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Meet Pyuri-tan, the new manga heroine who’s the literal embodiment of Puritan Christianity

For centuries, Christianity has had a role in the creation of some of the finest works of art. Any comprehensive discussion of art history has to include Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, and a host of other important paintings and sculptures from artists who don’t share their names with one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Speaking of art, there’s a new manga that’s just started in Japan. Looking at its earnest, wholesome heroine, you might get the impression that it’s like any of a hundred other series the country has produced, but this manga lead has something that makes her unique: she’s the literal embodiment of Puritan Christianity.

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Japanese cuisine is filled with dishes that end in don, meaning “rice bowl.” One of the most descriptive is oyakodon, literally “parent and child bowl.”

Ordinarily, oyakodon is rice topped with chicken and egg. Some sushi restaurants, though, have their own variation which instead uses sliced raw salmon and ikura (salmon roe). And now, one clever anime fan has come up with yet another version, the Dragon Ball Z oyakodon rice bowl.

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Translation isn’t always an exact science, but there are certain conventions that translators seem to implicitly agree on. For example, look up gakuen in a Japanese dictionary, and it’ll tell you it’s another name for gakkou, or “school.” However, the more sophisticated, traditional ring that gakuen has to it means that it’s almost always rendered in English as “academy.”

Likewise, dictionaries define kyojin as “a person with an extraordinarily large body.” Nine times out of ten, kyojin gets translated as “giant,” which is also the term one of Tokyo’s two professional baseball teams, the Yomiuri Kyojin/Giants, goes with.

But if you spend more time watching anime than sports, you might favor “titan” as a translation, seeing as how the monsters from Attack on Titan are also called kyojin in Japanese. Since they’ve already got a linguistic link, the baseball team and manga/anime franchise are joining forces for four games this summer as part of a special campaign with its own exclusive merchandise.

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“Yandere Simulator” game lets you release your jealous schoolgirl rage and murder love rivals

Think back to your high school days. Wouldn’t it have been nice if you could’ve easily disposed of all of your potential romantic rivals in the manner of your choice?

Now you can relive those school-day memories and channel all of your jealous rage into playing Yandere Simulator, a stealth indie game currently being developed by a single man under the moniker of “Yandere Developer.” While the concept behind his game is certainly one of the most unorthodox ideas we’ve ever seen, you’ve gotta hand it to him. It’s not easy trying to get inside the mind of a mentally-unhinged obsessive schoolgirl with murderous tendencies who still comes across as an innocent angel.

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Series of steamy shojo manga illustrations takes on the sizzling topic of IT security

It’s one of the all-time classic scene setups of Japanese girls’ comics. Our heroine finds herself in a secluded hallway of her school, alone with a handsome but mysterious male classmate. He turns to her and dramatically pounds the wall behind her, executing a perfect kabe-don before leaning in close to tell her a secret.

So what’s the dramatic line going to be this time? “I love you?” “We actually met years ago and were childhood friends before you lost your memories?” “Don’t hug me, or I’ll transform into a dog?”

How about, “Don’t you know how important protecting your smartphone password is?”

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We recently talked about how the opening theme of anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” is almost painfully ubiquitous in Japan. Overseas, though, the more famous tune is the series’ ending theme, the English-language jazz standard “Fly Me to the Moon.”

The song’s sweet sentimentalism takes on an ironic atmosphere coming after an episode of Evangelion’s painfully subversive depiction of the horrors that could unfold if 14-year-olds were actually tasked with fighting giant invading aliens. And now, “Fly Me to the Moon” will probably take on even more of a bittersweet tone for Eva fans, as the crowdfunding project to send the anime’s Spear of Longinus to the moon has fallen short of its goal.

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New Sailor Moon merch goes old school as the magical girls turn into eight-bit pixel art

Seeing as how 17 years passed between the final TV episode of Sailor Moon and its reboot, Sailor Moon Crystal, it’s no surprise that the latter makes far more use of digital animation production. But while the newer anime’s designs have sharper line work, some traditionalists still prefer the old school look of the original series.

