HobbyStock, my favorite source for all things figurey, has gone and gotten itself a nice looking site revamping! I must say, the new look isn’t altogether shocking, but it’s a nice change, and makes getting at some of the more interesting information a little bit easier. I am liking the green border, and even the pink, but the red is still a bit severe.
Along with the revamp, today’s figure announcements sucked. There were three drama CD/t, and one for trading card 1BOX sets, one for Aquarian Age’s 7th Anniversary(8,400 yen this November), one for Fate/stay night(7,140 yen in September), and one for Aquarian Age sage3 trading cards(pack of 15 is 6,300 yen this November).
Oh and there was one real figure too. A Kanon figure of Kawasumi Mai. It comes in normal and in special color versions. Both are 4,200 yen this October. I’ll hook you up after the jump.
In fact, all the pictures in linked order after the jump. Three cheers for crap!
If you don’t know what a bitch fit is, it’s basically an arm waving and flailing tantrum. And since this is American news, you can bet it’s not good for TOKYOPOP. Anyway, apparently, not to long ago, TOKYOPOP decided that having their books in retail outlets was far too convenient for people who read manga. Especially people who read manga from more than one company (heaven forfend). Anyway, not taking the whole thing very lightly, a couple of retailers have issued angry responses to the asshole move. And that makes sense. It’s taking money out of the pockets of smaller retailers and it’s sort of like saying “Oh, you like one of the manga we happened to license? Well, sign up for our shitty website and buy it there and pay for shipping and don’t get it immediately.” to their customers. Robert Brown’s response goes a good deal in that direction. I have to say, I absolutely agree. Exclusivity is not something that the manga crowd is looking for. Just because you licensed Ai Yori Aoshi doesn’t mean that you will get the next book by that author, so it causes problems. People tend not to be buying manga from the company so much as they are buying from what looks interesting to them. It’s a bit of a unique market in that respect. There’s no brand loyalty because the brand isn’t the creator. Anyway, I tend to buy DelRey, and TOKYOPOP knows why. You know what you did, TOKYOPOP! Australian company Serenity Studios also got into it. J. Carmody takes a look at the business sense behind it, and how TOKYOPOP isn’t cool. Haha. Man, I love when people do my job for me. Brown mentions TOKYOPOP’s inability to restock, but I think ADV has the market cornered on that little gem. Yotsubato vol.4, please? According to my contact at Borders, the chain has over 50,000 people on a notify list for the fourth volume. Way to go.
Capcom has announced their plans to release a new Rockman based anime. Man, I am really going to need to stretch this one out. The show will be a TV series by the title of Ryusei no Rockman and it is set to being it’s broadcast on October 7th on TV Tokyo. The site is flash based and has some busy shit going on. Looks like they’re pushing a Nintendo DS game as well. That’s about it.
Alrighty! I am using BlogJet this time. Here’s hoping it does well. Anyway, this time around we’ve got more PS3 news. Sorry, I would post Wii news, but you know how Nintendo is. Anyway, Sony of Japan has posted up not one, not two, but… wait… yeah, two. It’s posted two PS3 sites up for your consumption. The first is the PS3 Concept Site… not really sure what the deal with it is at this point, but it looks as though it will host videos, and more entertaining content like that, to be updated as we chug towards the PS3’s release (still can’t believe it’s only a few months now!!) Right now the site hosts a 10 minute interview which doesn’t say anything new, the stock photos of the console, and a pretty boring wallpaper. Minimalists might like it, but it doesn’t hit the upper registers on the pixel count. Considering PlayBeyond is their ad campaign for the PS3, I am guessing that we’re not going to see TOO much out of that site, though I’ll keep my hopes up.
The second site is the official PlayStation.com PLAYSTATION (that’s the official way to write it) 3 home page. Not a whole lot to it right now, and that will likely remain the case, until after the console gets out and there are some firmware updates and things like that. It’s a bit easier on the eyes than the white-heavy Concept site, and currently hosts a page for some hardware features (with a rundown of the specs for each console) and a software section with the same old list to the same old games. I didn’t see anything new looking, but that page will certainly expand around Tokyo Game Show time. I guess that’s it. Yep.
That’s all for today. Hopefully we get some figure goodies tomorrow.
Ok, had some troubles with ecto and lost this post once already. It seriously drove me to the brink, so I am testing out some new blog software. This one is going to be Microsoft's Windows Live Writer software, it's looking pretty nice, but it has some quirks. The other is WB Editor, which I will test shortly. And then, as a fail-safe, I have BlogJet on reserve.
Moving along! Nikkei Business has posted an in-depth review of the anime industry as it stands in Japan. So what's the verdict? Well, it's mixed at best. It looks like there is more anime, but that it isn't doing as well overall. To make this point, they take Gedo Senki aside and point out that while, yes, it does do well in the box office, it is only doing about 60% of the business that Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi did in 2001. They also mention that even though there are currently 103 anime being broadcast in the Tokyo area, very few of them are doing well on DVD sales. So why is this? Nikkei toys with the idea that outsourcing has caused the general quality of work in Japanese anime to drop. But that's something that's been said for a long time, so nothing new there. But still, if they didn't outsource, could there BE 103 anime airing right now? And what about budgets for character animation when you are paying more animators a higher wage because of the high Japanese standard of living. It balances out, I think. But I'm a fan, so I am biased.
