Advanced Search

Browsing Articles

ANN Interview Yoshitoshi ABe and Yasuyuki Ueda

Date: 2005 April 03 16:46 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

Those nice people over at Anime News Network have just published an interview with Yoshitoshi ABe and Yasuyuki Ueda. ABe is best known for Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmei, while Ueda the producer has been involved in everyone of ABe's shows.

Souce: Anime News Network

Idols Everywhere!

Date: 2005 March 31 16:58 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Current Affairs

Japan Today have just published an article that explains the inner workings of the Japanese Idol industry. This fascinating read highlights the fact that the Japanese industry is the reverse of the "western" industry, where Japanese Idols are hired and trained by agencies who give them a percentage of their earnings. It mentions a selection of agencies each with their own speciality in the market place. Interestingly enough agencies also teach their employees something that many western celebrities should have lessons in "things like how to hold their alcohol, how to spend money wisely".

Souce: Japan Today

ADV Manga Job Cuts

Date: 2005 March 16 17:36 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The Anime News Network have brought to our attention problems caused by a saturated anime market, this may be good for otaku with plenty to choose from and more anime than you can possibly buy in a month (unless you've got a very big disposable income), according to Publisher's Weekly ADV's manga unit has had to make some cuts. Rumours are that as many as 40 employees have been either transferred to their publishing division (which also produces Newtype USA) or made redundant.

Global Anime And Manga Market Worth US$100 Billion

Date: 2005 February 20 11:04 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

J-Marketing.net have just published a story reporting that globally the anime and manga market is worth a massive US$100 billion! Yes, you read that right one-hundred billion US dollars. The article also states that products based on characters from anime and manga always prove very popular.

Souce: J-Marketing.net

An Interview With Frederik L. Schodt

Date: 2005 February 17 18:19 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

Animation Insider have published their interview with Frederik L. Schodt and experienced Japanese language interpreter, manga translator, and author, Schodt has written some very excellent books on manga, translated both volumes of the Ghost In The Shell manga as well as many other projects. Schodt is highly respected in the anime and manga community and has even worked the late Osamu Tezuka (who is often regarded as the founder of modern anime and manga). The interview has lots of great bits of information and we really recommend reading it.

Souce: Animation Insider

Jonathan Clements Interview By AnimeOnDVD.com

Date: 2005 February 06 16:10 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Production

Incredibly nice guy Paul Jacques over at AnimeOnDVD.com went out to a pub with Jonathan Clements (writer, translator, anime expert etc...), so as well as drinking many beers (as the photo's show ^_-) Paul decided to interview Mr Clements about anime and it's good to see that as always Jonathan is refreshingly honest with his opinions.

The interview is devided into three parts:

Part 1 - in which they try to determine who buys anime, and why there were only 500 people at 1990s conventions when Overfiend sells in the tens of thousands. Jonathan also mentions a new show "Magical Princess Fluffy Tosspot", we belive this is like Schoolgirl Milky Crisis! ^_-

Part 2 - in which they discuss the values of television and ask whether the quality of anime is not strained.

Part 3 - in which they talk of critics and the media’s strange habit of redefining "anime" to mean whatever they need it to mean on any given day.

Souce: AnimeOnDVD.com

Time Warner to Co-Produce New Anime

Date: 2005 February 02 14:36 | Posted By: Spike

Category > Production

American based Time Warner and Japanese based Itochu Corporation have announced a joint venture to create a new Anime series to be broadcast at the same time in both America and Japan. While few details are currently known about the new series, the budget for this project is set to be around
20 million Yen ($US 190,000) per episode, which is a good deal higher (up to 50%) than most other animated series. The companies in question will hoping to reclaim the outlay by tying in marketing deals with toy companies and other merchandising elements and possibly marketing the series to
broadcasters abroad.

Souce: Anime News Network

Skwigly talk to C.H.A.S.E

Date: 2005 January 13 12:30 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Art

Skwigly magazine have an interesting article about C.H.A.S.E, the group behind the IMAF festival. It details a little more about the group's ambitious aims in the international anime industry, as well as talking to Dr Andre Singer the Creative Director of Chase.

