All Otaku Magazine Issue 2 by All Otaku Magazine

Halloween Issue 25 November

ALL OTAKU Magazine ALL OTAKU TOP 10 SCARIEST ANIME Hellsing, Elfen Lied, Hell Girl and Deadman Wonderland all on one page.

Danny Choo The Storm Trooper invades Japan

Mimiru Surprise Surprise

k_miyuko Features in our Cosplay of the Month Kim Bussiahn tells us what inspires her in our SA Artist of the Week interview

Editors Letter

As we all know doing something once out of excitement is easy. You look at something and say wow that looks like fun and generally people call it beginners luck when you get it right the first time. But most of us also know that the second time can also be daunting. So this month we are proud to present to you our Halloween edition!!! We bring you the best in gore games, anime horror and all round creepy stuffs. From our Top Ten Scariest Anime to our “Zombie and Horror Only” game reviews. We also feature spreads on Elfen Lied and Kim Bussiahn, and take a look at what is hot in anime this month (see the Anime Board). This month we also announce our new mascot/vocaloid MIMIRU AYUMU!!! She will be the face of All Otaku and maybe appear at events hosted or attended by All Otaku staff. We also do a history check on Asian super start DANNY CHOO, take a look at Megatokyo, feature great cosplay outfits in our Cosplay of the month, find out what J-pop is all about and start looking at what we are doing in our own country. The SA Anime Directory features not one but two cosplays in SA this December, and is a great place to find out if there are any events happening or societies forming in your area. As I will continuously remind you PLEASE!! let us know what you want to hear about in our magazine and if there are any pages you think we are missing drop us an email. Other than that we hope you have a freaktastic Halloween. Regards from the Editor Joannah Stewart

“Video games are a conduit for the soul. They expand our lives, channel our imagination, test our skillz. Games exist as a channel for the boundless energy of people all over the world. It is a medium you are incapable of understanding.”

Contents

4 ALL OTAKU WELCOMES MIMIRU This month we welcome our mascot to the team. Read all about her on page 3 7 JAPAN’S VERY OWN STORM TROOPER We take a look at the life of an anime legend in the making. 20 MEGATOKYO The history and story line behind one of the wests biggest anime endeavours. 25 SA ANIME DIRECTORY Our latest addition to the magazine brings you the happenings and news in SA. From Anime societies to events and contacts. Get it here.

How to cosplay

The Anime Board

Elfen Lied Spread review- Master piece or gore fest?

J-pop. The Complete History

This week we REBOOT.

Halloween Special- All Otaku’s Top Ten Scariest Anime

Artist of the Month

The News Box

Cosplay of the Month

The Gaming Corner

Mimiru’s Anime Class

Featured Game

All Otaku Magazine Introduces MIMIRU to the team While cooking up a storm of craziness one evening the team and I realised we needed a bit of help with our image. We sat a pondered as to what it was that we could do to get the masses to bow down to our ever growing awesomeness, and after a while came up with the idea to release a new UTAUloid. With that I quickly got to work on the new muse of All Otaku. She took a while to cultivate but I soon had something that we could work on. So It is with great pleasure and pride that we introduce to you South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first official UTAUloid and All Otaku mascot Mimiru Ayumu!!

Physical stats Height: 160cm Weight: 47kg Body-type: Slender Hair-color: Pink Eye-color: rose pink

Personality

She is an out going fire cracker who likes to make friends. Not shy at all Likes: Anime, music, fireworks, crowds, pizza, and cats Dislikes: Fish, stupid people, dogs, doing dishes, and gore. Mimiru is SA born from a Japanese family. She loves to be outdoors. Her goal is to bridge the gap between Japanese animation and SA animators.

MIMIRU Ayumu

How to cosplay

“Cosplay is a time-consuming, DIY hobby that entails creativity, crafts, and a detailed knowledge of every single aspect of your favourite character’s being.”

osplay has quickly become a big part of the anime culture. Fans flock to cosplay fests around the world every year to enjoy the excitement and escapism of playing their favourite characters from anime, manga, games and even books. From Comic Con and Dragon Con (my favourite :D) down to the smaller festivals like Rage and icon people still gather to share their ideas and costumes with each other. This year we have two of our own cosplay competitions coming up in December, Cape Town Cosplay on the 3rd and A.I Fest on the 10, so we here a few tips on how to make your cosplay absolutely great for these events.

Step one Choose a character to cosplay It is true that the more obscure the anime, the more wow’s you will get. But also take into account budget, personal skill and the crowd you are cosplaying for. It totally sucks when you make the most amazing Rosette out and no one knows who you are. Also find a character that speaks to who you are. It is easier to play some one you admire or is similar to you than a character that you don’t really like but think is cool.

Tips and Tricks Just remember you can cosplay ANY one you like, from anime, video games,comics, movies, tv/commercials to your favourite actors or singers, so you actually have a large selection of characters to choose from.

Step Two Sketch up a detailed illustration of you outfit. What does this character wear? How do they style their hair? What make-up and accessories do they wear? Does This Suit You And Your Body Type? Now make a list of things you can buy and things you can make. Find out where you can get these types of things.

Cross Cosplaying is also an option, especially for girls, that is fun to play with. As long as it is isn’t a guy running around in a mini skirt with hairy legs it’s fine.

Step Three

Step Four

Study your character. Watch how they character moves, how they re-act, what their catch phrases are. Once you can copy then you are half way there. The thing about having a good costume is that you are putting on a show, so to speak. If you are entering a cosplay competition you will be judged on this ability to act like the character you have chosen. However not every one acts like their character and it is not compulsory so feel free to do as you like. Cosplay is about fun, not being forced to do something specific.

Start buying things for your costume. Start with the small things like ribbons, wigs, contacts, etc.

Step Six

Step Seven

Learn to pose. Folks are going to want to take pictures of you, and it would be terribly shameful and a waste of all the hard work in the previous steps if you don’t finish this off with some kick-ass photo opps.

Time to put it all together and see what the over all effect is. Now is when you get to change things and adjust your costume to make it perfect.

Step Five Make anything that you can’t buy. Buy material and start sewing. If you don’t know how now is the time to learn. It’s not hard at all and in fact you will find it quiet rewarding, once you are finished, to have achieved making something by yourself.

Selecting a characters is the most difficult step. There are two things to factor in: 1. When choosing your character concentrate more on the character and the possibility of pulling that cosplay off rather than finding the strangest or most unique character as they are usually hard to create a costume for. I am not saying that you should not play difficult characters but if this is your first time go easy. 2. Focus on getting that characters expressions and looks right. This finishes the over all look for a better cosplay. Note that you shouldn’t use bobby pins, which appear crinkled on one side but straight on the other to clip on your wigs. Instead, use hair pins, which are symmetrical and have better holding strength for this particular application.

www.otakuvillage.net. http://www.cosplayhouse.com/halloweencosplay.html http://www.cosplayclasses.com/basicnowledge-for-cosplay-costumes-aboutcloth/#more-81 http://www.squidoo.com/howtocosplay https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gnTqYXYvLwI http://hetalia-cosplay.deviantart.com/ blog/30210651/

Danny Choo

A memorable moment while on a shoot in the sticks for a documentary about fireworks for the Discovery Channel was when a bi-plane flew by the cast and camera crew at low speed and altitude. It was a clear blue evening and the sight sent a tingle down my spine. Was an inspiring sight that made me want to do something with this life.

The Storm Trooper invades Japan

Born in 1972, Danny is the blog author of and the founder of Mirai Inc., best known for his exploits as a Star Wars Imperial stormtrooper exploring and dancing in the streets of Tokyo.

I ended up living with a white, black and then with an Indian family for what seemed like an eternity.

As he got older his parents could afford to let him stay with them. He stayed with his dad for a few years and then moved in with his mother, at which point he began to make friends outside of school. He was a fan of Kylie Minogue at the time and so found other people with the same interests by waiting outside the BBC or at Kylie’s recording studios. Somewhere in between he discovered Sega Megadrive - a Japanese 16 bit game machine. Wanting to know as much as he could about the consols latest games be took to raiding Japanese book stores in London. His lack of internet back then these stores were his only way of finding Japanese material. The Japan Center was one such shop, here he discovered anime and manga. At this point things changed from Kylie to Anime. Like a lot of us he was overwhelmed by the animation, stories, mecha and cute girls, and he wanted more, not just in anime but in any aspect of Japanese culture. Soon he was so captivated by Japanese culture that he decided to learn Japanese, picking up scraps here and there from dictionaries and text books he learned the basic grammar. He also learned a lot from manga like Ranma 1/2 and Crayon Shin-chan. The more he learned the more he wanted to know and while he managed to get deals on older anime he didn’t care how long they had been out as long as he got a glimpse of Japan. Often he would just let the anime play in the background as he did home work or record the voices and listen to them on the train. He had become the ultimate Otaku. After a while of learning by himself he decided he wanted to speak with others so he took a Japanese evening class in Angel. But when his teacher told him to forget his dreams of working and living in Japan he quit and found other ways to speak with other people. So he put up an ad on the community board at a Japanese

shop asking for a Japanese speaker to each him and who he could teach English. He was successful and he was soon able to take His Japanese Language Proficiency Test and after the tests he found a Japanese speakers club called Axel. His anime obsession soon led him to a company called Manga Entertainment who decided to let him be Editor for a fan club magazine called “Mangazine”. This meant that he would have to review manga and anime before it was released in the UK. But they paid him nothing and so he would work, part time, for his father at the Metropolitan. While working for his dad, Jimmy Choo (yes the world renown shoe designer), Danny learned everything about the shoe design and manufacture process. He learned to design, cut patterns, stitch and last Uppers too. He was also lucky enough to work with fashion journals like Elle and Vogue, attending fashion shows and sourcing model shoes. But he never stopped learning Japanese or forgot about his passion for anime. And after realising that working part time for his dad would not allow him to follow his dreams he quit.

To make up for his lack of cash flow he signed up with an agency and worked on TV dramas, ads and documentaries, he also helped translate Japanese letters and documents while studying business at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He also worked at a Japanese restaurant called Benihana, as a waiter. This was his first step towards making it to the land of the rising sun. While working here he could speak Japanese as much as he wanted and he could save up money for a flight to Japan. With in a year he had enough money to go to Japan. He was luck to have made friends in Japan who offered that he stay with them. While there he bought a microphone and recorded the sounds of Japan, upon his return to the UK he set up speakers around his room and played the sounds as motivation to make it back to Japan. He made it back many times and his group of Japanese friends grew very fast. In between his trips to Japan he stayed at Benihana where he met his wife.

“The result of that call was that in July 1999, wifey and I packed up stuff from our friends place to dump at mums place (^^;) and picked up our one way tickets to Japan. My dream came true. I was going to live and work in the land of the rising sun. All the hard work over the previous few years paid off. Discover and live your passion and the rest will just follow - it always does. Never give up. Don’t make barriers for yourself and especially don’t let barriers that other people put in your way stop you. Listen to your heart and forge forward. We had saved enough money in the bank to start out our new life. All we needed to do now was to pack a couple O suitcases and say goodbye to dad.”

Danny Choo

As a child Danny Choo was unfortunate enough to be put into foster care and passed around like a doll. His life was filled with bullies and beatings from all sides and his only joy were the weekends he got to see his mother or father. As a form of escape Danny would watch TV, or what little he was allowed at the time, and soon stumbled upon his first anime in the form of Gatchaman (or G-force as it is known in the west). Little did he know at the time but that was to be his future. His school life too was a nightmare. He was bullied frequently and his lack of interest in class gave him bad grades.

These days after I eat at a restaurant, I usually wipe the table and stack up the dishes for the waiter/waitress as I know exactly what it’s like to serve in the halls.

After Graduating From SOAS he was offered a job at Japan Airlines as a Computer Engineer for their computing division, JAL Avionet. It was his first full time job... But while he was happy with the job he still wasn’t in Japan, so as time passed he started searching for jobs in Japan and found one as a web marketeer in Tokyo. He went for an interview, and after impressing the HR he was sent to Tokyo for a week’s trial and seven days of pressure he was asked to wait for their decision. He got the call that Sunday...

The couple moved into a small place on the outskirts of Tokyo in a place called Higash Fushimi.

The best thing that my dad has ever done for me was to let me achieve and earn on my own.

Living with Illness “As long as we live, we will encounter illness. Some of these illnesses come and go like the common cold but some of us have to live with these illnesses for the rest of our life. And then there are some of us who are born with illnesses. Not sure whether I was born with Asthma (both parents have it) but remember carrying around an inhaler as a wee lad. Hardly use the inhaler these days though. Also remember a time where I had my chest pumped to get rid of some sort of fluid which accumulated in my lungs. The illness that I wasn’t born with however was Spinal Hernia which I was diagnosed with back in 2008. A few discs in my lower back region have ruptured and are sticking into the nerves which extend from the spinal cord. This causes pain which goes down to my legs. The pain used to come and go but for the past year its been permanent. The discs in the spine wear away anyway but mine are kinda already screwed ^^; As you can see from my MRI scans above - most of the discs are dark in colour where they should be white. As the discs wear down, the spinal cord starts to get affected which causes pain where in some cases it leads to the inability to walk. I was devastated when I was diagnosed with the illness and remember being depressed about the prospect of not being able to walk one day. But then after brooding about it for quite a while, I made the decision to just keep living, working and playing as hard as I could until I maybe eventually end up in a wheelchair. If I’ve only got a certain amount of time left then I’d rather enjoy it instead of waste it being depressed. I remain optimistic and am aware that not all Spinal Hernia leads to the inability to walk and many folks with the illness don’t experience pain anymore after rehabilitation. My rehab however doesn’t seem to work but its not something I get depressed about anymore as I’ve learned to live with the pain - but sneezing is a killer! I guess its like sailing a boat with a damaged rudder - still sails though ^^”

A year there after Danny created dannychoo.com. The sites’ original intention was to act as a testing ground for his self taught programming and graphic design. Life was good and Danny reminds his viewers that he has gained a lot by working for Nature and many ways but at that point he realised that he was in the “comfort zone”. He no longer had any motivation to achieve his dreams. His life was content but not fulfilling and so he did what not many people would have in his situation, he began to look for another job. During the many interviews he set out to endure he discovered a recruitment company called Job Dragon, which he placed his CV with. A day later they called him and asked him to come in for an interview and he was hired. About three months after his employment with them they had to lay him and a few others off due to financial difficulty. But because Job Dragon was a recruitment agency they offered to find Danny a job. He was offered two major jobs. One from Amazon Japan and one from ebay Japan, despite ebays enormous salary Danny chose to go with Amazon. A little while later ebay Japan folded and left the country. Due to Danny’s huge success as website manager he was often rewarded with big bonus’, but his hectic schedule meant that he no longer had time to work on his site or his computing experiments. He was the youngest member of the Amazon management team, earning three times what he did at Nature. In 2003, when Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) - an API which allowed any developer access to Amazons catalogue data in XML format. With AWS, one can build online shops filled with Amazon products- Danny took the opportunity to build Japans first IAWS powered site. It was called Mitsukatta and was used as an example in a press conference when the service was officially launched in Japan. But he still wanted to work on the project and see if he could improve it, he started learning server side caching and Search Engine Optimization and with permission he placed Amazon associates tag in links to products on the Amazon site allowing him commission from Amazon. Danny began to realise that AWS as an internal tool for Amazon and save months of development and man power, reducing the work time to just a few days. And so he began working on proto-tyes, which were discovered by the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. Jeff then offered him the chance to work in Seattle building internal tools for the company. Danny accepted his offer and in July of 2004 they packed up and hoped on a plane to America. There he worked on competitive monitor-

ing, selection analysis and ASIN (SKU) metric systems. While Danny loved the work he was doing in Seattle he found it difficult to get used to American life. He spent much of his time wishing he was back home, and after months of consideration he took another leap of faith and quit his position. He and his wife headed back to Japan where he stayed at Amazon and was put in charge of a new website called Joyo.com So how did Danny Choo go from a typical Asian guy behind a desk in a square office to one of Anime’s most loved culture bloggers in history? Well when he was in Seattle he created a blog function for the site, but it wasn’t really until he got back to Japan that he started to blog regularly. At first the blogs were mostly about Gundam, figures and Japan, but thanx to his computing skills he was able to create a template for his blogs to optimise search engine results and build a fan base faster. His pictures also attracted a lot of attention causing readership to grow overnight.

