Remember those guys from Japan who were busted for uploading animes through the Winny file-sharing network? We didn't quite grasp the extent of their piracy deeds at the time, but now ANN has an update on this story, saying that the two uploaders had even more charges stuffed up their ass by the Kyoto Police. All in all, they are accused of having uploaded over 9,000 anime episodes (yeah, literally!), since the autumn 2003.

"The police say that Sakai (ed. - uploader #1) violated Japan's Copyright Law by uploading around 5,700 episodes from about 230 titles from the fall of 2003 until this past January. The authorities further allege that Ikema (ed. - uploader #2) uploaded around 3,500 episodes from about 170 titles in the same timeframe. For example, the two are accused of uploading the second episode of the Kimikiss pure rouge anime series on October 14 of last year. According to an affidavit, the two are said to have performed these alleged actions because they "wanted to be appreciated [by the users]"."

And appreciated they were... Well, we wish them good luck with the soap!

Oh goodie, one of Japan's top ranked blogs, AkibaBlog (with some 20 million page views a month, they say), now has an English version - which I'm sure we'll be checking out frequently and vigurously as of today. From anime, manga and games, to figures, doujinshi and cosplayers news, this place has everything, right out of Tokyo's famous subcultural otaku-land Akihabara. HimeyaSoft USA are the ones doing the "Engrish" translations, and so far there only seems to be a slight delay between the blog's two versions. The blog's actual usefulness may be debatable, but... oh crap, not a Shana figure in bikini. Anything but a Shana figure in bikini! Her swimwear even changes color depending on the temperature, how woot is that.

The Pillows is just about the only Japanese band I can be bothered to write about, when a concert in the Western world is at stake. If you live anywhere near Boston, or have the means to drag yourself all the way there next month, I strongly suggest you do so, and mark your calendar for March 22 - when they'll be performing at the Hynes Convention Center, as part of the Anime Boston 2008 convention (held between March 21-23).

If the name alone doesn't ring a bell (shame on you), The Pillows is commonly known outside Japan for their kick-ass songs from the FLCL anime. But their discography goes all the way back to 1990, with some very cool early albums as well. Their latest one (though by no means the greatest) is "Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!" from 2007, from which they are likely to perform a few songs at the concert ("Wake up! dodo" and "Scarecrow" should be among them), along with some good old FLCL stuff.

I like to pop bubbles. I had the urge to pop them wide open since the day I saw my first lesbian loli fanart. But, if there are people out there who like popping a bubble or two more than I do, then it’s the Japanese.

While sharing this twisted pleasure is certainly not an issue, it still amazes me to see how far they would go in regards to marketing such useless, but funny products, products that, in any other place known to mankind, would definitely suck ass. First off, they invented the Mugen Puchi Puchi - a keychain thing that easily allowed you to endlessly pop any bubble that you please. Anywhere. Annoying everybody. Awesomely cool, ain’t it?

But since just popping bubbles tends to become utterly boring after the 2nd millionth use, the enlightened scientists at Bandai decided to add a little twist. A Moe twist, to be more precise. What they actually did was take the Mugen Puchi Puchi, add the voice talent of Kugimiya Rie (great seyuu, nice Shana performance) and... voila! An excellent device, fit for all your inner-most desires.

The newly concocted Puchi Moe comes in not less than four variations, each and everyone of them having a distinct set of Moe replies. The Tsundere, the Maid, the Little Sister (fuzzy feeling incoming) and the Childhood Friend. It is said that, after mindlessly popping the bubbles for about 50 times, you will be blessed with a voice clip, depending on the variation you have purchased. As in, if you got the Little Sister one, you will hear her desperate cries for the forever-loving onii-chan. If you stop popping, the voice will actually beg you to start again. Cool shit.

I sure do need one of these to ruin the fucking daily meetings that my boss stubbornly arranges for us each morning. I can hear it already:
Grumpy Boss That Does Not Give Me a Raise: “So, in which slavery department shall I send you today to work for free and overtime, while I spend the money I made on your back somewhere in fucking Tahiti?”
Aroused Little Sister That Just Demands to be Banged: “Noo, Nii-chan, not in THAT hole!”

Japanator scoop.

A random pat on the back always cheers people up (unless it makes them chip a tooth on the beer bottle, or outright choke to death), and websites like MotiFake are there to do just... umm, the opposite. All the while reminding us that a good laugh is just as healthy, actually. So remember, kids: next time your boss / teacher teams you up with some brain-damaged assholes, just try to convince yourself that it could be worse. And thank loli Jesus your teacher isn't Yukari!