Souce: Skwigly

End of an Era? Anime Industry In Crisis!

Date: 2005 January 02 15:44 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The Otaku News Crew are still in holiday mode, which explains our rather relaxed coverage recently (I am aware that a few of the crew have had far too much eggnog and mulled wine over this holiday season). This doesn't mean that the news stops however.

As if it was timed to coincide with Sky Cinema's UK Screenings of Spirited Away the alert folks over at AnimeUKNews.net have discovered that The Telegraph Arts Section has a very interesting article on the future of anime, Hayao Miyazaki's future retirement (Princess Mononoke was supposed to be his last film, as was Spirited Away) and how little an animator in the Japanese animation industry earns.

It explains that animators start as passionate otaku wanting to be part of the industry of their childhood dreams and by the time they are thirty or so realise that most supermarket clerks earn more than them so as a result decide to leave for a better paid job. It then goes on to mention the danger of foreign influences leading to anime it loosing it's appeal and it's soul.

The article has quotes from anime expert, translator and writer Jonathan Clements.

An another interesting part of the article is the bullet point at the end stating that Howl's Moving Castle will be released in the UK in the autumn. The Otaku News Crew look forward to this and will bring you more news on the subject when avaible. ^_-

Souce: Telegraph Arts Section

Move Over, Mickey Mouse-san

Date: 2004 December 12 17:31 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The Associated Press have a good write up on the Success of anime in the US, it features John Ledford of ADV Films, who describes ADV as the "anti-Disney". Since it's syndicated, it appears on quite a few news sites. Well known store Wizzywig Collectibles gets mentioned too. We recommend that you check out The Sun Herald's copy of it, even if you don't live in the South of Mississippi. ^_-

Souce: The Sun Herald

The Laughing Man - Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex's Hacker Logo

Date: 2004 November 29 11:08 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Production

The hit series Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex, features a logo for hacker and cyberterrorist "The Laughing Man", in the show he is only identified by his logo which forms a distinct part of the Standalone Complex imagery. I discovered that Paul Nicholson of Terratag designed the logo for Production I.G.

Join us as Otaku News interview Paul about creating an icon in anime!

Confirmed - James Cameron To Direct Battle Angel Alita Movie

Date: 2004 November 19 19:23 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Ever since the domain name BattleAngelAlita.com was registered in March 2000 and pointed to Foxmovies.com rumours of a live action Hollywood version of Battle Angel Alita (or Gunnm which translates as Gun Dream) started to fly. James Cameron (one of Hollywood's most sought-after directors thanks to films like Aliens Terminator, Terminator 2 and Titanic) was one of the names that was suggested to direct the movie and now according to Ain't it Cool News he has confirmed that it is indeed his next movie.

Apparently Gally/Alita will be a Computer Generated character, and the film will be shot in 3-D.

Souce: Ain\'t it Cool News

Ghost In The Shell 2 Eligible for Oscar

Date: 2004 November 05 17:50 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that eleven animated films are eligible for the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 2004 Academy Awards.

The BBC have published an article about all the features that are running. Anime News Network also have more details.
This year Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is the only anime eligible, the eleven films will compete for a maximum of three nominations, to be announced in January. One of the three nominations will then win the Oscar.

This is the forth year for the best animated feature Oscar, which was first awarded to Shrek in 2001. Then anime history was made with Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away winning in 2002, making it the first anime title to ever win an Academy award. Finding Nemo won in 2003.

Souce: BBC News

More Anime and Manga Write ups in Mainstrem Press

Date: 2004 October 23 17:13 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

Some publications have discovered anime and it seems that they want to write lots of details about it. The on-line edition of Australian Newspaper The Age (registration required) have just published a great article covering recent events in Japanese anime, it has quotes from various figureheads in the industry and mentions Mamoru Oshii, Production I.G, Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki too. This one of those articles that is good to show to your friends who think that anime and manga is not taken seriously by the mainstream press.