But then I started to realize that I had fallen into one of the most dangerous situations that one can ever be in - something that I call the Comfort Zone. While working for Amazon Danny often got requests from other clients to create websites for them. Being happy where he was in his job he paid little attention to the requests. Instead he sent back a message saying:

“OK if you really want a website then its going to cost you X million yen.” To his surprise most of them agreed to his prices and with 1 million yen being the equivalent of 10 000 dollars he was willing to spend much of his spare time programming until the early hours of the morning.

Danny Choo

While working for Nature, Danny was put in charge of marketing as well as process subscriptions, building portal sites, check translations and launch journals in the region.

He often banked just shy of what he made in a year at Nature and the requests just kept on coming in. Soon he was unable to handle the work flow without affecting his full time job and so with the help of Google he started to seek out developers from over seas, he ended up with development teams in India, Romania and the US. He worked remotely with them, via email or over the telephone, and required half the payment from their clients up front with which he paid his developers. For the first time he was managing his own group of staff.

But life is not about being financially comfortable - its about living a passion which was not what I was achieving in Seattle.

“But everything in life happens for a reason and every event is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that one collects during their journey in life.”

ture with the world and provide a means to do so. They help Japanese business’ expand overseas and develop characters for companies like Sony.

Another significant increase in traffic occurred in 2007, around the time of the first Tokyo Dance Trooper video, pushing its traffic rank from around 40,000 at the time, to almost 5000th in the world as of March 2008. Page views for July 2007 was over 10 million served to over 50,000 unique users per day. On September 13, 2007, Danny Choo was a panelist at Imprint 2007 at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Los Angeles, California.

In 2005 Danny decided that he had learned all he could from Amazon and so handed in his resignation with them, for a short time he worked on projects for random people before he made his way into Microsoft Japan. He was hired as a Consumer Generated Media (CGM) Product Manager, he was in control of services like blogs, favourites, maps and so forth.

In 2009 Danny and British engineer, Chris Gaunt, got together to continue a platform called Marai Gaia. It was one that Danny had started years before which involved creating a platform that could do everything from e-commerce to publishing to communities, much like the templates we use in sites like the one we use for this magazine. This meant that the only difference between client A and client B’s site are a bunch of basic settings, CSS and PHP templates. But things were not going as smoothly as Danny had planned which almost left him bankrupt. The company had one main client at the time and Danny did a lot of free work for major companies with the belief that it would get them more clients. The company is now involved with anime and game companies like Good Smile Company, Kadokawa, Bushiroad, King Records, Dentsu, Sega Sammy and Ascii Media Works. Their goal is a simple one - to share Japanese cul-

“And for the folks who are wondering - I have no intention of taking over dads business - I already have my own company and I love what I’m doing. Besides - could not bare the thought of working in a field that has zero 2D girlies! My company generates enough money to provide my wife and I with a comfortable life and to grow our business - that’s all we need. I have no idea if I’m going to inherit anything but if I do then its going to go to building schools for some of the less fortunate kids in the world.”

Danny Choo

This ,too, ended up with Danny leaving the company, but by this time he had saved up enough money to start up his own business. But while money wasn’t an issue what do with it was a bit of a blur. He know that he would start off with web consulting and began using the third floor of their house as office space. Through his large network of connections he was able to get work, and eventually he ended up consulting for companies like Disney and Columbia Japan.

On July 24, 2005, Danny Choo purchased an Imperial stormtrooper costume on eBay and blogged of his intention to wear it in the streets of Tokyo. Over the next year, he posted pictures and video clips of himself wearing the costume in public and visiting businesses in Tokyo. On September 24, 2006, he uploaded a video of himself wandering the streets of Tokyo in the costume to YouTube, which has been viewed more than 11,000 times. A second video, filmed in Yokohama, reached a similar audience.

Anime Post This month we have added a little something for our readers to play with. Every month from now on we will be adding a funny picture somewhere in the magazine and you guys will have to send us the funniest caption you can come up with. For now it will be for the hell of it but once we have enough readers we will be giving out monthly prizes. Send us your posts at fanmail@all-otaku. co.za

The Anime Board

High School of the Dead

Deadman Wonder Land For those of you with a real taste for gore this is for you. While I will say it is not as bad as something like Gantz in the gore department, the twisted reality that is Deadman Wonder Land makes things seem worse on an emotional level. I found that this series managed to burrow into my brain and force me to feel what the characters were feeling. Each character is so well built and dynamic that it’s hard not to believe in their plight. The part that got me the most is how helpless the characters are, trapped in this little globe of torture and torment, unable to break free not by some kind of mental block but simply because it is impossible. And while I am not a gore fan by ANY means I can appreciate the gravity of the situation that Ganto is in. The animation and style of art is equally applaudable, the movement is smooth but graphic and the world around them is very vivid. The year is 2023 and Japan has been hit with something called a the Red Whole that destroyed most of Toyo and surrounding areas. It is now a few years later and Japan has started to repair itself. The restricted areas are being opened and Tokyo is seeing it’s first tourists again. Our tale starts with a young boy, Igarashi Ganta , and his class mates in school when “The Red Man” attacks, killing all of his class mates and two best friends. The Red Man

The Mystic Archives of Dantalian Set in the early 1900s, Huey Disward has just inherited his grandfather’s estate. His grandfather, a known collector of ancient and magical books, has left to Huey’s care the Bibliotheca de Dantalian and it’s keeper, the young Dalian. The pare are instantly put to work in finding these Phantom Books and stopping them from causing chaos Genres: action-adventure, in the old English contemporary fantasy, fantasy, magic, summer 2011 country side. These

books, written under unusual circumstances by extraordinary people, contain knowledge that allows certain readers to tap into a power beyond that of our world’s own.

The series is a little rough at first with sudden leaps in the plot lines and slow animation that makes you think you are in a dream but the promising story line gets you thinking there is more to be had here. And there is, it just seems to lack a little when compared to others in it’s genre like Chrono Crusades.

Jelly boobs!!!!! If there is one thing that this series has it is definitely jelly boobs. However this show does have more to offer than just a bunch of girls with big knockers that seem to defy gravity like a jumping castle with a fat kid bouncing on it. Nope. This is a story about a group of kids fighting for survival as their world and everything they know Genres: Action, zombie. Studio: Madhouse crumbles around them. Year: April 27, 2011 The story follows a group of high school students, the high school’s nurse, and a young girl as they fight their way to safety through the deadly streets of Japan during a worldwide catastrophic event known as the “Outbreak”. As the cast tries to survive the zombie apocalypse, they must also face the additional threats of societal collapse, in the form of dangerous fellow survivors, and the possible decay of their own moral codes. Each character brings their own special something to the team and while some of the backing characters lack depth the main characters are very real people that you can relate to.

Episodes: 12 Publisher: Kadokawa Pictures Inc. Year: 2011 Air Date: Jul 15, 2011 to Sep 16, 2011

Little do they know that other Bibliotheca and their keykeeps exist. Some believe they must destroy these books others try to use it to their own advantage.

Steins;Gate

then implants Ganta with a blood crystal leading to him blacking out on the floor. When he comes to he is horrified to find that he is being blamed for the murders and with the help of his crackpot lawyer he is sent to Deadman Wonder Land, a privately owned prison/amusement park used, supposedly, to try and fund the rebuilding of Tokyo city. In reality however it is a gore fest for spectators who believe that the entertainment is fake. Here Ganta is fitted with a collar that injects poison into his blood stream, the only way to neutralize the poison is to take the anti-dote in the form of candy. While in the prison he meets a strange girl named Shiro who doesn’t seem to be a prisoner there, or even human for that fact. Ganta quickly becomes obsessed with The Red Man and exacting revenge that he begins to unlock the power within him attracting the attention of the jails assistant warden Tsunenaga Tamaki the main antagonist. Ganta soon discovers that there are more like him and that they are being forced to fight each other for sport in a tournament called the Corpse Carnival. Genres: action-adventure, dystopia, sci-fi, science fiction, shounen, tragedy, violence Publisher: Kadokawa Pictures Inc. Year: 2011 Air Date: Started Apr 16, 2011

Over all the animation and design are amazing, with one of the best zombie ass kickings ever in episode 5. The story line, although not the most original, is still rather entertaining with enough fan service on board to keep your nose bleeding non stop.

FREEZING Set in a slightly futuristic world, Earth has been invaded and is at war with aliens from another dimension called the Nova. In order to counter them, Pandoras and Limiters, genetically modified girls with super fighting skills and their male partners who use special “freezing” powers to limit their opponent’s mobility, are made to fight against the Nova. The series focuses on Kazuya Aoi, a Limiter whose late sister was a Pandora, and Satellizer el Bridget, a powerful Pandora with a cold personality, both who are enrolled at the West Genetics Academy, one of the many academies where Pandoras and Limiters are trained. In spite of the warnings of all his friends about Satellizer, who has intense aphephobia, Kazuya decides to be her friend and Limiter. The story follows Kazuya’s friendship with Satellizer, the students of the Academy and Earth’s war against the Nova. At first glance, Freezing appears to be your typical fanservice filled show with pretty animation. And in a way, that’s exactly what it is. The animation is shiny and the animators obviously took the time to include all of the detail to make the world seem life-like and a place you can immerse yourself in. The expressions of the characters vary from intense to goofy, just like any other anime. However, it’s the fight scenes that really draw you in. Each fight is expertly choreographed and the animation is fluid and overall enjoyable to watch. Even when the characters are not being serious, the animators are able to get their emotions across very clearly.

Ao no Exorcist After the death of their mother Rin Okumura and his twin brother Yukio are raise by Father Shiro Fujimo, perish priest of a small church in Japan. But when Rin finds out that he is the son of Satan things start to go bad and the father is killed. At Shiro’s funeral, Rin has an encounter with Mephisto Pheles, head master of True Cross Academy, who agrees with Rin’s wish to become an Exorcist like his guardian to avenge his death. With this unexpected turn of events he is quickly excepted into the prestigious school where he his and brother are to study to become exorcists. The True Cross Academy is the Japanese branch of an international organization dedicated to protect the human realm, Assiah, from demons and other creatures from the their realm, Gehenna. Little does he know that his brother has been studying as an exorcist since the age of 7 and that he is the youngest exorcist in existence. Yukio ends up becoming one of Rin’s teachers and with the help of his class mates and the Kurikara, a sword that restrains his demonic powers when sheathed, he defeats the evil that threatens to invade the school and his world. Rins powers unfortunately means that he is permanently in demon form with fangs, pointed ears and a tail, but he also has the power to ignite himself into blue flames that can destroy anything they touch. Over all the concept and feel of the series is an exciting one but it lacks a little in animation. However the story will keep you satisfied from the very beginning all the way till the end of this season.

Shangri-La Set in the near future where the markets are ruled by the amount of carbon a country can create, Shangri-La starts with Hojo Kuniko who is in line to inherit Metal Age, her father’s land. After her release from Juvi she returns home only to be thrown into a global conflict between governments, nations and hackers. Unlike most female characters in anime Hojo is no whiny “please-save-me” type, she is strong, inquisitive and intelligent, and like all of the characters in this series she is unique with a rich and believable history. Her friends are a bunch of trannies, one of which has to be one of the best characters in anime, nay, in any show I have ever seen, with his innuendo filled jokes he fights bad guys by flirting with or whipping them. There are a couple of OTT old guy anime pervs and even a father figure for Hojo. And while you may be thinking “Seriously” you will find that the story is so well written that everything comes together in a symphony of action, mystery, suspense and wicked humour. To add to the list of dynamic characters we are also introduced to an albino girl who kills any one who lies to her, she’s the leader of a religious cult, there is also a little blond girl who happens to be a financial and technical genius attempting to take over the world, and a really beautiful women who seems to monitor all happenings on the market. She is like the Carbon Market Administrator. As the story unfolds you each faction seems to have their own agenda but as the story progresses you discover that each person has a connection to the next and that they are all stuck in an always evolving and apparently supernatural spider web. With out having to give anything away the only thing I had a problem with was that time was a little distorted to the Viewer. You often wonder how long something has taken as there is no reference, but if you are an avid fan of anime that make you think and presents you with a mental challenge you HAVE to watch this. For those of you who follow Naruto and one piece please don’t even bother.

Steins;Gate Taking us back to 2010 Steins;Gate tells the story of the “Future Gadget Laboratory” run by Mad Scientist and self proclaimed evil doer Rintarō Okabe. At first he gives the impression that he is greatly deluded, engaging in manic laughter, always wearing a white lab coat and talking in codes to himself over the phone. But as his little “club” grows he tends to soften up. After an incident in the first episode him and his two lab partners, Mayuri Shiina (childhood friend and lover of all things anime) and Itaru “Daru” Hashida (the super hacker, geek all round perv of the team) discover that they have invented a time machine, Shortly after, they are discovered by Kurisu Makise, a time travel genius with daddy issues, who’s curiosity forces her to stick around and put up with Okabe calling her his assistant all the time. At the time there are rumours of a man who was able to send information to the past named John Titor. He informs the world that the future is a dystopia in with a company called SERN rules the wold. The team com up with the idea to hack into SERN’s systems and discover a code that can only be deciphered by an IBN 5100, an old computer from the 80’s. After it’s discovery the group begin to experiment with the time machine and realize they can only send sms’ back in time to affect the time line. It turns out that Okarin has is the only one with the ability to retain his memories once the time lines have changed. But the team believe that they should experiment more and get friends to join them in sending messages to the past. Needless to say Okarin begins to doubt whether what they are doing is right but before he can have an attack of conscience he begins to receive sms’s from an unknown source threatening his life. Now the group and all those involved must try and figure out how to stop the evil SERN while not being captured by them in the process.

