In honor of Digimon's 10th anniversary in Japan, a new Digimon Adventure CD is being released. The new song included in the disc is titled "A Door into the Future ~ Ever Since That Summer Day ~," & will be sung by all the big Digimon singers- Kouji Wada, AiM, Hassy, Sammy, Takayoshi Tanimoto, & Michihiko Oota. The real interesting part, however, is this message included with the CD:

Ten years after the broadcast of "Digimon Adventure"...
Facing what lies beyond another door, a new story will come to life.

What could they be hinting at? Is some sort of new Adventure project in the works after all this time? Maybe even a new anime of some sort? We can only hope. Hopefully this'll be made clear soon.

Source: http://www.wtwnews.net/news/493/10th_Anniversary_CD_Info_Coverart_and_Maybe_Something_More

Wizard World announced that the brand new ACen Aftershock, a supplement anime convention to the usual annual Anime Central, will be a part of this year's Chicago Comic-Con. This is the first time ever that ACen will be expanding beyond its usual three-day convention event in May. It's not yet known how big a presence ACen Aftershock will be at CCC, but they do promise that there will be anime exhibitors, artists, showings, panel events, cosplay, contests, & more throughout the four days.

Chicago Comic-Con (which shouldn't be confused with the official New York Comic Con sanctioned Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo debuting next year) will run from August 6 to August 9, so only one month away.

Source: http://www.wizardworld.com/acen.html

The English version of the popular AkibaBlog website recently took a trip to the real life Washinomiya shrine, which is an important setting in the Lucky Star series, in order to write a report so as to better educate American fans.

The four-part series writes about the shrine's history, how it became a tourist attraction, how it's adopted & accepted its Lucky Star connection, attractions near the site, & the Haji Festival that takes place there once a year. Blogger Greg even gathered up a few souvenirs to give away to readers (I got a t-shirt ^^). Lots of nice pictures are included to, so make sure to check out the report. Hit up the links below:

Part 1: http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/06/visit_report_on_holy_lucky_star_shrine.html
Part 2: http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/06/title_visit_report_on_holy_lucky_star_shrine_vol2.html
Part 3: http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/06/title_visit_report_on_holy_lucky_star_shrine_vol3.html
Part 4: http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/06/title_visit_report_on_holy_lucky_star_shrine_final.html

Japanese animation studio Production I.G. confirmed at Anime Expo its involvement with an anime project based on EA's video game Dante's Inferno. Yasuomi Umetsu (Kite), Shukou Murase (Ergo Proxy), & several others will take part in the six-part project. More information will be revealed at Comic-Con International in two weeks.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-07-05/production-i.g-confirms-involvement-in-animated-dante-inferno-project

For the past week or so, Anime News Network has had a little secret link on their site. If you hover your mouse cursor over the far-left side of any page, a mysterious silhouette appears with a big question mark. Click on the image, & it takes you to the address http://omgitscoming.com. Another mysterious silhouette appeared at the top of the page, which you can see in the image above (currently a different silhouette resides there). It has a clock that's been counting down to something, presumably when "it" comes. Only one week remains.

Today of course being Thursday, the official English Nagi-sama Fan Club Homepage updated its site once again. Though this update was even lighter than past weeks. All she wrote was "Nagi-sama commands you to return next Thursday with a special message from a special someone!" & then the following image was posted underneath:

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Spoilers:

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The idea of Crunchyroll simulcasting "Fight Ippatsu! Juden-chan," or as they're calling it "Charger Girl," seemed laughable when it was first announced. But then I heard that they were actually working with Avex to make the series a little more "family friendly." Now I'm flat out against censorship & probably wont be watching any more of the series on Crunchyroll because of it, but I guess this was the only way they could show it. So what's done had to be done.

So when I first heard that Juden-chan would be censored, I thought "there goes all the peeing scenes." But then I watched the first episode, which premiered today on Crunchyroll, all of the peeing scenes were left intact! There were other edits, mind you (basically mild nudity), but it seemed weird that the erotic peeing was untouched. So then I watched episode 2, which also went up at the same time on CR, & this time ALL of the peeing scenes were edited out. Granted, two of the urination scenes were accompanied by nudity, so those scenes probably had to edited because of that. But the third peeing scene had no visible nudity in the shot. This is really quite odd.

(EDIT: Just remembered that both Code Geass & Kigurumikku have uncensored nudity on Crunchyroll. Can someone explain this mess to me?)

