I saw the above book on Akibablog and instantly wanted to buy it. Published by Daiwa Shobo and retailing for 1400 yen (tax excluded), it contains profiles and illustrations of 54 philosophers paired with diagrams explaining their particular theories and Tetsu-chan (哲ちゃん) chiming in.
Profile on Socrates
It’s split into five chapters that cover ancient philosophers including Thales, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Marcus Antonius; medieval philosophers such as Jesus (really?), Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and Machiavelli; early modern philosophers like Luther, Michel de Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, and Kant; “present-day” philosophers such as Sartre and Foucault; and Eastern philosophers like Confucius and Kitaro Nishida.
On Thursday, the Chiba Lotte Marines beat the Hiroshima Carp 23-2, bolstered by a Japan-record 15-run sixth inning and a grand slam by third baseman Toshiaki Imae as part of a five-run third. (Mainichi Daily News – NPB boxscore – Marines boxscore w/ innings) The previous Japanese record for runs in a single inning was reportedly 14, but I cannot seem to find out who or when that was set. I was able to find multiple instances of 13 runs in a single frame including Hanshin in the 6th vs. Sankei (now Yakult) [May 27, 1969], Yomiuri in the 6th vs. Hanshin [June 23, 1972], and Yakult in the 1st vs. Chunichi [April 22, 1998]
Former NY Mets manager Bobby Valentine is helming the Marines and was told before the season that his contract would not renewed for 2010 and beyond. A group seeking to keep on Valentine has collected 100,000 signatures on a petition that they will send to the front office on Monday. After Saturday’s set of games, Chiba Lotte is currently 5th in the Pacific League (24-29-3) and 8 games behind the Nippon Ham Fighters. Last season, they finished 4th place in their league with a 73-70-1 record, just missing the playoffs by a half-game.
On April 18 in US baseball, the Cleveland Indians scored 14 runs in the second inning of a 22-4 win over the NY Yankees. It was the Yankees’ third home game at the new Yankee Stadium. The major league record for most runs scored in a single inning by one team is 18, set by the Boston Red Sox in the 7th frame of a June 18, 1953 game against the Detroit Tigers – the final score of that one: 23-3. (Retrosheet)
Kadokawa uploaded the above CM to its YouTube channel Friday to advertise Vol. 1 of Haruhi-chan/Churuya-san will come out on DVD May 29th for 5040 yen (about US$50). According to Animate, volume 2 and volume 3 have dates of June 25th and July 30th, respectively.
CDJapan lists the runtime for each of the three volumes (vol. 1 page) as 40 minutes, meaning one volume should contain about eight episodes of each series, assuming an average time of 3-3:30 minutes per Haruhi-chan episode and 1:30-2 min. for Churuya-san episodes. The CM also mentions first pressing extras of a soundtrack CD for volume 1 and four commentary cards & one of five bromide character cards for each subsequent volume.
When I heard on Monday that Wednesday’s Anime Almanac post would involve what Scott thought about Crunchyroll, I began thinking about writing a post that both responded to his essay and the two-part interview ICv2 posted with Crunchyroll Ken Gao. But then I got distracted and didn’t read either until Thursday, which happened to be when the post-publicationfeedback focused on credit and a rehashed discussion of the usefulness/lack thereof of comments. Read the rest of this entry »
I received my first legitimate press release in the site’s inbox this evening and it did not seem exciting at first. It was sent by the The New Media Group and announced a collaborative content-sharing service to launch this December with Nico Nico Douga where Nico users will be able to view content from 20 “official providers” including as TNMG’s IPTV platform World On-Demand, MTV Japan, Avex, Bandai, and Livedoor. Wait, Bandai?!?
Yes, the anime and tokusatsu producer-slash-distributor is listed as one of many partners involved in this project (unclear if it is specifically Bandai Visual, Sunrise or both) so I have a little excuse to write about this. Frankly, there aren’t many juicy details except that Nico reportedly has 9.3 million Japanese (and secret foreign?) subscribers and commands either 2.3 or 2.9 million daily unique users, depending on whom from TNMG is trying to impress people. Simon Godden, President of e-learning service Teacher Tom Japan, thinks “this [deal] is a home run” so it must be great, right? Um, it guess it would be nice if you wanted to leave streams of comments on top of official music videos and foreign content as well as the swath of Touhou, IM@S, and Miku MADs that currently inhabit the site.
At any rate, you can read the entire release after the jump to get a few more optimistic quotes from executives focused on expanding the global reach of their managed brands. Read the rest of this entry »
So I was scanning my local paper while eating Rice Krispies and a pear for breakfast (the “snap, crackle, and pop” sound is a novelty that will never fade for me) when I spotted the above in the Cost Plus circular and decided I HAD to scan it for a jocular post.
Firstly, I don’t think Ramune is very new at all considering I’ve seen at local supermarkets for a few years. Secondly, the phrase “Japan is just wild” demonstrates the kind of naive fascination that comprises the average consumer’s perception of the chain. Thirdly, I would rather wait until I go to Japantown to buy Ramune for about a dollar a bottle and instead indulge on an 80-cent bottle of Jarritos that has twice the volume.
On a more positive note, I did learn that lychee was a flavor and (from the back page) that they have 6-packs of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale for sale, which I am considering trying closer to October. If you care to see the above listing in its full-page context, you can see it after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Inventorspot (via Mahalo) reports that a number of companies such as Geo and Dibra are offering extra-wide contact lenses that are tinted prominently on the outer ring to mirror the big-eyed look familiar to those with 2D complexes. Contact lenses in cosplay are not new to me since The Contact Lens Company (yes, that’s their name) had a booth in AX’s dealer hall – those are strange on their own because the irises don’t appear to move and sometimes freak me out. These appear to be more general use lenses as they work like clear contacts and you can have them made to order. It’s just…*sigh* why aren’t normal sized eyes good enough? I know it’s Japan and some women want to appear younger but really?
P.S. If I had the choice between wearing glasses and wearing contacts I’d spring for glasses because I have an aversion to touching my own eyeballs and might have trouble putting in contacts. Plus you shouldn’t lose glasses as often. Thank goodness I have fine vision so I don’t have to deal with either.
No anime-equivalent pictures this time, just real life photos.
I just happened to be browsing the Twitter site Summize when I saw Tokyo was a “trending topic” and quickly found out there was a stabbing in the Akihabara district. The incident occurred around lunchtime in central Tokyo when 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato drove a 2-ton rented truck into a crowd of pedestrians, running over three people. He then got out of the vehicle and began to stabbing passersby with a survival knife. Initial reports described Kato as a gang member but those were later found not to be true.
[Coverage: BBC News | NY Times (via AP) | Reuters | CNN | Mainichi (English) | Akibablog (photos) | ize.ne.jp (w/ slideshow) | ANN (w/ updates)]
Last week Ian Lucas, a Labour member of the British Parliament representing Wrexham, called for the Union Jack to be redesigned to include the Wales red dragon and properly represent the region as a part of Great Britain. At first, submissions for possible designs sent into the Telegraph were mainly from within the country but then 2-channelers lent their assistance with some clever designs. There was the above entry with Louise from Zero no Tsukaima… Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a while (about nine months) since I’ve composed a This Week in Akiba post, probably because I check out each entry that week and from Oct 29th to Nov 4th, there were about forty-seven. I picked out nine that I thought were interesting enough to share with you.
Profile on Socrates
No anime-equivalent pictures this time, just real life photos.
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