Category > Anime
The good folks at anime distributors Anime Limited have just sent us details of their new hire and key leadership promotion.
The anime firm have announced that they've hired Miles Thomas as their new Chief Marketing Officer. Miles was previously at the anime streaming giants Crunchyroll for 8 years making waves as he expanded their social media network and setup the Editorial Programming department. He brings his industry and domain knowledge to an already strong firm.
Internally there's been a bit of a restructure with Jessica Poce having also been appointed Chief Operating Officer and Kerry Kasim has been promoted from her position as VP Marketing to the role of General Manager, UK and Ireland.
The details of the expansion plan aren't fully explained in the press release, they hint at expanding to other territories and verticals. Reading in-between the lines we're guessing they intend to expand their music offerings and maybe their streaming services, but we're just inferring this from their press release.
It's interesting to see the next stage in the anime industry as Manga Entertainment fades away as it gets absorbed into Funimation, which in turn also owns Crunchyroll.
Anime Limited has always had excellently presented releases. Their collectors and ultimate editions always contain a ton of extra content and are fantastically packaged (we're eager to get our hands on their upcoming release of Violet Evergarden). They've also always been good at cinema releases, bringing Your Name and Mirai to name a few to the big screens. Anime Limited have also gone the extra mile at events as they tend to bring guests from Japan to events like the MCM London Comic Con. We hope they continue with these core strengths as they expand and are interested to see what they've got planned.
Read More... | Souce: Anime Limited
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have revealed their line up for Spring 2021.
It includes the return of old favourites such as the highly anticipated latest season of My Hero Academia, some new Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Digimon Adventure and of course One Piece. Along with the conclusion of Fruits Basket, titled Fruits Basket: The Final Season (hmmm, a bit like Attack on Titan there).
New seasons include To Your Eternity, which we're curious to see how the anime adaption will compare to the manga. The intriguing ODDTAXI, plus a whole crop of different titles such as Tokyo Revengers, Zombie Land Saga Revenge (Season 2), The Slime Diaries, JORAN THE PRINCESS OF SNOW AND BLOOD, Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won't Lose, Those Snow White Note.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
The good people from One Peace Books have just sent us the release details I Hear the Sunspot: Limit Volume 3. The final volume of the manga is due out on 13th April 2021. The publishers promise us that "The moving love story between two young men, the hard-of-hearing Kohei and the eternally-optimistic Taichi, reaches a tear-jerking finale".
They also tell us it's "Praised for its nuanced representation of disability, and named a best graphic novel for teens in 2019 and 2020 by the American Library Association's YALSA division, I Hear the Sunspot: Limit showcases the protagonists' immense emotional growth while continuing its thoughtful exploration of disability representation and issues."
One Peace Book always publish an interesting range of manga, and this one is certainly worth adding to your reading list.
You can pre-order the book from all the usual places including Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, US Bookshop.org, UK Bookshop.org.
Read More... | Souce: One Peace Books
Category > Anime
For those anime fans out there that enjoy a dub, you'll be pleased to hear that anime streaming service Crunchyroll have revealed their anime dub line ups for some of the top shows of the latest seasons of Dr Stone, Jujutsu Kaisen and Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
After showing off their releases for the start of 2021, Discotek have announced the next batch of titles for 2021. Unlike their earlier announcement, these titles have no release dates or preorder link details.
The list includes older titles, OVA's, newer shows and standalone movies. They also gave an update on their future release of Project A-Ko on blu-ray.
Titles announced are:
Read More... | Souce: Discotek Media
Category > Anime
Localising manga is more than just buying the rights and getting it translated, there's also sorts of factors to consider to bring it to market. While people often consider the translation there's another part of the localisation process to consider, the letterer! All the words you read on the page aren't just magically put into place, there's actually a lot of art and craft to lettering a manga page. So we thought we'd catch up with a manga letterer to find out more about the process.
Sara Linsley is a software developer and comic book letterer living in NYC, she has done lettering for manga including Sweat and Soap, Spoof on Titan, LDK and Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. Recently she's also just released a font of her own intended for manga use! We thought we'd catch up with Sara over e-mail to find out how letterer can make or break a good localisation.
Read More... | Souce: Otaku News
Category > Anime
The news is out! Streaming anime platform Crunchyroll have just been bought by Sony for $1.175 billion (USD). In their corporate structure Sony will put Crunchyroll as part of the Funimation Global Group.