Not only were all three peeing scenes left in episode 1, but there were very few other edits. Episode 2, however, is another story. Besides all three peeing scenes (will every episode have three peeing scenes?) being removed, there tons of other edits as well. I've taken screenshots of all the major changes. Check out the comparisons below. This is totally NSFW, by the way:

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It's one thing to have your typical anime websites covering the stuff that goes down at Anime Expo (ANN, Japanator, AnimeVice, NebsTV, etc). But when more unlikely news sites or organizations take notice, it gets a little cooler.

LA Weekly, a local Los Angeles newspaper, did some coverage of America's largest anime convention. One of their reporters did a writeup for the event, as well as created photo gallery of some of the best cosplay there. G4 did pretty much the same thing, writing up an article for AX & adding a cosplay photo gallery. Finally, Japan's own Akiba Blog took notice of the event as well. Check out their coverage in the links below:

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Trigun wasn't the only cam-recorded movie trailer at Anime Expo this year. Imagi's long-awaited Gatchaman CGI film finally showed its first official trailer at the convention as well. The quality of the recording isn't really that good, but it does its job of giving us our first real taste of the film. This is REAL G-Force movie, unlike that Disney wannabe. Imagi's other anime-turned-American-CGI-movie, Astro Boy, is due out this Fall.

In a time when adult video games are in trouble even in Japan, it seems weird to hear that big-name hentai games are finally being brought over to America. But that's exactly what MangaGamer.com announced at Anime Expo this past weekend. Erotic anime games being licensed, released, & translated in the US are nothing new, but for the most part they've always been low-key obscure games that you've never heard of. Certainly we've never had the likes of KEY games released here. & considering how expensive those must be to license, it might never happen.

Still, MangaGamer.com announced two big adult titles at Anime Expo, news that we're not accustomed to hearing. They are the "Shuffle" romance game & the "Higurashi" horror series. Specifically, they've got the rights to the first 8 Higurashi games, of which the first half will be released in late October (just in time for Halloween). NAVAL's Shuffle will be released this summer, & more NAVAL games are expected to be announced soon. As with all of MangaGamer.com's titles, these can purchased as downloads on their website.

In somewhat related news, another hentai game American licensing company, JAST USA, announced some big titles of their own. Nitroplus, which is a bigger studio than what JAST usually gets, licensed several of their titles to them. The biggest one here is "Zanma Taisei Demonbane," which is what the Demonbane anime series is based off of (as seen on NebsTV).

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-07-05/mangagamer.com-acquires-shuffle-romance-visual-novel

Yesterday I posted how the first episode of Honey & Clover was available for free on iTunes, but Nana wasn't. Well now today, the opposite is true for FUNimation On-Demand! FUNi added the first four dub episodes to their Comcast On-Demand section, with the first episode being free to watch. The other three episodes can be rented for 24 hours for 99 cents each. But hurry, because the episodes are only up for a very limited amount of time. All four episodes will be taken down after this Friday. Keep in mind that the episodes are rated TV-MA, for mature audiences only (& while I feel that may be a little extreme, the truly mature content doesn't show up in these first few eps).

The dub itself is quite good in my opinion, which I'll admit I was worried about after seeing Viz's trailer. The English voice actresses for the two Nanas do a good job of bringing their own to the characters. They really shouldn't be compared to the Japanese seiyuu, as they aren't trying to emulate their foreign counterparts. They're doing their own thing, which is really the only thing one can do with series like Nana. Sounding natural is the most important thing in a slice-of-life drama like this, & they can't do this if they try to imitate the Japanese version. Thankfully, they sound just that- natural. Nana Osaki's English voice is appropriately deep & grainy, while Hachi's voice sounds happy-go-lucky without coming across as annoying.

There is a section in FUNimation's onDemand block for "Honey & Clover," but as of this writing there are currently no episodes listed. Whenever they do go up, you can bet that the first episode will be free for it as well. It's Funi's policy, after all. Speaking of which, other recently added free first episodes up on their On-Demand block include Kaze no Stigma, Heroic Age, Claymore, Buso Renki, & Romeo X Juliet.