Review of the Month

Elfen Lied

Master Piece

Perpetual Gore Fest?

ritten by Lynn Okamoto, the story takes place in Kamakura, Japan, focusing on Lucy, a Diclonius: a creature similar to human beings but different on a genetic level who wield strong telekinetic powers represented by arms. Due to this dangerous power, they have been captured and isolated in laboratories by the government. To add to her destructive force Lucy is psychotic and has a burning hatred towards humans. This hatred was developed by the way she was treated as a child when school children killed her dog right before her eyes. Slowly you can begin to understand her reasoning behind her being such a sadistic character. However, the series starts off with copious amounts of gore and destruction when Lucy escapes from Kanagawa Prefecture, killing everything that moves by ripping them to pieces. If you are any kind of squeamish you would have stopped watching by now but for those of you with a little more stomach, the show must go on. As she escapes she is hit in the head with a .50 BMG round that ricochets off the metallic helmet encasing her head, which causes her to develop a secondary, child-like personality known as Nyu. Now a little girl in an 18 year old’s body, Nyu is washed up on shore where two locals, Kohta and his cousin Yuka, find and take her in. Having forgotten his childhood due to the trauma of seeing his father and sister being killed, Kohta doesn’t remember Nyu or that they had met many years ago. He is roughly 19 and in exchange for looking after his extended family’s closed down restaurant he is allowed to stay there while he attends university. Due to his need to look after the women around him Nyu’s infantile appearance makes him want to protect her. She cannot speak or do things on her own but as the story progresses he teaches her to say words and form sentences, eventually learning to speak and function properly in the manga. Despite her insatiable hatred for humanity Lucy is in love with Kohta and had been since she first saw him as a child. As a result of this and her guilt for killing his family she won’t kill him or harm those he cares about. Kohta, although more forgiving in the anime, also has feelings for Lucy, trying his hardest to look after her and protect her from those who would hurt her. But Lucy’s lack of empathy often scares him and leads to his discovery of the truth about their pasts, which he is less forgiving about. However he realises that he is in love with her and continues to take care of her. Yuka on the other hand, is Kohta’s cousin and has a long standing crush on him since the age of ten. They last saw each other during the summer before Kohta’s father and sister were murdered, but when Kohta moves to Kamakura and begins to attend the same university as her, she decides to move in with him at Kaeda House Inn. Yuka becomes upset by how close Nyu and Kohta become and is often angry at Kohta for not understanding her feelings toward him. She secretly hopes that they will finally be together once Nyu and Lucy are out of the picture. Mayu is not introduced to the story until the 2nd episode when she witnesses Lucy torture, but not kill, Bando, a member of the SAT who is sent after Lucy. She is a 13 year old runaway who was raped and abused by her new stepfather. When Mayu’s mother would not stop him, saying that she preferred her husband over her own daughter, Mayu went over the edge. The next time her stepfather asked her to remove her clothes, Mayu simply said no and ran away. Later in the series, becomes friends with Nana. She is taken in by Kouta and Yuka and decides to live with them.

Nana to is a diclonius, but is very against violence. She is sent out by her “father” (director kurama) to retrieve Lucy, but fails when she has her arms and legs cut off. When Nana is returned to the institute, she was supposed to be killed but instead, Kurama makes her fake arms and legs which are controlled by her vectors. She soon becomes good friends with Mayu and was adopted into Kouta’s inn by both Kouta and Yuka. Meanwhile Director Kurama believes that he has to find Lucy and in doing so we discover that in his first experiments one of the test subjects, Sanban, escapes. As she made her way through the institute she touched researchers with her vectors giving them the vector virus. When Kurama’s and another scientist’s wives gave birth to diclonius children, he realized that Sanban had infected them with genetically manipulated offspring. Before he could kill their baby, his wife, who had given birth and had to have surgery due to cervix cancer, tried to stop him, but because she was fresh out of surgery the day before, she died. So Kurama makes a deal with the head director of the institute indebting himself to the institute forever. In the final episode, Kurama meets Mariko and decides that because he let her live, so many lives had been lost. He decides that the only true option is to kill Mariko. He then orders the bomb inside Mariko to be blown up. Both he and Mariko die in the explosion. The group soon become subject to numerous attacks and attempts at recapturing Lucy by the Special Assault Team and various other Duclonius, who shift from oblivious to deadly as quickly as Nyu does to Lucy. While the animated series ends with Lucy confronting a large team of SAT members and disappears, the manga continues by showing the mad plans of Kakuzawa, leader of Diclonii research, and his ultimate failure. The world itself is endangered. While the story behind it is interesting it’s not interesting enough to warrant the amount of violence in the show. But if you are the kind of person who is sold by violence then this is a great series. Although short lived it had a lot of impact on those who watched it and if a movie is defined by the impact it has then this is truly a masterpiece.

Written by: Published by: Demographic: Magazine: Original run: Volumes: Directed by: Studio: Licensed by: Network: Eng network: Original run: Episodes: OVA: Directed by: Studio: Licensed by: Released: Runtime:

Lynn Okamoto Shueisha Seinen Weekly Young Jump June 2002 – November 2005 12 (List of volumes) TV anime Mamoru Kanbe ARMS AEsir Holdings AT-X Anime Network Propeller TV Animax July 25, 2004 – Octo ber 17, 2004 13 (List of episodes) 10.5: Regenschauer Mamoru Kanbe ARMS ADV Films (dropped) April 21, 2005 25 minutes

elfenliedfansite.com

p p o o p p JJ While many of us may see J-pop as just another thing to come out of Japan it actually has a long standing history. Originally J-pop is said to have been inspired by The Beatles and is quite unlike it’s more classic Kayokyoku counter part. J-pop uses a special pronunciation on it’s lyrics that is much like the style used in the west as well as it’s use of the second major, not often seen in the east. It was when the Great Sounds genre, inspired by Western rock music, became popular that Japanese Pop music adopted the second major. Although J-pop had changed from music based on the Japanese pentatonic scaling and distortional tetrachord, the basic singing style still remained popular. However some believed that J-pop originated from the Eurobeat genre and other such genres and so the term J-pop became a blanket term in which a variety of music styles similar to each other were placed under the same name. The majority of these being created in the 1990’s. The first mention of the word J-pop was after the Japanese radio station J-wave was established, used only for Western-style musicians in Japan like Pizzicato Five and Flipper’s Guitar. In 1990, Tower Records Japan defined J-pop as all Japanese music belonging to the Recording Industry Association of Japan except Japanese independent music, also known as “J-indie”. They then began additional classifications like J-club, J-punk, J-hip-hop, Jreggae, J-anime, and Visual kei after independent musicians started to release works through major labels. But like with many musicians and being categorised into groups many of Japans rock musicians disliked the label. Taro Kato, a member of pop punk band Beat Crusaders, pointed out that the encoded pop music, like pop art, was catchier than “J-pop”.

According to his fellow band member Toru Hidaka, the 1990s music that influenced him (such as Nirvana, HiStandard, and Flipper’s Guitar) was not listened to by fans of other music in Japan at that time. Surprisingly, as time passed Japanese rock musicians began to assimilate kayokyou into their style of music, something that the earlier artist disrespected.

1920s–1950s: Ryūkōka, Kayōkyoku, or Japanese jazz It’s believed that Japanese Jazz was invented in the Meiji period (1868-1912), however many would argue that it’s origin was during the Taishō period (July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926) as this was when it gained popularity nationwide. The genre was named ryūkōka before being split into enka and poppusu. By the Taishō period, Western musical techniques and instruments, which had been introduced to Japan in the Meiji period, were widely used. Instruments such as the violin, harmonica, and guitar but the melodies were often written according to the traditional Japanese pentatonic scale. In the 1930s, musicians like Ichiro Fujiyama began to experiment with their music and the instruments the had acquired . He released popular songs with his tenor voice, singing them with a lower volume than opera through the microphone (the technique is sometimes called crooning). Other Jazz musician like Ryoichi Hattori attempted to produce Japanese native music which had a “flavour” of blues. He composed Noriko Awaya’s hit song “Wakare no Blues” (“Farewell Blues”). Awaya became a famous singer and was later known as “The Queen of Blues” in Japan. However, during the war, the performance of jazz music was temporarily halted in Japan by the Imperial Forces, and wasn’t until after the war that Hattori, who stayed in Shanghai at the time, produced hit songs like Shizuko Kasagi’s “Tokyo Boogie-Woogie” and Ichiro Fujiyama’s “Aoi Sanmyaku” (lit. “Blue Mountain Range”). Hattori was later announced “Father of Japanese poppusu”. The US soldiers occupying Japan at the time introduced a number of new musical styles to the country including Boogie-woogie, Mambo, Blues, and Country. Chiemi Eri’s cover song “Tennessee Waltz” (1952), Hibari Misora’s “Omatsuri Mambo” (1952), and Izumi Yukimura’s cover song “Till I Waltz Again with You” (1953) also became popular. Foreign musicians and groups, including JATP and Louis Armstrong, visited Japan to perform, and in the mid-1950s, “Jazz Kissa” (Jazu Kissa, literally “Jazz cafe”?) became a popular venue for live jazz music. Jazz had a large impact on Japanese poppusu, though “authentic” jazz did not become the mainstream genre of music in Japan. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Japanese pop became big through urban kayō and modern enka.

1960s: Modern style Rokabirī Boom and Wasei pops During the 1950s and 60s, many Kayōkyoku groups and singers gained experience performing on US military bases in Japan. Around the same time, Yakuza manager Kazuo Taoka reorganized the concert touring industry by treating the performers as professionals. Many of these performers later became key participants in the J-pop genre. In 1956, the band Kosaka Kazuya and the Wagon Masters performed their rendition of Elvis Presley’s song “Heartbreak Hotel” which led to the Rock and Roll craze in Japan. The music was called “rockabilly” (or rokabirī) by the Japanese media and Performers soon learned to play the music and translate the lyrics of popular American songs, these were called Cover Pops (Kavā poppusu?). The rockabilly movement reached its climax in the February of 1958 when 45,000 people visited the first Nichigeki Western Car-

nival ever to be held. It was at this carnival that Kyu Sakamoto, a fan of Elvis, made his début as a member of the band The Drifters. His 1961 song “Ue wo Muite Arukō” (“Let’s Look Up and Walk”), also known as “Sukiyaki”, it was the first Japanese song to reach the Number One position in the United States, on both Cash Box and Billboard in 1963, and received a golden record for selling one million copies. These artists were referred to as WaseiPops meaning “Japan-made pop” (Wasei poppusu?, ). In 1964, The Drifters were re-formed by Chosuke Ikariya under the same name. Eventually, they became popular in Japan, releasing “Zundoko-Bushi” (“Echoic word tune”) in 1969 and, along with enka singer Keiko Fuji, won “the award for mass popularity” at the 12th Japan Record Awards a year later. In 1970, Keiko Fuji’s album Shinjuku no Onna/’Enka no Hoshi’ Fuji Keiko no Subete (“Woman in Shinjuku/’Star of Enka’ All of Keiko Fuji”) established an all-time record on the Japanese Oricon chart when it staying in the Number One spot for 20 consecutive weeks. The Drifters later came to be television personalities and invited idols such as Momoe Yamaguchi and Candies to their television program. Eleki Boom and Group Sounds In 1962 The Ventures visited Japan bringing with them the electric guitar and the style that came with it, the Japanese called this “Eleki Boom”. Then in 1966 the Beatles toured Japanand with their

help inspired the genre know as Group Sound. As a result, it became popular to sing in English and not Japanese leading to debate between bands like Happy End and Yuya Uchida about Japanese rock music. Happy End managed to prove that rock music could be sung in Japanese too and still be great. One theory is that their music became one of the origins of modern J-pop. Several musicians began experimenting with electronic music. The most notable was the internationally renowned Isao Tomita, whose 1972 album Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock featured electronic synthesizer renditions of contemporary rock and pop songs. Other early examples of electronic rock records are Ice World (1973) and Benzaiten (1974), both having contributions from Haruomi Hosono, founder of music group “Yellow Magic Band” (later known as Yellow Magic Orchestra) in 1977. In 1978, another such artist, Eikichi Yazawa, released a rock single “Toki yo Tomare” (“Time, Stop”) that became a smash hit, selling over 639,000 copies. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Japanese rock and in 1980 he signed a contract with the Warner Pioneer record company and moved to the West Coast of the United States where he became world famous. In the same year, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) also made their official debut with their self-titled album. The band consisted of Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and were responsible for the developed of electropop, (or

Not just an invention of the 21st century

In May of 1998 Japanese rock legend Hide died, his funeral held an attendance of 50,000 people. technopop as it is known in Japan), in addition to creating synthpopand electro music. Their 1979 album, Solid State Survivor, reached number one on the Oricon charts in July 1980, it went on to sell two million records worldwide and held both the top two spots on the Oricon charts for seven consecutive weeks, making J-Pop history. Bands like Southern All Stars and Yellow Magic Orchestra influenced not only J-pop but electronic music around the world, which symbolized the end of New Music and paved the way for the J-pop genre in the 1980s. Both bands, SAS and YMO, would later be ranked at the top of HMV Japan’s list of top 100 Japanese musicians of all time.

1970s: Fōku and New Music In the early 1960s, Japanese music became influenced by the American folk music revival; it was called fōku (“folk”) and was not too popular but later became that way in late 1960s when The Folk Crusaders became famous and the underground music became known as fōku. In the early 1970s, the simple songs of fōku, with its single guitar accompaniment, changed into more complex musical style known as New Music (nyū myūjikku?). Instead of social messages, the songs became more about personal messages, like love. By 1972, The highest-grossing single of the year was the enka song, “Onna no Michi”, by Shiro Miya and the Pinkara Trio which eventually sold over 3.25 million copies. Another historical album was “Kōri no Sekai” which debuted December 1, 1973, by Yōsui Inoue, topping the Oricon charts and remained in Top 10 for 113 weeks. It spent 35 nonconsecutive weeks in the number-one spot. Yumi Matsutoya, formerly known by her maiden name Yumi Arai, also became a notable singer/songwriter around this time; in October 1975, she released the single “Ano Hi ni Kaeritai” (“I want to return to that day”), marking her first number-one single on the Oricon charts. At first, only Yumi Matsutoya was commonly known as a New Music artist, but then other artists like Miyuki Nakajima, Amii Ozaki, and Junko Yagami claimed the same title.

1980s: Fusion with “kayōkyoku” (City Pop and Shibuya-kei.) In the early 1980s, the term City Pop (Shitī Poppu?) was used to describe songs that had a big city theme, many being inspired by Tokyo itself. Although City Pop was a spin off of New Music the rock band Happy End was considered one of its originators. At the time, music fans and artists in Japan were influenced by album-oriented rock (especially Adult contemporary) and crossover (especially Jazz fusion) with artists like Akira Terao releasing the 1981 album Reflections, which became the best-selling album of the 1980s in Japan, selling about 1.65 million copies. Tatsuro Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi also became popular in this period their 1983 song “Christmas Eve” finally reached number one on the Oricon weekly single charts on December 25, 1989. In the same year, Ryuichi Sakamoto won the Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television for his contribution to the movie The Last Emperor. However, the popularity of City Pop fell in 1990, to be assimilated by Shibuya-kei musicians like Pizzicato Five and Flipper’s Guitar. Throughout the 1980s, rock bands such as Southern All Stars, RC Succession, Anzen Chitai, The Checkers, The Alfee, and The Blue Hearts were popular and it was possible for rock singers like Yutaka Ozaki to debute at the age of 18. In 1986, The Alfee became the first artists to play in front of 100,000 people in Japan. At the time Boøwy had become an especially influential rock band that consisted of singer Kyosuke Himuro and guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei. All three of their albums reached number one in 1988, making

them the first male artists to have three numberones within a single year. Subsequent Japanese rock bands were modelled after Boøwy. In the late 1980s, girl band Princess Princess became a successful pop-rock band who’s singles “Diamonds” and “Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu” (“World’s Hottest Summer”) were ranked numberone and number-two on the 1989 Oricon Yearly Single Charts. It was also in the late 1980s that the well known Japanese trend, Visual Kei, became a part of Japanese rock music. The members of male bands would wear makeup, extravagant hair styles, and androgynous costumes. The most notable Visual Kei bands were X Japan (also known as “X”) and BuckTick. X Japan’s album Blue Blood was released on CBS Sony in 1989. It sold 712,000 copies, while their 1991 album Jealousysold over 1.11 million copies. X Japan was originally influenced by heavy metal music, but guitarist Hide came under the influence of alternative rock, releasing his first solo album Hide Your Face in 1994.