This means Sony now own a substantial amount of the English speaking distribution companies, in the UK they own Manga Entertainment UK along with Funimation UK and in Australia they own Madman Anime Group (which was a part of Madman Entertainment) and in the US they own Funimation.
Crunchyroll's General Manager Joanne Waage says:
"We are excited to embark on this new journey. Crunchyroll has built a world-class brand with a passionate fan-base of over 3M subscribers, 50M social followers and 90M registered users. These amazing fans have helped to propel anime into a global phenomenon,
"Combining the strength of the Crunchyroll brand and the expertise of our global team with Funimation is an exciting prospect and a win for the incredible art form of anime."
Lots of people are publishing their own opinion on this acquisition. At Otaku News our own opinion on this is neutral to negative. We've been hearing whispers of this deal for at least a month. Funimation now have a large chunk of the English speaking anime distribution market and a monopoly of anime streaming services. Worldwide their competition includes Netflix which have been releasing some truly excellent and innovate anime recently. Also consider Amazon Video who do have some good titles such as Vinland Saga but is limited and discovery of decent anime on the Amazon platform is difficult at best.
Additionally less competition generally means less innovation and a lower likelihood of beating their rivals offerings. So those nagging issues with video play back on certain versions of certain players might not be prioritised to fix any more. The question remains what will happen now that Funimation has two streaming platforms with their own Funimation offering and Crunchyroll. Will they be merged under one brand? Will they be kept separate and the technology consolidated? When such technology platforms get merged, it isn't always the best platform that wins, there could be other internal considerations that don't always present as a good result to end users.
Will all the Funimation titles be ported across to Crunchyroll now or vis-versa? Will some titles where the streaming rights are owned by other companies be pulled from Crunchyroll now they're owned by a rival? What will happen to staff with duplicated roles in both companies? At this stage it's all speculation and we'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
Read More... | Souce: AT&T
Category > Anime
The good folks from manga subscription service Mangamo. They've just released their app on Android, so you can grab it from the Google Play Store. The app is already available iOS (iPhone and iPad) on the Apple App Store.
The app itself has a great collection of top tier manga titles including Attack On Titan, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Fire Force, In/Spectre and Fairy Tail. A subscription costs $4.99 USD a month and is a great way to read manga officially. The service is offering a 30-day free trial for new Android users and is also available globally for iOS and offering a 30-day free trial for new iOS users. So you can try before you buy.
Sony have also just invested in Mangamo via the Sony Innovation Fund. Sony have a large interest in the anime industry already owning 95% of Funimation, in turn also own Manga Entertainment in the UK and Madman Anime Group via Aniplex. So it looks like Sony is also expanding into manga distribution!
Read More... | Souce: Mangamo
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have just announced their dub line ups for autumn 2020.
It includes the dub of Jujutsu Kaisen, I'm Standing on a Million Lives, Tonikawa: Over the Moon For You and Noblesse
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
Hot on the heels of Anime Limited's own solicitations for 2021, US anime label Discotek Media has announced its latest batch of releases. These include their second 4K UHD release and an SD on BD release.
The line up is as follows:
Read More... | Souce: Discotek Media
Category > Anime
The good folks from One Peace Books have sent us details of their latest manga acquisition - Farming Life in Another World. The isekai manga is pitched as guy gets transported to fantasy world, but instead of fighting monsters and villains he sets up a farm and gets involved in agriculture. It forms part of that isekai sub-genre of getting transported to another world and doing normal things (we're thinking of The Hero and His Elf Bride Open a Pizza Parlour in Another World, amongst others). This is the manga adaptation of the popular light novel of the same name by Kinosuke Naito.
Farming Life in Another World comes out on Wednesday October 28th 2020 in print and digital. You can pre-order it from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Read More... | Souce: One Peace Books
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us details of a new title released in October 2020. Burn the Witch is based on the manga by Tite Kubo, who is best known for Bleach. This anime is set in the same universe, but this time around in London! Not normal London, Reverse London, a special hidden side of city where dragons roam. The story focuses on the adventures of witch duo Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole who are protection agents for Wing Bind (WB) an organisation for dragon conservation and management.
