- The Xbox 360 version of Tales of Vesperia will be released in Japan on August 7, as freshly announced by publisher Namco Bandai; but there is still no word on the PS3 version, which was temporarily confirmed last month. The game will also be released during August in North America, however the poor Europeans have had their assholes abused yet again: no Tales of Vesperia for us until 2009.

- Manga publisher Tokyopop will cut the number of titles it publishes in the UK by 20%, according to The Bookseller (via ANN). The move comes in response to the restructuring of its US parent company, which expects to suffer a 50% cut of its annual manga output.

- In more uplifting manga news, One Piece vol. 50 sells 1 million copies in one week - compared to just over 900,000 copies of Naruto vol. 42 since it was released six weeks ago.

- As feared, last Sunday's Akiba massacre has led to the abolition of the "pedestrian paradise" - meaning that the roads will no longer be closed to road traffic on Sundays. The news oozed via Japan Probe, who report that "sources have said [the suspension] will continue until at least the end of July". Not to mention the increased number of police forces patrolling with night sticks in their hands. Understandable paranoia, I guess.

Star Ocean 4 - the RPG sequel surprisingly previewed by Square Enix last Christmas - will be released (exclusively?) for the Xbox 360 console in 2009. According to Famitsu, the announcement was made at a recent Microsoft event in Japan, although some speculate that a delayed and enhanced PS3 version is all but inevitable - much like with Tales of Vesperia, another awesome looking Xbox 360 RPG confirmed for the PS3.

Following the event, Square Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi did make a comment regarding the game's exclusivity, but a clear conclusion is nowhere to be found at this time:

"We cannot announce anything on that. We can say that it will be released first [on the Xbox 360]. Whether we'll release it on the PS3 is undecided. We may release it, we may not."

The complete title of the game will be Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope, and the story will take place a few hundred years before the first Star Ocean. Below we posted some new high-res screenshots, and of course we couldn't miss this cool new trailer. Make sure you don't, either!

An official title and release date has been announced for the intriguing Suzumiya Haruhi Wii dance game, thanks to some random Famitsu scan (via The Complexity of Sankaku), which also shows a few new screenshots. You can see more of those right about here.

So, then, the game will be called Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekidou (The Excitement of Suzumiya Haruhi), and it should come out in Japan on November 27. I predict a jolly good Christmas / New Year dirty drunken dancing session! Granted my Wii will still be in one piece by then - we have yet to get our trembling hands on Super Smash Bros. Brawl around here...

- A TV anime adaptation of the To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magic Index) light novels was announced, with a story set in a fantasy world where supernatural powers exist through science, and magic exists through religion. More about it on ANN, sounds interesting.

- The upcoming fighting game Street Fighter IV will apparently have some sort of anime adaptation produced by "a famous anime studio", depicting the backgrounds of the game's characters. First images up on Eurogamer and Kotaku.

- Two manga series - Cardliver and Ghost School (Gakkou no Kaidan) - will each be getting a TV anime, as well as some other goodies like cards and a DS game. The new Ghost School anime special (not to be confused with an unrelated one from 2000-2001) will only adapt 3 stories from the manga, and will air in Japan on July 6.

- The first mini-episode of the Detroit Metal City anime (done by Studio 4°C) is being streamed on Amazon. This rock parody anime adapts a comedy manga about a shy singer's rise to glory as the lead vocalist of a death metal band, and will ship in Japan on August 8, followed by a live-action film adaptation two weeks later.

- The original Ghost in the Shell animation film will return to 5 Japanese theaters in an enhanced Ghost in the Shell 2.0 edition on July 12. "The new edition will include new computer graphics and digital effects for some scenes, and a reunion of most of the cast members for a new 6.1 surround sound recording."

- The third Bleach animation movie will premier this December, as announced by Toei Animation.

- Neo Angelique Abyss: Second Age TV anime sequel confirmed to start in Japan this July. To be ignored.

- The 30-minute long Lucky Star OVA now has a release date: August 30.

- Madhouse began making its long-delayed anime adaptation of the comedy / horror manga Hells Angels, originally announced in 2005.

- And finally, to answer the inquiries we received about that aircraft carrier manga "CVN 73", Stars and Stripes reports that the manga is now freely available online, in English and Japanese. The U.S. Navy also distributed about 800 free copies (out of the 26,000 printed) at the Yokosuka naval base, ahead of the arrival of the USS George Washington nuclear carrier, which will be stationed there from August. Much to the locals' disapproval...

Update: Added various other quick news.

Whoa, where did that come from? I may be easily surprised at this hour (6 AM with no sleep around here), but this sure is unexpected: among various other updates posted on the website of the Comic Gum magazine (it being the home of the Ikkitousen manga), a new hybrid fighting / adventure game was announced for the PSP handheld console! It's called Ikkitousen: Eloquent Fist, and it should be released on October 2.

HD promptly covered these updates, informing us that the game will feature 15 Ikkitousen heroines, and that its limited edition comes packaged with an "oyako donburi" figure - aptly described as Goei and Hakufu, in bikinis, in a bowl. Spank the image below to see the first screenshots from this Ikkitousen PSP game.


Comic Gun's update also unveils a new “key visual” for the Ikkitousen 3: Great Guardians anime series featuring Ryuubi, Kanu, Chouhi, Koumei, and Chouun (all characters from Seito Gakuen), as well as some screenshots from the first two episodes of Great Guardians. Some of those ecchi screens were previously posted on HD at a higher quality, so I suggest you go drool there instead.

