Otaku News

Dan Da Dan: First Encounter Review

Date: 2024 September 12 19:31 | Posted By: Joe

Dan Da Dan hits streaming services this October 2024. Ever since the anime adaption has been announced fans have been eagerly looking forward to it, not just because the manga is popular, but also because of the studio behind it - Science SARU who have released such amazing titles as Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Tatami Galaxy and Tatami Time Machine Blues. Science SARU are one those studios with cult appeal to anime fans, so the hype engine for this title was racing. Bunched together as a special preview the first 3 episodes will hit cinemas across the UK and Ireland on Friday 13th September 2024 under the title Dan Da Dan: First Encounter. We were lucky enough to get avoid getting abducted by strange beings and gained access to a special review screener. So let's find out is it actually any good?

Read More... | Souce: Otaku News

Nukozuke! by Yugi Iro Manga Release Details

Date: 2024 September 07 10:40 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The good folks from One Peace Books have just sent us details for an up coming manga Nukozuke! by Yugi Iro. It's pitched as slow-life comedy manga with a twist. Set in a world where nuko exist, they are pocket sized cat humans. Part-timer Yuya adopts two of them and it turns out that Yuya is more cat like than the nukos and they have to also look after Yuya.

It's marketed a sweet pick me up set to appeal to cat and manga lovers everywhere.

Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?! Volume 1

Date: 2024 September 06 14:41 | Posted By: Joe

In a world where everyone receives a Class and Skills at the age of ten, and where such revelations have a huge impact on one's life, Arel, the son of Sword Princess Farah and Archmage Leon, learns that he has... no class at all!

With no class, and no skills, all that's left for Arel is hard work. And so, he takes to training, utilizing wits and cunning to emerge as an all-new type of hero!

Spy x Family Code: White Movie Crunchyroll Streaming Details

Date: 2024 September 05 13:44 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks from streaming giant Crunchyroll sent us a coded message. Using the S cipher we able to decode it. It was a secret message just for our eyes, it told us that Spy x Family Code: White will be hitting the streaming service from Friday 6th September 2024.

The movie had a cinema release in April earlier this year. We'd describe the movie as exactly what'd you expect for a Spy x Family cinema outing, it felt very much like a movie length version of the TV episode with high stakes, high action and lots of laughs. You can read our review here, but to be honest now it's on Crunchyroll, you should just watch it.

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll x Bershka: Frieren and Chainsaw Man Clothing Details

Date: 2024 September 02 10:06 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Retail

The good folks from anime streaming giants Crunchyroll have sent us some details about their collaboration with clothing brand Bershka to bring us some Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Chainsaw Man clothing and accessories.

We've got Frieren t-shirts, hoodies and crop tops, a bag, a mobile phone case, plus socks! You too can finally own some Fern socks. Chainsaw Man wise we've got t-shirts, a baseball cap, jeans and a bag, all with a mix of either Chainsaw Man or Pochita. Sadly no Chainsaw Man socks.

In the past Crunchyroll have teamed up with Bershka to sell other anime inspired merchanidse, our favourite recent tie in was the Junji Ito Clothing Collection.

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?! Manga Release Details

Date: 2024 August 21 18:58 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The good folks from One Peace Books have just sent us details for an up coming manga Hero Without a Class: Who Even Needs Skills?!. Manga by Akio Nanae, with the original story by Shicio Kuzu & Yumehito Ueda. This fantasy story tells the tale of a world where everyone gets a class at the age of 10, our hero Arel doesn't get one, so he has to become a new type of hero.

The manga is due out on Sept. 17th 2024.

Crunchyroll Bring Their Anime Playlists to Spotify

Date: 2024 August 21 16:54 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks from anime streaming giants Crunchyroll have just sent us details about their anime playlists on Spotify. They've got a dedicated shelf of animated related music for your listening pleasure.

Personally at the Otaku News HQ, we listen to some Bump of Chicken, Hitsujibungaku, Yaosobi, Yoko Kanno, Radwimps and many more.

You can always visit Spotify's global Anime Hub to find some more tunes too!

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

My Hero Academia - World Best Hero - Global Character Popularity Poll

Date: 2024 August 06 19:57 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

The good folks from Japanese publishing giants Shueisha Inc have sent us details about My Hero Academia - World Best Hero - Global Character Popularity Poll. It's been set up to celebrate author Kohei Horikoshi's internationally acclaimed manga series, My Hero Academia reaching its grand finale after 10 years.