However, if you’d rather have your Sailor Senshi not just rough around the edges, but downright rectangular, merchandiser Bandai is ready to fill that need with this line of Sailor Moon merchandise done in the style of eight-bit pixel art.

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Boruto -Naruto the Movie- film’s main staff, illustrated poster revealed

This year’s 19th issue of Shueisha‘s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine will reveal more information on Monday about the upcoming Boruto –Naruto the Movie- film.

The film will open in Japan on August 7. Original Naruto manga creator Masashi Kishimoto is credited with the original work, script, character design, and as the chief production supervisor for the film. Hiroyuki Yamashita (Naruto Shippūden episode director, Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie animation director) will direct the film and Ukyō Kodachi (Chaos Dragon, Neppu Kairiku Bushi Road) is collaborating with Kishimoto on the script.

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Attack on Titan gets live-action streaming miniseries with new character taking turn as lead

As immensely popular as Attack on Titan is, it’s easy to forget that the last new episodes in the series aired on Japanese TV over 18 months ago. Sure, creator Hajime Isayama keeps plugging away at the manga that started the franchise, and there’re also those two movies to look forward to. But for more than a year and a half now, fans have been unable to plop down on the couch and watch a brand-new installment of everyone’s favorite fully-clothed humans vs. naked giants saga.

In August, though, the draught will finally be over, as Attack on Titan is getting a three-part live-action miniseries, with a shift in protagonist and one completely new character.

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Two wildly different characters, same voice actor. Twitter users share their shocking anime finds

Are you an anime fan? Do you watch Japanese anime in their original Japanese dialogue? If your answer is “yes” for both questions, then you’ve probably had the experience of picking up on a familiar-sounding voice in a certain anime, Googling to uncover the seiyuu (voice actor in Japanese) behind the character, and then realizing that you’ve actually seen quite a few titles he or she has starred in.

Twitter users in Japan have been digging through the Internet for some drastically different performances from the same voice actor/actress, and sharing their surprising finds on Twitter. Check them out after the break!

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  • Apr 3, 2015

Members of idol Group Momoiro Clover Z turn into Frieza! But wait, what exactly happened here?

Dragon Ball’s über cool villain Frieza has been in the news quite a bit lately, owing to the upcoming release of the new Dragon Ball movie Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’, in which he plays the lead antagonist. But then, Frieza has always had a bit of a following with his quirky personality and ruthless yet polite ways, and we’re sure plenty of fans are thrilled that he will be making a huge come back in a feature-length film.

So, it wouldn’t really be surprising if popular idol group Momoiro Clover Z, who performs the theme song for Resurrection ‘F’, was involved in a promotional tie-in with the movie, and one with Frieza in particular. And that’s exactly what seems to have happened earlier this week when  the group’s official site was filled with … images of the idols as Frieza!

It looks like they’ve really gone all out with their promotion. But wait, is that what really happened here? We’ll give you a hint — the Frieza collaboration image was released this past Wednesday.

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Pokémon finally gets a Japanese Facebook page, celebrates with cherry blossom Pikachu video

Seeing as how Japan is the franchise’s home market, and also where corporate parent Nintendo is headquartered, it’s not surprising that Japan gets the lion’s share (or Pyroar’s share), of cool Pokémon stuff. After all, this is the country where people have been able to attend Pikachu parades, dine at Pokémon Cafes, and even purchase business-suited pocket monster plushies.

But one thing Japanese fans haven’t had, though, is a Japanese Facebook page for the Pokémon franchise. At least, not until this week, when Pikachu and pals made their Japanese Facebook debut accompanied by a short but sweet cherry blossom party video.

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The jury is still out on whether or not the Rebuild of Evangelion movie series is a reboot, sequel, or some hybrid of the two. What we do know is that certain things that happened in the original Evangelion TV series and the franchise’s first three movies are repeating themselves. Protagonist Shinji gets press-ganged into piloting a giant robot to fight space monsters. His close friend Kaworu has a mysterious past and tragic fate.

And in the real world, working on the series casts creator and director Hideaki Anno into yet another a state of depression.

