Otaku Crave

Review of the film “Ninja Cadets!” by Douglas. Enjoy.

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The official Japanese website of the Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino- science-fiction adventure sequel has announced the titles and stories of the two video-only Gunslinger Girl episodes that will follow the 13 Il Teatrino television episodes. The original video animation (OVA) episodes will be titled “Vanessa no Hikari, Kokoro no Yami” (Light of Vanessa, Darkness of the Heart) and “Phantasma.” The website will open a special page for the video episodes next month.

Last month, Funimation announced its acquisition of Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino- as a “13-episode” series, so it is not yet clear if the company has acquired these two video-only episodes.

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The August issue of Shogakukan’s Ikki magazine has announced on June 25 that Hisae Iwaoka’s Dosei Mansion (Saturn Apartments) science fiction manga will be adapted into a live-action film. The story is set in a future era when all of Earth is declared a giant nature reserve, and humans are prohibited from stepping foot on ground. So, humanity has migrated into a massive aerial ring system — a series of mid-air structures circling about 35,000 meters above the ground. Human society is now literally stratified, with the upper echelons of society living on the highest level of the system while the lowest classes live down below. A boy named Mitsu has only known life on the lowest level of this ring system. He loses his father just as he graduates from middle school, and thus inherits his father’s job: washing the windows of the ring system.

Iwaoka has been drawing Dosei Mansion since 2005, after debuting as a professional artist in 2004. Shogakukan has compiled and published three volumes so far.

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The Mainichi Shimbun paper’s Mantan Web section reports that manga creator Buichi Terasawa said that he received an offer for a live-action Hollywood film adaptation of his Space Adventure Cobra work — but Terasawa is said to have added, “This is off-the-record, though.” He also cautioned that if a live-action film were to be made, it would be partly standalone and separate from his original science-fiction action manga. Terasawa was making an appearance at a June 24 event in Tokyo to promote three new anime series on the 30th anniversary of the original manga about a pirate and his female android partner.

Cobra began in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1978 and was already adapted into an animated television series and film in 1982. The four volumes of the first new anime project, Cobra The Animation: The Psycho-Gun, will be released every other month starting on August 29. A second two-volume video project, Cobra The Animation: Time Drive, will follow next. Finally, a 13-episode television series called Cobra The Animation: Rokunin no Y?shi (The Six Heroes) is set to begin next spring. Urban Vision released the 1982 movie in North America.

Famitsu magazine has posted a video of the June 24 event in which Terasawa briefly discussed the possibility of a live-action film in response to a question.

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The Newsarama comic news website has published the first of a three-part series of articles that summarize the reactions of staffers and world manga creators after Tokyopop’s restructuring. In particular, Boys of Summer’s Chuck Austen, Pantheon High’s Paul Benjamin, East Coast Rising’s Becky Cloonan, Psy-Comm’s Tony Salvaggio, Earthlight’s Stuart Moore, I Luv Halloween’s Keith Giffen, Undertown’s Jim Pascoe, Roadsong’s Joanna Estep, The Abandoned’s Ross Campbell, King City’s Brandon Graham, War On Flesh’s Tim Smith 3, Steady Beat’s Rivkah, My Cat Loki’s Bettina Kurkoski, and Poison Candy’s David Hine discuss their past experiences with Tokyopop.

ADV Films sales account manager Chris Oarr tells Publishers Weekly  magazine that his company’s manga division has not been shut down, despite it not releasing any new volumes since February. Although there are neither new licenses to announce nor titles that ADV Manga is currently working on acquiring, it remains committed to reprinting books that are already in its catalogue. In particular, Oarr said that ADV Manga will try to ensure continuing availability of Yotsuba&!, which was recently nominated for an Eisner Award. However, just as in a earlier interview last month with Ain’t It Cool News, he was not able to give a release date for the next volume (the sixth volume, pictured at left). “When will Yotsuba&! come out? We don’t know, and we’re not going to lie about it,” says Oarr. The interview also revealed that ADV does not plan to participate in next month’s Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.

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The software maker Internet has published the guidelines for fans and artists who want to use its virtual Gackpoid character that is based on the musician and voice actor Gackt. Berserk manga creator Kentarou Miura drew the character for an upcoming vocal music synthesizer that uses Gackt’s sampled voice. The software maker is allowing derivative works, as long as they are noncommercial and do not adversely impact “public order and morals.” However, a special license is required for commercial works, solid or three-dimensional representations, or costumes.

Gackpoid follows in the virtual footsteps of Miku Hatsune, the first popular idol character based on a vocal music synthesizer. However, Miku Hatsune’s creator, Crypton, originally published strict usage guidelines that prohibited any unofficial use of its character. Crypton created much online debate when it asked two d?jin groups to halt their unauthorized adventure game based on Miku Hatsune. Crypton eventually allowed the d?jin groups to release their game under a new name, and then changed its guidelines to allow unofficial releases, as long as they did not damage the image of its products.

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The official Japanese website for the upcoming Birdy the Mighty Decode anime series is streaming a television commercial. (The streaming requires Windows Media Player 7.1 or higher for digital rights management.) In Masami Yuuki’s ongoing science-fiction comedy manga that inspired this anime, a space police officer named Birdy accidentally kills an Earth boy, so she shares her body with his spirit so he can continue living his life. However, when duty calls on this planet or elsewhere, Birdy reverts their shared body back to her form and takes over. The anime will premiere in Japan on Wednesday with director Kazuki Akane (Escaflowne, Geneshaft), series script supervisor Hiroshi Ohnogi (Kekkaishi, Noein, Macross Zero), creative producer Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon).

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Miyuki Kanbe, an actress best known as the third Sailor Moon in the Bish?jo Senshi Sailor Moon musical and Kyoko Kakei in the Battle Royale II: Requiem film, died suddenly of heart failure at a Kawasaki City hospital on June 18 at 4:08 a.m. She was 24. In February of 2007, she had to step down from her upcoming role of Eponine in the Les Misérables musical due to poor health, and she had been in and out of the hospital in her hometown ever since.

Kanbe won the role of Usagi Tsukino and her magical girl alter-ego Sailor Moon in an audition with 500 other applicants. She would play the role in this stage adaptation of Naoko Takeuchi’s manga from 2000 to 2001. She then appeared in several television series and movies. In particular, she played Kyoko Kakei in 2003’s Battle Royale II: Requiem and played Hinaka Tachibana in the Kamen Rider Hibiki television series and film from 2005 to 2006. She also sang the first two opening themes for the 2003-2004 anime series Mermaid Melody: Pichi Pichi Pitch. She was said to be in good spirits when she met with her agency’s head in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward on June 9. Even though she left the Les Misérables production before it opened, the producers at TOHO reportedly left a standing offer for her return by saying, “We want you to come back when you get better.”

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