EDIT: Forgot to mention- why'd they change the ending theme?

iTunes is once again giving us some free anime downloads to enjoy. Viz Media began adding episodes of both "Honey & Clover" & "Nana" to iTunes today. For Honey & Clover, the first 12 episodes of season 1 have been added, & the first episode can be downloaded completely free. The rest of the episodes will cost you $1.99 each to download, or you can buy the whole "season set" in bulk for $19.99 which includes the bonus OVA episode (which can't be downloaded on its own). The episodes are dubbed in English, & as fan of the Japanese version, I can say for the most part I really enjoyed the episode 1 dub.

The first 11 dub episodes of Nana were also added, which is quite good timing considering today is Nana Day (7/7). Again, each episode will cost you $1.99, or $19.99 for all 11 plus the special recap episode 11.5 (which again can't be downloaded on its own). Unfortunately there are no free episodes for Nana. But get your free Honey & Clover ep, hit up the link below:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTVSeason?i=319682712&id=318745265&s=143441

The fact that online streaming site Crunchyroll had a larger booth at Anime Expo than most of the anime companies present is really telling of the times we live in today. At their panel, Crunchyroll announced the simulcasts that they got lined up for the Summer season. Naruto Shippuden, Shugo Chara, GinTama, Shangri-La, Reborn, Saki, Hayate, Chi's New Address, & Kaasan will all continue to show new episodes every week. Time of Eve will also continue, with episode 5 going up just this week.

In terms of brand new shows, the yuri series Aoi Hana already started streaming last week. Besides that, three new series were confirmed as well. Kanamemo, Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou, & Charger Girl (Fight Ippatsu! Juden-chan) are all new for the Summer. Kanamemo has already started, & the other two will be added shortly. I'm not sure what the holdup is since both of them have already begun airing in Japan, & they can't really be considered simulcasts if they're not even streamed in the same week. & Juden-chan on Crunchyroll? I can't believe they'd show such a perverse anime series on their site. On the other hand, they did stream Strike Witches last year. But on the other hand, Strike Witches didn't have girls erotically peeing themselves in every episode.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/anime-expo/crunchyroll

The big news at Viz's Anime Expo panel was the confirmation that they'll indeed be speed releasing the One Piece manga in order to catch up to where the story is in Japan. Similar to what Viz did with the Naruto manga- except even more extreme- they'll be releasing 30 volumes of the series in just 6 months. Beginning in January 2010, they'll be releasing 5 volumes a month starting with #24, & conclude in June with #53. That is a LOT of manga.

While it'll take a few months for the graphic novels to catch up, Shonen Jump will begin publishing the "latest chapters from Japan" (presumably only a few weeks behind like how Naruto is now) beginning with the January issue. Over the next few months, Viz's new One Piece site will update with summaries of the four sagas that take place in between where the English manga is now & where it will be come January. That way, SJ readers wont be totally lost.

In anime news, the long-awaited Kakashi Chronicles is finally getting animated. The special will stream on Viz's site on August 6. Speaking of Naruto, DVDs for Shippuden will finally start coming out beginning September 29. Unfortunately, Viz will no longer be releasing it in season box sets like they did for the first series, & will now instead be doing the obsolete single DVD releases. It is, however, the only way to watch the dub of the series. The first Shippuden movie will be released shortly after on November 1.

Viz also announced that they got the second Death Note Relight special & will be releasing it on October 27 (just in time for Halloween!). Meanwhile, the DVD for L: Change the World will come out on August 18. The second Bleach movie will be getting a DVD release on September 8, after getting a limited theatrical release at Viz's new San Francisco theater on August 19.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/anime-expo/viz-media

At their Anime Expo panel, Bandai Entertainment announced that they have licensed the new Eureka Seven movie. In fact, it'll shown on the big screen in American theaters for one night only on September 24. Currently about 300-400 national theaters are listed as taking part. They also announced that the entire Eureka 7 anime series has begun streaming for free on Anime News Network, in both sub & dub formats. As in exclusive to ANN, & not just mirrored from another site like Hulu or Crunchyroll. Though if I had to guess, I'd say the series will eventually land on Crunchyroll somewhere down the line.

Bandai also briefly mentioned the Escaflowne Movie being released on Blu-ray. & now, a few days after the con, it was announced that it'll indeed be coming out on Blu-ray on September 1 of this year.

Separately, Namco Bandai announced at their own panel that they'll be adding many popular Japanese songs to the American iTunes store. These includes songs by JAM Project, as well from anime series like Haruhi & Lucky Star.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2009/anime-expo/bandai-entertainment