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Tokyo, Osaka limited Gintama shops to sell limited edition merch for a limited time

In honor of the return of historical-sci-fi-comedy anime Gintama to television screens across Japan, Namco announced the opening of three shops in Tokyo and Osaka starting on April 18.

The limited-time shops will be selling both limited Gintama merchandise as well as some super-limited items. Yes, it’s a collector’s dream and a civil-rights enthusiast’s nightmare as there are so many limitations to these stores you’d think you’d lost a few of your inalienable rights in the process!

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Evangelion and Attack on Titan directors team up to create 2016 Godzilla movie

Do you like Evangelion? Do you like Attack on Titan?

Well then good news! It’s just been announced that the directors of both those movies, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, are working on the upcoming 2016 Japanese Godzilla reboot film. With both of them having plenty of experience creating huge mechs and huge Titans, we can only expect that this Godzilla movie is going to be… well, huge!

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KanColle? More like ManColle as real Japanese men parody anime opening 【Video】

If the Internet isn’t about showing off your own original skills and talent, then it’s for parodying what’s already well-known and liked. The constant stream of anime and games from Japan is a gold mine of parodies just waiting to be made.

The Kusarine Project has had an active YouTube channel since 2009 where they’ve taken some of the world’s favorite anime and video game openings and turned them into live-action works of “art”. Their 17th and newest cover tackles the KanColle opening, with their signature masked men taking on the role of the anthropomorphized battleships turned school girls. Were you expecting anything else?

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We’ve talked before about some of the cool extras that’ve come bundled with girls’ manga anthologies in Japan, but they’re not the only publications that dangle the offer of freebies to help drum up sales. In Japan, fashion magazines for adults also occasionally come with promotional items, such as day planners, scrunchies, or other goodies they think their readers might be interested in.

Women’s fashion magazine CanCam recently ran a special feature on Pokémon-related apparel and accessories, so the publishers thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to package the issue with a Pikachu-shaped fuzzy cloth pouch. To make it seem extra special, they decided to pass on his usual vibrant canary yellow and instead produce a chic monochrome version of the series mascot.

But “unique” doesn’t always mean “good,” at least according to one reader who came up with a morbid interpretation of Pikachu’s lack of color.

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Otaku ears-New line of earphones is designed specifically for listening to anime songs with

For anime music fans, the appeal of the songs is more than just their connection to the shows they serve as anthems for. Over the years, anime songs have evolved into a genre in and of themselves, often employing fast, even frantic tempos and an even greater proportion of young female vocalists and electronic sounds than Japanese pop music in general.

So now that there are certain baselines the anime music scene has established for itself, it’s time for the hardware end of the musical experience to catch up, which is the promise made by these new sets of earphones specifically designed for listening to anime songs with.

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  • Mar 30, 2015

New Sailor Moon cafe in Tokyo has live public anime viewing and themed food and drinks

Last year, we brought to you all the excitement surrounding the broadcast of the Sailor Moon Crystal anime, coming some 22 years after the original series it rebooted was released. The new anime has so far been streaming on Japanese video sharing site Niconico, but starting April 6, Sailor Moon Crystal will finally air on Japanese TV.

To commemorate the TV broadcast of the new anime, a Sailor Moon themed cafe will appear for a limited time at the Anion Station, a unique cafe and bar located in Shinjuku that caters to fans of anime songs. For one month, the Sailor Moon cafe will be offering special treats and drinks inspired by the anime, as well as  live public viewing of the TV broadcast. Now, that’s bound to attract some ardent Sailor Moon devotees!

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Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon will guard you from the rain with new line of anime umbrellas

A while back, the rights holders for Sailor Moon decided the franchise would henceforth have the official English title Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, a looser adaptation than the direct translation of its Japanese name, which would have been Beautiful Girl Warrior Sailor Moon.

Linguistic purists may bristle at the new title, but the argument can be made that it fits better with Sailor Moon’s less aggressive personality, in that she fights only to protect others. And now, after years of guarding her in-anime world from the forces of evil, Sailor Moon and her companions are ready to guard their real-world fans from the rain and sun, with this line of Sailor Moon umbrellas.

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