AnimeTrader ramblings

The Cure Maid Café in Akihabara is currently offering a special Zero no Tsukaima F-inspired menu from February 3-12. Those who order an item from the “Zero no Tsukaima F Café” menu will receive an original coaster. The café is also offering a special “Louise mug with lid” from Nigijen Cospa before Cospa officially releases the mug at the end of March.

The menu includes:

Louise’s homemade omelette
Louise’s mage ice cream
Louise mug with lid
Louise’s favorite cooked berry pie with custard
Magic circle pasta
Jacques waffle
Janet waffle
Damien waffle
Doudou waffle
Henrietta drink
Tabitha drink
Tiffania drink
Louise the Zero drink
Saito Hiraga drink
Mage Louise drink

Zero no Tsukaima F (The Familiar of Zero F), the fourth and final television anime series based on Noboru Yamaguchi‘s light novel series, premiered in Japan on January 7. Crunchyroll is streaming the series as it airs, and Sentai Filmworks will release the series on subtitled DVD later this year.

Source: Comic Natalie

Images © 2012 Noboru Yamaguchi・Media Factory/Zero no Tsukaima F Production Committee

Sentai Filmworks announced on Monday that it licensed Jun Awazu‘s (Negadon: The Monster from Mars) computer-animated Planzet film. The company will release the film digitally and on DVD and Blu-ray disc later this year.

Planzet‘s story is set in 2053 when mankind faces annihilation from space. Sentai Filmworks describes the film as follows:

In 2047, an unknown, alien life-form descends upon the Earth, destroying all the major cities in one fell swoop. The survivors unite and build a Diffusor to stop the Februus, the invaders the military would later codename the FOS, and a temporary peace is achieved. Jump forward to 2053, the present. PLANZET: The final plan, Plan Zed, to retake Planet Earth. A last, desperate counterattack against the enemy. Hiroshi Akishima, soldier in the Planetary Defense Forces Alliance, would like nothing better than a shot at the aliens responsible for his father’s death six years ago. However, the new offensive requires the Diffusor to be dropped, leaving the entire planet terribly vulnerable once more. Will humanity regain the stars or lose everything in the final, ultimate gamble?

CoMix Wave produced both Negadon and Planzet as well as the works of anime auteur Makoto Shinkai. Shin Miyahara (Karas) directed the film’s CGI, and Shingo Terasawa (Negadon) handled the film’s music. Chitose Hajime (Blood+, Ayakashi – Samurai Horror Tales, The Beast Player Erin) sang the film’s theme song “Ryūgū no Tsukai.” Planzet originally opened in Japan in May 2010. Central Park Media released Negadon: The Monster from Mars in North America.

Update: Press release link, background information added.

Images © Jun Awazu/Media Factory /CoMix Wave Films

The Nico Nico News website posted pictures of some of the 228 snow and ice sculptures created for this year’s Sapporo Snow Festival. The 63rd annual event opened in Hokkaido Prefecture on Monday and features frozen sculptures of the Vocaloid virtual idol character Hatsune Miku (pictured right), Pokémon‘s Pikachu, and One Piece‘s Luffy and Chopper.

Sculptors also recreated Nintendo‘s Mario, Anpanman, Crayon Shin-chan, My Neighbor Totoro‘s Catbus, Hirake! Ponkikki’s Gachapin, Sega‘s Sonic the Hedgehog, Kaibutsu-kun, Hana Kappa, Doraemon‘s Dorami, Suite Precure‘s Hummy, and other Japanese anime and game characters.

Non-Japanese character snow art includes the Jaws American film franchise‘s star shark, the Sponge Bob Square Pants American cartoon’s title character, and The Walt Disney Company‘s Mickey Mouse mascot.

Crypton Future Media also created the Snow Miku promotion as part of the Sapporo Snow Festival. A snow sculpture of Snow Miku featured at the 2010 snow festival, and a life-size statue of the virtual idol is also debuting at a related Hatsune Miku exhibit in the New Chitose International Airport.

The Sapporo Snow Festival is being held in Hokkaido Prefecture’s Sapporo City from February 6-12.

[Via Hatsune Miku Miku]

Images via Nico Nico News

Frontier Works released a ToHeart2 Dungeon Travelers application for the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad devices on January 31. Frontier Works released the game to commemorate the release of the first volume of the ToHeart2 Dungeon Travelers original video anime (OVA) project on February 22. The free app will be available until April 30.

Much like the kids game “red light, green light,” in the “OVA ToHeart2 Dungeon Travelers ~Sasara to Tamaki no Daruma-san ga Koronda!~” (“Sasatama” for short) mini-game, the player controls Sasara and must move her toward Tamaki while Tamaki has her eyes closed. When Tamaki opens her eyes, the player must stop moving Sasara, or the player loses. The game has easy, normal, and hard modes.

The game will list the player’s best times, and once the player beats the level in a certain time, the player is rewarded with one of several ToHeart2 Dungeon Travelers wallpapers. Those who purchase the first volume of the OVA will also receive a special code to enter into the game to receive another reward.

Frontier Works is also offering a countdown wallpaper app for Android devices. The wallpaper app will count down to the release of the first OVA, shuffling between images of the characters Sasara, Tamaki, Konomi, and Yūki. This app will be available until March 21.