1990–1997: Growing market The 90’s saw a lot of commercialism with the market being dominated by artists from the Being Agency, artists like B’z, Tube, B.B.Queens, T-Bolan, Zard, Wands, Maki Ohguro, Deen, and Field of View. They were called the Being System (Bīingu kei?)and many of them topped the charts with new records, notably B’z was the band that surpassed Seiko Matsuda’s record making them presently the biggest selling artist of all time according to Oricon charts. After TM Network disbanded in 1994, Tetsuya Komuro became a serious song producer. Who dominated the period between 1994 and 1997 with dance and techno bands from the “Komuro family” (Komuro Famirī?) such as TRF, Ryoko Shinohara, Yuki Uchida, Namie Amuro, Hitomi, Globe, Tomomi Kahala, and Ami Suzuki. At the time, Komuro was responsible for 20 hit songs, each selling more than a million copies. His total sales as a song producer reached 170 million copies before his decline in 1998songs lost popularity. By 2005, Komuro’s debt lead him to attempt the sale of his song catalogue— which he didn’t actually own. When the investor found out they sued, Komuro tried then tried to sell the catalogue to another investor in order to pay the 600,000,000 Japanese yen judgement he owed the first investor.

duced hip hop music to Japanese mainstream music. Zeebra was featured by Dragon Ash in their song titled “Grateful Days”, which topped the Oricon charts in 1999.

2000s: Japanese hip hop and urban pop In the first decade of the 21st century, hip hop and contemporary R&B influences in Japanese music started to gain followers from mainstream music. In November 2001, R&B duo Chemistry’s released their debut album, The Way We Are, which sold over 1.14 million copies within the first week alone, and debuted at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly album charts. Hip hop bands quickly became a big thing in Japan. Rock band’s like Orange Range began to feature elements of hip hop in their music, their album musiQ sold over 2.6 million copies, making it the number one album of 2005 on the Oricon charts. R&B and hip-hop crept into everything, allowing musicians like Pop/R&B singer Ken Hirai to top the Oricon yearly album chart with the release of his greatest hits album 10th Anniversary Complete Single Collection ‘95-’05 Utabaka, it sold over 2 million copies. Veteran rapper Dohzi-T collaborated with popular singers such as Shota Shimizu, Hiromi Go, Miliyah Kato, and Thelma Aoyama in his successful 2008 album 12 Love Stories. And although there were only 132 new artists in Japan in 2001, by 2008 the number increased to 512 in total. That year, 14 new artists attended the NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen for the first time. In December 2002, the digital-download market for ringtone songs (chaku-uta?) was created by the company au. The digital downloads market grew rapidly, opening up a new media for artists to sell singles from. Hikaru Utada’s song “Flavour of Life” sold over

1997–1999: Commercial peak The late 1990s saw the popularity of rock bands, such as Glay, Luna Sea, and L’Arc-en-Ciel, most of them related to the visual kei movement, as well as a boom in the Japanese music market. In October 1997, Glay released their album Review -The Best of Glay, it sold 4.87 million copies, only to be surpassed a year later by B’z’s album B’z The Best “Pleasure”, which sold 5.12 million copies. The market for physical sales peaked in 1998, at ¥607 billion. In May of the same year Japanese rock legend Hide died, his funeral held an attendance of 50,000 people. At the time, rock musicians in Japan again decided to absorbing the kayōkyoku style into their music even after the genre had all but vanished. Glay became especially successful, with massive exposure in the media. In July 1999, an audience of 200,000 people came to see Glay played at the Makuhari Messe, it was even certified by Guinness World Records that this was the biggest solo concert in Japan up until that time. Johnny & Associates produced many boy bands: SMAP, Tokio, V6, KinKi Kids and Arashi. SMAP hit the J-pop scene in a major way in the 1990s through a combination of TV “Tarento” shows and singles, with one of its singers, Takuya Kimura, becoming a popular actor commonly known as “Kimutaku” in later years. By the late 1990s and early 21st century, girl bands and female singers became huge hits. Groups like Speed and Morning Musume were very popular. Speed announced their break up in 1999 only to return to the music scene in 2008, while Morning Musume released a string of songs that were sales hits before they were even released. The group’s popularity gave origin to the Hello! Project, and began spawning several splinter bands. Female singers such as Hikaru Utada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Misia, Mai Kuraki, and Ringo Shiina became chart-toppers who write their own songs or their own lyrics. Some of them were even pitted against each other in the media but there no real hard feelings. At the turn of the century the band Zeebra intro-

Japanese idols In the 1970s, the popularity of female idol singers such as Mari Amachi, Saori Minami, Momoe Yamaguchi, and Candies increased. Momoe Yamaguchi was one of first kayōkyoku singers to use the special pronunciation characteristic of J-pop. In 1972, Hiromi Go made his debut with the song “Otokonoko Onnanoko” (“Boy and Girl”). Hiromi Go originally came from Johnny & Associates. In 1976, female duo Pink Lady made their debut with the single “Pepper Keibu”. Pink Lady released a record nine consecutive number-one singles. In the 1980s, Japanese idols inherited New Music, though the term fell out of usage. Seiko Matsuda especially adopted song producers of previous generations. In 1980, her third single “Kaze wa Aki Iro” (“Wind is autumn color”) reached the number-one spot on the Oricon charts. Haruomi Hosono also joined in the production of her music. Ayumi Hamasaki won Grand Prix awards for three consecutive years— the first time in Japan Record Award history—between 2001 and 2003. Although Hamasaki became very famous, Tom Yoda, then-chairman of her record company Avex Group, argued that her tactics were risky, because Avex disregarded the modern portfolio theory. This concern disappeared when the company’s other singers (such as Ai Otsuka, Kumi Koda, and Exile) also reached a certain level of popularity in the mid-2000s under Yoda’s management policy.

Child Safety bill to Cripple Anime Industry?

J-POP SUMMIT FESTIVAL 2011

While a lot of us have heard of the Bill that was passed a few years back created to promote the “healthy development” of children through the excising of “illegal” sexual acts in media, what many of you may not realise is how the bill was aimed at anime in particular. Like the Californian video game law about violent games not being sold to under aged children, it’s not hard to imagine that Bill 156 comes from a good place. Bill 156 is born from prior attempts by the government to stamp out sexualized depictions of virtual children in anime, manga and games, i.e. lolicon (short for “lolita complex”). And while I am a 100% behind this attempt at making our planet a safer place unfortunately, much of the language used in the bill is so vague that it could gut the anime and manga industry entirely. For instance, Bill 156 includes provisions that classify any work as adult (i.e. pornography) if it “features either sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life, or sexual or pseudo sexual acts between close relatives whose marriage would be illegal,” if the depictions glorified and/or exaggerated the act in question. Yes. This seems reasonable and a lot of people might be saying, “Okay, so what? What’s wrong with that?” But the problem, again, lies in the language used - for instance, the bill restricts any content which is “considered harmful to a minor’s mental health regarding sexuality,” which is an awfully vague condition. Essentially, it gives a Tokyo government committee the power to classify any potentially-sexual material as adult, relegating it to the proverbial back room of stores. Again you may wonder what I am on about and that this is a good thing for the youth of today, but this bill specifically exempts things like pornography, live-action film and TV, and novels!! In other words, while a live-action production of Nabokov’s Lolita would theoretically be fine under the law, an animated adaptation would be able to be classified as pornography and therefore taken of the shelves. What makes it even stranger is that in Japan the government already regulates hard core pornography to keep it out of the hands of youths. In fact, this bill has absolutely nothing to do with porn or adult content of any sort and only has an effect on the Anime, Manga and gaming industries. In other words, this bill doesn’t cover the infamous RapeLay, but can cover things like “magical girl” shows that imply nudity on underage characters during transformation sequences. And in Japan as in the west most stores will refuse to stock anime or manga that are classified as porn. It could also destroy entire genres that deal with same-sex romance (and given statements by Tokyo governor Ishihara calling gays and lesbians “deficient,” this may be intended). This sudden restriction has led to many job loses in the anime industry leaving artists fighting for positions where they are paid very little to work many hours a day. However despite this news I believe that there may be hope in the situation. Firstly paedophiles will not be getting off on something that “is not real” which is a win as far as I am concerned, and while Japan may suffer, there is still a huge market world wide and many countries who could fill the demand. There are many great artists out there for the choosing all some one would need was the money to fund it.

Side News

7 million downloaded copies in 2007 alone. In October of 2007, EMI Music Japan announced that Utada was the world’s first artist to have 10 million digital downloads in a single year. The popularity of live performances and veteran musicians also became a hit in the early 21st century, causing the sales of physical CDs and albums to decline, rasing the number of audience members to see live performances to a new height. However Rock musicians such as Mr. Children, B’z, Southern All Stars, and Glay were still topping the charts despite this sudden dip. When Mr. Children released their album “Home” in 2007, they passed the 50 million albums and singles sold record. This made them the second-highest selling artist of all time since the origin of Oricon—just behind B’z, who sold more than 75 million records. This new demand for live performances lead to artists like Eikichi Yazawa to take part in rock festivals; in 2007, he became the first artist to have performed 100 concerts at the Nippon Budokan. Namie Amuro to was famous for her concerts, her Namie Amuro Best Fiction tour in 2008-2009, not only became the biggest live tour by a Japanese solo female artist—attended by 450,000 fans in Japan— but was also attended by 50,000 fans in Taiwan and Shanghai. Meanwhile Johnny & Associates’s boy bands remained popular through out the 2000s. In 2001, SMAP released their greatest-hits album SMAP Vest, selling over a million copies in the first week, and their 2003 single “Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana” sold more than two million copies. SMAP was said to fight a difficult battle though at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen in 2007 when they lost a large part of their audience to KinKi Kids. In 2008, male musicians established a record of four consecutive wins at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen. As before, in the late 90’s and early 21st century, when things changed there was a new fashion that came with that. Back then it was girl bands and girls singers, now it was the boys who were in demand. The 2008 yearly singles charts saw only one song ranked in the top 30 that was sung by a female (Namie Amuro’s single “60s 70s 80s”). The only exception was in the case of mixed-gender groups, partly because the boy bands enjoyed an advantage in physical single sales. Johnny & Associates also produced new boy bands such as Tackey & Tsubasa, NEWS, Kanjani Eight, KAT-TUN, and Hey! Say! JUMP. In 2006, KATTUN’s debut single “Real Face”, composed by Tak Matsumoto, sold over one million copies and topped the Oricon Yearly Charts. In 2009, Johnny’s Jr. artist Yuma Nakayama w/B.I.Shadow became the youngest artist to have their first single to debut at the number-one spot. Cover versions and classical pop seem to be a big thing through out the first decade of the 21st century

as well. In February 2001, Ulfuls released their cover version of Kyu Sakamoto’s 1963 song “Ashita Ga Arusa”. Their cover version debuted at the numberfive position, behind Utada, Kinki Kids, Hamasaki and Hirai. In 2003, Man Arai released the single “Sen no Kaze ni Natte” (“As A Thousand Winds”), it was based on the Western poem “Do not stand at my grave and weep”. In Japan, the poem is known as the poem Rokusuke Ei’s read at the funeral of Kyu Sakamoto in 1985. In 2006 Japanese tenor singer Masafumi Akikawa covered Man Arai’s song, his cover version became the first classical music single to top the Oricon charts, and sold over one million copies. On the 2007 Oricon Yearly Charts, the single became the best-selling physically significant popularity of the 1980s, along with Akina Nakamori, Yukiko Okada, Kyōko Koizumi, Yoko Minamino, Momoko Kikuchi, Yōko Oginome, Miho Nakayama, Minako Honda, and Chisato Moritaka. Other styles that became popular in the recent years would be Neo Fōku and Neo Shibuya-kei in which artists use elements of the older music genres to create their own sounds. Electronic music bands such as Plus-Tech Squeeze Box and Capsule were called “Neo Shibuya-kei”. While anime music, image sings and vocaloids have been around for a few years now, it is only over the last couple that this art form has become a world wide phenominon. Though anime music was formerly influenced by Jpop and visual kei music, it’s reported that Japanese indie music apparently influenced the genre in more ways. In 2007, after sampling voice actress Saki Fujita’s voice to develop it, the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku was released, and a variety of songs featuring Hatsune Miku were showcased on the Nico Nico Douga. Some of the musicians featuring Hatsune Miku, such as Livetune and Supercell, went on to join the larger record companies in Japan. An is example would be Livetune, who released Re: Package on Victor Entertainment on August 27, 2008, and Supercell, who released Supercell on Sony Music on March 4, 2009. The albums Re: Package and Supercell were not put under the control of the copyright system of the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), breaking with the tradition that most musicians under any major labels follow. In June 2009, voice actress Nana Mizuki’s album Ultimate Diamond became the first seiyū album to reach number one on the Oricon weekly charts. A month later the fictional all female band Ho-kago Tea Time, from the anime series K-On!, released the mini-album Ho-kago Tea Time on the. The minialbum debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly album charts, becoming the first anime album to reach number one. In May of last year, Exit Tunes Presented “Vocalogenesis” featuring Hatsune Miku who became the first album featuring Vocaloids to reach number one on the Oricon weekly charts, replacing Hideaki Tokunaga’s Vocalist 4, which had topped the charts for four consecutive weeks. J-pop is an important part of the Japanese culture, you can find it in almost everything from anime, commercials, movies and TV shows, to video games and even the news. It isn’t uncommon for anime and television shows, particularly dramas, to change there opening and closing songs at least four times an year. Because most programs have a combination of both opening and closing songs, it is possible for one show to use up to eight tracks for a single season. Over the past decade, J-pop has continually gained fandom worldwide through video games and anime. Many video gamers and anime otaku will import games and anime from Japan well before they are due for release in their country. These theme songs and sound tracks are a gateway to further interest in J-pop and other genres of Japanese music. Some shows aired on television in the United States, for example, have seen their themes go so far as to become commercially available as ring tones through mainstream vendors in that country. Especially with the creation of Animax, J-pop and anime music have been able to grow in places like the US, the UK and most of Asia Pop duo Puffy, one of the Japanese acts that have their material released on the United States market, had their own animated series on Cartoon Network—Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, which premiered in 2004 and ran for three seasons. Prior to that, the duo recorded the theme song to another cartoon on the same channel, Teen Titans. Because of the success of their show, video clips of Puffy, who are known as Puffy AmiYumi in the United States, are shown several times during the channel’s programming. Read more at : wikipedia.org

Tara McPherson Releases Bunny In The Moon Genre: Action-Adventure, Science fiction Format: CGI Animated series Running time: 23 minutes Production company(s): Mainframe Entertainment (1997-2001), Alliance Communications, BLT Productions (1994-1995), Reboot Productions, Zondag Entertainment Claster Television, Inc., Limelight Productions.

