Otaku Crave

Two Senior Executives Leave Funimation

ICv2 is reporting that Funimation’s Chief Operating Officer Ward Thomas and Senior Vice President of Marketing Debra Kennedy have left the company. Thomas joined Funimation as Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations in 2005, after it was acquired by Navarre Corporation. At Navarre, he had been an account executive, and later, Director of Sales. According to ICv2, he will be returning to the software industry.

Kennedy, a Harvard Business School MBA, had previously worked for Blockbuster, where she had been in charge of videogame marketing, and for Nokia Mobile Phones North America. She was a frequent conference speaker, and presented a keynote address on the future of anime in North America at this year’s Anime Expo.

Half-Year Anime DVD Sales Figures for Japan Released

According to data released by the Japan Video Software Association (JVA), profits from the sale and rental of DVDs declined slightly in Japan for the first half (January through June) of 2007, but sales of Japanese animation DVDs have gone up. The data was released earlier this week.

The JVA report says that animation (both Japanese and foreign) makes up 45 billion yen (about US$390 million) of the total DVD rental and sales figures. Of that amount, 13.9 billion yen (US$120 million) came from video rental — a significant drop from the 16.7 billion yen (US$144 million) figure from the first half of 2006. Sales, however, went up to 31.2 billion yen (US$270 million) from 31.1 billion yen (US$269 million) last year.

Of that 31.2 billion yen made in sales, Japanese animation for general audiences (as opposed to Japanese animation aimed at just children) accounted for 28.5 billion yen (about US$246 million), a 15% increase from 24.7 billion yen (about US$214 million) last year. Since an overwhelming majority of the anime sold commercially is geared towards an older audience, it is highly likely that franchises popular with anime fans were a significant contributor to the increase in sales. Growth of profits is continuing at a pace similar to the increase from last year, indicating a steady progression towards greater profits from anime sales.

The JVA estimates that the total profit from DVD and video sales and rentals in Japan for the first half of 2007 is 147.8 billion yen (US$1.28 billion). If figures are accurate, anime represents 29.4% of that total.

Death Note’s English Dub Premieres on Web, Television

The Adult Swim television network will premiere Viz Media and The Ocean Group’s English dub of the Death Notewebsite at 6:00 p.m. Friday, and on American television at midnight on Saturday evening (Sunday morning). YTV will present the Canadian premiere on October 26 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. supernatural suspense anime series on its

Official Shin Chan Cologne, Eau de Toilette on Sale

The Spanish fragrance maker Air-Val International is selling the official Shin Chan Cologne and Eau de Toilette. The fragrance for the flatulent toddler (also known as Crayon no Shin Chan in Japanese) has “fresh, citrusy, fruity, [and] musky” notes provided by top notes of bergamot, orange, grapefruit, lemon, mandarin, leafy green; heart notes of white flower, lily of the valley, freesia, peach, apple, melon; and down notes of musk and violet. The cologne sells in 350-milliliter (12-fluid-ounce) bottles shaped in a 3D likeness of Shin Chan, and the stronger eau de toilette sells in 50-milliliter (1.7-fluid-ounce) bottles. Air-Val International specializes in both children’s and adults’ fragrances. Kotaku notes via Poke Farm that Air-Val International’s discontinued Pokémon fragrance is still available online.

Manga Sales in Japan Decline for Fifth Consecutive Year

Analysts offer different reasons for drop in revenue, decrease in number of manga magazines sold.

Figures released by Japan’s Research Institute of Publications show that sales of manga in Japan fell to Y481 billiion (US$4.1 billion) in 2006, a decrease of 4% from the previous year. This marks the fifth straight year of dropping sales. The number of volumes of manga magazines sold in the country stands at 754 million, from a 1995 high of 1.34 billion copies.

