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:
It's been over a year & a half since the last time Marik brought together his Evil Council of Doom. Well to be fair he tried to get them together for Christmas last year, though that didn't work out too well. But now the old gang is back again... & then some!... minus a few of the old ones. & this time, they're in Detroit, Michigan! Somehow that just seems more fitting.
New members this time around include the Steve Mooninites & famous anime voice actor Dan Green! Yes, you read that right. Dan Green. & boy is he given the most evil of missions to accomplish. Yugi wont know what hit him this time.
Dartz's Abridged character was given a makeover this time around compared to his past few appearances. He's now yet another character based on Adult Swim's "Perfect Hair Forever" anime spoof (in addition to part of Marik's character). Also, he's now voiced by Takahata 101 from TeamFourStar! [tristan]Goddammit Nappa![/tristan] Bonus vid after the jump:
The official CaramellDansen YouTube Channel has announced an equally official CaramellaGirls iPhone/iPod Touch game. In the same vein as the DDR or Guitar Hero games for the iPhone, you tap on icons to play along with the song on the screen. The now infamous CaramellDansen song can be played in Swedish, German, or English vocals. The player can also choose between the three CaramellaGirl mascots, each representing a different difficulty level.
Unfortunately at the time of this posting, the game is not yet up in Apple's App Store. Remixed Record does promises it'll be up "soon" though. We also don't know the price of the game yet either, so that's a bit of a mystery as well. Moving on, more awesome video game videos below:
I've been hearing a lot of talk about how sucky the collection of series airing this season have been. While I don't fully agree with that, one thing that can't be argued is the sheer number of awesome theme songs we've been getting with the current slate of shows. There's been quite a few catchy ones this Fall, & several of them have had pretty good music videos released for them, such as the above PV for "W-B-X ~Double Boiled Extreme" by Kamiki Aya, the opening song for Kamen Rider W. In particular, fripSide's "only my railgun" opening theme for "A Certain Scientific Railgun" has been very popular in Japan. The recent release of the CD single sold over 26,000 copies in its first week on sale & ranked in at #3 on Oricon's CD single ranking chart. You can find the music video for that & much more below:
Susan Boyle, the woman with the sensational singing voice that took the world by storm over the summer due to her performance on Britain's Got Talent, has been confirmed to sing the theme song for the anime movie "Himitsu Kessha Taka no Tsume The Movie 3 ~http://takanotsume.jp wa Eien ni~." Her most well associated song "I Dreamed a Dream" (see above) will be the theme for the film based on a popular web-based Flash series. Boyle will also be releasing her first album in Japan later this month, while the movie is due out on January 16, 2010.
Boyle singing for a whacky Flash-animated Japanese movie? What part of this made sense to anybody?
Our video coverage of the Windows 7 launch in Japan continues! First up is this pretty funny commercial starring Takuya Kimura from the legendary J-Pop group SMAP. Combine this with the awesome idea of Nanami-tan & Microsoft really is doing a good job at reaching out to the Japanese & their interests in pop culture.
But then you see stuff like the video below, which shows a Windows 7 presentation booth in Akihabara. No one seems to be even giving the display or the poor girl giving the presentation a second thought:
Now that Round 3 is over, let's check the statistics of the Saimoe tournament thus far. When combining all the votes from all three rounds, K-On's Yui is once again the candidate with the most votes. You can't call K-On weak anymore, can you. Below are all the remaining girls in the tournament, but keep in mind that even though she's now out of Saimoe, Hayate's Hinagiku actually still has the second most out of everybody, with 2408 votes. Poor Hina, she just had the misfortune of going against the girl with the most. If it were anybody else, she'd still be in the game. Nothing to do now but move on:
Lots of videos of the Phoenix Wright musical have been appearing online as of late. The video above for instance is a behind-the-scenes look at the musical in Japan, taking a look at a backstage rehearsal. But even cooler than is footage of the musical itself has also appeared online- & it's subbed! So if you wanted to check this crazy event out & don't live in Japan & don't understand Japanese, this is your day. Check out a bunch of footage here:
Episode 42 - So Long & Thanks For All The Trading Cards
Despite Yami's message at the beginning of this episode, you probably don't want to miss this episode. At nearly 11 minutes in length, this is longest Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged episode yet. But since it contains one of the most important moments of the entire saga- the awakening of true evil- the extra time is well worth it. Be prepared for lots of back story, funny accents, bad 4Kids dialogue, Binky Boys, the obligatory Death Note reference, & the first television appearance of Mega Ultra Chicken!
LittleKuriboh first introduced us to Yami Marik & his unique personality way back during the first Abridged Christmas special, despite the fact that regular Marik hadn't even been introduced in the series yet. & even though that sneak peak of him was some time ago (nearly three years!), it's good to see his character remains very much the same as he was during that brief glimpse. Binky Boy!
It's awhile since the last big upload from LK, but he has released a few smaller works in the meanwhile. Check those out below:
Do you got what it takes to rock out like the Pillows? Well they're running a contest on YouTube right now in honor of the 20th anniversary. The fans who produce the best cover song will attend their "Late Bloomer Series" event at Tokyo's Budokan. The contest is open to the whole world, so you don't have to be in Japan to enter. Check out the video above for more details, or check out their YouTube page:
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.
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.
As previously mentioned, Japan is now set on making Gurren Lagann's Yoko into a pop music star. & an idol on top of that. The anime character (yes the character, not her seiyuu) is releasing her first CD, filled with songs by the fictional character. A special edition version comes with a number of goodies, not least of all a DVD featuring an animated music video to one of her songs "S.T.A.R.S." & boy is it something. Yoko fans, you can start drooling now by watching the whole PV above.
More proof that Yoko is at the top of her game right now is that Japan has started putting bedsheets of her inside UFO catchers across Akihabara. I must say, DO WANT! It'd go perfect with the Asuka bedsheet I picked up at ACen. =b It costs less than a buck to play the crane game, so you can get the sheet on the cheap if you're good enough. Of course repeated tries will probably jack the price up a bit due to the amount of money you put in, but it's still well worth it. Take a look at the sheet & dream of having it under you while you sleep over here:
Just as expected, the first of 14 new episodes of "the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" aired yesterday in Japan! No opening was used for this episode (perhaps they're saving that for the next new episode), but there was a brand new ending theme called "Tomare!" sung by the seiyuu of Haruhi, Mikuru, & Nagato. Check it out above! As for seeing the episode itself, well, Kadokawa will most likely be adding it to their YouTube page next week like they've been doing all season long. However, since none of the eps so far have been subtitled in English, this episode probably wont be either (but who knows, they do just that for the season 2 episodes after all). But don't fret, for I'll have a subbed version up on NebsTV tomorrow. ^_~
The only downside is that we'll have to wait another month for the next new episode to air. Since this broadcast is following the books in chronological order this time around, & we've seen the next few stories already animated in season one, it'll be about four weeks before we see another new episode. But it should be a good amount of new eps in a row to boot. But at least we have episode 8 to tide us over in the meantime.
Kadokawa also just announced that Haruhi will be getting a new expanded DVD release beginning August 28. This will most likely have the show in chronological order again, but with the new season 2 episodes mixed in appropriately with the season 1 episodes. No official word yet on how Kadokawa or Bandai Entertainment would plan to release the new episodes in America, assuming they get licensed.
Apparently Japanese cellphone companies are trying to target otaku as their next source for money. In the past week, two different cellphones modeled after those seen in anime have been announced. Firstly there's this extremely cool looking phone based off the phone used by Akira in Eden of the East. I mean just look at this thing. Gorgeous! It's being made by NEC, but not much else is known right now.