“Where a lot of cartoons from the 90’s now seem simply outdated, ReBoot has a style and humour that people will enjoy for years to come.” In 2006 Mainframe Entertainment became Rainmaker animation and in 2007 announced plans to create a trilogy of ReBoot films with illustrator/ animator Daniel Allen as the leading character designer. Paul Gertz, executive vice president of Rainmaker stated that ReBoot’s fans have been incredibly loyal and continue to keep the property alive on dozens of fan sites. And so they would like to give something in return. In conjunction with the website Zeros 2 Heroes, Rainmaker announced that they intended on allowing select fans to help the development of the movie plans and also in development of a ReBoot webcomic. Fans were given the chance to submit their own art and designs, with the potential to end up as an artist on the project, their feedback helped decide which one of five ReBoot pitches won. The winning pitch was ReBoot: Arrival. Both a movie and a web comic will be created, with Rainmaker monitoring feedback for the comic but may not use it as the basis for their movie plans. Four ReBoot fans have been chosen to work as artists on the Arrival comic. According to the pitch at the Zeroes2Heroes website, Megabyte’s Hunt has developed into a Netwide war so pervasive even other Viruses are united against it. The Users have gone, spending their time in an unending MMOG. A sentient System named Gnosis is created as a way to stop Megabyte, but goes rogue and begins enslaving Systems in its attempt to gain User-like powers. Two teams of heroes are assembled to stop Gnosis and bring back the Users, which will include new characters as well as old. Elements of this would be dropped in the comic. The official ReBoot website was updated in may of 2008 with information about the first webcomic to be created by the Arrival team allowing fans to track the progress of their favourite series. To see more on Reboot visit their official site at:

reboot.com

The CG series that paved the way for future generations is back!! Ya I know what you may be thinking. This is an old series that wasn’t all that popular and that you never watched or that you may have never even have heard of. BUT I have decided that with the remake of the series this year and the green lighting of the third movie for next year I had to educate every one I could on what it was that made this an epic step in animation history. The series was started by Mainframe Entertainment (a Canadian company) in 1994 and was the first fully CG animated series to be aired on television. The animation although a little rough now was years ahead of it’s time and although it was “aimed” at kids originally it hosted a wicked sense of humour that involved cheesy one liners based on computer terminology. The story relates a fictional world inside a computer called Mainframe, in which characters like Sprites (humanoid characters) and binomes (characters representing ones and zeros) exist. In each episode the characters are faced with the task of playing and defeating game cubs, loaded by the User, that seal of a part of the city and turn it into a gamescape. They are forced to fight the User and win in order to survive, if they lost not only do all sprites and binomes trapped in the cube turn into energy sucking worms called Nulls, but that sector would be destroyed to. However our heroes never had a dull moment as game cubs were not their only enemy, the two viruses Hexadecimal and Megabyte frequently cause trouble with their evil plans to take over the city and bring chaos to the Mainframe. It is later discovered that they are siblings and that they come from the Web. As I mentioned before the series uses computing terms in everything so it is not surprising that the heroes have names like Dot Matrix, the heroine and owner of Dot’s Diner, and Enzo Matrix, Dot’s kid bother. However some of the characters are not named as suck, like the hero and main character Bob or the computer Administrator Fong.

The first season was very self-contained with each episode running it’s own story line but as the series began to gain more of an adult audience the creators began to develop a more complex story line. In season two the creators introduced a

Last month Dark Horse Comics announced the next instalment of Tara McPherson’s art-book series: Bunny in the Moon, the third instalment of her surreal style art books. In addition features a foreword by acclaimed artist Gary Baseman McPherson has created prints for music stars like Kings of Leon, Beck, High on Fire, Depeche Mode, Green Day, and many more. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and Juxtapoz. “Tara McPherson is blazing a trail between illustration and fine art that is both personal and universal, and changing the face of the art world in her wake.”—HiFructose Since Tara’s last book ‘Lost Constellations’, which was published by Dark Horse she has gone on a 30 city book tour through the US, Europe and Brazil opening her eyes to the diver-

creature from the Web that entered Main-

frame from Hexadecimal’s looking glass bonding with her. This eventually lead to the creation on Gigabyte and ultimately a tear on Mainframe through which the Web creature escaped to the Web. The protectors of Mainframe had to team up with Megabyte and Hexadecimal to close the portal. But before they can close that gate Megabyte betrays Bob, crushing his keytool, Glitch, and throwing him into the portal. The third season saw much improvement in animation quality, subtle details became visible and movement flowed better. The season started with Enzo, now a guardian, defending Mainframe from Megabyte and Hexadecimal with Dot and AndrAIa at his side. After the two kids enter a game they cannot win he, AndrAIa, and Frisket ride the game cube out of Mainframe and in doing so they age exponentially. As adults they meet up with Bob and returned to Mainframe, which is almost completely destroyed by Megabyte who is defeated then by Matrix, Enzo’s older self, but not before Megabyte causes the system to crash. As the User Reboots the system all is reset and mainframe is safe again. However the reboot ends up recreating the younger Enzo causing the two to now exist simultaneously. After the end of the third season, two TV movies were released in 2001 which were then split up into eight episodes in its U.S. run on Cartoon Network’s Toonami which revealed much of Mainframe’s history Initial plans for the fourth season included three films broken into 12 episodes, followed by a 13th musical-special episode, although the final five were never produced, prompting the series to end with a cliff-hanger. However this early this year remakes of season 1 and 2 of Reboot were released with plans to release season 3 and 4 at a later date and 3 movies next year. No-one knows whether or not the movies will be a continuation of the series or just a recap and if the movies will keep the same humour as that of the series we have come to love.

sity of social perspectives. It was on her travels that the title for her latest book came to light when she was in Japan having a dinner with some new friends. They had began discussing the moon when she mentioned the man in the moon. Her friend looked and said “A man in the moon? You mean the bunny in the moon don’t you?” This lead her to the legend about the rabbit that sacrificed his life to feed a starving man that was actually a deity in disguise. In honour of the selflessness the rabbit showed, he made his ashes fly up to the moon so all could remember his sacrifice. This was the inspiration for her latest achievement showcasing elements of mythology and folklore with her ideals of love, despair, strength, vulnerability, and female empowerment. For more information on Tara’s new project visit: /www.thecottoncandymachine.com

All Otaku Top 10 Scariest Anime No.10 -Paranoia Agent

No.8

After a spate of attacks in Tokyo two police detectives, Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa, are assigned to the case. While no-one is killed the attacks are violent and none of the victims can remember their attackers face. All they can recall is that he is young and wears golden roller-blades and a cap, and uses a golden baseball bat to attack them with. The criminal is soon dubbed Lil’ Slugger. The detectives set out to track down the perpetrator, but their search is unsuccessful and both men eventually lose their positions as police detectives. As the attacks continue, it is discovered that they are not random, instead they theorise that Lil’ Slugger is targeting people in crisis, and that the attacks lead to some improvement in the life of the victim. Maniwa becomes convinced that Lil’ Slugger is a supernatural force and vows to catch and kill him. With all the public anticipation and fear for the launch of the Maromi television series reaches a fanatical high, so do the amount of attacks that occur in Tokyo. Things come to an end the night that the Maromi show is set to air when Ikari and Maniwa uncover that Tsukiko, the creator of Maromi and first victim had some how manifested Lil’ Slugger through her fear and guilt to escape her responsibilities. The creature was then fed and nurtured by the fear of the populace. In a way, Tsukiko does fulfil her job by creating a character (Lil’ Slugger) that becomes just as big a sensation as Maromi. When Tsukiko finally confesses the truth, and in doing so accepts the guilt for the death of Maromi, Lil’ Slugger is defeated. While this story can be a little vague it is also highly original and puts you in perspective of what some ones mind can do to get out of a situation.

While Hellsing may not be the scariest or goriest of all anime movies, we can all agree that it deserves a spot on this count down just for being awesome. Hellsing is named after the Holy Order of Protestant Knights, originally led by Abraham Van Helsing. Hellsing’s mission is to protect Queen and Country from the undead and other supernatural forces of evil. The organization is currently led by Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing, who inherited the leadership of Hellsing as a child after the death of her father. She is protected by the faithful Hellsing family butler and former Hellsing “trashman,” Walter C. Dornez, and Alucard, the original and most powerful vampire that swore loyalty to the Hellsing family after being defeated by Van Helsing one hundred years before. These formidable guardians are joined by former police officer Seras Victoria, whom Alucard turns into a vampire t save her life. The story is a breath of fresh air from generic vampire stores that pollute Hollywood and cheap horror novels, and the strong connections to religious symbolism and Bram Stoker’s Dracula were a real treat for me. Sadly, the main plot gets tossed after episode seven in favour of a quick explanation of Integra and Alucard’s pasts. Overall, the memorable cast, great music and the mindless action made for a F***ing awesome series that has won us all over, becoming a classic.

No.9

-MONSTER

Dr. Kenzō Tenma is a young Japanese doctor working at the Eisler Memorial Hospital in Düsseldorf during the 1980s. He’s a highly accomplished brain surgeon, with a bright future a head of him, but his future is quickly destroyed when he decides to save the life of a boy named Johan. He looses a lot of respect as a consequence. When Johan and his sister suddenly disappear the police suspect Tenma for a series of unexplained murders but they have no proof. Nine years later and Tenma meets up with Johan, who kills a criminal, but spares him. After this incident, Tenma is again suspected by the police, particularly Inspector Runge, and he tries to find more information about this “Johan”. He soon discovers that the boy’s sister, now named Nina, is happily living the life of an adopted daughter to two caring parents, the only traces of her terrible past being a few dreams trouble her. Tenma discovers her on her birthday and manages to prevent her from meeting her brother, but comes too late to stop Johan from murdering her foster parents. As the story progresses, Tenma learns of the origins of this monster, from the former East Germany’s attempt to use a secret orphanage called 511 Kinderheim in order to create the “perfect soldiers” through “psychological reprogramming”, through the author of a children’s book which was used in a eugenics experiment in Czech Republic. He also learns about the scope of the atrocities this “monster” has committed, and vows to fix the mistake he made when he saved Johan’s life. While the story is chilling and can often gore fulled the only flaw it has is in fact Tenma himself. Don’t get me wrong. I like the character but whenever he’s pointing his gun to someone, he just couldn’t fire it. Imagine, he travelled all over Germany and Czech Republic in search of Johan who he’s out to kill but whenever his target is right in front of him, all he needed to do is pull the trigger.

-Hellsing

No.7-BLOOD+ Under the care of her adoptive family, Saya Otonashi has been living the life of an anaemic but otherwise ordinary schoolgirl. Saya’s happy life is shattered when she is attacked by a chiropteran ( the eastern equivalent of a vampire), later learning that she is the only one who can defeat them. Armed with her killer katana, Saya embarks on a journey with the help of her family, allies, and her chevalier, Hagi, to rid the world of chiropteran and rediscover her identity. The course of the journey reveals the background history of the chiropterans and Saya’s very deep past, which extends into the mid-19th century. Right from the beginning the series caught my attention with fast paced action, disturbing fight scenes and the almost “scary” cut scenes and audio. The first thing I love about this series is the intense and almost believable plot. Not a single episode is wasted but were used entirely to explain nearly every detail about a plot that is full of intrigue, tension and plenty of subplots and surprises... especially nearing the end. It’s what made this series deeply engaging and had me glued to each episode nonstop. By the end of the series, you realize it’s a bittersweet tale that still ends with a gratifying conclusion.

No.6

-Hell Girl

Somewhere among the droning hum of the Internet, there’s a website that can only be accessed at the stroke of midnight. The site is known as the Jigoku Tsushin, rumor has it that if you post a grudge there, the Jigoku Shoujo will appear and drag whoever torments you into the inferno. Originally clients would write the names of those they hated on a piece of paper. Later they send a letter to the address appearing in a three-column newspaper advert, as technology evolved clients could contact the Hell Girl over the internet and eventually over the phone. All are only activated at midnight. The medium through which a client contacts the Jigoku has changed over the centuries. It turns out that the Jigoku Shoujo is actually a young girl who lives with her equally enigmatic grandmother, and has three magical straw dolls accompany and serve her. When ever a post is made on the site she is turned and required to fulfil her duties. Most episodes are self-contained short stories in which the series narrates the suffering of a different individual caused by one or more antagonists. In general during each arc, the protagonists’ dramas are explained in detail from the start of their grudges, through the escalation of their torment until it becomes unbearable and they resort to accessing the Hell Correspondence website. Although in general, the client gives the antagonist a chance, he or she usually ends up pulling the string on his or her doll and sending the antagonist to hell. Once they have pulled the string, before taking the antagonist to hell, Ai Enma punishes the person for his or her sins with the help of her companions. While this may be an anime horror the gore factor is not high, but instead the story line concentrates on actual ploy progression and art style. It is a very beautiful creation and if you didn’t watch it yet, then you have to.

No.5

-PERFECT BLUE

Mima Kirigoe, a pop-idol from the J-pop group “CHAM!”, decides to leave the group to become an actress. Her first project is in a direct-to-video drama series called “Double Bind”. Some of her fans are upset by her change in career, particularly the stalker known as “Me-Mania.” Shortly after leaving CHAM!, Mima finds a website called “Mima’s Room” that has public diary entries which seem to be written by her discussing her life in great detail. She confides in her manager Rumi Hidaka , but is advised to ignore it. Meanwhile, on the set of Double Bind, the producers agree to give her a leading role. However, it is as a rape victim in a strip club, which Rumi warns Mima against as it will ruin her reputation, but Mima accepts the part voluntarily. The atmosphere of the scene traumatizes Mima, stopping her from differentiating reality from fantasy. As her mind breaks down several people involved in the tarnishing of Mima’s reputation are murdered. She finds evidence which makes her appear to be the prime suspect, and her increasing mental instability makes her doubt her own innocence. It turns out that the diarist of “Mima’s Room” is delusional and very manipulative, and that an intense folie à deux has been in play. The faux diarist and serial killer, who believes herself to be a Mima who is forever young and graceful, has made a scapegoat of stalker Me-Mania. Mima knocks Me-Mania unconscious with a hammer in self-defence when he attempts to rape her, and runs to her only support she has left alive, her manager Rumi. Perfect Blue is an intensely brutal mental beat up, courtesy of a director with zero interest in separating dreams from reality, or in giving the audience any point of reference. Satoshi Kon’s gives us none of the usual story cues, no transitions or assurances, just one fluid and ever-changing ‘reality’ with no way to ease in. It’s this type of uneasy mental trauma that earns this anime our number five spot.

