrights and defaming another student", not for actually creating the malware and hiding it within some Clannad images - which, apparently, is perfectly legal in Japan.

- A 2.5-meter tall figure of a boy "ejaculating in lasso-like form", created by anime-influenced pop "artist" Takashi Murakami, was sold for over $15 million at an auction in New York. There's a lot of sick people in this world...

- One year ago, the visual novel game Narcissu: Side 2nd was released in Japan by stage nana, and a fan translation immediately began. Today, encubed offers a little teaser released by one of the guys working on it - direct download links here and here. Unsubbed trailer below.

We're going to go with ANN's decryption of the latest hint posted on FUNimation's website, and confidently say that their licensing spree will continue with the announcement of Soukou no Strain later on today. And when that happens, we'll return with any relevant details, such as the format (a single DVD comprising all 13 episodes, most likely) and its American release date (I'm guessing 2009, given the progression so far).

We're still carrying the promo trailer for this loli-infused mecha anime, and until FUNi brings their own synopsis to the table, here's the classic one:

"In the distant future, the mankind is divided into two powers; Union and Deague. They have continued long war that no one is sure when it began. Union uses manned weapons, Strain, as the main military power, while Deague uses unmmand weapons Tumoru.

Sara Viereck, a daughter of a good family, is a Union's 16-year-old girl who goes to Grapera Space Armed Soldier Academy locates in Cranial Solar System in order to become a full-fledged Reasoner (a pilot of Strain)."

Update: Indeed, FUNi confirmed the acquisition from Happinet, announcing its plans to release all 13 episodes on a single DVD in March 2009, under the title Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry. They're also offering a new trailer on their Strain website, which we have now added locally.

As annouced not too long ago, Right Stuf and their product division Nozomi Entertainment will be bringing the Maria-sama ga Miteru anime series to North America, in the shape and form of 3 DVDs - one for each season aired so far in Japan (the fourth one being still in production). Last night they sent along a newsletter pointing us to Right Stuf's website for Maria-sama (or MariMite, if you prefer), where they are showing a trailer for the Season 1 DVD collection - also viewable locally.


Stateside, this yuri'esque slice-of-life catholic-school anime will be published under the title Maria Watches Over Us, and the Season 1 DVD should be released on July 29. It will include all 13 episodes, plus the 7 "Season 1 Specials", with Japanese audio, two English subtitle tracks (regular dialogue subtitles, plus a special subtitle track that includes Japanese honorifics) and English on-screen translations.

Seeing how the original series of light novels has been going on and on for the past decade - and still is, after 32 volumes - the question arises: will it ever end?

The end of this month will be a most joyous time for eroge fans, with plenty of new titles lined up for release. One of them is The Devil on G-string (G-senjou no Maou), a very hawt looking drama / mystery / romance visual novel coming on May 29 from developer Akabei Soft2, upon which I happened to stumble today. Seeing all the visual goodness offered on its website, I couldn't resist the temptation to grab it all (except for the NSFW bits) and share it here.

For starters, you can see the game's female characters and various high-res screenshots in our eroge gallery. Yeah, I know, it's kind of messy in there - what with no grouping around games - we really should add a "Games" section one of these days... But anyway, we also added three Devil on G-string trailers - here, here and here - and they're perfectly safe for watching at work, or in other non-private locations. Enjoy!

P.S. There also appears to be two demo versions in the official website's Download section, but sadly I couldn't manage to get any of them running (same nasty error). If anyone has any tips for my trembling hands, by all means, do share.

- Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody will be screened in the US by VIZ Media and NCM Fathom, much like they're doing with the Death Note live-action movie next week. Except that the Bleach anime movie (dubbed in English) will be in theatres on June 11 and 12.

- The Death Note manga was given the Eagle Award by the comic fans of the United Kingdom. The tasteless majority of them, anyway.

Update: The first full-color picture for the upcoming Dragonball live-action movie popped up, if you thought the pseudo-colored scan was too icky.