Now that we actually have a few pictures to go by, it's time to catch up with the latest Vocaloid girl. Her name is Lily, and although she doesn't seem to have a voice-bank yet, she does have a face - once again drawn by KEI, the same artist who gave virtual life to the original Vocaloid lolis Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin, among others. This is just a short month after Miku's very hot "Append" version was also revealed.



Lily's rough character design was exposed in a certain DTM Magazine, on May 8, and naturally it didn't take long for artistically-inclined otaku to start putting out some fanarts. It's also interesting to note that her name "lily" translates to "yuri" in Japanese - a term which, of course, is more popular for its other, more arounsing meaning of girl-on-girl action.

Still, despite the fact that Lily was created by the series' "official character designer" of sorts, the music software's production company Crypton claims (...)

 Continue reading 'Lily, The New Vocaloid Blondie'...

With not much left to keep fans busy, between this month's massively pre-ordered Blu-ray and DVD edition of Evangelion: 2.22, and the yet-to-be-set premire of Evangelion: 3.0, something vaguely interesting is now rising over the horizon. Literally. Taking a queue from last year's life-size Gundam statue and other similar erections based on mecha titles, Neon Genesis Evangelion is also set to receive a life-size statue; with a couple of key distinctions.



First of all, it won't really be a complete 80-meter-tall statue, only a bust, as visitors will only be able to see the upper part of its "caged" body - like that scene from the anime, where Shinji is first introduced to the EVA-01 unit.

Second, a full-size cockpit will also be available to visitors, (...)

 Continue reading 'Evangelion Life-Size Statue, With Cockpit'...

Several reports this week, originating from Publishers Weekly and then spreading to the usual sources, have been putting Viz Media in a gloomy light, raising some concerns over its future. The North American manga and anime publisher is said to have cut its staff by up to 60 people: up to 55 from its San Francisco headquarters, and all 5 employees from its now-closed New York branch. All in all, about 40% of the employees were laid off.



Viz issued a formal announcement a couple of days ago, on Wednesday, confirming the staff cuts as part of a "process of refining its focus", but refrained from giving exact numbers. The departments affected by the layoffs included public relations, design, sales and marketing, according to some other reports yesterday.

Despite this serious restructuring, however, Viz Media let its fans know that they shouldn't go bungee-jumping off a bridge without a cord just yet: (...)

 Continue reading 'Viz Media Cuts Staff By 40%, Keeps All Series'...

I'm sure we'll be writing about this one for a long time still, even if the bill in question isn't anywhere near as drastic and oppressive as England's recent anti-lolicon law, for instance. You know the one that criminalizes mere drawings and threatens otherwise harmless lolicons with up to 3 years in jail. By comparison, Tokyo's "nonexistent youths" bill would almost seem reasonable, were it not so vague and open to (miss)interpretation.



According to the Tokyo bill's initial draft, sexualized depictions of "nonexistent youths" (2D lolis, like in manga or anime) should be prohibited from being sold to minors. But the vague language used in that draft was so... well, vague, that no consensus has been reached in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly so far, and the bill has yet to face a vote. Last month, it looked as if the debate had been pushed all the way back to September 2010 "at the earliest".

Since then, however, several members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) disputed the earlier report, saying that the bill may still be put to a vote as early as (...)

 Continue reading 'Tokyo's Vague 2D Loli Bill Not (That) Delayed'...

Things just keep getting better and better for anime streaming website Crunchyroll, who's certainly come a long way since its shady beginnings. Compared to last year's first quarter, for example, their revenue experienced over 250% growth in Q1 2010, according to the company's latest report this week. But simply boasting impressive numbers - such as 5.5 million unique visitors, 21.8 million video views and over 100 million pageviews in the month of March - is still not enough fun for them. After all, there's no fun, like making fun!

In this case, making fun of FUNimation (oh, the irony). Even when limiting their numbers to the US, in order to match FUNi's highly restrictive video streams, Crunchyroll still ranks miles above. And they clearly enjoy rubbing it in pointing it out, right there in the press release.

"According to comScore data, during the six month period leading into March 2010 (since Sept 2009), Crunchyroll realized 25% growth in unique US visitors, while Funimation saw 7% growth in US visitors during the same period. According to Quantcast analytics, over the last 30 days, Crunchyroll reached 1,336,000 unique US visitors, while Funimation recorded 157,400 US visitors. Both destinations are measured directly by Quantcast."

As if trying to fight this bad PR by comparing themselves against a better matched target, FUNimation updated their blog last night with a self-motivating entry about (...)

 Continue reading 'Crunchyroll Dwarves FUNimation In US [Update]'...