19 For our Halloween edition we thought you might like to see what our top ten scariest anime were for this year. So here they are. Enjoy :)

No.4 -Deadman Wonderland Not since gantz have I said WTF so many times in one anime. Ten years after a massive earthquake hits Japans mainland, Ganta Igarashi and his classmates are attacked by a red caped creature that bursts in through the class window. The Red Man massacres Ganta’s entire class but instead of killing him, embeds a red crystal shard in Ganta’s chest. Within days of the

massacre, Ganta is declared the sole suspect and, following a quick trial, is sentenced to life imprisonment in Deadman Wonderland, a massive theme park prison in Tokyo City. That’s when I started spitting WTF while weaving tapestries of obscenities in shock factor and continued to watch the series. Deadman Wonderland isn’t for sissies or the feint of heart, but you better watch it anyway. You won’t regret it. Grinning madly, the like prison. Arriving at the prison, Ganta is fitted with a special collar which monitors his location and life signs. Due to the heinous nature of Ganta’s ‘crime’, he has to live out his imprisonment under Deadman Wonderland’s ‘Death Sentence’. Fortunately for Ganta, he is aided by a mysterious girl named Shiro, who apparently knows Ganta. While trying to survive as an inmate on death row, Ganta becomes increasingly obsessed with the ‘Red Man’ and tries to find him. In a bizarre twist, Ganta begins to develop the ability to manipulate his own blood, and use it as a weapon. Unbeknownst to him, Ganta has become one of the prison’s ‘Deadmen’, a segregated group of prisoners possessing the Branches of Sin. After his ability is discovered, Ganta is forced to participate in brutal gladiatorial death matches, known as Carnival Corpse, whose anonymous spectators pay large amounts of money to watch. In his struggle he manages to befriend some of those he fights in the arena, and with their help Ganta continues his quest to uncover the identity of the Red Man.

No.3

-HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO

This has to be one of the freakiest anime I have watched to date. What makes Higurashi no Naku Koro ni so disturbing is that it contrasts a light-hearted childhood comedy with visually gruesome and deep psychological horror. The result is similar to taking a comedic slice-of-life anime like the Melancholy of Harsh Suzuki and crossing it with Silent Hill. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni takes place in June 1983, in a rural village called Hinamizawa when main character, Keiichi Maebara, moves in and befriends his new classmates Rena Ryugu, Mion Sonozaki, Rika Furude, and Satoko Houjou. Keiichi joins their after-school club activities, which consist mostly of card and board games Hinamizawa appears to be a normal, peaceful, rural village to Keiichi. However, the tranquillity abruptly ends after the annual Watanagashi Festival, a celebration to commemorate and give thanks to the local god, Oyashiro. Keiichi learns that every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival. Keiichi himself soon becomes drawn into the strange events surrounding the Watanagashi Festival and Oyashiro. In each story arc, he or one of his friends become paranoid, and a crime is committed. Usually, the crime involves the murder of one of their own friends. While it seems impossible to tell their delusions apart from the mystery

No.2 -Gantz A pair of high school students, Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, are hit by a subway train in an attempt to save the life of a homeless drunk. Following their deaths, Kurono and Kato find themselves transported to an unfurnished Tokyo apartment. At one end of the room there is a featureless black sphere known as “Gantz”. When the Gantz sphere opens, he informing those present that their “lives have ended and now belong” to him. A picture and brief information is shown of some of their targets, all but one of which are aliens living on Earth, which take on a wide variety of forms. Those sent cannot return from the mission until all enemies have been killed, or the time limit has run out. If they survive a successful mission, each individual is awarded points for the aliens they have killed. They are then allowed to leave, and live their lives as they see fit until Gantz summons them back again for the next mission. The only way to stop having to participate in the missions is to earn one hundred points, and choose the option to be freed. However, as the series continues, Kurono participates with the objective to revive his deceased friends with the 100 points he can obtain throughout the missions. After several missions, Nishi unveils a countdown on Gantz that the other players were unaware of. This is thought to indicate the end of the human race but it also frees all the participants from the game. A week later, a massive alien force invades the Earth and begins exterminating the human race, Kurono and his companions try their best to make use of Gantz’s advanced technology and weaponry in order to take a stand against the alien invasion. The violence in this show is not only brutal, but it’s merciless at times. While most of us can handle the odd person being killed most of us can’t handle the idea of torturing an elderly person or child. Gantz presents a lot of this unnecessary violence. As bad as the aliens may be, it was very uncomfortable watching them plead for their lives while crying, only to be mutilated or killed.

No.1 -Elfen Lied As most of us know Elfen Lied takes place in Kamakura, Japan, focusing on a new strain of the human race called Diclonius. They are similar to human beings but different on a genetic level and notable due to a pair of short horn-like protrusions. The main character Lucy is initially held in the Kanagawa Prefecture facility built for experimentation, located off the coast of Kamakura. She manages to escape and wreak havoc, but is injured in the process, an event which causes her to develop a secondary, child-like personality known as Nyu. Lucy is found on the beach by two locals , Kohta, who studies at the local university, and his cousin Yuka. They take her in, and become involved with the numerous, often brutal, attempts to recapture her by a Special Assault Team and a number of other Diclonius, who shift from oblivious to murderous frequently. Other characters include Bando, an SAT trooper mauled by Lucy and infected with a virus, and Kurama, a carrier of the virus. While the animated series ends with Lucy confronting a large team of SAT members, after which she disappears, the manga continues by showing the mad plans of Kakuzawa, leader of Diclonii research, and his ultimate failure. The world itself is endangered. For Kouta and Yuka, finding the bloody naked young girl on the beach would change their lives forever, for better or for worse. Unable to speak or function as a normal human being, she is named Nyuu by the duo, and taken into their home in an effort to save her. But what neither teenager knows is that this innocent young girl is actually a killing machine -- an experiment gone terribly wrong -- and it is only a matter of time before the murderer in her awakens again... This Anime is very short lived but the story is intense. And while the most impressive scene is the very first one few after that achieve the same level after it. But this is one of those Anime that make you think about it more after you finish it, making you want to watch it again and again to better understand it’s progression. We give it this years number one spot!

Jeanclaude Pratt

“Well, at least the monster seems to always make sure the girl’s satisfied” | ”Ph34r my l33t n3kkid skillz!!!” | ”Sometimes you just gotta go with whatya got! Pathetic people need love too!”

One of the first Western manga’s to gain world wide acclaim. Megatokyo is stall going strong after 11 years on the web.

Released on August 14, 2000, Megatokyo was created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, who began releasing the free web comic in weekly instalments with out so much as a story line. The comics name was taken from a domain owned by Caston which he used for a short time as a gaming review site. Originally they announced that they would be releasing the comic three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) but ended up only releasing once or twice a week on nonspecific days. Recently, this schedule has slipped further, due to the real life health issues of Sarah Gallagher (Seraphim), Fred’s wife. As of May 2002 Caston had sold his ownership to Gallagher due to artistic differences, making Gallagher the owner of one of the most popular web comics published out of the west. Shortly after Fred was laid off at his day job as an architect and decided to make the comic a full time thing, publishing the comic on paper. There are currently 6 books in circulation, the first three being published by one of my favourite publishing houses Dark Horse and the last three being published through CMX. As of February 2005, sales of the third comic book were ranked third on the BookScan’s list of graphic novels sold in bookstores. Initially the comic was funded by Gallagher and Caston but in October of the same year it was started they opened a store in connection with ThinkGeek selling megatokyo merchandise. On the 1st of August 2004 the store was replaced by “Megagear”, An online store created by Gallagher and his wife from which they sell Megatokyo, Applegeeks and Angerdog merchandise. Gallagher insists that the comic will remain a free online comic and that the paper backs are just another way to get the comic out into the public. As of comic strip number 1193 the comic is drawn digitally by Gallagher, he also began “Fredarting”, where he showcases videos of himself drawing the comic strips, in 2009. He will occasionally feature guest artists like Mohammad F. Haque of Applegeeks. However when the Megatokyo first started out all of the strips where drawn in pencil and were intended for inking but Gallagher believed it unfeasible. The original frames were created by rough sketching each frame on a piece of paper and then tracing, scanning and cleaning the frames up on Photoshop and Illustrator. The tracing was necessary as the original art work was not neat enough to publish. But as he grew accustom to the style Gallagher was able to do away with the tracing process and allowing him more time to focus on the smaller details ad creating a more in depth story. Megatokyo’s early strips were laid out in four square panels per strip, in a two-by-two, a formatting choice made as a compromise between the horizontal layout of American comic strips and the vertical layout of Japanese comic strips. But Gallagher soon realized that this was counter productive to the story line and after their first year of comicing he changed the format to a free form comic layout.

Set in a fictional version of Tokyo, Megatokyo tells the story of two geek friends, Largo and Piro who leave the country for Japan after an incident at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). But when they get to Japan Largo is expected to beat the ninja Junpei at a video game to enter the country. Once in the country the pair go nuts and spend all their money on a “cool thing” leaving them stranded in Japan. They are then forced to take up residence with Tsubasa, Piro’s friend, who then leaves the country to find his first true love leaving them with out a place to stay. He also leaves them Ping, the playstation accessory who looks like a girl. Adding to the group are Dom and Ed, two shadow operatives for Sony and SEGA who travel to Japan to try and steal Ping for their companies. At this point Piro goes to a book store to do research on girl problems for Ping, while among a mountain of shoujo manga books a group of girls run into him. Embarrassed he runs away leaving his book bag with his sketch pad in it. After being evicted Piro begins to work for Megagamers where his boss allows him and Piro to live up stairs above the store. Largo to manages to get a job when he is mistaken for the new English teacher at a local school, here he forces his students to call him “Great Teacher Largo” and introduces them to L33T speak and computing. Later on he is hired by the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division (TPCD) after saving the city from a giant drunken turtle. Meanwhile Piro meets Yuki at Megagamers, who returns his book bag and asks him to teach her how to draw. He soon forgets about her request and goes on to meet Nanasawa Kimiko at a train station where she is scolding herself for forgetting her rail card. Piro gives her his and walks about before she can refuse. She then becomes a famous voice artist who Piro believes he has to protect. At the same time Largo starts to develop a relationship with Piro’s co-worker Hayasaka Erika, who shares a place with Kimiko. It terns out that Erika is a former idol who decided to go off grid after her fiancé left her, Largo then offers to help her but it leads to him being fired from the TPCD. The story also frequently features Tohya Miho who knows Piro and Largo from the Endgames MMORPG. Her soul purpose is to bring ruin to the characters lives using the Harajuku club (or “Cave of Evil” as Largo calls it) as her base of operations. Megatokyo was original all about the humour, parodying the stereotypes and clichés of anime, manga, dating sims, arcade and video games, and occasionally making direct references to real-world works. But with Gallagher’s take over the comic became increasingly about the characters and their lives. Not all humour is lost though and the story is still going steady. If you would like to read it visit http://megatokyo.com/strip/1.

“The situation with Caston was not fully explained until 2005 when Gallagher announced: “While things were good at first, over time we found that we were not working well together creatively. There is no fault in this, it happens. I’ve never blamed Rodney for this creative ‘falling out’ nor do I blame myself. Not all creative relationships click, ours didn’t in the long run.””

22 Artist of the month. This month we talk to the Durban born artist Kim Bussiahn. Growing up she went to 4 different schools starting with St. Mary’s, then she went to Thomas More, Forest View and finally finished at Kloof High School. Kim discovered her passion for art at the age of 12, and quickly decided that animation would be the direction she would take. The dream of working with production companies and creating her own animation was essentially what has kept her drawing. In 2010 she caught the chance to work on an international animated series which has taught her everything she needed to know about the industry. Kim now teaches 2D concept art and animation at Learn3D in Johannesburg. She taught at the Learn3D this at rAge 2011.

h t n o he M

n h a i ss

t f o tist

u B im

1. Ok so being South African and not having too much exposure to Anime or Japanese culture, what made you get into the anime style you work with now? I’ll admit. It was Pokemon. Before Pokemon I had glimpsed some anime, but I didn’t realise exactly what it was. I guess Pokemon really started the anime boom in the country. Although I must say that currently my style has sort of drifted into a mixture of Western and anime, influenced by anime that I watched after seeing Pokemon, and the Western cartoons and comics that I love so much. 2. Who would you say influenced you most in terms of your art? My influences come from all sorts of places. Disney, Marvel/DC, Brian Froud’s faeries, anime, important people in my life... all sorts. I’ve always enjoyed portraying very real feelings with very unreal styles and ideas. I think people can sympathise with a different world a lot easier when there are realistic similarities. 3. What is your goal in life? I’d really love to help the industry grow in this country in terms of art and 2D anima-

tion. When I’ve achieved that, I’d like to stay working in the industry with other creatives to bring stories from South Africa alive through the medium. 4. Where do you believe the South African market is going in terms of art and the anime industry in general? At the moment we have a very slow starting point. The art industry isn’t doing too badly, we do after all have quite a few amazing artists working on international projects in games and comics. However the 2D animation industry is leaving much to be desired. At this moment it’s about training our creative people to do it at a level that is international, and then finding the resources to help the industry grow here so those creatives don’t have to go overseas to do what they love at a level they can appreciate. Where the market goes in the next few years is up to the people who want to finance and grow it. 5. I see that you went to rAge this year. How was it for you? rAge is always an awesome experience for me, I believe mostly because I have never attended as a customer, but rather an exhibitor. This year I had 2 stalls where I had responsibilities, so there’s constantly stuff to do and it’s always high energy for me. I also really enjoy dressing up on the Saturday for cosplay, whether I win or not it’s just a lot of fun. Also, being there all the time gives you great opportunities to get free stuff! 6. Last question, Where do you see yourself in 20 years from now? I’ve learnt not to look too far into the future. We can all say we see ourselves somewhere, but life always takes such unpredictable turns that your prediction for yourself is almost constantly changing. I’d like to say that I see myself working at a top notch animation studio somewhere, but who knows. Life will go where it wants to go and I just want to enjoy the ride.

Anime news

The News box Anime figurines for sale this month.

This year one of the best car chases in anime will be honoured by a figurine model. This set is from Studio Ghibli’s The Castle of Cagliostro, a 1979 animated feature based on the manga series Lupin III and directed by none other than Hayao Miyazaki himself. This piece will be out in December, and will sell for around USD$45.

Good Smile Company announced their release of the newest product in their popular Nendoroid series, Sena Kashiwazaki from Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, aka Haganai. Haganai is a light novel series written by Yomi Hirasaka and illustrated by Buriki. The TV anime adaptation has already started broadcasting since October 7 in Japan. This is the first of two Haganai heroines Nendoroid, and will be released in January 2012. The release date of the second Sena Kashiwazaki Nendoroid is two months later in March of 2012. The retail price in Japan is 3,500 yen (about US$45.52).

