There were rumours recently about a live action version of Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service. What’s more, these reports claimed that Takashi Shimizu, the horror film director who brought us nightmare-inducing classics like The Grudge, would be sitting at the helm of the project. A horror take on the story of a cute 13-year-old witch? It seemed too good to be true! Well, it was a sad day when Studio Ghibli released an official statement quashing the salacious rumours, saying, “We have no involvement in the matter.”
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It’s not an easy question to answer, but of all the strong and mysterious ladies from Studio Ghibli’s beautiful animated feature films, who is your favourite?
Maturing into adulthood while sharing a roof with our parents can be tough. We start to become sexually aware, have boyfriends or girlfriends, and secretly store racy photos, magazines or DVDs where we think/hope/pray that no one will ever find them. And then there’s the Internet…
When our parents openly discuss things that we’d much rather they didn’t even know existed, however, words cannot even begin to describe the feelings of shame and embarrassment.
Many people around the world are captivated by the images they see in anime, movies, and (hopefully) wonderfully silly Internet sites like our own, but for some, visiting the land of matcha and Hatsune Miku is nothing but a distant dream. However, unlike most dreamers, YouTube user, TheAinioHinaki, turned his aspirations of traveling to Japan into a breathtaking video.
With nearly 300,000 views in two weeks, “Our Dreamland – Japan,” features scenes from popular anime such as K-on! and Cowboy Bebop intertwined with actual footage of people and places in Japan. It’s enough to make you want to hop the next plane to Tokyo.
Word has been swirling in the weeks leading up to the release of Burger King’s “anime viewing hamburger” which, as its name suggests, is a burger designed to be enjoyed while watching anime. Watching anime certainly would be an ideal snacking time, so the concept seems solid, but how is it really?
Our fast food specialist Kuzo went to investigate. Here is his report.
Like collecting comics? Like collecting stamps? If you happen to like both, then just try keeping your hoarding urges in check for this news.
Japan Post will be releasing three sets of stamps honoring the works of manga and anime legend Osamu Tezuka. The sets celebrate 40th, 50th, and 60th anniversaries of three of his biggest successes.
Fukubukuro, lit. “lucky bag”, are a wonderful way for stores to shift merchandise at the start of the year, not unlike western stores’ New Year’s sales but with far more mystery and intrigue involved. Shoppers take a gamble when they purchase these gift bags as they are completely sealed and their contents unlisted, and they don’t always contain products that we desperately need, but fukubukuro usually contain items whose cash value far exceeds the bag’s asking price.
So when our reporter Kuzo heard that the fast food chain and home of 30-patty cheeseburgers Lotteria was offering up special collaborative Evangelion bags for just 2,000 yen each, he powered down his Wii U, stepped out into the sunlight and sprinted – well, sort of jogged while wheezing quietly – to his nearest store to grab one for himself.
Was it worth the US$22 purchase, or was Kuzo lumbered with a cooking-oil-scented bag of tat? Find out after the jump.
The holidays are over, you’ve gained a few extra pounds, but you’re finding it difficult to start a workout routine after so many peaceful days spent lounging around. What you need is a workout buddy to help you stay motivated. Preferably a cute girl.
For those of you who don’t know any cute girls willing to get sweaty with you, Japanese indie developer Creative Freaks has you covered with Burn your fat with me!!, a fitness app/dating simulation game where players must workout in real life to impress a 2D anime love interest.
Fantasy’s a wonderful thing. With a little imagination things can be exactly the way you want it to be. Perhaps that’s why movies, animation, literature and more are so timelessly popular. They show us life the way it will never be.
The list makers over at Otome Sugoren who teach us that everything can boil down to 9 items, like party manners, otaku relationships, and inter-gender video game etiquette have compiled the nine characters from anime and manga that women wish they could be with in real life.
Now, I like me some whimsy as much as the next guy, but I’m left dumbfounded by the thought process that went into some of these choices.
With the myriad of cosplay costumes available in Japan, first-time cosplayers must be overwhelmed with all the choices. Luckily, Cospa, a major cosplay costume company in Japan, has narrowed down the choices, releasing the 2012 costume sales rankings. Coming in at number one is everyone’s favorite vocaloid, Hatsune Miku.
Check out the rest of the top ten cosplay costumes of the year:
In case you needed another reason to hope the world doesn’t end on December 21, Studio Ghibli has officially announced it will release two new films on the same day in summer 2013.