The trailer shows scenes from London, that are all around Westminster. We've got the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge, and other Thames landmarks making prominent appearances, City of London Dragon Crests, a shot that looks like Shad Thames. We really love playing a game of spot the locations with stuff like this! Some artistic liberties seem to have been taken, does that looks like a US style fire hydrant in the trailer (blink and you'll miss it)? But then again Reverse London could indeed have American style fire hydrants as they've also got an Emergency Dragon Blockade System (this is one of the unwritten rules of London, you don't talk about the Emergency Dragon Blockade System, it's just known, like standing on the right and walking on the left on the escalator...).
If you big action and shonen then it looks the Burn The Witch anime will hit the spot. It'll hit Crunchyroll early October 2020.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
The good people from streaming service Crunchyroll have just sent us details of their up coming anime release. Jujutsu Kaisen will stream from October 2020 exclusively on the streaming platform. The show is a dark fantasy horror focusing on a world where Curses can run rampant.
The series is based on the manga by Gege Akutami and is currently being released by Viz in English. You can buy it from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk if you want to get ahead and see what to expect!
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us the details of them passing a landmark number. They now have over 3 million subscribers, and over 70 million registered users.
To put this in perspective, when Crunchyroll started in 2006, it took about 10 years for them to hit 1 million subscribers, then it took them 2 years after that to break over 2 million subscribers. These are users who pay to use Crunchyroll and get to avoid ads along with seeing anime ahead of regular registered users.
The press release includes an interesting infographic detailing the growth of the service. It's always interesting to see actual numbers too.
On average subscribers watch 100 minutes of content a day (which works out about 4 25 minute episodes). This is about 35 billion minutes viewed over the past year.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
It's convention season and traditionally a time of big license announcements, but conventions aren't really running in the physical world, however Anime Expo Lite offered a virtual experience and the chance for companies to announce their up coming releases and acquisitions.
Yen Press have just announced 13 new manga acquisition, which include
Read More... | Souce: Yen Press
Category > Anime
Anime streaming service Crunchyroll have just sent us details of a great article they've put up exploring the real world locations used in the anime Sing 'Yesterday' For Me. It's always interesting to see how detailed and close to real world locations certain anime titles are.
We must admit we've got a soft spot for title, it's a bit of a slow burner gentle slice of life romance. You can catch it now on Crunchyroll.
We've also run similar articles before, including that time we discovered the actual house used in Kinmoza. Kinmoza is currently available to watch on Crunchyroll too.
Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
The good folks at anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us news about Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 2 along with with OVA dub premiere of Rent-A-Girlfriend.
The OVA for Ascendance of a Bookworm (episodes 14.5 part 1 and part 2) will launch on Crunchyroll on Saturday, 13th June 2020, and episode 15 will launch on Saturday 20th June 2020.
Meanwhile Rent-A-Girlfriend will start on Crunchyroll as part of the summer season.
As we've covered before Crunchyroll are also keen to share that their whole dub cast have been working from home recently.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
While lock down has impacted events for anime fans around the globe there is a good range of virtual events cropping up. Up this weekend is Cloud Matsuri. Set to run online from Saturday 30th to Sunday 31st May 2020, the event will play host to top Japanese industry figures along with UK based and US anime firms.
You can access all the streams for the event for free with details to do so via Cloud Matsuri's website.
Read More... | Souce: Cloud Matsuri
Category > Anime
It's the start of convention season, while events are inevitably being postponed or cancelled due to COVID-19 online events are becoming a sensible alternative and Anime Limited are stepping up with their buddies to launch Cloud Matsuri.
The virtual convention is set to run on Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st May 2020. The event is completely free.
The show will feature exclusive interviews and talks with special guest from the world of anime and more.
They're hinting that there will be more guests to announce, but the line up they're showing us at the moment is fantastic with Eunyoung Choi - CEO & Executive Producer, Science SARU (most recently responsible for the fabulous Keep Your Hands off Eizouken). Eiji Inomoto President & Founder, Studio Orange. The CG specialists created Land of the Lustrous and Beastars. Shuzo Shiota president of Polygon Pictures (who are involved in Knights of Sidonia and AJIN: Demi-Human to name a few). They'll also have Yasuhiro Kamimura CEO of GroundWorks Co., Ltd who will talk about his career to date and share stories with managing the Evangelion brand.