Alteil - Japan’s #1 Online Card Duelling Game – is proud to announce a team-up with the world’s most popular virtual popidol, Hatsune Miku! At the 2011 Anime Expo in LA, fifteen new incarnations of Hatsune Miku were released as cards that will be added to the game. Miku Avatars, including a Pet, Background and Accessory, will be available. Check out our preview page here: Miku Cards

Montauk Monster Scares Beach Goers I know, this isn’t exactly anime news but we definitely believed that it belonged in our news section, especially since it is Halloween. In late 2008 there were reports of a “Demon” that had washed up on shore on Long Island’s Montauk Point. What was dubbed as the “Montauk Monster,” made very little airtime despite its obvious difference to anything normally seen. CBS did air it but the announcement was short and only declared that they were not sure what the creature was and that they suspected it was a fake. Nothing was mentioned as to what happened to the body but simply that it was taken away. Right offshore of Montauk is an island called Plum Island. It’s a restricted area known as a government poison and animal testing facility. Rumour is that it may have come from there.

More Live-Action Rurouni Kenshin Cast members Announced

This past month three new actors for the 2012 live-action film, Rurouni Kenshin Samurai, were announced. The new cast members are: Kouji Kikkawa (Let’s Dance With Papa; pictured right) as Jine Udō, Yosuke Eguchi (Shonan Bakusozoku, Tokyo Love Story; pictured left) as Hajime Saitō, and Teruyuki Kagawa (From Up on Poppy Hill, 20th Century Boys) as Kanryū Takeda. Keishi Ōtomo will be directing the samurai film starring 22-year-old actor Takeru Satoh (Kamen Rider Den-O, Rookies, Beck, Ryōmaden) as the Titular character. The 17-year-old actress Emi Takei will play Kaoru Kamiya while Shueisha’s Jump Square magazine announced Yuu Aoi (Hana and Alice, Honey and Clover) as Megumi Takani, Munetaka Aoki (The Last Message Umizaru, live-action The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) as Sanosuke Sagara, and Taketo Tanaka as Yahiko Myōjin. The film’s staff held an open casting call for volunteer extras in the film last July. The Sankei Sports newspaper reported that the film is intended for international release and will eventually see the creation of a series. This will be the first live-action adaptation of the manga and will be producd by Warner Brothers Pictures Japan. Shooting began in July. Hisashi Sasaki, deputy director of Shueisha’s Shonen Manga group, posted four photographs from the set of the film in August. Watsuki’s original 1994-1999 manga ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and the resulting 28 compiled books volumes have 50 million copies in print. The manga inspired a television anime series that is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. ADV Films released two later original video anime projects and a film on DVD which were released on Blu-ray Disc this year.

Anime news

J-Pop band go on their first tour of America Formed in 2003, members of one of Japans first all female Visual Kei band ,exist†trace, announced on the 18th that they will be touring America in March of 2012. Jyou (vocals), Miko (guitar), Mally (drums), Naoto (bass), and Omi (guitar) will be performing live concerts in: Boston/ MA, New York/ NY, and Philadelphia/ PA. As well as touring Japan multiple times, exist†trace has performed twice in Europe, making appearances in Berlin, Helsinki, Moscow, Paris, London, and Barcelona. In 2009, the band performed at the 2-day V-ROCK FESTIVAL in Chiba, Japan. In November 2010, they released their album “TWIN GATE”, followed by an American release from JapanFiles. In June, 2011, they made their major-label debut with the “TRUE” EP on Tokuma Japan, and released a second 5-song EP “THE LAST DAYBREAK” in this October. Last month, exist†trace announced a special appearance as a special guest at Japanese culture and anime event Tekkoshocon 2012. The band will perform a live concert and attend special autograph and Q&A sessions for fans during Tekkoshocon’s four-day event in Pittsburgh, PA from March 22 - 25, 2012. Dates, venues, and ticket information for their American tour will be released in the near future. If you want to know more about the band head to their official site at: http://www.exist-trace.com/

Capcom announce the Ultimate fight off. Blogomatic 3000 had this to say about the up and coming CAPCOM events at this years annual MCM London Comic con: “CAPCOM comes out fighting with the announcement that STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN, ULTIMATE MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 and actioner ASURA’S WRATH will all be playable at MCM Expo London Comic Con. Not only is the legendary publisher bringing 20 consoles for show visitors to check out the new titles on, but CAPCOM is installing two full-size boxing rings at the MCM Expo to let gamers battle it out (with controllers, that is!) in style. STREET FIGHTER X TEKKEN sees two beat-em-up behemoths go head-to-head for the first time. Dozens of playable characters lets you pit the likes of Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li against Tekken heroes such as Kazuya, Nina and King. Telling its epic tale of feuding gods through TV-style episodes, ASURA’S WRATH seemliness blends relentless action with dramatic narrative, eliminating the traditional distinction between gameplay and cut scenes. ULTIMATE MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 adds 12 new legends to the already bulging Marvel vs. CAPCOM 3 roster – including Ghost Rider, Hawkeye and Strider – not to mention eight new stages and a refined fighting system. Other top publishers attending MCM Expo London Comic Con on 28-30 October include 2K Games; Namco Bandai; Nintendo; Pqube; Rising Star; Square Enix; Tecmo KOEI; THQ; Ubisoft and WB Games. ” For any of you wanting to find out more please visit their site at: www.mcmexpogroup.com/store or follow them on: www.twitter.com/mcmexpo www.facebook.com/mcmexpo www.londonexpo.com

Android Release Free Mami no Dokidoki Tiro Game

Created to celebrate the March 15 2012 release of the PSP game Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable , the free iOS/Android Game, Mami no Dokidoki Tiro Finale (Mami’s HeartPounding Tiro Finale) was launched in Japan by Bandai Namco Gameson the 14th of October. “Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable’s official website displays a counter for how many people received a perfect score of 100,000 on the Mami no Dokidoki Tiro Finale smartphone game. After 500 people earned that score earlier today, Namco Bandai Games revealed a box illustration for Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable.”

Japanese Government to Fund Anime. The Agency for Cultural Affairs for Japan announced on that they will help fund five projects for this year’s Support Program for International Co-Production. This will including two anime: The Legend of Budori Gusuko (Gusukobudori no Denki) and the Blood-C film. Tezuka Productions and Production I.G will each receive 50 million yen (about US$650,000) for the two anime projects. Tezuka Productions took over Group TAC’s The Legend of Budori Gusuko anime film project after TAC’s bankruptcy. In 2008, the Group TAC studio announced plans to redo Kenji Miyazawa’s The Legend of Budori Gusuko (Night on the Galactic Railroad). The tale was previously adapted into an 1994 anime film by director Ryutaro Nakamura. At the time, Gisaburô Sugii (Galactic Railroad, Touch) was set to direct the new adaptation for release in 2009. However, after the unexpected death of Group TAC head Atsumi Tashiro, production of the new film was halted. The anime and computer graphics company owed about 650 million yen (US$7.7 million) to about 167 creditors at the time of its demise. Yoshihiro Shimizu, general manager of Tezuka Productions, stated in his interview with Total Licensing magazine that the initial production cost estimate for the anime film was 300 to 600 million yen (US$4-8 million) when Group TAC was set to produce the film. According to Shimizu the Tezuka Productions film has found some investors, but still needed about 50 million yen to ensure the film’s completion. The Blood-C anime was originally created by team CLAMP who developed both the story and original character designs for it. It was based on Production I.G’s Blood: The Last Vampire film. This past April, just weeks after the first announcement of the Blood-C anime project, the staff revealed that the project will be both a television series and a film next year. The final episode of the television series ended with the announcement that the film will open on June 2, 2012. Eight live-action films and three animated projects had applied for this year’s funding, but only five projects will receive it. The three live-action films receiving funds are CMC’s Tenjō no Kaze, Shimensoka’s Legend of the T-Dog, and Eurospace’s The End.

It was announced that a group of the original anime’s staff, including head writer Gen Urobuchi, are planning and developing the new PSP game. Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable will be on sale at 6,480 yen (about US$84) for the regular version, and a limitedpressing pre-order edition will cost roughly 11,990 yen (about US$155).

Contact us Anime Infection (Pty) Ltd www.anime-infection.co.za www.facebook.com/AnimeInfection info@anime-infection.co.za A.I. Tech www.ai-tech.co.za www.facebook.com/AITechZA info@ai-tech.co.za A.I. Fest www.ai-fest.co.za www.facebook.com/AIFestZA info@ai-fest.co.za Plushie Heaven www.facebook.com/PlushieHeaven tazzleigh@gmail.com

A.I. Fest (December) Date: Time: Address: Entry:

Saturday 10 December 2011 09:00AM – 09:00PM Lala Palm Hall Klipriviersberg Recreation Centre Cnr Peggy Vera Road and Sunningdale Road Kibler Park LAN: R50 (Online booking available) Walk in: Free Cosplay: R30( Theme-Christmas, Registration-

09:00AM till 02:30PM and Judging@03:00PM) Gaming Tournaments: R15 a tournament Magic the Gathering: R40 for Legacy format starting at 02:00PM, R270 for Sealed format starting at

05:30PM.

There will also be an Anime Screening at this event; the screening schedule will be posted on our website and on our Facebook page.

Anime Infection was started by Dain Cloete and the siblings Roberto and Paula Ferreira who thought that there just wasn’t enough in the south of JHB in terms of gaming (casual LANs and console gaming with tournaments) and anime. If you felt like participating in an event, you would have to drive out to all the other parts of JHB (north, east or west) just to take part in these events, of which some only occurred a few times a year (rAge, ICON, etc.). On 28 November 2009 they had their first LAN in a small hall on a farm in Kibler Park. At the time they only managed to attract five participants but that was enough for them as they were new to organising these events. They also held anime screening at their first set of events, but they had very few who come to the screenings and so idea was put on hold for the time being. The team of three began to introducing PC tournaments and eventually PS3 casual gaming, tournament winners won prizes but only to the first place winner.

SA Anime Directory

It was only at their 14 August 2010 LAN that they were big enough that they could give out prizes for first, second and third place, they also started the “Gamer of the year” title in which gamers will receive points depending on what place they come in monthly tournaments (1st place – 3 points, 2nd place – 2 points, 3rd place – 1 point). At the end of the year at their annual A.I Fest (Anime Infection Festival)

the winner is announced based on his score for that year. Their first official winner, the 2010 winner, was Jade Cloete. This year they have a Razer Lycosa Mirror gaming keyboard up for grabs. The growth around this competition alone has made gamers more competitive and interested in each tournament that takes place. The log table for this year’s Gamer of the Year title can be found on the A.I. Fest website. Their most successful event to date was they first birthday event (calculating from when it was named A.I. Fest) which was on 06 August 2011. They held their first MTG (Magic the Gathering) game here, and asked their guests to dress up as a Rockstar as a part of their Guitar Hero and Rock Band tournaments. With the help of Grant from Outer Limits Paula and the team registered their venue and held their first sanctioned tournament in September 2011. The next game will be held over the weekend of the 10th. But as we all know sponsorship is a very tricky thing to gain, so they decided to do it on their own. The idea was to sponsor themselves, and to do so they would start up A.I Tech. Dain and Paula began putting together a web site (see links above) that would deal with the sale of PC hardware, software, peripherals, games, consoles, accessories, etc.

Anime Infection (Pty) Ltd was registered this year with Paula as director and site release will be taking place in the near future. A.I. Tech has a large variety of tech available for order on their site, and will be continuing to expand their catalogue over time. Anime Infection on the other hand, is already live, this site will sell anime, manga and eventually other anime merchandise, it will also have MTG stock and possibly other hobby games in the near future. The site will also feature Plushie toys made by Tarryn Wood. She has named her little business “Plushie Heaven” and her creations will be brought to A.I. Fest events for sale. Plushie Heaven will soon have an e-store too that will be affiliated with A.I. But the team have been itching to bring back the anime element of the A.I. Fest, and so have decided on a Cosplay competition at A.I. Fest December this year. The competition will be held on the 10th of December at Lala Palm Hall,

Klipriviersberg Recreation Centre, Cnr Peggy Vera Road and Sunningdale Road, Kibler Park Johannesburg. Registration will be from 9am to 2:30pm, R30 entrance and the judging will take place at 3pm.

The December Festival will also consist of an A.I. LAN, gaming tournament, an Anime screening and two sanctioned MTG tournaments, all sponsored by Anime Infection Tech.

FL: Hernani Ribeiro, Paula Ferreira, Kendyll Cloete, Dain Cloete”

* There will be lunch, beverages and snacks for sale at the event. * Anime, manga and MTG will also be for sale. * Players will be able to register with us for an official Magic: The Gathering membership card to participate in official tournaments.

Event and tournament rules, online bookings, map and directions, and further information can be found here: www.aifest.co.za alternatively you may email info@ ai-fest.co.za Hope to see you all there for yet another awesome A.I. Fest! 26

Founded in 2010, and launched in 2011, Digital Sushi has evolved into the store catering towards the geeky and hobby products available on the market. Their main focuses includes model kits, board games, living card games, gaming supplies and roleplaying games and books. Digital Sushi is the original brain-child of Graham Peter, a lover of all things gaming and geeky. Graham saw something lacking in the South African market: a central destination for board and card games. He decided to launch Digital Sushi with that in mind, and now has clients across South Africa. The newest member to Digital Sushi’s website is the Electronics department. With several of Digital Sushi’s staff having a background in IT, an Electronics department was a natural extension to Digital Sushi. We will admit there are many online IT retailers already in the South African market; but Digital Sushi claims to offer the best service possible. “They do not compromise!” In the words of our founder: “At Digital Sushi we are avid gamers and refuse to sell any products that we wouldn’t play, use or enjoy ourselves!” http://www.digitalsushi.co.za/

Genshiken is a university based society that aims to promote anime and its culture to as many people as possible. Quite like this here magazine. They do not only promote anime, but manga, cosplay and all other dimensions that make up being an otaku. Every two weeks the society hold an anime screening based on the theme they run for that week for example as you would expect their last screening was for Halloween and featured Hell Girl. Their audience are mostly students from the university, but they do get a lot of others from all over coming to our screenings, some watch, some lan and most leech off other’s hard drives. Their real goal is to be able to gather enough interest to get together an annual event or a screening or two outside of the university, a chance for the South African anime lovers to come together and get to know each other, strengthen our ties, to strengthen the industry itself in South Africa. The society was founded in 2006 by the passion and dedication of UCT students, it was opened its doors to members at O-Week 2007 and is still going strong. Although the society is a university society they welcome non-UCT students to their events. Whether you’re new to anime or just looking to meet others who share your life-long passion, Genshiken. UCT is the place to be. If you are in the Cape Town area feel free to look them up or pop onto their web site http://www. genshiken.uct.ac.za/

Anime in South Africa- ecchi.co.za Although anime has grown in popularity in South Africa over the past few years, it’s still very much a niche market and not as dominant as it is in countries like the USA and Japan. Store owners selling manga, figurines and other merchandise and the launch of the Animax DStv channel (which has since been cancelled) has gone a long way to making anime more mainstream in South Africa. What is ecchi? and What is the purpose of this website? The aim of this site is to try and provide greater exposure of anime to South Africans, Build a community of anime fans, Support local businesses that sell anime-related merchandise. The site is always full of exciting new anime reviews and pictures for anime lovers to browse. So don’t hesitate to go and visit them. If you run a local anime group/society or your own anime store and would like to post blog articles or alerts when you get new stock, please contact ecchi at: http://www.ecchi.co.za/home

Welcome to Animated Meanderings. “Animated Meanderings started out very simply back in November 2007 as a personal blog on Quantumworx as a way for me to express my opinions and share news about a couple of the things I’m passionate about, but quickly evolved to something that demanded more and more of my time, as I attempted to share news, views and reviews about more things anime and manga. It became apparent to me that Animated Meanderings has outgrown its original home, and I decided to move it over to where it is now, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to grow the blog and turn it into something more people will want to visit and read. We can all dream – and of course, I’m trying to make that dream come true.” The above serves as the about page contents for the Animated Meanderings web site. Based in SA this site and it’s creator Jaydon aim to connect people to the world of anime. His weekly up dates will keep you apprised of the latest happenings inside and out side of the country. To see more go to the site:

*http://www.animatedmeanderings.com/ *http://www.facebook. com/AnimatedMeanderings *https://twitter.com/#!/ shadowfoxza

December 2011

Hair, make up and cosplay This year with all of our Cosplay madness happening in December we managed to find some one who supplies cosplay trinkets. Unfortunately it is very hard to find stores who sell good quality cosplay items in this country and we thought we would just notify you of a local who may be able to help you. Her inventory includes things like:

Cosplay Cape Town A group of anime, manga, cosplay and gaming fans will be getting together to parade around in costumes of their favourite anime characters – and they’ll be joined by various photographers, videographers and bloggers eager to take part, promote and share the happenings. It’s an open event, so if you’re in Cape Town on the 3rd of December and have some free time this is an opportunity to have some fun. The event is being organised by Sasha Perdigao, a fellow SA Otaku with a passion for cosplay. As well as doing cosplay as a hobby she sells cosplay items like wigs and accessories. To the right is a list of some of her stuff along with her contact details. This all SA event will take place at Kirstenbosch Botani- cal Gardens, Cape Town from 10:30AM – 1:30PM. While Cosplay Cape Town is free you will have to pay R40 to get into the gardens, beyond that join- ing the cosplayers will cost you nothing more than a little bit of energy and a sense of fun. Attendees will be required to bring themselves, their outfit, a camera, sun block and food for the pic-nic. After the picnic there will be some studio shoots as well, and all the cosplayers are invited to take part. Feel free to visit the official event page on Facebook, and join in the discussion on the Cape Town Cosplay group on Facebook.