To also celebrate they'll be running a fan art contest on Twitter (the site currently called X). Shueisha Inc have also placed an advert in the New York Times to highlight the end of My Hero Academia and the poll with a message from Kohei Horikoshi.

Crunchyroll Store US Launches Summer of Anime Sales Event

Date: 2024 August 03 11:24 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Retail

The good folks from streaming giants Crunchyroll have sent us a reminder about their Summer of Anime sales events for US anime fans. The Crunchyroll Store to will have 50% off some of the store's most popular items from July 31 to August 28 2024.

Highlights for us are the Code Geass - Collector's Edition - Blu-ray, a Crunchyroll Exclusive where someone has clearly had a lot of fun with the packaging design.

Fans based in Europe should note that the Crunchyroll store has opened in the EU and UK too.

Crunchyroll Announce Free Streaming of Olympic Sport Anime

Date: 2024 July 23 18:20 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

In preparation of the sporting summer, the good folks from streaming giant Crunchyroll have just announced free streaming of Olympic sport anime. The sporting anime in question will stream for free with adverts, until 15th August 2024. Highlights include football anime Blue Lock and Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club. We highly recommend the gloriously ridiculous golf anime Birdie Wing (read our review) along with table tennis anime Ping Pong the animation.

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

My Deer Friend Nokotan Voice Actor Interview

Date: 2024 July 07 11:02 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Interviews

Madcap school comedy anime My Deer Friend Nokotan hits streaming services today. It's already caused a stir on social media with many fans hooked on the concept of a former delinquent school girl making friends with deer turned human.

The anime will be available on multiple streaming services including Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime.

Being intrigued about the anime adaption, we decided to get in touch with the Japanese Voice actors of the show to ask them more about it. So here's our interview with Megumi Han who plays Noko Shikanoko "Nokotan" and Saki Fujita who plays Torako Koshi "Koshitan".

Otaku News would like to thank Megumi Han and Saki Fujita for being available for interview and giving such awesome answers to all our questions. The anime will be available on multiple streaming services including Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime. The manga will be available in English from Seven Seas Entertainment.

Read More... | Souce: Otaku News

Blue Lock The Movie -Episode Nagi- Review

Date: 2024 July 04 20:00 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Blue Lock is the hugely successful football manga with over 30 million copies in circulation. The franchise has one season of anime so far, with a season 2 in the works. Blue Lock - Episode Nagi is a spin off of the main the main franchise, with the events following Nagi instead of Isagi.

Read More... | Souce: Otaku News

One Piece Music Symphony 25th Anniversary Concert 2024

Date: 2024 June 18 20:50 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Events

We've just received news about the upcoming One Piece Music Symphony 25th Anniversary Concert. The live show contains the most memorable moments of the TV series projected on a giant screen to the sound of a 50-musician orchestra. It's set to tour around the US from July 6th 2024, then will tour other key locations around the world including Australia , Europe and elsewhere.

UK based readers can catch the show on 16th November 2024 at the Appolo Eventim.

Human Versus Machine Japanese Translation Mini Battle

Date: 2024 May 09 20:06 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The manga tech start up Orange Inc recently raised over 19 million USD in funding for machine translated manga. We were quite intrigued because machine translation hasn't always worked out in the past for manga titles. One recent example was the Ranking of Kings Manga that had to be pulled because the quality of the translations were so poor. What's worse was the lack of quality control from everyone involved in the publishing of the title.

As we were curious, we reached out to some professional translators to ask their opinions on the current state of translation.

Read More... | Souce: Otaku News

Manga Tech Startup Orange, Inc. Raises JPY 2.9B (USD 19.5M) in Pre-Series A Financing

Date: 2024 May 09 20:06 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Manga

The people from manga tech start up Orange, Inc have sent us details about their latest fundraising. They've managed to get JPY 2.92 billion (approximately USD 19.5 million* ) fundraising in pre-series A financing.

The company pitches itself as a a manga localization technology company that uses deep learning models to translate manga. In a web comic they explain how it's not cost effective to get humans to translate the bulk of manga published in Japanese. As a result they claim less than 2% of Japanese manga has been translated.

The pitch also says they'll have skilled translators polish the output, while in reality, for a translator it's actually easier to translate directly than to tidy up machine translated text.

