Lo and behold, an angel came down from on high and said unto the people, "It's weekend rollup time." And so it was, and it was good.

Anime

• Cast information for Ergo Proxy is up.
• Mononoke-Hime apparently aired on YTV in Canada this weekend… so… congratulations Canada?
• Madhouse has announced TOKYO TRIBES 2 production will begin soon, to air this fall.
• ADV Films announced the release of the UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie OVA to be released after the TV series and Prefectural Earth Defense Force to be released in March and will only be subbed and will only be $12.98 and will likely not be carried by most retailers.
• The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is holding a day of free culture awareness programs in New York City on February 7th. The event will be called Tokyo Festa.
• Otakon squelches fan art in Artist Alley.
• But then says the policy is not yet concrete. I wonder how this will effect all of my Yotsuba&! futanari requests that I made… DON'T JUDGE ME!

Figures

• Chibi Eva figures due in May from Bandai.
• Pre-orders are open on the Petoko resin kit from Orchid Seed.
• B-Club's Cagalli polystone figure will be out in April.
• Cerberus Project's Chii gets announced for June and has preorders shut down all in the same breath.
• But, Cerberus Project's Wonder Festival line-up gets a looking at to keep us happy until the pre-order opens back up. (A bit risque for those at work… I'd say they're worth getting fired to look at…)
• May has been added to the Figure Alternative release pile.
• Remember that Yayoi figure from Stellvia? Sold out in 30 seconds in Akiba.
• ON SALE THIS WEEKEND
• White Breath trading figures from Toy Planning
• Media Work's Asaba Ureshiko figure
• Fujisawa Yayoi PVC by Wafuudou Ganguten (Best of luck finding it)
• That naked Ryomou figure everyone likes so much
• A lovely Octavia PVC from Tears to Tiara
• Aizawa Tomomi from Pia Carrot he Youkoso! by Musashiya
• That cute Chun-Li figure by Organic
• Somebody's been waiting for Goodsmile's Nao figure… it's sold out.
• God this list is so long… there's still more…
• The reissue of Max Factory's Onegai! series trading figures
• The 1/10 scale Goodsmile Natsuki-chan from Mai-HiME.
• Alter's 1/5 Asuka from NGE
• Don't forget your RO Trading Figures, like I told you about.
• And to finish up, two PVCs from Yujin, the Hitotsubashi Yurie figure from Kamichu and the Aika PVC from Aria

And somehow… there wasn't any manga news. Can you believe that? Maybe I should split these up into multiple posts… oh well… maybe next time. Enjoy the light reading.

Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of all things Gundam, and Gackt, who has been know to dress up like a woman, will be appearing at the February 23rd launch of the impressively titled Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation III ~Love is the Pulse of the Stars~. Zeta III puts the series of animated Gundam series, movies, and OVAs at somewhere around 20 (correct me if I'm wrong on that), which is an impressive run by anyone's standards. The Gundam Zeta III Special Premier Event will be held at 6pm in the Yurakuchou Marion Asashi Hall.

I just added Google Adsense ads to the site, and I'll be trying to keep an eye on them to make sure it doesn't display anything too completely useless, although, even with banning the stupid URLs for Hurricane relief they still show up. Hopefully, that will stop soon. Anyway, I wanted to say a few things about the ads and what I expect of them.

Details after the jump.

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In more Kotobukiya news, their Tokiha Mai, from Mai-HiME, figure is on display in their official store in Akihabara. The 1/7 scale figure is a completed PVC version of a previously-released resin kit. This figure is not to be confused with the upcoming Mai PVC from Max Factory. Moreover, what's with all the Mai figures coming out? There's even another one coming out in April from Good Smile Company. Keep your wallets handy, Mai fans.

If you were planning to pre-order the Kotobukiya's Sela-Chan PVC by Yamashita Shunya, well, I'm sorry to say that you're too late. Shops have stopped taking pre-orders for the figure. There is some good news though! The figure will be out in only a week! That's right! You can pick up your very own Sela figure on February 3rd, if there are any left by the time you get to the shops, anyway.

Eye candy after the jump.

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Atelier-sai’s 1/8th scale PVC of Kaede from Shuffle! is goes on sale today. The figure is going for around 4,725 yen, so grab them while they're hot. It's also worth noting that Akibajin has a couple of package shots up, if you want to get a feel for the size and the… packaging.

Full shot of the figure after the jump.

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TOKYOPOP, one of the largest manga distributers in the US, has apparently let go of a few people recently. Among those getting the ax, I mean… being laid off, are VP of Sales Steve Kleckner, the senior editor in charge of OEL titles, a senoir designer, two copy editors, and a copy-editor. Those are the only six that have been confirmed as laid off so far, and there is no word yet if this is a sign of a larger internal restructuring.

In the recent market share report from Diamond Comic Distributers, TOKYOPOP had fallen behind VIZ, LLC. by a decent margin, dropping 1.2% market share overall. This fall makes it a bit more obvious why people got laid off, especially the VP of sales. Oh and for those of you who don't know, OEL is original English Language. Amerimanga. Hopefully the new manager will bring some decent books out in that realm.

Just ten days after DVD Dojo, the ADV video podcast that gives information and clips of upcoming DVD releases from the anime giant, was released onto iTunes, it has cracked the top 20 most downloaded podcasts. The free podcast was launched on iTunes on January 14th. Proving that American's aren't the only ones who like anime, the cast has also broken the top 50 in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. The full press release has a list of all the countries and notable rankings and enough links to access their stuff in iTunes that you might cry apple flavored tears.

There's a full press release after the jump, and how about let's all ignore how completely untimely my posting of their podcast launch was. I'm only one man! What do you people want?!

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Seven Seas Entertainment, the publisher behind such books as Chugworth Academy's print versions and Boogiepop, has issued a press release stating that they well be serving up some piping hot Speed Racer action come this July. Each issue of the 5-part mini-series will be 32-pages and in full color. No information is available yet on who will be scribing this tome of wonderment, nor is there any information on the artist. However, there is what I say is easily the tackiest press release I have ever seen. You need to read it, seriously. It's after the jump.

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It seems like years since all the other Patlabor movies and series and whatever made it to DVD, and finally you can see how it all started. Bandai has finally started pushing their Patlabor dope on the retail outlets. They are offering a standard version DVD for $29.99 and a super deluxe special edition plus that is packing an $89.99 price tag. The deluxe version comes with the full original storyboards as drawn by the direct, a second book with interviews, articles, and drawings, and a host of other stuff that any Patlabor fan will love… for $90. They are both available at retail on the 25th of April.