Otaku Crave

On November 10, the official Japanese website for the Macross robot anime franchise has posted the promotional video for Macross F (Frontier), the sequel television series that is scheduled for 2008. Much of the footage had originally screened in an earlier cut shown during the Macross 25th Anniversary Live: Minmay meets Fire Bomber concert on August 18. The two-minute video lists the staff credits and shows the three main characters (budding singer Ranka Lee, pilot trainee Alto Saotome, and idol star Sheryl Nome) as well as the Macross Frontier fleet and VF-25 variable fighter. Macross co-creator Shoji Kawamori, Macross Plus composer Yoko Kanno, and Macross Zero’s animation studio Satelight are working on the project.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The premiere issue of the Jump Square monthly sh?nen manga magazine is selling out throughout Japan on its initial 500,000-copy run since its November 2 release, and Shueisha is reprinting an additional 100,000 copies. In the first three days, Jump Square was 90% sold out in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and 70% sold out nationwide. The second print run will ship on November 16, and Shueisha is planning to increase the initial print run of the next issue. Additional print runs for manga magazines are highly unusual in Japan. Jump Square replaces Monthly Shonen Jump, which ceased publication in June. Jump Square inherited Akihisa Ikeda’s Rosario + Vampire season II, Norihiro Yagi’s Claymore, and other popular titles from Monthly Shonen Jump, and launched Embalming -The Another Tale of Frankenstein- from Nobuhiro WatsukiRurouni Kenshin), Kure-nai from Kentar? Katayama and Yamato Yamamoto, and the manga adaptation of Gonzo’s Dragonaut - The Resonance.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Issue 22 and 23 (on sale November 9 and 23, respectively) of Hakusensha’s Young Animal seinen manga magazine will announce that Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City manga will get an anime project and TOHO-distributed live-action film. The tongue-in-cheek story tells the indie rock rise to glory of a Japanese death metal band. The members take on appropriately Teutonic and European stage names (guitarist and vocalist S?ichi Negishi becomes Johannes Krauser II, Masayuki Wada becomes Alexander Jagi, and Terumichi Nishida becomes Camus) and perform with face paint, similar to that of the American glam metal rock band Kiss. (The band and manga’s name is an apparent homage to the “Detroit Rock City” song by Kiss.) The fourth manga volume ships November 29.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Name: Haruna Yabuki

Born: 18 December 1984 in Tokyo, Japan

Profession: Idol, Model

Height: 163cm

Measurements: Bust: 86cm, Waist: 58cm, Hips: 87cm

Popularity: 17% [?]

The December issue (on sale November 10) of Japan’s Newtype magazine previews the characters and the new VF-25 variable fighter design that will appear in Macross F (Frontier), next year’s television sequel to the Macross franchise of love triangles, pop music, and robotic mecha. A 25th anniversary program special called “Frontiers of Macross” will broadcast this winter with a retrospective on the previous Macross project and clips from the new series. The story of Macross F takes place in 2070s (three decades after the last major sequels, Macross Plus and Macross 7) aboard the 11th Macross Frontier super-long-distance colonization fleet with 10 million citizens. Ranka Lee (newcomer Megumi Nakajima, pictured above) is heading to the concert of Macross Frontier’s top Galaxy Network idol, Sheryl Nome, when she encounters a pilot trainee named Alto Saotome — and when a mysterious enemy attacks the fleet. The story will also feature Ranka’s older brother, the veteran pilot Ozma Lee, and the U.N. Forces’ latest main variable fighter, the VF-25.

As previously reported, Macross creator Shoji Kawamori of Studio Nue will collaborate with the animation studio SatelightMacross Zero, Noein) and music composer Yoko Kanno (Macross Plus, Cowboy Bebop) for the series. Due to the rigors of composing a television series, Kawamori said that Kanno will be sharing her duties with another composer as she did with The Vision of Escaflowne and Aquarion. Kawamori will oversee the project and design the main variable fighters while Junya Ishigaki (Macross Zero’s Destroids, Noein) and Takeshi Takakura (Appleseed movies, Noein) will contribute additional mechanical designs. (

Popularity: 10% [?]

