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CODE GEASS / Focal Point

Focal Point – Thinking is not Entertaining



Omni recently wrote about Code Geass R2’s low television ratings. And while I couldn’t care less what a large number of Average Joe’s and Josephina’s amassed into a mindless herd-like mob collectively think about a show I like (regardless of whether they are Japanese or American), I did start to wonder why I STILL have episodes 9 and 10 sitting unwatched on my hard drive.

Anime News / CODE GEASS / Daily Dose / Macross / The Tower of Druaga

The Daily Dose

  • According to MOON PHASE and a listing on studio ingresA’s website, a Tales of the Abyss anime is in the works by Sunrise with Kodama Kenji as the director and Hishinuma Yoshihito as character designer.
  • Also according to MOON PHASE, Nagai Gou‘s Z Mazinger (a retelling of the classic Mazinger Z) is getting a 26-episode anime produced by Palm Studio and directed by Imagawa Yasuhiro.
  • Next week’s finale of The Tower of Druaga ~the Aegis of Uruk~ will be accompanied by a simultaneous broadcast of a live chat with the main staff members. The special one-hour GyaO program starts at 1AM JST Friday night/Saturday morning, 15 minutes before the episode begins airing on tvk.
  • This technically isn’t news, but worth seeing if you haven’t already: NEC Direct is selling customizable CODE GEASS-themed laptops.
  • For ARIA fans, the ARIA The ORIGINATION PS2 game’s website has uploaded a two-minute video of the game’s fully animated OP (YouTube link here). The game goes on sale June 26th.
  • The Japanese blog MUSIC ROOM has put together a list of the top selling anime song singles for the first half of 2008 (stretching from mid-December of last year to last week). Number one on the list is the Shion no Ou ED, My dear friend by Aoyama Thelma, in part because Soba ni Iru ne, a song featuring popular artist SoulJa is also on the CD. Number two is CODE GEASS‘s OP, O2 by ORANGE RANGE, and number three is Macross Frontier‘s ED, Diamond Crevasse by Nakabayashi May. You can find the entire top 20 list here.
  • If you find anything that you think I should mention on any particular day’s Daily Dose, please send me an email with the words “ANIME NEWS” somewhere in the subject line.

    • Image at left courtesy of maca on pixiv (account needed to access).
    Anime News / CODE GEASS / Daily Dose / Macross

    The Daily Dose

  • Weekly Shounen Sunday has confirmed that, after nearly 12 years, the InuYasha manga will be ending in next week’s issue.
  • I’ve seen a lot of discussion recently about CODE GEASS R2‘s relatively poor television ratings. Apparently it’s on the upswing, as episode nine got a 3.3%, the highest of any R2 episode so far. The previous high was a 3.0% for the premiere episode, and the low was 1.4% for episode four. In comparison, Gundam 00’s episode nine got 4.5% last year, but the caveat is that Gundam 00 had an arguably superior time slot. The Japanese blog AAA~Yuukyuu no Kaze~ has the full numbers for last week along with a handy chart comparing the ratings of every major Saturday/6PM series so far with R2.
  • The Macross Frontier soundtrack is not only good, but it’s also been selling quite well, having moved over 72,000 copies and staying in the #2 or #3 spot for the past week. As the Mainichi article notes, no anime soundtrack has done this well since the End of Evangelion one almost 11 years ago.
  • The website for the upcoming Hakushaku to Yousei series has updated with staff and cast listings. Notables include Mizuki Nana and Sugita Tomokazu.
  • The website for the upcoming Strike Witches series has updated its staff and airdates listings. (Note: this is the new television series starting in July, not the OVA from last year)
  • The Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu website has been redesigned.
  • TV Tokyo has posted its preliminary website for the upcoming World Destruction series. The show is set to premiere on TV Tokyo on the night of July 7th.
  • If you find anything that you think I should mention on any particular day’s Daily Dose, please send me an email with the words “ANIME NEWS” somewhere in the subject line.

    • Image at left courtesy of ゆうや on pixiv (account needed to access).
    Anime News / CLANNAD / CODE GEASS / Daily Dose / Suzumiya Haruhi

    The Daily Dose

  • Welcome to the first edition of the Daily Dose! One of the things I’ve always wanted Random Curiosity to be is a reliable source of news. I’ve tried to do this a little in the past with my Random Musings posts, but that hasn’t really been consistent, and hopefully this will be. The goal is for this to be a daily news digest of what’s going on in the anime world. I’ll be pulling from a lot of sources, and with luck, there’ll be stuff here that you won’t necessarily find from other places (though admittedly that can be hard in this day and age). So without further ado…
  • The 2nd CODE GEASS R2 opening song has been officially announced to be FLOW’s WORLD END. As most of you may remember, FLOW sang the first OP to the original CODE GEASS series, so it’s nice to see this come full circle, especially since ALI PROJECT is also doing R2’s new ED. The WORLD END single is due out August 13th, 2008.
  • The official CLANNAD site is now hosting a short preview video for the Tomoyo-centric episode 24 of CLANNAD. If you listen until the end, you can hear Mr. Ubiquitous Fukuyama Jun. In any case, the episode takes place in an alternate universe where Tomoya and Tomoyo are dating and will be released on July 16th with the eighth DVD. eggplant has a spoiler-filled report of the special screening from last week.
  • Canned Dogs has compiled together some images from the newest issue of Newtype that features Suzumiya Haruhi.
  • Amazon.co.jp is streaming the first five-minute episode of the animated version of Detroit Metal City. This comedy story involves a shy guy who becomes the lead singer of a death metal band, and there’s a live-action movie version coming out in August.
  • Oh and I almost forgot to mention: if you find anything that you think I should mention on any particular day’s Daily Dose, please send me an email with the words “ANIME NEWS” somewhere in the subject line.

    • Image at left courtesy of Ixy on pixiv (account needed to access).
    CODE GEASS / First Impressions

    CODE GEASS R2 Matsuri Special

     

    Instead of episode nine, there was a CODE GEASS special aired this week featuring comedian Arino Shinya, idol Natsukawa Jun, comedy duo Sandwichman, comedy duo America Zarigani, and new voice actress Miyake Hitomi. The only thing really worth noting from this special is the preview for episodes nine and ten, and I’ve uploaded that above.
    Hit the jump for screencaps and impressions of the rest of the Akihabara special as well as some speculation about the preview.