But some good news, Suzumiya Haruhi DVDs are selling extremely well with volume 0 moving 70,000 units and volume 1 well over 90,000 units sold so far. It's doing so well, in fact, that Kadokawa Enterprises is positioning it as their Gundam, figuratively speaking. Is it me, or did Kadokawa just announce Haruhi season 2?
Well, again, this is barely news, but it got really slow this week. Next to nothing for figures. Anyway, the MoonPhase forums have turned up the first image relating to the new Nanoha TV series, Mahou Shoujo Ririkaru Nanoha A's: StrikerS. Interestingly enough, the image is looking like it's the cover of Megami Magazine's October issue. It's strange that this would be the first production art for the series, especially considering Megami is pretty well known for it's risque posters. I wonder what sort of information it has in it! Oh well, we'll find out before too long.
I'll post the full size shot up after the jump, you know, for the fans and for proliferation on 4chan and such.
Call me a cycnic for saying there's a lot of Pia Carrot figures out there, but it HAS been a while since we've seen one from Wafuudou. Well, they're back in style and they bring gifts of Aizawa Tomomi form Pia Carrot he Youkoso! 3 and obnoxiously watermarked images. YAY! Well, I'm not sure of the scale on this one, but she stands around 220mm tall, so I will go with 1/8 or 1/7 scale tops. She boasts what looks like a solid carve with nice color choices for the uniform she's wearing, although her eyes seem to clash a bit, likely because of how poppy their color is. Just the same, it's a nice looking Tomomi, from what I can tell. She'll be out in November for 7,140 yen.
Five "meh"-quality shots after the jump. Looks like that's it for today. If anything else pops up, you know where to find it. LOL! POSTED HERE! LOLOLOL! *sigh* Sorry about that. I have to self-advertise sometimes, you know?
Update: This is a site update. There are now 24 avatars. I won't be adding anymore to the "identified" pool. Identified means that you didn't post anonymously, or something. So that's most people. Those are selected randomly per person, so yeah. That will stay at 24 (possibly not, but it won't go much higher.). However, I will continue adding bunches of avatars to the registered pool, meaning that if you pick your own avatar, you get to choose from a bunch that don't show up without being picked specifically. Just a heads up on some fun extras for people who take the time to pick out and verify an avatar. It doesn't change anything, and no one is required to pick one, but it does add some incentive to people who like that sort of thing, and who aren't lazy. Enjoy.
Ok, these two things are… not really the normal fare for ikimashou, I'll admit, but they were there,so I figured what the hell! And here we are. First up is a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Tachikoma LAT trading figure box. The box will include 12 separate pieces, resumably in every flavor… I mean color with some minor tweak to make them special. Also, there's a mystery figure. Not sure why, the blacked out box looks exactly the same as the others. Oh well. I'll put the shots up after the jump anyway. The whole kit-n-kaboodle will only be 3,600 yen this October.
Next is the Leaf Fighting Spirit trading card game. Not a whole lot to say about it. It will feature characters from Leaf/AQUAPLUS's various properties. They come in a 12 pack of starter packs or a 15 pack of booster packs. If you don't know what that means in card game lingo, you won't be buying them so I won't explain. Also, it's looking like these packs all center around ToHeart2. Not for sure since I can't see the inside of the packs with my gypsy magic. The 15 pack will run you 6,300 yen and the 12 pack is going to be 18,900 yen. Remmber, start packs are bigger. They are both available in October.
Nine shots for the Tachikoma and two for the cards after the jump.
Gundam fans… well, fans of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, today is your lucky-ish day! Pope has announced a Roux Louka figure. THe figure is based off of a previously released resin kit. Sadly, the image is of a quality roughly equal to shit. Still, based on the blurry and totally suck small picture, the figure looks like it's pretty nice. The major downside to this figure is the absolutely astronomical pricing. The 1/8 scale figure is going to cost 13,440 yen. Wow. If you're out of your mind, you can pick one of these up in November.
No, I'm not posting that shit picture after the jump, but as an update, check out these completely NSFW COMIC RIN trading figure shots. The blurred one is of the "secret figure." Looks like she'll be naked too. Hey, I needed something for the post image, and Roux wasn't helping me out.
Not that this is really news, but it sort of goes a long way to all those people who are constantly bitching about the next-gen optical formats being worthless. I mean, I know I hate HD content, that's why I have HD screens at my house. Because I like non-HD content. Makes sense. Anyway, it looks like even the anime folks are ready to make the jump to the next-gen optical formats. Gonzo will be releasing Project Papo on Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, and normal DVD on November 3rd. Arguably not the best title to kick off the HD content with, but it still looks like a good piece of anime. They're also terribly elated to be releasing it on all the formats. Other than that, it will also be airing on Cartoon Network Japan… I don't think they gave a date. CHeck your local listings for between midnight and 1 AM. There are also some keen wallpapers on the site.
