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BREAKING: Stabbing Rampage in Akihabara Kills At Least Six, Injures 12 Others

June 8, 2008 in Japan, News by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 7 comments

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)]

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Two Funimation Updates: Ouran Dub Tricklings and a Podcast

June 7, 2008 in News by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 2 comments


Two Funimation related news bits came out today: the first is that two Ouran dub roles have been revealed and the second that Funimation will launch a video podcast on Monday the 9th. Carrie Savage (Karen Ichijo in School Rumble) will voice Momoka Kuragano and Eric Vale (Yuki Sohma in Fruits Basket) has been cast as Toru Suzushima. These are definitely minor characters since Momoka first appears in episode 21 while Toru has a part of the second episode but doesn’t show up again until the school festival episode (#25). Looking at the show’s website, it seems that two more minor voices will unveiled every Friday until their one-hour panel at Anime Expo, where I would expect the main cast to be unveiled. I suck at guessing silhouettes so I’m not going to speculate on one-shot characters.

Regarding Funimation’s new podcast, it is called “The Funimation Update” and will feature original programming hosted by Todd Haberkorn. Todd is a voice actor and ADR director who seems to be doing informal PR work for the company as well, having attended Anime Boston and SakuraCon and planning to hit Anime Vegas as well. The first one will supposedly focus the adaptation of One Piece and Shin-chan as well as the general localization process. I’ll give it a shot when it comes out but I may be distracted by the WWDC keynote announcements that morning.

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TAMnI Light Novel Series To Become October Anime

June 3, 2008 in News by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 2 comments


A Moon Phase comment has said that an anime adaption of the light novel series To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) was confirmed in the 16th volume’s promo sleeve, according to ANN. (Moetron’s post about this news has a picture of an in-store display and a link to a MAD opening.)

The basic plot involves Touma Kajimou, a high school boy who possesses a large psychic power called “Imagine Breaker” that can cancel magic but also causes him horrible luck. He finds a Church of England nun, Index, hanging over his railing whose memories have been forcibly replaced by over 100,000 forbidden magic texts of the Church. Look for TAMnI (tam-ni?) to hit Japanese TV screens this October as yet another light novel-to-anime adaptation – spring 2008 anime Spice and Wolf and Wagaya no Oinari-sama originated as light novels.
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Lagann Ani-Monday Announcement, Nico News Style

May 27, 2008 in Video by Tom Langston (calaggie) | No comments


I found this news report on Nico and want to say two things about it:

1) It’s odd but a bit nice that the synthesized-voiced reporter felt the Gurren Lagann/Sci-Fi Monday deal was important enough to pass along to the NicoNico audience (about 700 views worth). Here’s the related story from Anime! Anime!.

2) That was one of the driest news reports I’ve ever seen, but it does get the information across in a straightforward way.

For those who don’t know, Weiß Schwarz is a 2 player trading card game like Project Revolution where you try to beat your opponent by using characters from various series. In the case of the advertised TCG, the series currently involved include Zero no Tsukaima, Little Busters!, Disagea, and Persona 3. [Akibahara Channel]

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Geneon In Talks With Outside Distributor?

May 9, 2008 in News by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 2 comments

In this week’s Anime Corner Store newsletter, Robert divulged a small update on the Geneon situation, namely, that they have been “in serious talks with a major US home entertainment distributor” (Paramount?) to get some of their series back on store shelves. He can’t reveal any specifics at the risk of ruining his firm’s relationship but he did say the company is new to the anime space, that they will likely pick and choose which titles are included in the deal.

I would expect an announcement to occur in the next couple months if a deal indeed gets made. You can read the unedited section from this week’s newsletter yourself after the jump and begin to speculate on your own.
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