Read More... | Souce: Cloud Matsuri
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us news about their current dubbing process. Dedicated to bringing you anime under lockdown their current cast of voice actors are currently recording from home to ensure you'll still keep getting English dubbed versions.
They've now switched to a fully-remote workflow. We wonder if this will become the new normal for voice actors? Normally most anime voice actors in the US are based in industry hubs near LA, Texas and sometimes New York, but now will they be able search for new talent further afield?
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
We've just been sent the details of a new mobile manga subscription service. Mangamo promises more titles than any other legal mobile manga service.
It's currently on iOS Devices (iPhone and iPad) with subscriptions costing $4.99 USD a month. The Tokyo based company has partnered with 11 publishers to bring the wide range of titles, including Attack on Titan, Battle Angel Alita, Somali and the Forest Spirit, along with Fire Force and many more titles. A full list of current titles can be found here. They also promise regular updates to the titles available.
Mangamo is available on the Apple App Store globally with the exception of Japan, China and Korea. Currently all titles are in English.
As this is a legal service you can be certain that the money goes back to the original creators helping fund the manga industry itself.
Read More... | Souce: Mangamo
Category > Anime
The good folks from anime streaming service Crunchyroll have sent us some exciting details about their latest venture - Crunchyroll Originals. We're told the shows, produced with respected publishers including Kodansha, animation studios such as MAPPA, and from Crunchyroll Studios, represent Crunchyroll's continued commitment to delight fans and expand the global anime community through fresh stories and unique perspectives from a global slate of creators.
They've got some original anime content that you can watch now, including In/Spectre, which mixes monsters and mystery.
Interestedly they've also sourced some great content from other parts of the world. UK based fans may already be familiar with with the excellent FreakAngels graphic novels from Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Culture
Readers in academic circles may be interested to hear about this call for chapter proposals. It's for a book devoted to archival research in anime and manga fandom before the year 2000. Co-edited by anime and manga expert Helen McCarthy and Dr. Darren-Jon Ashmore, Professor of Anthropology, Yamanashi Gakuin University.
Helen McCarthy tells us "Independent scholars are welcome to submit, you don't have to be attached to an institution, anime and manga don't have to be your primary areas of study if you are. We're really keen to get new thinking and rigorous archival research"
Details can be found on https://cfplist.com/CFP/25594.
Souce: CFP List
Category > Anime
We're currently really enjoying anime studio Science SARU's latest show Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!. It's a delightful series that really captures of the passion, joy and excitement of being anime fan. Not only that, but it enthusiastically explains what makes certain anime titles so great.
Along the for the imaginative ride it takes us on we were keen to find out more. The good folks at anime streaming service Crunchyroll helped us by sending us an interview with Eunyoung Choi who is producer and co-founder of Science SARU. They've even let us publish the interview ahead of their news letter.
Read More... | Souce: Crunchyroll
Category > Anime
MCM Comic Con London and Anime Limited frequently team up to bring great guests to the event. MCM Comic Con London October 2019 was no exception, with not one, but two guests of honour - anime directors Shinichiro Watanabe (best known for Cowboy Bebop) and Motonobu Hori a rising star in the anime industry.
We caught up with the two directors at MCM Comic Con London to talk about their latest project the fanatic Carole & Tuesday.
Read More... | Souce: Otaku News
Category > Anime
If you like your anime with a musical twist, you can't go wrong to catch Carole & Tuesday on Netflix. From Bones and Shinichiro Watanabe it charts the story of two girls brought together by chance to make music. Watanabe is the supervising director for this show, while Motonobu Hori is also directing.
Music is a constant recurring theme for Watanabe, with the sound track dominating he shows such as Cowboy Bebop, while he's also been responsible for Kids on the Slope anime about two boys coming of age and exploring jazz together.
The 12 episode Carole & Tuesday is out now on Netflix dubbed into English, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Castilian Spanish. It's available subbed in many languages too, including English. So yes, you can watch it in the original Japanese and one of 28 different languages.
Catch it now!
The studio are also lunching a fanart contest. First prize is 100,000 Japanese Yen Prize money!
Read More... | Souce: Carole & Tuesday Offical Website
Category > Anime
Not all quests are epic. Which is why we've been sent details about Chris and Kyle, two Americans who share an apartment in Tokyo. One day their toilet seat broke, which leads onto their adventures to find a suitable replacement. The trouble starts when they realise they don't know the Japanese word for toilet seat! Want to know more? Then you can find out by watching The Benza a 6 series comedy on Amazon Prime currently streaming in the US, UK, Germany and Japan.