Japanese and American researchers are proposing several explanations for the drop in sales and readership numbers. These include an overall decrease in the percentage of young people in Japan, simple lack of interest in reading, and, according to manga critic and translator Matt Thorn, a growing dissatisfaction with the lack of originality found in many manga. At the same time, as the Reseach Institute for Publications also found, sales of manga for cellphones are rising, reaching Y4.6 billion (US$39 million) in 2005 and as much as twice that last year.

Variety Covers New Anime Movies with Directors’ Quotes

The Variety entertainment industry magazine previews the October 20-28 Akihabara Enta Matsuri in Tokyo by profiling some of the upcoming anime movies and quoting their directors and producers. Among the movies profiled are Shinji Aramaki’s less-than-utopic science fiction sequel Appleseed: Ex Machina, Mamoru Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers alternate world story, Rintaro’s Yona Yona Penguin 3D computer graphics film, and Osamu Dezaki’s Clannad slice-of-life story. Aramaki and Rintaro in particular speak on their respective works.

Otaku Crave now has a forum!

For all you forum-addicts out there, Otaku Crave now has their own forum (psss…it’s on the menu bar….). Enjoy

Digital guide for hot springs

From learning about the basics of hot springs to finding a destination for your next leisure trip, this Nintendo DS cartridge is a handy device.

Overseen by Tadanori Matsuda, the self-claimed “hot spring professor” in Japan, it will help you learn everything you need to know about hot springs in Japan. And he will help you select your next destination depending on the various beneficial effects of each hot spring and your preference in ryokan or hotels. The cartridge contains info on about 2,000 hot springs.

Episode Two

Whoa…another Otaku Crave podcast coming at you. Enjoy

Episode Synopsis: This episode we review the first volume of The Melancholy of Haruri Suzamiya (or atleast try), Jun attempts to read some news (attempts is the key word here) and we talk a little about anime soundtracks and Halloween.

 

 Episode Two [33:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Soaring Nintendo flies into Japan’s top three

Frenzied buying of Nintendo shares has propelled the Kyoto-based games console maker’s market value to yen 10 trillion and won it a place among the top three most valuable companies in Japan.

Toyota, the world’s biggest car company, remains firmly in first place as Japan’s largest company, but the second place position of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group – the world’s biggest bank by assets – now looks vulnerable as Nintendo continues its relentless march higher.

And the rise of Nintendo has also sparked explosive share-price rises for companies that were, until a few weeks ago, moribund.

Last week Capcom, the company behind the enormously successful Monster Hunter series of games, said that the next instalment would appear exclusively on Nintendo’s Wii console. Since then, Capcom’s shares have leapt 23 per cent. A few years ago, Capcom’s shares were savaged after the company said that another of its titles, Resident Evil, would exclusively appear on the Wii’s ill-fated predecessor, the Game Cube.

Brokers said yesterday that, on the basis of what had happened to Capcom’s stock, other Japanese games studios were likely to follow suit. Numerous titles that have previously been developed exclusively for Sony’s Playstation2 console are now likely to find their next installments appearing exclusively for Nintendo.

Nintendo’s stock soared on Monday to more than Y70,000 per share. Analysts at CLSA recently said that a realistic price- target for Nintendo was Y100,000 – a value which, if hit, would take Nintendo ahead of MUFG.

Nintendo is already worth 80 per cent more than Sony – a company which still has a far higher share of the video games market, and has overall group revenues that are eight times those of Nintendo’s.

Monday’s 4.6 per cent surge in Nintendo’s share price came as investors piled cash into the growth story of the Wii, the games console released this time last year that has already succeeded in expanding the games-playing population to encompass more women and more people above the age of 30.

Last week it unveiled the launch-date and price for Wii Fit – a fitness game that uses a floor-based sensor device – the Wii “board” that looks like a set of bathroom scales and detects the body movements of the person standing on it. Analysts believe that the add-on will, for at least a year, be instantly sold-out at stores across the globe: each unit uses a few basic components and is expected to deliver profit margins of about 50% to Nintendo.

Although Nintendo has developed a fitness game as the first application for the Wii board, third-party developers are understood to be looking at a range of other possibilities that include a realistic golf simulator.