And to show how much we approve of that anti-lolicon petition, here, have a juicy load of eroge hawtness, freshly harvested from the website of Natsuzora Kanata - one of the many eroge released this weekend in Japan, and the one which I found to be the most appealing.

You'll find wallpapers and pics captured from trailers in our gallery, and we also added five Natsuzora Kanata trailers locally. The first one is a generic trailer, the next three are focusing on each of the game's main female characters - Chihaya, Yuiko and Sasara - and finally there's the opening trailer. For more provocative and less safe for work samples, check the official website's gallery and, best of all, the Natsuzora Kanata demo version from the top of their downloads page. Below is just a brief story adapted from VNDB:

The protagonist, Souta is a boy who visits his aunt's house from a small island. She runs a hotel and he starts working part-time there. One day, he meets a girl, Chihaya, at the coffee shop. They become friends soon and gradually fall in love... However, this is just a beginning of a tragedy: when he meets Chihaya again later, she doesn't remember him...

Now that we got those checkpoints and round-ups out of the way, let's get down to more specific business. I particularly wanted to post this story right after today's ero-news round-up, just to show how ridiculous this whole idea of banning eroge, ero-animes and adult magazines with underaged girls really is. But first, the facts:

"The Japanese Diet is set to hear a petition for legislation which would effectively ban the vast majority of eroge and adult anime (...), as the petitioning party is particularly het up about portrayals of minority age females."

Sooo... underaged boys are ok, but not lolis? Blasphemy! Not that they have much of a chance with this outrageous petition of theirs (more outrageous than the eroge themselves, ironically). But the story doesn't end here, because Japan's Democratic Party has gone one step further. They have proposed a dystopian regime to ban all websites containing "strikingly sexually stimulating information", information promoting extreme cruelty, suicide and crime. Christ, why don't they just ban the whole internets!

Of course, this whole charade is mostly just a political propaganda, and as such it was bound to give rise to fervent protests. Which it did, as hordes of angry lolicons are now going Shion-mode in their online rantings. But from all the arguments one could come up with, against such anti-constitutional measures, nothing beats the simple statistics put together by Sankaku Complex. In short, here's the deal:

- 300 cases of child abuse a year in Japan - population: 127 million
- 7,500 similar cases in England - population: 50 million
- 50,000 similar cases in the United States - population: 300 million

I rest my case. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: a flat chest is fine, too!

Today and one week from now, on May 30, are two of the busiest days of the year for eroge fans, as they mark the release of... umm... well I can't count that high anymore after that drink earlier, but rest assured, there's plenty of them coming out. Today alone there are 17 eroge titles hitting the stores (be them retail or online), and it's going to get even hotter next week.

HD has nicely compiled lists with the 8 non-download eroge released today (including Chrono Belt and Natsuzora Kanata - for which I'll try to add some pics and trailer(s) later, looks damn fine), as well as 9 eroge available via download, some of which were previously released in stores.

Looking ahead to upcoming productions and various other ero-news, here's a quick round-up of stories you might be interested in:

- Sexfriend 2 is in the works at eroge maker Code Pink for a 2009 release, and so is another game called Sumeragi Ryouko no Bitch na Ichinichi (website) - this one should be coming out this year, on October 31. And, by the way, France Shoujo is still alive, it seems. It's another game from Code Pink's parent company Stone Heads, but through its Pil brand, and with yummy lolis by Tony Taka (see Soramizu for more of his yummy artworks).

- More HD ero-news, like new websites and such, are up here and here. Not enough lolis to make it worth our time, though.

- Zepy brings word that Little Busters! Ecstasy is going to be 2 DVDs and will need 5 GB of disk space (up from 3.5 GB in the original), along with some new scans. Among other stuff about eroge you'll find there...

- Hatsune Miku makes her official game debut in a Nintendo DS game. First trailer up on Famitsu. Not exactly ero, but hey - it's a game!

- Critical Mass Video announced the release of Slave Sisters and Slaves To Passion, an enslaving double-pack of ero-animes, on August 26. Not exactly a game, but hey - it's ero!

- And to end this round-up, Akibablog wrote about some new Code Geass R2 doujinshi, called "Majyo Yome Nikki R2". And by "wrote", I mean "posted NSFW pictures".


- I need another drink.

While we don't have any new juicy details about that Suzumiya Haruhi dance game made of Wii mentioned earlier this month, we did get our hands on a whole lotta screenshots from Famitsu, via The Complexity of Sankaku's Haruhi updates. Which is fine, too, since the pics speak for themselves loud and clear.


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 Continue reading 'Suzumiya Haruhi Wii Dance Game Screenshots'...

- The girlish fantasy light novel series Hakushaku to Yousei (Count and Fairy) will also become a manga, after an anime adaptation was announced back in February. The manga will begin at the end of August in the The Margaret magazine.

- In some random Mainichi news, Japan's loli-Princess Aiko was seen visiting a park in Tokyo (backup) on Monday, on her first school excursion. Meanwhile, a police officer from Fukuoka was arrested (backup) for involvement in child prostitution. "I was told she was 18 years old", he told investigators. Lol 18.

- The Luminous Arc 2 lolis have received a highly academic classification, based on the size of their brain boobs. In Akiba, where else! Still, some of the characters are missing from this hastily researched study, so I advise you to check them all on the official website - or better yet in our Luminous Arc 2 gallery, if you'd rather skip the gay ones. This DS game was released in Japan last week, by the way.


Update: Added a Bleach movie event trailer, promoting the upcoming screening of Bleach: Memories of Nobody in the US for two nights, on June 11 and 12.