Made on a budget of 2,000,000 yen (about 18,840 USD) the show explores what it's like to go hunting for a toilet seat in Japan.
Read More... | Souce: Tokyo Cowboys
Category > Anime
On Thursday 18th of July at 10:30am tragedy struck Kyoto Animation. An arsonist started an explosive fire. The resulting fire killed 33 people and injured 35 others, with most of the victims dying from carbon monoxide posing as a result of the fire. This attack is the deadliest in post war Japan, killing more people than the 1995 sarin nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo Subway system.
Kyoto Animation is affectionately abbreviated to KyoAni. They've produced many hit anime titles including The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On, Full Metal Panic, Free!, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and Violet Evergarden. They've had success with movie adaptations of various series plus have created popular movies such as A Silent Voice.
KyoAni are renowned for their animation quality and for producing memorable titles with a gentle charm to them. They are a studio with a special relationship with their staff, the staff hired as salaried employees and not paid by frame like some other animation houses.
There's been an outpouring of grief and support from fans all around the world.
US distributors Sentai and Aniplex have both set up crowd funding campaigns help.
You can read more about this story on:
Souce: NHK World
Category > Press Releases
The good folks from anime distributors Manga Entertainment UK have just sent us some interesting news. They've been acquired by anime distributor Funimation. The details of the acquisition have not been revealed.
It's not exactly clear at this stage what will happen to Manga Entertainment UK in the long term. They're strong anime brand in the UK releasing popular shonen titles including Dragon Ball Z, Bleach and Naruto. They frequently have a big presence at events like MCM Comic Con London. They've always been around in one form or another on the UK anime scene. Clearly the executives at Funimation have a plan for Manga Entertainment UK, but at this stage it's not clear what it'll be. Will they slowly be rebranded and absorbed into Funimation? Or will they remain a subsidiary? Only time will tell.
Read More... | Souce: Manga Entertainment UK
Category > Anime
Manga Publisher Seven Seas Entertainment have just announced 3 new license acquisitions that'll arrive in shops in the final months of 2019. They've got Dance in the Vampire Bund: A.S.O. Volume 1 which will hit shelves on October 8th 2019. ASO stands for Age of Scarlet Order and continues the adventures of Mina and Akira. They'll also be re-releasing the original Dance in the Vampire Bund manga volumes in digital format in 2019.
If you fancy some fashionable cooking manga with a twist then Gal Gohan could be the title for you. Volume 1 will be out on December 10th 2019 on print and digital.
Finally they'll also be releasing the Kickstater hit ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip. The manga-style Girls' Love/yuri graphic novel about motorcycles and romance will be released in print and digital on October 8th 2019.
Read More... | Souce: Seven Seas Entertainment
Category > Anime
Manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment have just sent a reminder about I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. The movie hits cinemas around the US soon. They're keen to remind us that they've recently released the original light novel and it's manga adaptation in print and digital platforms. The weepy romantic story has a legion of fans and we're eager to see it too.
As always you can buy the original light novel from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. The manga is also available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
If you want to keep track of other release dates we suggest you check our out sister site the Otaku Calendar, which lists events and release dates of interest to anime and manga fans.
Read More... | Souce: Seven Seas Entertainment
Category > Anime
Mamoru Hosoda's latest movie Mirai has been nominated for an Oscar for Animated Feature Film. It made the the list of final nominees which also includes Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Mirai's nomination is significant as it's the first anime film to be nominated that isn't from Studio Ghibli. Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away was nominated in 2002 and won the Oscar, being to date the only animated movie from Japan to win the prize.
Read More... | Souce: The Oscars Website
Category > Anime
A new year marks a new load of releases from manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment. They've sent us a ton of press releases telling us all about them. Rather than spread them across a dozen pages, here's the full list:
Read More... | Souce: Seven Seas Entertainment
Category > Anime
Streaming Service Netflix have just revealed that they will be showing anime Neon Genesis Evangelion worldwide starting from Spring 2019. Announced on their NXOnNetflix Twitter feed as a teaser trailer of the show.
