Gintama and Sket Dance will get a crossover episode!!!!

OMG!!!!! This will be TEH EPIC and HISTORIC!!!!!!

The crossover manga chapters between Gintama and Sket Dance that ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine on April 11 will be animated for television . The collaborative manga chapters featured the main characters of the Gintama manga and the Sket Dance manga together. In one story, Gintamas main character Gin insults the Sket Dance characters, and Gin and Sket Dance's Bossun battle it out. The animated version of the Cross Over manga chapters involves a rare collaboration between the anime studios Sunrise (Gintama) and Tatsunoko Productions (Sket Dance). Tomokazu Sugita, the voice actor for Gin, happens to also voice the Sket Dance character Switch. The Gintama episode with Sket Dance characters will air on September 26, and the Sket Dance episode with the Gintama characters will air on September 29.

source: fresh from ANN!!!Kyaaaa!!!!!!

Un-go trailer!

Un-Go will premiere on October 13.

 In the story of Un-Go, Shinjūrō Yūki (voiced by Ryo Katsuji) and Inga (voiced by Aki Toyosaki) work together to solve mysteries in a near future timeline. The story is based on the works of Ango Sakaguchi (Aoi Bungaku Series' "In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom"), a post-World War II Japanese novel and essayist.I have great expectactions for this one since Mizushima and studio BONES worked together for Fullmetal Alchemist, and the time travel theme is also there.

source: animenation

JapanManga app for iPhone and iPod Touch offers content in various languages

Even amateur manga creators can have their work distributed that way!

The Japanese company JapanManga Inc. is currently offering an application for Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone devices titled "JapanManga." The app itself allows both professional and amateur manga creators to have their manga or doujinshi translated into other languages and distributed digitally worldwide.


Currently, the app provides manga titles in Japanese, English, and Chinese, but the company also plans on offering works in French and Korean soon. Each title, once downloaded, can be read in any of the languages offered by sliding each manga page up or down. The company is currently streaming a 62-second video on how to use the app.


The company is providing the app so foreigners can read manga in their own language and to also aid Japanese students of other languages. The app currently has seventeen manga chapters available to download for free, and the company notes new manga will be made available on the app every three days. The app also allows readers to send a message directly to the manga creator after they are done reading the chapter.


JapanManga Inc. also plans to also release the app for both Apple's iPad device and Android devices.

Source: Anime News Network

Back Office review

Back Office is a webcomic of the strip format by Mark Egan, owner of the site rawrtacular.com.

The story is loosely inspired from the author's friends of his girlfriend, without exactly being them, but rather the prototypes of persons you can find in your office, and I can certainly relate.

It starts with the main character, Mike, who returns after his sales experience to his office, a Call Center, when suddenly his colleague and his (teh evil?) boss need help because the call queue (Q-Matic) has gotten so big that it came to life in the form of a great virus!!!

Mike is transported against his will to the inner world of Q-Matic, and it's quite similar to Hueco Mundo in Bleach, the callers (clients) are alienated in rows, resigned to wait years till they are recognized at the top of the queue.

This begins the 'Second series' of the story, while the First serves as a prequel

The characters are compelling, with each contributing something unique to the story. I have a fondness for Magnus, one of the System guys, the living and breathing irony of a contemporary Cro-Magnon man whose brain melted after endless hours of programming, and now 'his head runs in a cocktail of Java and Turbo Pascal', as his friend best described it.

What I also find great is that the site's interface is very intuitive, with playback buttons that let you go forward and back, as well as the first strip, to the most current strip. The style reminds me very much of Four-coma specials that mangakas use to add comedy and depth to serious-themed stories.

While there's a solid continuity between strips, which are frequently updated every Monday, some of them can be interpreted separately, such as this that pertains to the very first strip (from the first series) published in 2010.

In regards to tone, I can say that this is like Dilbert, but with a more optimistic approach, you can identify with the character's frustration with routine and daily life in a cubicle, but they want to do something about it, they are active about the conflicts that surround them, not passive and cynical. And it doesn't lose any ounce of satire.

The story can be found here! http://rawrtacular.com/bo/ or in the banner section of this very blog!

Bleach fillerology September schedule

This Kageroza arc has been quite the mixed bag, but it seems it will end this month, with probably another filler arc following:

Episode 337 "The Developer of the Modified Souls" (改造魂魄の開発者) August 30, 2011
Epidose 338 "Kon's Thoughts, Nozomi's Thoughts" (コンの想い、望実の想い) September 6, 2011


(To be updated further)

Naruto Shippuden September schedule!