The OVA project adapts the ToHeart2 Dungeon Travelers 3D dungeon role-playing game, which takes the characters from the ToHeart2 romance visual novel franchise by AQUAPLUS and puts them in a fantasy role-playing game. The OVA‘s second volume was originally slated to ship on March 21, but has been delayed until this summer. The first volume will include a short story as a bonus extra, and the limited edition of the volume will bundle a big cloth “poster” and a newly recorded music CD.

Source: Presepe

Images © 2012 AQUAPLUS/TH2DT Works

The British news network ITN posted a video report on its YouTube channel on Saturday about a Taiwanese man who has shaved the image of Sanrio‘s Hello Kitty character onto the back of his head.

50-year-old Hu Hang-Gong had the image shaved onto the back of his head to cheer up his 84-year-old father, who had said that the winter months make him depressed. Hu has his hairstyle touched up once every five days to keep the image clear.

Magazine scans have revealed that Bandai Namco Games‘ One Piece Kaizoku Musou action game for the PlayStation 3 will feature Edward Newgate/Whitebeard, Boa Hancock, Portgas D. Ace, and Brooke as playable characters. The new characters join the rest of the Straw Hat Pirate crew, who have already been confirmed as playable characters. The game’s official website is also streaming a second promotional video for the game. (Note: The video below contains spoilers for up to the end of the Enies Lobby arc of the series.)

The game publisher Bandai Namco Games and KOEI Tecmo Games’ development studio Omega-Force are working on this “dream collaboration” that combines the pirate story of One Piece with KOEI Tecmo‘s Musou (retitled Warriors in English) action game franchise.

As the first One Piece game for the PlayStation 3, the title will ship on March 1 for 8,190 yen (about US$105). There is also a 12,390-yen (US$159) Treasure Box edition with a book of designs and visual art, 15 pin badges, and an original soundtrack CD. Still another edition will bundle a gold-colored PlayStation 3 console, with the One Piece lead character Luffy in white on the top, for 38,170 yen (US$489).

Source: Moe Ota-News Sokuhō

L change the WorLd, the 2008 live-action Death Note spinoff starring Ken’ichi Matsuyama (NANA, Sexy Voice and Robo, Detroit Metal City), aired on Friday, January 27 at 9:00 p.m. and earned a 12.5% rating.

Title	Station	Date	Time	Length	Average Household Rating
Sazae-san	Fuji TV	January 29 (Sun)	18:30	30 min.	19.6
Chibi Maruko-chan	Fuji TV	January 29 (Sun)	18:00	30 min.	12.0
Doraemon	TV Asahi	January 27 (Fri)	19:00	30 min.	10.6
One Piece	Fuji TV	January 29 (Sun)	09:30	30 min.	10.6
Detective Conan	NTV	January 28 (Sat)	18:00	30 min.	9.6
Crayon Shin-chan	TV Asahi	January 27 (Fri)	19:30	24 min.	9.2
Toriko	Fuji TV	January 29 (Sun)	09:00	30 min.	8.2
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes!	TV Tokyo	January 26 (Thurs)	19:00	30 min.	5.8
Inazuma Eleven GO	TV Tokyo	January 25 (Wed)	19:00	27 min.	5.1
Hunter × Hunter	NTV	January 29 (Sun)	10:55	30 min.	4.9

Source: Video Research (Kanto region)

[Video Research does not directly post more ratings than what is listed here. Any purportedly additional data comes from unverified, anonymous sources.]

The life-size Fist of the North Star figure — that happens to be inlaid with 500,000 Swarovski crystals — received a final bid of 3 million yen (about US$39,000) in a December auction on the Yahoo! Japan website. The crystals alone on this statue of manga lead character Kenshirō are worth 10 million yen (US$130,000).

The winner of the auction is a self-employed man in his 40s from Fujieda City in Shizuoka Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo. According to the winner, his entire family are all Fist of the North Star fans; “I’ll make [the statue] a family heirloom,” he said. He did receive his wife’s consent before bidding on the auction.

The 185-centimeter-tall (73-inch-tall) figure now stands in the winner’s living room. He put it in a custom-made acrylic case to protect it from dust and earthquakes.

Tokuma Shoten‘s Coamix imprint and its Monthly Comic Zenon magazine sponsored the creation of the figure to promote their online store. The well-known figure maker Kaiyodo produced the figure under the supervision of Fist of the North Star‘s own creator, Tetsuo Hara. It took 10 designers three months to decorate the statue with 52 kinds of crystals.

10% of the final 3-million-yen bid was donated to the Japanese Red Cross for efforts in the areas affected by the March 11 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun’s Mantan Web

Image © North Star Pictures

The official website for Acquire’s Sumioni “action/ink-drawing” game began streaming a 30-second and a 15-second television commercial on Friday.

The PS Vita side-scrolling game has players fighting enemies by making ink-drawing-style brush strokes to clear obstacles, launch attacks, and summon a Phoenix and other “ink gods” to come to their aid. Sumioni’s playable demo was released for download through the PlayStation Store on January 25.

The game will ship for the PS Vita handheld system in Japan on February 9. XSEED Games announced in December that it will release Sumioni: Demon Arts in North America in spring 2012.

Source: Dengeki Online