Souce: The Age

Animex 05 Bookings Now Open

Date: 2004 October 22 18:22 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Production

Those of you in the animation industry should pay a visit to the next Animex International Festival of Animation. This will be the sixth Animex now, and every time it just gets bigger and better. Animex will run from 31st January to 4th February at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough in the North East of England.

This year the emphasis on animation in gaming seems to have increased and as always attendees get a chance to discuss details with industry professionals such as Robin Linn, Director of Animation Production for the Digital Character Group at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Souce: Animex

Jonathan Clements Launches New Website

Date: 2004 October 16 13:26 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Websites

Jonathan Clements, writer, translator, co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia, The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, The Dorama Encyclopedia and I Love My Tamagotchi (under the name of Bronwen Komatsubara), has just e-mailed with some details regarding his new website -

"Don't know if this counts as news or not, but if it does, there is much anime goodness to be found at my website, including the English version of my Afterword to the deluxe edition of Akira, the unpublished Afterword to the Anime Encyclopedia, and several anime columns from Newtype and the Sci Fi channel."

Considering how much Jonathan Clements has done in the anime industry, I think it does count as news, so go on and have a look at his website. I'm off to find Schoolgirl Milky Crisis.

Souce: Jonathan Clements

Second Naruto Film Announced

Date: 2004 October 15 16:17 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Animaxis have posted some news about the second Naruto Movie, basic plot details are quite thin on the ground at the moment, but the film seems to be about Sasuke "being led astray" and as a result Naruto has to save the day!

Souce: Animaxis

Anime Fans At Gaming Convention Worry About Going Mainstream

Date: 2004 October 04 15:26 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > TV

After my recent post about newspapers becoming more aware of anime and it becoming more mainstream, another article has been posted this time by the Corvallis Gazette-Times. It starts by explaining what anime is and the raises a very good point that the previous articles haven't yet - the fans interviewed in the article are afraid of anime going more mainstream and becoming diluted in popular culture.

Souce: Corvallis Gazette-Times

Nintendo May Produce Anime

Date: 2004 October 01 16:32 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

According to Animaxis, at a recent press conference former Nintendo chairman and current advisor Hiroshi Yamauchi revealed that he is urging Nintendo to expand into the anime industry.

Yamauchi plans to formally propose this during the October general management conference. Now there is speculation that Nintendo would produce their own anime in the near future.

Souce: Animaxis

The Rise Of Madman Entertainment

Date: 2004 September 26 10:10 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > DVD

The Age have just posted an interesting article about the accomplishments of Australian Anime DVD firm Madman Entertainment. It mentions their success with Neon Genesis Evangelion and how the founders won the Ernst & Young's Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. UK fans will also note that MVM team up with Madman now and again to co-produce DVDs, saving costs and sharing resources.

Souce: The Age

Oh My Goddess Cast Unchanged

Date: 2004 September 25 12:50 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Anime

Oh My Goddess fans are obviously excited about the new TV series (which has been a long time coming). We're pleased to report that there are no major voice acting casting changes.

An Interview With Monica Rial

Date: 2004 September 08 15:39 | Posted By: Azure

Category > Anime

Monica Rial is an energetic American voice actress who unusually works with two studios: ADV and FUNimation. This means that she gets the opportunity to play a diverse range of characters across the anime spectrum. Fan favourites include the demure death defying Hyatt in Excel saga as well as the world famous, perky and cute Hello Kitty in Hello Kitty Mystical Theatre.

I was able to interview Monica at the UK convention Amecon (a big thanks to you all for letting us interview her ^_^) where she was invited as a special guest. This is the first time that a British convention has invited a US voice actor over, and it was interesting to note the con goer's reactions. Monica was a clear hit with the fans and I was impressed at the time she took to talk to people, whether they wanted advice or to make comments or get certain limited edition items signed. The actual interview went on for over an hour and a half. Join me as we explore the wacky world of Monica Rial!

Browsing Articles

Recent News

Recent DVD / Blu-ray Reviews

Recent Manga Reviews