Category — Anime & Manga

An ichiokuen (¥100M)-worth “Super Celebrity” version of the Japanese doll named Licca had been spotted in Kobe’s Sogo Kobe Store last September 4. Aparently, the store wasn’t able to sell the nice precious doll so Licca is now here in Tokyo from yesterday (September 23) at Ikebukuro’s Seibu Department Store.  Wonder why a doll could cost so much? That’d be because of 881 bits of diamond showered all around the doll. I don’t know, I might have to throw in a few hundred million yen if my daughters make a scene pointing to the doll, wouldn’t you? 

Mobile Manga, or comics consumable on a mobile phone is booming in Japan, and is on the way to being a hit overseas. NHK features this news on the innovation of Japanese manga on the market frontier. iPhone which has debuted in Japan last month was predicted to be the one mobile phone that could push the popularity of manga not only in Japan, but globally. Hmmn, I don’t know, reading manga I seem to like to see the whole cover or the combination of manga cells in one frame better than just cell by cell. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to - what say you? 

Two Brazilians, Jessica Moreira Rocha Campos and and Gabriel Niemietz Braz, won the Cosplay competition dubbed World Cosplay Summit 2008 held at Nagoya last Sunday. The pair got the highest praise after impersonating characters from the animated series, “Burst Angel”. Other interesting cosplay duos from around the world also joined the fun. Want to watch how the other cosplay exhibitionists fare the competition? Or maybe you’d like to see if some of them came from your country. Wish granted, here is the awarding clip and some highlights of the competition:

JR East has launched a fleet of bullet trains decorated with Pokemon characters for the summer holidays. From Mainichi Daily News:

At Ueno Station, Pokemon character Pikachu made an appearance and saw off smiling children boarding the bullet trains. “I was surprised to see Pikachu, but I really like the character so I’m happy,” said one 7-year-old boy who was traveling to Iwate Prefecture with his family on the first day of operation. “It’s a cool bullet train,” he added.

The Pokemon-themed bullet trains are part of a joint campaign with All Nippon Airways which also fields planes decorated with the characters.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (崖の上のポニョ), Hayao Miyazaki’s new animation since Howl’s Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城) and based loosely on Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, debuts in movie houses all over Japan. It tells of the tale of a fish-girl Ponyo who yearns to be human and rides a jellyfish to escape her home in sea.

“101 minutes of bliss,” says Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). “Hayao Miyazaki delivers another classic“: Japan Times (4 stars out of 5). The Daily Yomiuri gives it 3.5 stars out of 5.

Below is a TV clip with the film’s trailer. You can go to the official site here and a list of theaters in Japan showing the movie here.