The iMaid Café, a Japanese-style maid cafe that opened in Toronto, Ontario in 2006, has closed down this month. Maid cafés are restaurants that feature waitresses in maid costumes. The novelty of the Canadian establishment led to news coverage by the CBC television network and the National Post newspaper.
The iMaid Café’s website has not been updated, and the actual café’s doors are shuttered. According to a “Landlord Distress Warrant,” dated November 6, on the café’s doors, the café’s management owes about C$8,311 (US$8,329) in back rent. A distress warrant can lead to the seizure of the debtors’ personal property.
The recent phenomenon of maid cafés in Japan popularized the maid genre of anime and manga, which in turn created even more demand for maid cafés. In an effort to stand out from all the other cafés, new establishments have experimented with male servants, Gothic-themed outfits, and waiters in schoolboy uniforms. Although maid cafés had originated in Japan, the iMaid Café catered to the local Chinese-Canadian population of Toronto by playing Chinese music and having waitresses refer to customers as “Shang-di” instead of “Master.” Similar cafés have sprouted up in countries from South Korea and Taiwan to Hong Kong and Thailand with varying degrees of success.
FarOut Toys, a store in San Jose, California that specializes in Japanese toys and anime collectibles, is still promoting the maid café it has been managing on Saturdays. FarOut Toys has not responded to ANN’s request for clarification of its café’s status.
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The January issue (on sale November 24) of Hakusensha’s LaLa Shojo magazine has announced that Matsuri Hino’s Vampire Knight Manga will be animated for television in Japan.
The horror manga takes place in Cross Academy, where the student body is divided into the “regular” Day Class and the “elite” Night Class. Yuki Cross, the adopted daughter of the headmaster, is one of the few people in the entire school who knows that the Night Class students are vampires. Yuki herself was attacked by a vampire — and saved by another — as a child. As such, she joins the Guardians, a student group that struggles to maintain the delicate balance between the two classes. Zero, Yuki’s childhood friend and one of the Day Class Guardians, happens to be a latent vampire who keeps sane by drinking blood voluntarily offered by Yuki. Meanwhile, the student president of the Night Class is Kaname — the same vampire who saved Yuki as a child.
Viz Media started publishing the original manga in English in January. Four drama CDs have already been offered to LaLa and LaLa DX magazine readers in Japan, but no announcement has been made on the cast or staff of the animated version.
On January 22, the Asian film distributor Tai Seng Entertainment will release a high-definition Blu-ray Disc version of Initial D the live-action film adaptation of Shoichi Shigeno’s car-racing manga. The disc will feature 1080p video, Soundtracks in Cantonese and Mandarin, an English dub, and subtitles in English and Chinese. Tai Seng is pricing the release at US$34.98. The Initial D movie was a 2005 joint Hong Kong/Japanese production directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak.
The live-action adaptation of Chica Umino’s shojo Manga Honey and Clover will have its American theatrical premiere on Friday, December 7, at Seattle’s Grand Illusion Cinema. On the Sunday of the same weekend, Honey and Clover will also be shown on the East Coast, as part of the New York Anime Festival.
Viz Media announced the acquisition of this film earlier in the month, along with plans for a limited theatrical run. The live-action Love-Corn feature and both of the NANA movies were confirmed for US release at that time as well. Recently, the Grand Illusion hosted screenings of Viz’s The Taste of Tea and ADV Film’s 5cm per second.
Episode Synopsis: In our fifth episode, we discuss the updated news regarding the Dragonball Z live action film, our take on what anime should be made into a live action venture, and we bash Hollywood…Oh Joy.
The Anime Network, A.D. Vision’s 4-hour anime television channel, has begun streaming entire episodes from 12 anime titles for free on its website this week. The service displays video advertisements before, during, and after an episode, but otherwise allows users to jump to any point in the episode. Each title has three episodes available for viewing, and the service promises new anime every Thursday. The online player requires Adobe Flash 9 and a fast Internet connection, but has no other apparent restrictions. The service currently offers the following titles:
Ah! My Goodness: Flights of Fancy
Air Gear
BASTof Syndrome
Chance Pop Session
Comic Party Revolution
Gilgamesh
Jinks: Extend
Karau: Phantom Memory
Magical Play
Pani Poni Dash!
Sayuki
Utawarerumono
The Adult Swim channel and Cartoon Network’s Toonami rograming block offer similar free online services (Adult Swim Fix and Toonami Jetstream, respectively) with anime, although Toonami Jetstream requires the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Mediaworks Dengeki news website has posted new details and pictures for GungHo Online Entertainment’s Hokuto no Ken Online (Fist of the north Star online) massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) in Japan. Just as in Buronson and Tetsuo Hara’s original fighting manga and the subsequent anime projects, the game takes place on Earth after nuclear war has reduced society to a barbarian existence. There will be no fee for basic gameplay, but users can pay real-world money to obtain special in-game items. A closed-beta test will begin in December, but no date has been set for the official opening.
The closed-beta test will preview four occupations that players can choose for their characters: Hokuto-Monkasei (North Star Disciple), Nanto-Monkasei (South Star Disciple), Rogue, and Street Performer. Player can fight other characters by using the keyboard buttons to punch, kick, or guard, and the mouse to direct actions. To stay faithful to the story setting, there will be no in-game money system — instead, players barter for items at shops or with other characters. A video that was screened at Tokyo Game Show 2007’s TGS Forum had previously been posted on the game’s website.
The official website of Japanese computer animator Toshiyuki Aoyama has posted all 15 minutes of his breakthrough work, “Project Wivern,” to commemorate its tenth anniversary. Aoyama and mechanical designer Kiyonobu Kitada created the work as a project at Tokyo Zokei University and won the Wavy Award ‘97 for Excellence and the 9th Amateur CGA Contest in the Video category. Aoyama cites Star Wars (particularly Return of the Jedi) the Silpheed game, Aim for the top! Gunbuster, The first Gundam story, and the Sky Target game as influences on their joint project.
The recognition garnered by this space opera short led to Aoyama’s work on Ghost of the Shell 2 Innocence and the first of the recent Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam movie remakes. Kitada went from this college project to working on Sakura Wars: The movie and Final Fantasy X’s opening movie.
The two have also worked together or separately on the in-game footage for the recent Silpheed sequels, Biohazard (Resident Evil) Code Veronica, Lupin 3, Galaxy Angel, Cobra the Arcade, Saint Seiya Chapter Sanctuary, Sengoku Basara 2, and Phantasy Star Universe. As part of the company IKIF, they also co-created the opening logos for Blue Seed 2 and Slayers next anime series, as well as the opening movies for the Sakura Wars 2 and Ghost in the Shell video games.
