Not that there was any doubt about it, but the Naruto gaming franchise drags on, with the announcement of Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 for the Nintendo DS (based on the second game in the franchise, Naruto RPG 2: Chidori vs. Rasengan). Like its predecessor, the sequel will be a role-playing game developed by Tomy Corporation and published stateside by D3 Publishing, promising to feature "an all-new original storyline, a huge roster of playable characters, an improved combat system and for the first time, exciting Wi-Fi battles".

The release date is currently set for September 2008, and below are some more details about it, complemented by the first batch of screenshots.

"Naruto: Path of the Ninja 2 is set to give players a portable outlet for their inner ninja this fall. A deep, original storyline will allow players to access 30 major characters from the series, from standards such as Naruto and Sakura to unlikely allies like the weapons-based Tenten. The improved and intuitive battle system will make it easy for even the newest fighters to get into the combat, using the DS Touch Screen to unleash devastating melee and jutsu attacks on any opponent foolish enough to get in their way. The new Squad Leader and Ninja Tag systems provide even more squad-building options, while the Wi-Fi multiplayer feature offers aspiring ninja the chance to take on challengers from around the world."

- This Monday, May 12, ADV Films and LDMS (their new publishing partner in the UK) will release the following three anime DVDs: Utawarerumono volume 5: The Beast Within, 009-1 volume 3 (the final DVD), and The Wallflower Lesson 1: My Fair Bishonen (the first DVD from a 6-part series).

- The Majodou eroge has reached Gold status, and is on track for its May 30 release. The game's website was enriched with two new screenshots, a new ero-event animation, and the third Majodou trailer. Need I put a NSFW warning?

- On the subject of eroge, HD also warns that "Lilith Soft affiliate brand Pixy is in danger of financial collapse within the year, and that other major brands may soon follow".

- And there's some more ero-news today on HD, topped by the not-so-fresh announcement of a Shoujo Sect OVA (based on a hit yuri eromanga), whose first volume will be released by MS Pictures on July 25.

Update: The Bandai Entertainment website is going through a complete redesign, and they even have a blog now. All they're missing are some actualy news on it.

- New info on Suzumiya Haruhi 2 should be revealed in the July issue of the Newtype magazine (out in June), Zepy hears. This is starting to get irritating. Well, at least the Haruhi website changed its age-old front page, prompting the disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the appearance Yuki Nagato. Yum! Director Tatsuya Ishihara and assistant director Yasuhiro Takemoto are returning, Giapet notes.


- Archaic Smile is the next manga to be released by Evangelion manga artist and character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (and his mangaka wife Mako Takaha). It will be a two-installment manga serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Comic Charge magazine this month, and the story is described as a "warm, comforting romantic comedy" revolving around a couple and a... umm... Buddha statue.

- A manga based on Luminous Arc 2 Will - the Nintendo DS game which Atlus will be releasing in Japan this May 15 - has launched in the Comic Dragon Age magazine.

- 3 more file-sharers were busted in Japan for illegally spreading anime, this time via the peer-to-peer program Share (Winny's clearly-unsecure successor). Zepy points out that these were "popular anime encoders that have encoded huge amounts of anime for p2p for a long time", so there might be a shortage of raw episodes for a while, if others will be scared shitless by these arrests.

- Shin Chan free full episode streaming on IGN. Be warned, there be English dub!

- Zwei II screenshots posted on Falcom's website, along with word that the game is coming out this summer. In 3D, huh?...

Update: A Flash-animated adaptation of the Inu-Gaisha manga started to be published online, ANN reports. The manga's author, Kenji Sonishi is better known for his Neko Rahmen manga, which was also made into a web-anime, and soon a live-action movie.

Yep, it's official. The Suzumiya Haruhi Wii game that was announced last year - along with that PS2 game and a PSP game, both released back in winter - will be a dancing game, and it could come out later this year. Shock and awe.

A random Japanese blog posted a couple of Famitsu scans showing images from the game - see them here and here - and based on them, Sankaku Complex has a brief description of what it will play like.

"The latest Haruhi game for the Wii will be a dancing game, involving timing Haruhi and company's dancing with the Wiimote. (...) there will be a story mode advanced by skilful dancing, a free mode in which you can freely choose costumes, music and stage, and the dancing will be accomplished with three characters, so Kyon is unlikely to feature with Haruhi, Nagato and Mikuru on hand. Apparently, there will also be a version packaged with a figure."

Moar Haruhi dancing? In 3D? With booze? Hell yeah!

In the latest issue of Famitsu, SEGA announced World Destruction as a new "apocalypse impending" RPG for the Nintendo DS, and at the same time an anime based on the game. Both of them should appear this summer, and the anime in particular is pinned down for a July 2008 premiere.

Over on DS Fanboy, World Destruction is briefly described as "a traditional RPG with turn-based combat and giant bosses filling up both of the system's screens". The game's developer is Image Epoch (maker of Luminous Arc, another fantasy game series for the DS), and a full-page ad in the magazine links the official website to WD.sega.jp (nothing to see there so far). More scans are available on GoNintendo, who also say that the project reunites three Xenogears staffers: Masato Kato on scenario, Kunihiko Tanaka on character designs and Yasunori Mitsuda on sound. Somehow, though, I can't drag myself to get excited about it... all these eroge demos I tried today must have worn me out.

