News Articles
Site News
Favorites
Anime / Manga
Press Releases
Conventions
Industry News
Fashion
Video Games
Staff Blogs
Search Articles
Submit Article

FanimeCon has announced that it will host Rune Soldier Louie illustrator Mamoru Yokota at the May 28-31 convention in San Jose, California.

Yokota provided the illustrations for the Rune Soldier Louie light novels, and then later provided the character designs for the anime adaptation. Yokota also worked as a producer for both the Air movie and Toei Animation's Kanon television series, and also worked as an animation director for the Death Note television series.

The June issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine is revealing on Monday that the Gainax anime studio's new work is titled Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Hiroyuki Imaishi (Gurren Lagann, Dead Leaves) is directing the project with assistant director Masahiko Otsuka (FLCL, Gurren Lagann, Pom Poko.) As revealed at the Gurren Lagann Parallel Works 2 event on Tuesday, Atsushi Nishigori (Gurren Lagann) is the main character designer of the new anime, and another Gurren Lagann veteran, Yoh Yoshinari, is drawing the concept art. Designer Shigeto Koyama (Eureka Seven, Gunbuster 2, Gurren Lagann) is acting as a "coordinator."

The story centers around a teen-celebrity-like blond-haired girl named Panty and a black-haired Goth Loli girl named Stocking. The two are angels sent from the heavens to battle the "Ghosts" on Earth.

FanimeCon has announced that it will host Gainax studio co-founder and executive director Hiroyuki Yamaga at the May 28-31 convention in San Jose, California. Yamaga has visited the convention every year since 1997. He wrote and directed Gainax's first feature film, The Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force), and has since been involved in almost every Gainax anime since then, including Gunbuster, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mahoromatic - Automatic Maiden. He also wrote the Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket video anime series for Sunrise. He recently co-developed the Gurren Lagann anime franchise and produced the Shikabane Hime: Aka television series.

FanimeCon will also host voice actress and singer Halko Momoi (Ai Yori Aoshi's Chika Minazuki, My Bride is a Mermaid's San Seto, Tales of the Abyss' Anise Tatlin), the J-rock band LM.C, and game creators Daisuke Ishiwatari and Toshimichi Mori.

Lead writer of Mass Effect 2, Mac Walters, will be making a public appearance at the BioWare booth at PAX this Saturday, September 5th, from 2pm-3pm. Fans can will be able to pick up an exclusive signing card (featured below).

Working closely with Dark Horse and BioWare, Walters will pen the upcoming comic series. “Reading the series won’t just add to your experience of the universe, it will change the way you look at Mass Effect 2 . . . and beyond.”

Mass Effect: Redemption #1 is schedule to be released on January 6th, 2010.

As a special treat, PAX attendees will have the chance to get an exclusive signing card featuring the cover art for issue #2 with a brand-new and soon-to-be-revealed character!

Source: Dark Horse

September will see the promotion of tourism in Kagoshima Prefecture, the home of Japan's main space launch facility, through a new Galaxy Express 999 anime short. Titled Ginga Tetsudo 999: Diamond Ring no Achira e the short uses Leiji Matsumoto's story about a space-faring train to express themes of space, railway and dreams. The anime will represent the Uchinoura Space Center and the region's expanding Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train line.

In the short written by Yoshimi Narita (Hakaba Kitarō, Yes! Precure 5), the Galaxy Express 999 boy protagonist Tetsurō takes the 999 train to see the recent total solar eclipse on July 22. The boy, who dreams of becoming an astronaut, ends up traveling throughout Kagoshima, space, and time itself as he arrives at 2035, the year of the next total solar eclipse in Japan. The Young Astronauts Club of Japan, the youth science group chaired by Matsumoto himself, helped with the project's proposal and development, and Iku Ishiguro directed the work at Toei Animation.

As a few of you may know, there is a new Jak and Daxter game coming out, entitled "The Lost Frontier". This new game looks stunning in it's PSP trailer, but doesn't look like a JnD game much. I think it's because Naughty Dog (the creators) handed it over to High Impact games. So, I decided to write this review as a tribute to the original, and in my opinion, the best.

Jak and Daxter is about a boy and his Ottsel who go off to find a cure for his friend, Daxter. The Ottsel. You see, Jak and Daxter had "borrowed" the fisherman's speedboat to go to Misty Island and Daxter had fallen into a vat of "Dark Eco". Instead of dying a horrible death, he popped right back out as the orange rat-like creature.

You control Jak, the silent protagonist of this game. In Daxter's own words, "He gets to do all the cool stuff, like pilot A-Grav Zoomers." The aim of the game is to collect Power Cells for different mechanical inventions, like the Zoomer's heat sheild or the boulder lifter. There are also orangey pinky egg shaped objects floating around the place called Precursor Orbs which can be exchanged for Power Cells.

This game is very nice for it's age. It has an open world setting with NO loading screens whatsoever. The aforementioned A-Grav Zoomer is fun to tear around on, but there are only limited spaces you can ride it.

Anime Expo® 2009 is proud to announce its latest programming addition the AX AFTER DARK program that will be hosted at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel and the 24 Hour Shuttle Service Program that will also be held during the nation's largest anime and manga convention held July 2-5, 2009 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. More information can be found on the website Anime-expo.org.

News Links Here

Recent Reviews here

Recent Articles Here