These fillers so far have been funny and well written, it seems they will keep mixing it up with the manga storyline. Naruto will face challenges as he gets to the island that the Toad Sage prophetized!

Episode 227 "The Forgotten Island" (忘却の島) September 1, 2011
Episode 228 "Fight, Rock Lee" (闘えロックリー) September 8, 2011

(to be updated further)

2nd Ben-to trailer! It will premiere on October!

The action comedy revolves around students who struggle for the opportunity to purchase half-priced supermarket packaged meals. The series will premiere in October.

Yuri Seijin Naoko-san OVA will premiere on November 30!

Aniplex has scheduled the release of animation studio ufotable’s three “Anime Bunko” OVAs.

In these three Anime Bunko OVAS package that will be available in DVD and BD, a new 30 minute Yuri Seijin Naoko-San OVA will hit on November 30.

Yuri Seijin Naoko-san is based on the gag comedy manga by Kashmir about a normal high school girl who encounters a female alien obsessed with preadolescent girls and lesbians. A short OAD adaptation was released last year.

The other series that will have this OVA treatment will be the long-awaited 40 minute long Minori Scramble! OVA, which will hit on December 7, and the 70 minute long Gyo will hit on December 14.

Brilliant!! Just Brilliant!!

source: AnimeNation

Evangelion 3.0 movie will premiere on Fall 2012

Although there's still more details that need to be sorted out, Studio Khara has announced that its third Rebuild of Evangelion feature film will hit Japanese theaters in fall 2012.

Source: AnimeNation

The Pillows rock band will be touring in the US starting on September!

The great group that provides the 1st ED song for SKET Dance 'Comic Sonic' will open in the NAP Utatane tour.

Here are the tour dates fot those who can go!!! I wish I could!!


September 5 (Monday), El Rey Theatre
Doors open 8:00 p.m./all ages
5515 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Tickets http://www.theelrey.com/

September 7 (Wednesday), San Francisco at Slim's
Doors open 7:00 p.m. / Start 8:00 p.m./all ages 6 and over
333 11th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-4313
Tickets http://www.slims-sf.com/

September 9 (Friday), Seattle at El Corazón
Doors open 8:00p.m./all ages
109 Eastlake Ave., East Seattle, WA 98109
Tickets http://www.elcorazonseattle.com/

September 11 (Sunday), New York at Blender Theatre
Doors 7:00 p.m./all ages
Gramercy, 127 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010
Tickets http://www.livenation.com/Gramercy-Theatre-tickets-New-York/venue/107

September 13 (Tuesday), Austin at SPEAKEASY
Doors open 6:00 p.m./all ages
412D Congress Ave., Austin, TX 78701
Tickets http://www.speakeasyaustin.com/

The Pillows have performed several times in the United States since 2005. The band also held a tour in the United States and Mexico in 2006. They later appeared at Anime Boston in 2008, followed by a tour of California in May of 2010.

Koji Yamamura's Muybridge's Strings trailer

Japanese website Cinema Today began streaming a 98-second trailer for "Muybridge's Strings," the latest anime short by Oscar-nominated animator Koji Yamamura ("Mt. Head," "Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor"). The trailer has different footage from the shorter trailer that Telefilm Canada streamed in May.

Telefilm Canada gave the following description of the story: "The destiny of photographer Eadweard Muybridge and that of a Japanese mother clash poetically in this exploration of the irrepressible human desire to make time stand still." The 14-minute short premiered at the Cannes Film Market, which ran in May in France alongside the more well-known Cannes Film Festival. It will then open at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography on September 17.



WOW. Just beautiful.

Source: ANN

Gintama 2nd movie will be distributed by Warner Bros Japan

Film journalist Hiroo Otaka has reported that Warner Brothers Japan will distribute the tentatively titled Gintama 2 anime film. Otaka added that the production schedule and release date of the new work are still to be decided.

Maybe for 2012?

Saint Young Men manga put on hiatus due to pregnancy of the author

Wow, just when I began to read this hilarious and hysterical manga.

'This year's 49th issue of Kodansha's Morning 2 magazine announced on Monday that the Saint Young Men manga is going on hiatus due to the pregnancy of the manga's creator, Hikaru Nakamura. The hiatus will begin with the next issue on September 22. Although the manga's return date has not been set yet, Nakamura told readers in her margin notes that she is aiming to returning as soon as possible. The manga imagines if Buddha and Jesus shared a low-rent Tokyo apartment.

Nakamura has been drawing Saint Young Men in Morning 2 since 2006 and the sixth compiled book volume shipped in December. Nakamura also created the Arakawa under the bridge manga, which has been running in Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine since 2004.'