It should be obvious by now that pornography in general, and child porn in particular, are some of the easiest means to justify any (and all) political-slash-corporate ends. So easy, in fact, that they sometimes end up being abused by the very same abusers we should be fearing! All in the name of some false justice, for which the dumb herds uneducated crowds wouldn't think twice about giving up their votes. Most often because they're simply incapable of thinking for themselves.



Let me exemplify. "Child pornography is great" - these are the exact same words allegedly uttered with enthusiasm by a certain Johan Schlüter, from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group - a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations - at a seminar called "Sweden - A Safe Haven for Pirates?" (granted, the seminar took place a couple of years ago, but the quoted report follows that up with more recent developments). The group's declared Orwellian purpose: to start blocking file sharing sites.

What's one thing got to do with the other? Well, it may not be immediately obvious to us common folks. But to an unscrupulous, insidious political-slash-corporate mind, it all makes perfect sense: (...)

 Continue reading 'Child Porn Is Great, For Anti-Piracy Group'...

As you probably heard by now, there's been some good news and some bad news for lolicons around the world recently. None of which directly affect most of our readers; or this here writer, for that matter. But, nevertheless, they're both of grave importance, thus deserving of our utmost attention. If nothing else, for the hellish Orwellish precedents they are setting.

Starting with the bad news: British lolicons are fracked. Literally and up the arse, too, if they get caught with this kind of filth, jailed (for up to three years!) and ambushed in the showers while bending over to catch their slippery soap. Outrageous as it may be to any free-thinking individual, as of this April 6 in England and Wales, it is illegal to possess "non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse", or which are "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character", or depicting various kinds of sexual acts "with or in the presence of a child". Non-photographic! Just some stupid drawings, can you imagine?!

This censorship law is wrong is so many ways, I don't even know where to begin. For one thing, where are the victims? (...)

 Continue reading 'British Lolicons, Beware! Tokyo Lolicons, Relax...'...

Scrolling down on our index page, you'll see that we still have a few news gathering dust from all the way back in December. So you can literally count the number of "news" we posted this year on your fingers: not something to be proud of, sure enough. Well, if anyone was wondering what the hell is going on here, and when we'll be getting our heads out of our lazy asses, this here update is meant to put your mind at ease. Sort of.

The thing is, we're notoriously errating with our postings, as shamelessly stated on plenty other occasions, whenever we were resuming our activity after weeks or even months of slacking. Only to fade out into complacency again, a couple months later... Call it a chronic defect, from our old days of writing for monthly publications - which usually consisted of slacking for 2-3 weeks a month, and then going ape-shit in Wordpad for the last week before a deadline.

Will we ever change our way, and become a respectable, reliable anime website with constant, daily news? (...)

 Continue reading 'The State of Animekon'...

I was going to post this a lot sooner, I really was. But then - about a month ago - it hit me! What if Kiss x Sis actually qualifies for our annual "Best Lolicon Anime" award? What if those perverted Suminoe twins are in fact lolis, despite them being older than their step-brother? What if... What if a flat chest isn't fine, too!? Could humanity possibly survive such a dreadful revelation?

But, alas, it was too late for such existential doubts. By that point, way too many votes had been cast, and the fate of the Best Lolicon Anime of 2009 was all but sealed: the Kojikan lolis were once again emerging victorious, as they did when we first introduced this award two years ago, and nothing was going to stop them. So, long story short, our third annual award goes to the Kodomo no Jikan: Ni Gakki OVA.



As for Kiss x Sis, last month's poll did indeed confirm my worries: that most of you do think of Ako and Riko as being full-fledged lolis. So the question begs itself: which anime would've won, between Kodomo no Jikan: Ni Gakki and Kiss x Sis? (...)

 Continue reading 'Best Lolicon Anime of 2009 Animekon Award'...

The Surprise of Suzumiya Haruhi may very well become the title of a new anime project someday (with the complementary Kadokawa marketing fiasco, of course). But for now, that is simply the title of the next volume - the 10th one - from the light novels series which spawned this whole over-hyped franchise in the first place. The actual Japanese title is Suzumiya Haruhi no Kyougaku, as was announced yesterday in Kadokawa Shoten's The Sneaker magazine.



The same magazine's next issue will publish an excerpt from said volume, which will be Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito's first new one in three years. The word "slackers" is right on the tip of my tongue, but I dare not utter it, since I'm not much better either. The previous, 9th volume was called Suzumiya Haruhi no Bunretsu; and just as a quick reminder, this month's Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya) anime film was based on the light novels' 4th volume - so rest assured, there's plenty more material left to be animated. (...)

 Continue reading 'The Surprise (Sex) of Suzumiya Haruhi'...