The Daily Dose

  • The title of Rumiko Takahashi‘s brand spanking new manga is Kyōkai no Rinne and it follows a girl named Sakura Mamiya. She has the ability to see ghosts after something happens to her when she was younger. It’s not exactly what you’d call original, but I hope this is in the vein of Takahashi’s darker Mermaid Forest manga. The series will premiere in Shogakukan‘s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine and in North America through Viz Media on TheRumicWorld.com on April 22nd.
  • Good news for those of us who’ve started the Zac Efron as Sousuke Sagara bandwagon; the young actor told the MTV Splash Page that discussions for the live action Full Metal Panic! are still “very early” and that the film is “to the point where it’s more than likely not going to happen.” I’m assuming that after the disaster known as Dragonball Evolution I’d be a bit reluctant to jump on board too.
  • It’s been announced that the eighth and final DVD installment of the Clannad After Story anime will include a special episode that is an alternate world arc about Kyou Fujibayashi. The episode is titled, “Another World: Kyou Arc” and the DVD will be released in Japan on July 1st.
  • A second season has been green-lit for the Hetalia – Axis Powers anime and will premiere this summer on the internet and mobile phones (in Japan only.) The series re-imagines various historical eras where its characters are archetypes of their countries.
  • For those of you who have been waiting for the English reiteration of Honey And Clover and NANA can finally get excited about something. Viz Media announced that they have set up websites for both anime where viewers will be able to buy, download-to-own, and/or stream the two series in the near future.
  • It was announced in the EVA-EXTRA01 paper magazine that Maaya Sakamoto is set to play a brand new character in the second film in the Rebuild Of Evangelion quadrilogy. The character’s name is Makinami Mari Illustrious and she shares the EVA tradition of having parts of her name to be named after World War II ships. It was also confirmed that Yuko Miyamura will reprise her role of Asuka, however with the new name of Shikinami Asuka Langley instead of Sohryu.
  • If you haven’t already seen it then head on over to TMS Entertainment‘s new Youtube page to watch the anime classic, Sherlock Hound. The series features Sherlock Holmes, his assistant Watson, and the housemaid Mrs. Hudson re-imagined as animals solving mysteries. The first six episodes are directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
  • If any of you out there played “Typing Mania 4“, it appears that “Typing Mania 5” is now up. Play at your own risk! (Thanks to David for the link.)
  • Ulquiorra Cifer artwork courtesy of 餅和 on pixiv (account needed to access)

    Random Musings – Honey and Clover Drama Edition

  • There was a short commercial aired earlier this week for the new Honey and Clover live action drama. Pictured above from left to right are Hagu (played by Narumi Riko), Takemoto (played by Ikuta Toma), and Morita (played by Narimiya Hiroki). You can find the rest of the cast on DramaWiki, and the official site is here. Hagu’s actress looks a lot taller than I would have pictured her (she’s 163cm tall according to her wiki page), but I guess it’s hard to find an actress to fit the exact profile. Everyone else looks about right though. The series is set to begin January 8th on Fuji TV, and I’m more than interested enough to check it out and see if they can capture the same feel as the manga or the anime. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be that good, after watching the Negima Drama, I think I can stomach any type of adaptation now.
    Download the commercial.
  • I’m not a huge Weekly Jump reader, so I don’t know if this happens for other series too, but I found it odd that To LOVE-Ru‘s tankobons have nudity in them while the magazine version does not (compare this and nsfw this). I always thought that Weekly Jump series were targeted towards a younger audience, and this makes me wonder what they’d do if the manga were ever licensed in the US.
  • I’ve started work on the preview for the next season. There are a relatively smaller number of shows (around 20) compared to the fall, so hopefully it won’t take too long to finish. I’ll also be putting up a poll around the middle of this next week asking for your opinion of the best show of 2008.
  • For those of you wondering about an update on Jaalin’s whereabouts: I still haven’t heard from him. I’m getting rather worried, but unfortunately I can’t do anything except wait and hope nothing bad happened.
  • FreezeFrame: The world through an artist’s eyes

    “I want to open all these boxes…but a mortal life span is too short to do such a thing.
    But, if I had someone to help me in my battles…if I had that person…”

    As much as many people would like to deny, Honey & Clover has more or less revolved around the blonde munchkin known as Hagu. Who is this mysterious girl? Why does she rarely speak? And why is she so goddamn short?

    New Girl on the Blog

    Hi everyone! As you all should know, Omni is back and is going to continue blogging despite his school schedule. We’re all happy that he’s back, but he would like some help, and that’s what I’m here for. As of right now, I will be blogging Honey & Clover, so I hope I can do a good job for all the H&C fans out there! Sadly, I’m not fluent enough in Japanese to be able to give you blogs on raws, and because of this I’ll have to rely on subs. I will try to my hardest to get the subs as fast as I can and watch them so I can give you guys a summary. I’m sort of new on this whole blogging thing but I will do my best and I hope you will all enjoy it.

    -Naakay