Source: ANN

Aizen = Jose Maria Aznar without the mustache?

You're all going to call me weird and all sort of names for this, but I've always though that Captain Aizen from Bleach gives a similar air to that of the Spanish politician and former President of Spanish Governement Jose Maria Aznar, just without the mustache.

Maybe it's the hair? But Aznar doesn't have a spitcurl. What about the hairline? The nose? The expression? If anything, author Tite Kubo made very sure that the key villain (or not?) in his series looked very Spanish, to go along with the theme of 'Hueco Mundo'.

New Black Rock Shooter anime announced!

It will air in the Nnoitamina slot of Fuji TV in January of next year. While studio Ordet will animate the production, director Yutaka Yamamoto of the original OVA will not be associated with the project.

Hmm not sure what to make of this, I don't necessarily want to imply that there will be a decrease in quality until I see the first trailer, right?

Even AnimeNation's commenter notes that 'This production was easy to see coming, but airing this as a Noitamina series seems to outright contradict the original purpose and theme of Noitamina programming. The Noitamina block was launched to feature anime targeted at non-otaku viewers. BRS is about as hardcore otaku-oriented as anything gets.'

Amagami SS second season announced

The series based on a PS2 dating sim game will have a second season, though it's still unknown when it will premiere (possibly at the end of the year or next year?).

The story is about Junichi Tachibana, who got his heart broken two years ago by a girl who stood him up on a date on Christmas Eve. Now a second-year student in high school, Junichi is wary of love because of his past and dislikes celebrating Christmas. However this Christmas, his encounter with one of six girls from his school, Haruka Morishima, Kaoru Tanamachi, Sae Nakata, Ai Nanasaki, Rihoko Sakurai, or Tsukasa Ayatsuji will finally open up his heart to love again.

Amagami has also had manga adaptations in the form of short series in various magazine.

Brave 10 teaser

The historical “flash ninja action” series is based on Shimotsuki Kairi’s 2007 manga version of the Sanada Jyuushi story.



O_O...bishonen ninja

Source: Animenation

Holy Knight opening promo streamed!

The official site of this upcoming series posted a 136 second trailer that features the opening.

The story revolves around a timid orphan named Mizumura who goes to a missionary school in Tokyo. His seemingly normal life changes when a beautiful half-human Romanian girl, named Lilith, who suddenly transferred into his school. Mizumura discovers that he is actually a vampire hunter and the successor of the Romyuarudo lineage.



Hmm, sounds like the classic Bleach shonen premise mixed with vampires? It'll be something to see.

Personalized pens frenzy!

Ok, being the pencil and pen freak collector that I am, I just stumbled onto this site with great offers and coupons on personalized articles such as pens, keychains, t-shirts, bags, coffee mugs and about everything customizable you can imagine!

The quality of each item is particularly outstanding and not your standard custom items store.

Just look at their keychains here:
Go Promos Custom Keychains

The only thing you need is your logo, photo or custom design and the online tool that the site provides will allow you to come up with the exact result you want, making it fully unique with high quality materials.

There's a coupon available here:
GoPromos coupon

Curiosities special: who are the top 50 manga creators by sales?

The September issue of Nikkei entertainment magazine published a list of the top 50 manga creators by sales since January of 2010, along with other very interesting statistics:

Eichiro Oda, age 36, is in no doubt the most successful mangaka in the world, at the top of the list with 54 million sales of his trademark manga One Piece.

He is followed by Masashi Kishimoto, also age 36, his classic series Naruto has sold 11 million copies (in 2010 alone).

In the third place is Kimi ni Todoke's author Karuho Shiina, age 35, with 8 million copies sold.

The rest of the list can be seen here,

The average age of a succesful mangaka is around 30-37 years old if you look at the first 15 spots, but I would group it in the 30-40 years old group, which means that it takes quite a few years to train yourself to be a succesful artist and then get ahead with a series that will be picked up by a publishing company at around ages 25-28.

So, for a mangaka, absolute success comes later in life.

In Bakuman, the fact and Mashiro and Shuujin are almost serialized at 17 years old is pure fiction, which doesn't necessarily mean that there can't be manga authors with great talent at that age, but someone like Niizuma Eiji is a stretch of the imagination.

Beelzebub's author, Ryuhei Tamura, came in spot 21 with 2.7 million copies sold.

Yana Toboso, author of Black Butler, came in the 26th, with 2.3 million copies sold.

Author Kazue Kato of the highly acclaimed series Ao no Exorcist, came at spot 31 with 2.2 million copies sold.

And Akiko Higashimura, author of Kuragehime, came at 43th with 1.6 million copies.

Source: ANN