The original Neon Genesis Evangelion TV Series is generally regarded as one of the greatest anime TV shows of it's era. In the mid 1990's it lit the flames for a new wave of anime that still carries on to this day. Without the anime boom it caused the anime industry itself would be very different. Australian Anime Distributors Madman Entertainment owed their early success to Neon Genesis Evangelion. For many it was the watershed title that helped them discover anime.
Written and directed by the otaku's otaku Hideaki Anno the multi-layered story blends a bleak future mixed with giant robots, nostalgia for 1960's adventure, along with Christian symbolism and nods to Tokusatsu, Thunderbirds, along with a special blend of whiny teenage angst and reasons to hate your father. You'll never listen to Ode to Joy the same way again.
The hugely influential show, spawned some movies, plus the rebuild series of new movies retelling the story with a different take, various manga spin offs, plus an endless stream of merchandise.
Souce: Offical NXOnNetflix Twitter
Category > Anime
The good folks at US anime distributors Nozomi Entertainment have launched a Kickstarter to dub Emma A Victorian Romance Anime TV Series Season 1. The anime series is based of Kaoru Mori's much loved manga by the same name. It follows the Victorian tale of Emma a maid who falls in love with William a well to do gentleman. The original manga is lavish and very well researched, this naturally transitioned into the anime.
Read More... | Souce: Nozomi Entertainment Kickstarter
US anime distributor Eleven Arts have sent us details of their latest acquisition The Laws Of The Universe-Part I, the sequel to The Laws Of The Universe-Part 0. The film will get a simultaneous world premiere with Japan on October 12th, 2018. The film will have an English dub.
Read More... | Souce: Eleven Arts
Category > Anime
The good folks from manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment have sent us a friendly reminder about Cutie Honey: The Classic Collection. The hard cover book captures Go Nagai's original 1973 story in print and is out on Tuesday August 28th 2018.
You can pre-order the manga from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Read More... | Souce: Seven Seas Entertainment
The good folks from Eleven Arts have sent us details for the US and Canadian Theatrical release of Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms. The film will be released in the US and Canada on July 20th, 2018. Visit their site to find a screening near you.
As we've already mentioned Maquia hits UK cinemas from Wednesday 27th June 2018.
Read More... | Souce: Eleven Arts
Category > Anime
Are you an aspiring manga artist? Do you want to get the attention of the manga industry? Well the Silent Manga Audition are running another manga competition. The clever twist is that you're not allowed to use dialogue, hence Silent Manga, this is clever as it makes it more international.
There are 3 themes for this round Fairness / Respect / Teamwork. The themes are chosen to encourage creation of works that will help promote the spirit of 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The deadline is 31st of March 2018. The top prize is 500,00 JPY (about $4,438 USD, €3,782 EUR, £3,396 GBP at the time of writing).
Read More... | Souce: SMAC! - Silent Manga Audition
Category > Anime
Funimation and Crunchyroll have signalled a major change to their platforms as they announce plans to cross-share content. The deal will make major changes for US, Canadian, UK and Ireland customers of both platforms.
Read More... | Souce: FunimationNow UK/ROI blog
Category > Culture
Fans of Japanese music will want to tune into NHK World this weekend to watch Entertainment Nippon's coverage Asian Kung-Fu Generation.
The band has been running for 20 years, you may know their music from the hugely popular anime show Erased. Entertainment Nippon is due to air Saturday 5th March 2016 at 4:10, 11:10, 16:10 and 22:10 (UTC).
NHK World is a free to air station, and is broadcast dubbed into English or with English subtitles.
NHK World is available in the UK on the following
Sky Channel 507
Freestat Channel 209
Virgin Media Channel 625
They offer free live streaming if you don't have a service able to watch it.
It's also widely available around the world, so could be available in your region.
Read More... | Souce: NHK World
Category > Retail
We've just got news from the good folks at Viewster about their latest Omakase goody box. The concept is simple, every two months they release a new themed box with merchandise from that series / theme. Along with a box of stuff, you also get access to Viewster's high definition ad-free streaming service. They'll ship to the United States, Canada and the UK.
The next box which is due out in March will feature Vocaloid Hatsune Miku and include exclusive Piapro Character Items. The box will retail for $29 USD (plus shipping and handling, which does vary where it's sent).
Previous themes have included Naruto and Kill La Kill.