One Piece fans the world over will have no doubt lost count of the number of times they’ve seen Monkey D. Luffy chomping on a big hunk of meat.
Keen food fans that the RocketNews24 writers are, we can’t help but feel a little peckish every time we see the wide-grinning captain tucking into his meals, and we always find the food he eats, dished up by chain-smoking pirate chef Sanji, absolutely tantalising.
But now, thanks to the equally food-loving team at sister site Pouch, we have just the thing to placate our growling stomachs while we watch our One Piece DVDs or flick through our ever-growing stack of comic books: from Chef Sanji’s very own cookbook, egg-stuffed chicken!
It’s simple, nutritious and boy is it tasty. Full ingredients and recipe all after the jump >
It seems like nearly every city, town, and village in Japan has a cute mascot character to represent it. Usually these are yuru-kyara, anthropomorphic characters often designed with qualities representing whatever that municipality is known for.
The city of Suwa, Nagano, however, knows that the worth of a mascot character should be judged not by how well it represents the region, but by how well it sells. And in Japan, nothing sells better than cute anime girls.
That’s why they came up with Suwa-hime, or Princess Suwa, a young anime princess from medieval Japan with her own manga, voice actress, and line of original figures and goods.
Since her creation in 2011, Suwa-hime has been such a success that the city has even started printing her on their official marriage certificates, and the nerdy public official who came up with her is likely basking in splendid vindication of his hobby for the first time in his life.
Big-budget live-action remakes of anime and manga are tricky business. One one hand, you’ve got to please the fans, who you know will be sitting in the theater with pen and paper scrutinizing every scene. But you also have to make money, which often means watering down the source material to make it digestible for regular movie-goers. As a result, live-action remakes are usually denounced by fans (and critics), but still manage to turn a profit in the box office.
This is why we love DragonBall Z: Saiyan Saga, a live-action non-profit Dragon Ball Z trailer made by fans not because they want to make a buck, but because they love the series so damn much.
The 5 minute 44 second trailer was finally released on YouTube yesterday after months of production, and looks absolutely amazing. Check it out below!
Dragon Quest fan? Hungry? Have a few spare minutes? You’re in luck, my friend!
Thanks to the culinary creatives over at Japanese website Bistro Animeshi, we’re about to bring you the first of what we hope will be many recipes for character and anime-themed food! That’s right, over the past few years we’ve tendered to your loins, tickled your funny-bones and now we’re aiming to tantalize your tonsils.
If it’s in the Ghibli movies, we’ll help you recreate it! If you once saw One Piece‘s Luffy shove it down his neck, we’re on it. From the tasty to the downright weird, we’re here to help you cook up your anime dreams.
Welcome… to Rocket Food!
Here’s a news story that managed to warm even our cynical, Internet-jaded hearts to the core.
A man going by the name of Colonel Muska, the nefarious villain from Studio Ghibli’s Castle in the Sky, has made a surprise donation to an orphanage in Tokushima city on the island of Shikoku, Japan.
The mysterious stranger left a pile of expensive leather school backpacks as well as a copy of the Ghibli feature film on DVD outside the orphanage, along with a letter simply saying “Please think of this as an early Christmas present. Yours, Colonel Muska”
It’s not easy being a kid. If you’re fat the other kids make fun of you; if you’re skinny the other kids make fun of you; if you get good grades they make fun of you… Kids don’t need a genuine reason to be tease their peers; they can make one up just as easily.
But when your parents name you after their favourite thing – be it the weather on the day you were born, the place you were conceived or their favourite snack food – things get awkward for poor little Windy Latrine Butterfinger.
Although authorities have been known to intervene when parents try to call their child things like Akuma, meaning devil in Japanese, and @ as once rejected by authorities in China, the vast majority slip through the net. Since kanji, the Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system, are based on meaning and can be read in a variety of different ways, parents giving their child a kanji-based name (some choose phonetic kana script, but this is usually just for girls) are able to choose both their child’s name and how it will be written.
For the most part, parents choose names that convey their love or hopes for their offspring, but in the land of otaku nerdism, sometimes parents just can’t help but get carried away.
This might be what Toy Story would look like if it were made by Japanese nerds: amazing, fluid animation, incomprehensible story line. There’s even an appearance by Hentai Woody
Check the video, called “The Worst Thing”, below:














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