Ghibli has been emanating boredom for far too long, so hopefully things will change for the better, now that the overrated studio has a new president: Koji Hoshino (ex-president of Walt Disney Japan) will be taking over Toshio Suzuki's prerogatives, as announced at the beginning of this month. Koji-kun previously served as executive producer for The Cat Returns and Spirited Away - the latter being just about the sole Ghibli movie that kept me awake until the end, and which I actually enjoyed.

But, then again, that Disney legacy sounds kind of creepy...

Updating this month's loli-tops proved to be a particularly difficult task, taking a bit too long as you can see, and the reason for it is quite obviously hawt: Rin Kokonoe. Well, that and the new gaming website we've just added to our network: Playkon. Between coding that, and hunting for Kodomo no Jikan pictures (regularly having to interrupt my search due to various reasons), there was little time left for World of Warcraft the truly important things in life. I did however manage to add some new Rin fanarts to our gallery, and you'll have to admit that the world seems like a much better place, once (or multiple times) you feast your eyes with them.


We'll be leaving our current top "Best Lolicon Anime of 2007" running for another month, so there's nothing new to report here (other than Kojikan's rightful leadership so far). And as for this month's poll, we hand-picked four upcoming animes to see what kind of stuff gets people excited these days: Kanokon, Mnemosyne, Real Drive and To Love-Ru. If, however, you draw your excitement from something even more weird than those, I would suggest you keep it to yourself. Sharing this kind of stuff with your boss / mom can get you in trouble.

Recently, a lot of rumors have been flooding the forever-flooded intestines of the Internets, regarding the sudden move made by ADV which involved removing no less than 37 titles, anime and live action movies alike, from the AD Vision homepage. All these titles were either distributed already, either being held under ADV’s firmly distribution grasp.

I can sympathize with my almost-fellow Americans and I can understand that many of them went nuts, probably speculating the worst. For them, especially, a certain AD Vision spokesman felt necessary to give a very vague explanation:

We know there are a lot of rumors swirling about, and that fans are looking for assurances that ADV will continue to distribute the anime series they know and love.

While we can't go into any detail at this time, please know that ADV is working through a few short-term challenges and fully intends to continue our releases.

We thank you for your patience.

Translation: None needed. These kind of statements/press releases usually mean one thing: the company has issues regarding its financial status and it’s making some decent long term marketing speculation to adjust their problems. If releasing those titles will not help getting ADV back on its feet, you can say bye bye to them.

ANN scoop.

Tired of all those casual games, specially masterminded to help you ditch work and spend your daily time on more constructive matters? Like that thing you do with bricks. Don't really know the name, it's like... stuff is filling up your screen, all in pretty colors, and you just have to mindlessly click here and there, managing to sort the bricks by the same color. Or something. Anyway, if you are not into that, but still get terribly bored while the boss is lurking around behind you, here's a nice image that will boost your observation senses.


And yes, the first thing I have spotted was Rika-chan in the top-left corner.

It seems that illegal anime downloads are starting to cause serious financial troubles for the publishers involved. While the gaming industry has managed to (sort of) find different ways of temporarily avoiding piracy, be it through services such as Steam, be it through several protection methods such as the much trashed Securom, Japanese animation can’t seem to get a hold of it, distribution-wise.

We’ve seen signs of this even in Japan, where manga and anime are virtually worshiped as gods (and for a good reason), we’ve also seen it happen in the States. Major publishers would either cancel or put on hold several series, many of them with high expectancy rates, due to the fact that, well, although they were licensed, some retards decided to leak the fansubbs all over the Internet. I won’t question their moral integrity, because that would require me to question my own (and God forbid), but on the long term, such actions may end up screwing the anime business in a very wrong way. Because, at one point, it won’t be worth it anymore.

Following the oh-so-vigorously trend of the other countries involved, Tokyopop Germany decided to put on hold all their future anime DVD releases. All of them. The action took course after the company managed to finish launching all other series previously announced, but still, ze Germans are now left with nothing but patience and hope for yet another distribution method. When Tokyopop will figure out just how to do it, of course. It is worth mentioning that, among the planned titles, lies Rozen Maiden: Traumaend, which, as we all know, has caused lots of madness throughout the virtual communities existing webwide. Tokyopop is hoping to solve this issue soon.

In other news, ADV Germany has also put its DVD releases on hold, probably due to the same piracy problems, including titles like Utawarerumono (go go Aruru in a bag), Venus Versus Virus, Moonlight Mile or Perfect Girl. It’s a shame, really, because many people are actually looking forward to buying such products. Me included.

ANN scoop.