Read More... | Souce: Omakase
Category > Features
Whether I'm reviewing or not, when I go in to watch a new feature film, I try to read up on it as little as possible. With Miss Hokusai, I had only seen the short Japanese trailer (on purpose, so I wouldn't understand everything), and later skimmed the first few paragraphs of the production notes, handed to me when I walked into the screening. What I was expecting was something of a behind-the-scenes, biographical approach to Katsushika Hokusai's life, through his daughter's eyes. But instead I got something a little different.
Read More... | Souce: Otaku News
Category > Anime
Streaming company Viewster have sent us details of their latest Omakase goodie box. This time around the box is filled with Naruto Shippuden goodies, and also includes a $40 coupon to US Anime convention AX 2016.
For those curious we reviewed the first Omakase Box, which featured Kill la Kill goodies.
Read More... | Souce: Viewster
Category > Anime
Streaming Service Viewster have just launched a new package aimed at anime fans. Omakase includes a subscription to their HD Ad-free service, plus a bimonthly box of goodies, including merchandise, music and comics. The boxes will feature limited edition and exclusive stuff. Their launch box will feature exclusive Kill la Kill merchandise.
The Omakase service will be available in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
A subscription currently costs $29 (USD) for 2 months, plus shipping and handling.
Read More... | Souce: Viewster
Category > Features
It's not often you get to see behind the scenes of the anime industry and find out what it's really like. This week the Japan Foundation in London hosted a talk called Inside The Industry: Anime.
The event brought together:
Hirokatsu Kihara who worked at Studio Ghibli before becoming a best selling author.
Michihiko Suwa who works as Chief Producer at the Animation Department of Yomiuri TV and credits include Detective Conan (aka Case Closed) anime.
Aya Suzuki a British/Japanese Layout artist, 2D Character/FX animator and occasional animation lecturer. Projects worked on include (but are not limited to) Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises at Studio Ghibli, plus Mamoru Hosoda's Wolf Children.
Stephen Cavalier acted as chair, bringing his two decades experience in the animation and games industries along with authoring a book on The World History of Animation
The event ran on Monday 13th July 2015. It was free to attend and it was so popular there was waiting list. The audience was a mix of anime/manga fans along with animation students and animation industry professionals.
Read More... | Souce: Otaku News
Category > Anime
It's always interesting to keep up to date with industry news. The good folks from streaming service Viewster have sent us details of their new office. It seems that they'll be setting up in Los Angeles. This means they'll be expanding and perhaps getting some additional interesting licenses too.
Viewster also intend to start a premium service soon. This makes sense, as they currently have a free to view option that is add supported. Services like Crunchyroll have proven that some anime fans are willing to pay for an ad free offering.
Read More... | Souce: Viewster
Category > Anime
The Second Season of Kinmoza is now airing. No sooner than the first episode of season 2 was simulcast on Crunchyroll, US anime firm Sentai Filmworks announced that they have the US rights to the second season.
The second season is called Hello!! Kinmoza, and appears to more of the same moe anime as the first season. The show follows the gentle everyday adventures of Alice a British schoolgirl living in Japan with her best friend Shino. They go to school and talk about how blonde Alice's hair is. The show is based of a 4 panel manga.
We must admit that the Otaku News Team have a soft spot for the show. While it's light and fluffy content wise, the animation studio did it's research in the UK and found a location suitable for Alice's house. Otaku News had the world exclusive revealing the British location for Kinmoza as B&B Fosse Farm.
Kinmoza Season 1 is available to buy from Amazon.com on DVD and Blu-ray.
Readers (include those in the UK) can watch Kinmoza season 1 and 2 on Crunchyroll.
Read More... | Souce: Sentai Filmworks
Category > Anime
Fan favourite series comes to US Hulu streaming platform with English dubbed version coming in 2015
Read More... | Souce: Hulu
Category > Anime
North American based readers who are fans of classic anime Sailor Moon will be pleased to hear that you can now watch it streaming on Hulu and Hulu Plus. VIZ Media will premiere SAILOR MOON Episodes 1-4 (subbed) today on its free NeonAlley.com.
Those readers outside North America will note that the streams are geo-locked. So you'll have to find your own local legal rights holder to watch Sailor Moon.
Read More... | Souce: Viz Media
Category > Anime
VIZ Media announce the licensing of the Sailor Moon animated library for streaming and home video release in North America.
Read More... | Souce: Anime News Network