Update: ANN writes that the World Destruction anime will be produced (animated, actually) by Production I.G, and gives a brief outline of the game's story: "The game centers on a youth named Kirie Irunisu who secretly possesses the power to destroy the world. He is forced to join a party that aims not to save the world, but to eradicate it and start anew." The game also has a main heroine named Morute Ashera, who will play a bigger role in the anime version. Good to hear.

Updated #2: More production / staff details were posted on the AnimeSuki forum, along with the scan of an article about the anime, which is co-produced by Sega and Geneon.

I'm going to rip off our quick-links type of posts from Playkon (hmm, we really should get back to writing there again), and start collecting various anime / manga / whatever stories as "checkpoints". More or less like this...

- Kanojo x Kanojo x Kanojo eroge demo version up for download (288 MB), more mirrors here (try the right-side buttons). For an even quicker impression, you can see some NSFW screenshots, and a marginally safe for work wallpaper. (Update: I've been scrolling through the demo for well over an hour, and there's still no end in sight... But I'm starting to get hungry, from all these food and bento scenes. And various other things. Yummy!)

- On a side-note, eroge developer Windmill has released its CatSystem2 engine for making doujin games, free for personal use. Windmill's next title, Tsunaban - Love Mix is set for release on July 18.

- sola, Koi Kupid manga previews posted online in English by Broccoli Books. There are 9 pages from sola (Volume 1 coming this June), and 12 pages from Koi Cupid (Volume 1 released last month).

- Hanaharu Naruko (author of the Kamichu! manga), will release his first adult manga, "Shoujo Material" in May. Nice wanking material. And this one is also his, by the way. Win!

- Fate/Zero novels return in stores after four months of silence. The four volumes were originally released between December 2006 and December 2007, and their story takes place 10 years before Fate/Stay Night. Not that I care, really - I just like the covers.

Over the weekend, the game devs from Key (Kanon, Air, Clannad) announced that they will be releasing their next eroge, Little Busters EX on July 25, with pre-orders set to begin this Friday, April 25. The news pretty much ends here, but since the first Little Busters! was arguably the best sold eroge of 2007 (even though it wasn't even an eroge, go figure!), it should be worth keeping an eye on its upcoming adult version.

Little Busters EX - as in Ecstasy - introduces a new heroine named Saya Tokido (character design by Na-Ga, story by Jun Maeda), 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. A flat extra is fine, too!

Somebody, somewhere in Japan must have had way too much free time on his sticky hands, when he decided to scorn through these numbers (via Canned Dogs). It's an interesting, but otherwise simplistic statistic, showing the total number of eroge released each year, for the past 25 years. And I'm obviously not that busy, either, since I went through the trouble of re-formatting the chart below:


As you can see, there's been a pretty huge boom starting from 1997, and Zepy attributes this mainly to the release of the first visual novels - Shizuku, Kizuato, and To Heart - just before that, followed by several other big releases in 1998 (ONE), 1999 (Kana: Littul Sistur), and 2000 (Kanon). Lately, however, the numbers seem to be stalling below 600 eroge titles per year - which, oddly enough, is almost twice the number of "normal" console games released in 2007 (around 360 titles). So... yeah, there's a lot of sick people in this world. And we couldn't be happier about it.

We always knew that the people who create such perfectly sane anime / manga / games as Higurashi (or FLCL, or... Eiken) have to be perfectly sane individuals themselves. And this here news perfectly supports that belief.

As it turns out, Ishii Meguru, a developer on the Higurashi visual novel game based on one of our all-time favorite animes, has been arrested for having committed "indecent acts" with a 15-year-old loli (artworks taken from his website, by the way). And not just once or twice, but for a total of four times, during November and December 2007. gg!

According to Canned Dogs' report of the original article, Ishii Meguru also "got a female fan who posted on his blog last September to give him money if she really liked him, and called her to a hotel and collected 150,000 yen (US$1500) from her". So like... any loli fans out there who want to express their feelings through a generous donation? And in return, we wouldn't mind expressing ours through various "indecent acts".

P.S. In other Higurashi gaming news scooped from Canned Puppies, it was revealed that Higurashi Daybreak is being developed / ported on the PSP, probably based on the doujin game of the same name. Famitsu has some pics from the PSP version.

Yay, CAPCOM, our all-time favorite Japanese publisher. As we all know, amongst other exquisite gaming francises, there is this thing called Street Fighter, which will turn twenty real soon. For this awesome birthday, CAPCOM is preparing lots of goodies. Later this year, Street Fighter 4 will be released in Japan, bringing even more instant pew-pew action to all arcade fighting games fans out there.

We will also have a live action movie, set to be released sometime in 2009 (and no, I ain’t talking about that Jean Claude Van Damme bullshit that astonished us all due to its massive amount of gayness), and for that, CAPCOM confirmed the movie’s main cast.

Kristin Kreuk (whose hawtness is NOT debatable) will play our beloved “watch my foot as it breaks your neck” Chun-Li, while Michael Clark Duncan and Neal McDonough will make up for the usual lack of real men in this sort of movies. How good they will do it, it remains to be seen. The Street Fighter movie will be developed with the aid of Hyde Park Films, and it will be published by 20 Centuries and a Rabid Fox.

The official press release can be found here.