Despite originally being a Swedish song, CaramellDansen has always had a strong anime connection throughout its history. So it only makes sense for it to have an official Japanese version of the song. Check it out above!

Bonus Christmas version of the CaramellDansen song below:

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Trigun- Badlands Rumble:


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Yesterday I posted the top selling manga of 2009 by series. Today we'll take a look at the top selling manga by volume for the year. The results can be surprisingly different between the two different lists, though One Piece still comes in at #1- its 53rd volume sold more copies than any other manga this year, & the only one to break 2 million.

But just like last year & the year before that, the top selling manga volume after One Piece goes to Nana. So why did Nana rank so high on this list but didn't even appear on yesterday's? Because there was only one volume of Nana released during the whole year. & while that one volume sold like hotcakes & more than most manga titles out there (Nana is insanely popular, after all), most other titles had several volumes over the year, which collectively boosted their sales & rank.

Duplicates are removed from this list, so that only the top selling volume for each series is listed. For example, while One Piece grabbed all top four spots with different volumes, it'll only be listed once as the top seller. Check out the top 20 rankings below:

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With 2009 now almost over, it's time to take a look at the best selling manga series in Japan of 2009. The results below combine the total volumes sold for each series. For example, the top four selling individual manga volumes this year were all One Piece, but they were all combined into one number. One Piece's massive popularity in Japan shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point, so it only makes sense for it to be at #1.

Interestingly enough, two titles on the list- 20th Century Boys & Mei-chan no Shitsuji- didn't even release any new volumes in 2009. But due to both getting live-action remakes this year, interest in these older titles surged. The top three though were the Big Three Shonen Jump titles, naturally. You can check out the top 10 below:

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The winners of the 13th annual Japan Media Arts Festival Awards were announced this week. The big winners this time around included Hosoda's newest hit film Summer Wars, which won the Grand Prize in the Animation Division. The only other big anime title to win an award was Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which was one of the winners in the Excellence Prize category for animation. There were plenty of noteworthy names in the Jury Recommended Works in Long Animation category, including Canaan, ToraDora, Nodame Cantabile: Paris, Eden of the East, & Xam'd.

In terms of manga, the mature story Vinland Saga won the Grand Prize in the Manga Division. A few other well-known manga titles won the Excellence Prize, including Children of the Sea (available for free in the US from Sig Ikki) & Hyouge Mono.

& finally in the Entertainment Division, the Naruto: Narutimate Storm video game for the PS3 won one of the Excellence Prizes. Meanwhile, the controversial Hetalia anime web series was one of the Jury Recommended Works in the self-produced/web manga section.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-12-03/summer-wars-vinland-saga-win-media-arts-awards

Seems like I'm doing one of these Year in Review things pretty much everyday now. Today we take a look at the ten most shocking anime headlines of 2009. The list comes from a Japanese magazine, so don't expect any American-side anime news to make the list. A lot of these of course were covered here on the Nebs Blog over the course of the year as well. Check out the list below & see if you can remember when they happened:

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K-On's darling loli character Azusa seems to be quite popular among erotic game makers. Last month I reported on a look-alike character appearing in an ERO game with an absurd title. & now another clone of the character has appeared in a different kind of pervy game. & this time she looks more like the real Azunyan than ever before.

This one is actually a mobile phone game that Japanese users can download to their cells. The game itself is actually a chikan (groping) simulator. If you don't already know, groping (especially of school-aged girls) is a serious problem on crowded Japanese trains. So much so that many lines offer female-only carts. It's hard to say though if having video game versions help reduce the amount of real occurrences or if they encourage them. But it's not like you'll run into someone like Azunyan on a train in real life anyway, so it's kinda hard to resist.

The cellphone game offers three different choices- Breasts, Bottom, & Threaten. No idea what that last one does. However, upon completion of the game, the user is taken to a porn site that has nothing to do with 2D girls. An odd bait-and-switch, it seems.

Source: http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/01/molest-azusa-free-from-your-mobile

Leave it to Japan to try to turn McDonald's & its mascot Ronald McDonald into something sexy. I say try because they come off more as weird & a bit creepy. At least that's true for the male version above. There's also a female version, which you can check out below. That one's at least kinda sexy, but still pretty ridiculous & odd:

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The latest craze in Akihabara right now seems to be manga guidebooks that teach you various forms of masturbation. The first one pictured above is "Hitori de Ecchi," a guide that teaches basic & general masturbation for both guys & gals. At 120-pages long, there are plenty of example illustrations to go along with the helpful texts. One of the many examples includes using the edge of a table (thanks, Code Geass). The book is also selling like crazy, both in Akihabara stores & online at Amazon.