Advertising from the Japanese publisher MediaWorks has announced that Production I.G will animate Toshokan Sens? (Library War), the debut novel from science-fiction writer Hiro Arikawa, for television in 2008. The satirical comedy is set in 2019 when an organization has cracked down on “harmful” publications and freedom of expression, so an underground militia rises to protect books and libraries. Arikawa is already publishing his third sequel this month, and the LaLa sh?jo magazine and the Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh sh?nen magazine are both serializing manga adaptations by Kiiro Yumi and Yayoi Furudori, respectively.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Aniplex’s A-1 Pictures is adapting the Persona 3 PlayStation 2 role-playing game as a television anime series under the name Persona -trinity soul- for a January 2008 premiere. The anime is set a decade after the game, and will center around three brothers in a future city where the dead have risen with their skins turned inside out. The Persona games themselves are spinoffs from the long-running Shin Megami Tensei series. Jun Matsumoto, an episode director on Blood+Digimon, is set to direct. Shigenori Soejima, the Persona games’ character designer for the game developer Atlus, is creating the original character designs for Yuriko Ishii (Ouran High School Host Club, The Prince of Tennis key animator) to adapt for anime. Yasuyuki Muto (Le Chevalier D’Eon) is leading a team of writers including Shinsuke Onishi (Darker than BLACK, The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye) and Shogo Yasukawa. Nobuhiko GenmaTrouble Chocolate’s contributing designer) is designing the Persona, the franchise’s signature supernatural entities within humans. Taku Iwasaki (Lunar Silver Star Story Lunatic Festa Vol. 3 game, Read or Die anime) is composing the music. and an animator on (

The Persona 3 game has already been adapted into three novel volumes (two of which were illustrated by Soejima) and a manga in MediaWorks’ Dengeki Maoh magazine by Shuji Sogabe (Tow Ubukata’s Eulenspiegel manga).

Popularity: 11% [?]

Bandai Visual USA’s online dot-anime store has opened pre-orders for the DVDs of the two Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO anime projects with exclusive bonus flags. The flag of the Principality of Zeon (the frequent antagonist of the Gundam robot anime franchise) comes with the DVD for the Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: The Hidden One Year WarMobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: Apocalypse 0079 video sequels. Both of the computer-animated MS IGLOO projects recount the pivotal One Year War from the view of the Zeons, as opposed to the Earth Federation’s side as most previous versions of the war have done. Bandai Visual USA has also opened a website for MS IGLOO with story and production information, wallpaper, and planned trailers. The Hidden One Year War DVD ships on November 27, while the Apocalypse 0079 DVD ships on January 8. Each DVD retails for US$49.99, with dot-anime offering a 10% discount. series of theatrical shorts. The Earth Federation’s flag comes with the DVD for the

In Japan, Bandai Visual’s dot-anime store is offering the bathrobe of the franchise’s main anti-hero, Char Aznable, with DVD orders of first Gundam movie trilogy. The bathrobe comes with an embroidered “Principality of Zeon Hotel” insignia and Char’s name tag. The Mobile Suit Gundam: Soldier’s R&R Set ships on December 21 for 24,800 yen (about US$217). (Drink and female model not included.)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Biohazard, CAPCOM’s horror game franchise that is known as Resident Evil in English, will debut its first manga in issue 50 (on sale November of Akita Shoten’s Weekly Shonen Champion magazine. The Biohazard: The Umbrella Chronicles: Prelude to the Collapse’s two-installment arc will recount the fall of the ubiquitous Umbrella bioengineering corporation with the first game’s Chris and Jill as main characters. The manga will tie into a Nintendo Wii game which will be released worldwide this month. Masaru Miyazaki is scripting the manga, and Naotsugu Matsueda (Persona - Tsumi to Batsu) is drawing. Wildstorm published a five-issue 1998 Resident Evil comic, and a few Chinese comics (manhua) were published in Hong Kong. Over 33 million copies of the games have sold worldwide. In addition to Paul W. S. Anderson’s three live-action films starring Milla Jovovich, a computer-graphics anime movie titled Biohazard: Degeneration is in the works.

Popularity: 8% [?]

The Japanese anmation company Production I.G has announced on Monday Real Drive (RD Senn? Ch?sashitsu), the newest “near-future suspense” anime that it and its Ghost in the Shell creator Masamune Shirow will premiere in April 2008 on Japan’s Nippon Television. The story takes place in 2061, 50 years after humanity developed the “Net society” that depended on information networks despite their security issues. To improve security, a new network called Meta Real Network — or “Metal” for short — was developed. People’s personal memories are reduced to information and placed within “protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves called bubble shells” online. The result was a virtual “explosion” of creative freedom as people felt safe enough explore instincts and desires on Metal that they would not otherwise explore in real life. This “friction” between the Metal’s alluring lack of restrictions and rules-bound reality led to trouble and incidents that investigators known as “cyber divers” must handle. Masamichi Haru is one such cyber diver.

CROSSROAD (Ghost Hound, Appleseed: Ex Machina) will contribute to the story’s creation with Production I.G. and Shirow. Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Le Chevalier D’Eon, Rurouni Kenshin, Zipang) will direct the series with scripts supervised by Junichi Fujisaku (Blood+ director and co-writer of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE The Movie: Princess of the Birdcage Kingdom, xxxHOLiC the Movie: A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Manga artist Tetsuro Ueyama (Metal Guardian Faust) will design the characters.

Popularity: 8% [?]