Machine translation does have it's place. It's frequently (and successfully) used to translate text with a consistent context, such as instruction manuals and technical documents. This text is often very dry, but also very limited in scope with fixed and repeated text. Once a human has corrected it the machine model can then use the preferred translation for that expression again and again, which makes sense in an instruction manual.

Manga however is a creative endeavour and as a result the translations have a very wide scope. Translators have to be creative, who is speaking? What's their background? What mood are they in? What's the context of what they're saying? Is it a pun? Are they speaking formally? Do they have a regional accent? This and many other factors have to be taken into account words don't always have a one to one mapping, as context and intent makes manga translation an art form unto itself.

We're reminded In an industry where companies are trying to lower translation costs at the expense of translators wages, it can make it difficult to earn money as a freelance translator when companies are trying to race to the bottom.

We're thinking if you gave the Otaku News Team 2.92 billion JPY, we wouldn't publish as much manga as Orange Inc are intending to, but we'd pay our translators, letters and other production staff a decent wage. So if any companies looking to send us almost 19.5M USD to publish, then please do get in touch. We've got a list of manga we'd like to license and translate!

On a more serious note, we reached out to a few professional translators to ask their opinion on the Orange Inc News and machine translation in general. We also got them to do a translation mini battle.

Crunchyroll Announce 3 More Titles for 2024

Date: 2024 May 08 19:40 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks from streaming giants Crunchyroll have sent us details from CCXP Mexico, where they announced some new and returning titles to the service.

Coming some time in 2024 is Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister, while set for October 2024 we have Nina the Starry Bride along with the return of Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Season 3. Re:ZERO has been hugely popular with anime fans and it's return is highly anticipated.

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

Spy x Family CODE: White Movie Review

Date: 2024 April 22 19:17 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Hugely popular anime Spy x Family is going to hit cinemas in the UK and Ireland from Friday 26th April 2024. To find a screening near you can visit spyfamilyfilm.co.uk.

But before you do, don't you want to know what we think about the movie?! Read on to read our review about the Forgers first cinematic outing.

Read More... | Souce: Otaku News

Tales of the Tendo Family Volume 1

Date: 2024 March 29 20:53 | Posted By: Joe

Masato, a son of the Tendo family, is meant to marry Hojo Ran, the daughter of a baron. There's just one problem: she's a fake. The real Ran has fled after hearing that few make it out of the Tendo family alive. In her place is a young woman who says she will die if it means saving someone else's life.

Crunchyroll Announces Spring 2024 Anime Streaming Line Up

Date: 2024 March 14 21:02 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime

The good folks from streaming giants Crunchyroll have just revealed their Spring 2024 anime line up.

The streaming service will be releasing some hotly anticipated titles. We're most looking forward to Kaiju No. 8. Based on the popular manga, the anime adaptation by Production I.G. is due out on Saturday 13th April 2024. Set in a world where giant monsters ravage Japan our hero wants to enlist in The Defence Force to help save humanity, action and a twist ensues.

Laid Back Camp returns for Season 3, we're looking forward to seeing more of this comfy camping slice of life show. We've got more of Rin, Nadeshiko and friends riding around Japanese country side. What's not to like.

While also interestingly we've got an old favourite returning. Spice and Wolf returns. The fan favourite is an interesting franchise about trading economics and a wolf girl.

There's so much to pick from this season, but one you shouldn't overlook is a new adaptation of Bartender, this version is called Bartender Glass of God. It's about bar hidden away in Tokyo, where only those truly in need seem to find it. While there the bartender just happens to make the perfect drink to sooth your worries. Each episode a different drama unfolds and we're treated to a new drink recipe.

Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron Wins An Oscar

Date: 2024 March 12 17:41 | Posted By: Joe

Category > Anime > Film

Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film 2024.

The highly coveted gold statue is considered the biggest award in Hollywood circles. Miyazaki is not only the first and only Japanese director to have won in this category, but he has also won it twice! Spirited Away won the Oscar in 2002.

Miyazaki's other movies Howl's Moving Castle and The Wind Rises have been nominated in the past, but did not win. While other Ghibli movies The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There and The Red Turtle have all been nominated previously too.

This is an exceptional achievement and marks another award on the shelf for The Boy and the Heron, which also won a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA.

Souce: The Oscars 2024

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