Another manga guidebook that came out at the same time translates to "I can do it Myself ~Beginners Guide to Ananie for Guys~." What's Ananie, you ask? It combines "onanie" (the German word for masturbation, which the Japanese also use) & "anal." Yes, this is a book that teaches all about anal masturbation. Even though that looks like a girl on the cover, I can assure you that it is a trap. This one also includes tons of illustrated examples alongside detailed texts, & it's also selling out like mad. To give you a sense of what it's about, here's a list of the chapters:

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Eden of the East- King of Eden:


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With 2009 almost over, it's time to start taking a look back at the past year. One annual survey conducted in Japan asks light novel readers who their favorite character was for the year, & the results for 2009 characters are quite surprising. That is to say, the top 5 characters are all male. In fact, males dominate most of the top 10, which is quite different results from what you'd see in anime & manga surveys of the same sort. For instance, popular & well known novel series like Bakemonogatari, Magical Index, Seitokai no Ichizon, & ToraDora all make the list. Each one of these titles are well known for their attractive female characters, & yet on this survey either the male characters rank higher than the girls, or the girls don't even rank at all.

Mikoto "BiriBiri" Misaka was the highest ranked female at #6. If you were wondering why Haruhi didn't make the list, you gotta tell Tanigawa to get off his lazy butt & start the next novel already. & just to make things even weirder, the top character- Hideyoshi Kinoshita from "Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu" (pictured above)- is a trap. I guess the only thing better than a male light novel character is one that looks like a girl. The top 10 results:

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Keanu Reeves just can't seem to get enough of Japanese culture, so it would appear. First he wanted the part of Spike in the upcoming live-action Cowboy Bebop film, & now it's been announced that he'll be starring in a Hollywood adaptation of the legendary Japanese tale, "47 Ronin." Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious, Wanted) will write the samurai script, & Carl Rinsch (who's amazing work includes the commercial at the bottom of this post) will direct. Here's some information on the project:

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One Japanese otaku has fallen so hopelessly in love with his virtual girlfriend in the hit DS game Love Plus that he's decided to literally marry her. He flew all the way to Guam, took his DS with him, & found a church on the island willing to wed him & the character Nene. He plans to hold a wedding reception back in Japan & has invited the media to attend & document the event. The reception will even be simulcasted online via NicoNico Douga on November 22, so the whole world will be watching. I'm sure his family must be proud.

There's been a lot of talk about otaku demanding the right to marry 2D characters, but here comes a guy who actually goes & does it. Though while he did go through with the wedding, under Japanese law they probably don't view it has legitimate, which is what otaku really want. I'm sure he's happy being with Nene, but doesn't he realize thousands of other gamers with "Love Plus" are also doing ecchi things with Nene as well? Does this not bother him?

Source: http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/11/19/otaku-marries-nintendo-ds-nene-is-my-wife

Speaking of not selling well, it's been revealed that the second half of Gonzo's "Shangri-la" anime series will not be released in single disc format with 2 episodes per DVD, which was the case for the first half of the series (& 99% of every other anime series in Japan). Instead, the remaining 12 episodes will be bundled together in a half-series box-set, something that's still very rare in Japan despite being so common these days in the US.

Gonzo's exact reason for doing this is unknown, but more than likely it's probably due to low sales of the first six volumes of the series. Gonzo's financial troubles are no secret, & a poor selling series for them (one of the only new ones they're currently releasing to boot) definitely isn't a good thing. But putting a large amount of episodes in one release could drive up sales for the title & give Gonzo a lot of money in one lump sum, which would be a good thing for them. The special 12-episode set will go on sale in Japan on March 26, 2010. Meanwhile, us here in the US can watch the series for free on Crunchyroll.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-10/last-6-shangri-la-single-dvds-dropped-for-box-in-japan

A Japanese otaku online dating service conducted a survey asking their clients what their favorite anime was, as a way of better matching singles. The results? Men like anime about cute young girls doing cute things, & chicks dig giant robots girls like manly mecha series. It's almost as if anime has reversed what used to be the "proper" interests of both sexes. The top 10 for each gender below:

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