*Jet Black medium length wig made of kanekalon fibres - R150 (postage R30) *Custom made Dark Purple and black wig with blunt bangs (fringe) can be used for goth loli cosplay/punk/scene etc - R350 (postage - R40) *Ginger haired medium length wavy wig with blunt bangs worn once for a photo shoot. -R200 (postage -R40 ) *Black wig without fringe/bangs wavy medium length,brand new - R150 (postage -R30) *Turquoise Vocaloid wig - R450 (45 postage anywhere in the country unless it is collected)Set comes with a short haired wig with two long clip on ponies. Short haired wig can be worn on it’s own as well.(Postage- R40) Please not that most wigs can be restyled for a small fee. Styling depends on the wig and costs depends if extra materials are needed to do the restyling. Just contact me for more details :) sashai.chigi@gmail.com

he t f o y a l p s Co h t n o M

Ok so while the ONLY thing we could find on the lovely cosplayer k_miyuko was that she was born April 16 1991, we did manage to fine a stack of pictures for your viewing pleasure. As you can see below her latest Cosplay was Saya Kisaragi from the soon to be released Blood-C.

at: ut / o ko com / iyu irl. o/ M eg k om K_ cut iyu lr.c t a u si -m b ko k o /a /k um u ec tp:/ ean w.t miy h C *ht kor ww /k+ :// ed ttp tagg h *

The Gamers Corner Dead Island

Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture Publisher: JP Kadokawa Games, NA and EU Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Release date: Some time 2012 Genre: Action, Zombie

Just from watching the trailers the All Otaku team have dubbed this their most anticipated game of 2012. That is until we find something even more awesome, but at this rate we doubt it.

So what makes Dead Island so different from other zombie titles, like Left 4 Dead or Rise of Nightmares and why is it so popular? Well, to put it bluntly it is not a shoot everything in site and survive the zombie apocalypse on twinkies kind of game. No, it’s actually about carefully choosing when to fight a horde of killer zombies and when to get the f**k out of there. The game takes you to an island holiday resort in which a zombie attack occurs while you and your family stay there. You are given no weapons and are forced to scavenge for anything that will help you survive, to make it worse any items you may use have a limit to how often you use them meaning that they could break during a fight leaving you defenceless and at the mercy of the undead. This is just an example of how Dead Island makes you believe you are in a real survival situation. As well as weapon limitations, Dead Island hosts an RPG element to it in which you can choose from four main characters - each filling archetypical roles of “tank”, “rogue”, “damage dealer”, “healer”. Once you have established your character, there are three skill trees to upgrade as you level up by completing quests and killing zombies. This RPG element makes you feel like you really are the character. Your not just choosing a character and running through a level. Instead, you’re choosing a character and moulding that person to fit your game strategy. The game is also programmed so that you cannot just swing and hit a zombie to kill it. Instead you are required to find weak spots on the zombies body and hit these, as with most zombie related movies and games the advice is given to “aim for the head” To make the game even more realistic as you traverse the island you will often run into spots where there are no zombies at all and others that are swarming with them. The reason is obvious, it is to heighten the gamers senses and create the sense that this is really happening to you. Along your journey you will meet survivors who will often give you quests to complete or ask for your help. In return you can pick up essentials needed to survive. But the fun doesn’t stop there, the game has many tricks and surprises that will have you going “Holy S**t!!”, like zombies that may appear dead can jump out at you unexpectedly or the fact that not all zombies react in the same way either. And while you will have your garden variety knuckle dragging zombies you will also be faced with zombies that are happy to lunge at you and even the occasional 7 foot tall bastards who thinks it smart to scare the little guy.

In the long run I definitely believe that this game achieved it’s intended goal. To create a realistic scenario in which the player was able to believe they were trapped on an island surrounded by zombies. It has everything a good zombie game should, violence, blood, gore, and a sense of urgency I haven’t felt since the my first zombie movie. The game is there to scare you s**tless and it does, which is why I can say that it truly has balls.

Lollipop Chainsaw is obviously anime inspired, with a cute cheerleader as the main character and panty shots galore it was created by the famous game developer and director Goichi Suda in conjunction with Grasshopper Manufacture. Working closely with Akira Yamaoka, the creator of Silent Hill, and James Gunn, director of Dawn of the Dead, he plans to release the game not only in Japan but to the rest of the world through Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The release announcement came shortly after his success with Shadows of the Damned in June of this year, it announced that while they did not have a specific genre for the game, it would showcase “really extreme twists” and be rather funny. Suda also declared that he believed it would be “a big title in the worldwide market”. The game was previewed along with two of Suda’s games, Black Knight Sword and Sina Mora, for release next year. It looks like Mr Suda has been a busy boy this year making gamer dreams come true. The Lollipop Chainsaw game will be released on PS3 and Xbox360 and will focus on Juliet Starling, a cheerleader gone zombie hunter at San Romero High. She is sprightly young girl with a killer chainsaw, a dark past and the head of a man names Nick on a chain around her waist. Juliet is also the product of genetic manipulation who has been programmed to be a zombie killing machine with crazy acrobatics and nifty tricks like breaking necks and sawing zombies clean in half. But among her murderous endeavours she finds out that this sudden zombie outbreak “is only the opening act to a festival of zombie rock lords determined to kill the chainsaw-wielding cheerleader.” But the game is not all zombie massacring and gore, there are a few lighter scenes in which Juliet will find health power ups in the form of lollipops, her favourite. Or the odd scene in which she bounces around

spouting rainbows, coming up with quips and being generally girly about the whole situation. Sounds like something out of an anime right? Definitely so, but as mentioned before the game has a high gore factor and is not for the faint of heart, so if you do go out and see it don’t be fooled by the cute pink cover. This one bites. As for the actual gameplay Juliet has a series of light and heavy attacks which allow her to set-‘em-up-and-knock-‘em-down with killer combo moves for better points. You can use her ninja cheer leading acrobatics to stun zombies creating more combos and

extension moves that earn you stars, which you can use to unlock special abilities. Through out the game she will come across students and teachers who are turned, often the teachers will act as mini-bosses who control the students. You will have to fight these off and rescue human students that you find along the way. Should those students be turned they will become more difficult to deal with than normal zombies. The trick however to recognising the real boss characters is that they will have a name. Zed for example is the first boss faced by Juliet in the demo. She calls him a “Hot Topic Sales Reject.” after which he attacks her with a microphone. The bosses are allowed to do things like use words to kill you, as Zed does when he screams things like C*CKSUCKER at her and the enormous word appears on screen rushing towards her. At this point she can either smash through the word or dodge it. The games dialogue is full of unsafe little words not meant for the ears of children but it is hilarious an would advise that you do not miss out on what looks to be one of next years best sellers!

Developer: Techland Publisher: Deep Silver Platform: PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 Release date: NASeptember 6, 2011, PAL September 9, 2011 JP October 20, 2011 Genre: First person horror actionadventure, role-playing, open world

November Game Review

All Zombies Must

Die! Publisher: Doublesix Genre: Zombie game Developer: Doublesix Release Date: Dec 31, 2011 Platform: PC, xbox 360, PS3

From the creators of Burn Zombie Burn! comes the latest in epic zombieness. All Zombies Must Die is aimed to please zombie lovers and haters alike, pitting one of four characters of your choosing against hordes of zombies in a battle of epic proportions. As the only living things left on the planet a Gamer, a Girl, a Mad Scientist and an Alien are all that stands between 6 billion zombies and the world’s supply of stored brains. This arcade RPG starts you off in the town of Deadhill, where you must blast, hack or smash your way through ranks of brain hungry zombies with a choice of makeshift weapons while completing quests assigned by the game’s insane creators. Navigating this cliché town gamers can use a combination of their surroundings as well as improvised weaponry to destroy the unrelenting army of humorous zombies. As the story progresses, gamers will need to collect powerups allowing them to unlock new weapons, new characters and new arenas as well as gaining the ability to customize both their characters and weapons. Few games of this genre allow for such variety and depth, with creative combos on the same level as Dead Rising and hilarious kill scenes the game not only presents a new way to bash out zombie brains but is also a great form of entertainment in the form of funnies. Jam packed with references to the zombie cult, the game can take some surprising turns in the form of mutant zombies created by them stumbling into radioactive goo, or fire zombies that saunter through fire catching flames and wearing them like flaming body suits. And these are only a few examples of what this creative game has in store for it’s players. Gameplay will also allow up to four players to cooperatively navigate through the town; to control the fight, one joystick moves your character through the town and the other aims. Twin-stick shooters rarely go deeper than this, but All Zombies Must Die! adds layers of gaming and RPG upgrades to the mix. All Zombies Must Die will be available in December on PC, PS3 and xbox 360. For a look at the game trailer visit the address below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hU55j3nOqA

Fatal Frame wii Publisher: Nintendo Genre: Survival Horror Developer: Tecmo Release date: To Be Announced Platform: Wii, and 3Ds

The Darkness II

Publisher: 2K Games Genre(s): First-person shooter, first-person action, survival horror Developer: Digital Extremes Platform(s): PC, PS 3, Xbox 360, Wii U Release date(s): NA Feb 7, UK Feb 10, 2012

2K Games recently announced a sequel to the 2007 game The Darkness, the sequel like the first game will be based on the world inside Scott Campbell’s horror comic book series The Darkness. The game takes players down a brutal and personal path as Jackie Estacado, wielder of The Darkness - an ancient and ruthless force of chaos and destruction. The gameplay breaks the norm of an FPS in allowing players to use quad weapons to slash, grab, and throw objects and enemies with Demon Arms while simultaneously firing two weapons. The Darkness II is littered with references to the fight between good and evil and the inner struggle that your character goes through, it also highlights a very stylistic violence that showcases hand-painted graphic noir imagery that stays true to its comic book origins. The game follows Jackie, now the Don of the Franchetti crime family, and wielder of the Darkness which he used to kill the man who murdered his girlfriend in the last game. But now after him being able to suppress the darkness within him the demon wants out and after an unexpected attack on his life Jackie is flung into a full on mob war. Now he must slash his way through enemies while trying to find out who is behind the attack and why. According to the developers more time had been spent on the refinement of the Darkness powers in this game, unlike in the first game where players could only access the Darkness at certain times and had limited control over what actions could be taken, players can now use each arm for different actions. You are now allowed to use the right tentacle to kill enemies while the left will be used to pick up things to use as weapons or remove them from your path. The Darkness II also features some new moves performed by your character, such as allowing players to impale their enemies with the Darkness and the introduction of quad wielding which will allow for some wicked combos while playing. The Darkness II will be available on February 7, 2012 in

North America and February 10, 2012 internationally, for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

November Game Review

This year Nintendo and Tecmo Koei announced their intentions for a new Fatal Frame spin-off, titled Spirit Photography: The Possessed Notebook, to be released on Nintendo 3DS. But this is not the only Fatal Frame game Nintendo have announced. For those of you who have been following the game last year Nintendo came out with a statement announcing that they would be developing the new Fatal Frame for Wii in September of last year. Since then there has been no word on the games future, up until recently that is, when Famitsu magazine commented on it in their release calendar a few weeks back, indicating that the game is still alive. However there has been no mention of a title or release date for it yet. The story line to is a mystery, will Nintendo continue the original story line based around the twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura or will they take it in another direction entirely? The previous game’s normal gameplay worked like this, Mio’s health is shown as a bar in the lower right corner, although only during combat and in Finder mode. If her or Mayu’s health runs out, the game will end. Life can be replenished using different healing items scattered throughout the game. Mio also has a flashlight, which can be aimed in different directions, although the flashlight will not work in all areas. Mio’s only weapon is the Camera Obscura, an antique camera with the ability to take pictures of ghosts and exorcise them. As “ammunition” the camera uses films of different quality. Type-07 film, the weakest type of film, is unlimited, but the other types have to be collected throughout the game; the strongest ones being the rarest. The camera can be equipped with special functions and with special lenses, all of which grant some special ability useful in combat. During the game, Mio must explore the entire village area and its central buildings, and needs to find various objects and solve puzzles in order to advance. Throughout the game, Mio will encounter different kinds of ghosts, some of which appear unexpectedly while some appear during cut scenes. The vanishing ghosts often talk, giving some information related to the story, or a hint on how to progress. The game is divided into nine chapters, mostly related to certain areas which Mio visits as she chases after her sister. The game can be saved at red lanterns scattered throughout the village. Unlike in the first Fatal Frame, there is no way to restore film ammunition; should you run out and use up all the film found in the game, all you will have left is the weakest type.

Rise of Nightmares

As the foundation of Kinetic zombie bashors I would say that this game definitely hit the bulls eye, but as an actual game on it’s own it leaves a little to be desired. Although I am a big fan of what SEGA have done here. Not only have they taken one of the worlds most popular cults and attempted to make it even more realistic but they have started a new generation of zombie games. As we dive, head first, into the this very 2D story line you must remember that it has mountains of potential, and with a little refining Rise of Nightmares could be an amazing game. Underneath all of the overly done plots and heavily repetitive game play there is the chance to literally wade through hordes of zombies, smashing their faces in and chopping them to pieces with various tools you find along the way. The game starts with a normal guy like any other, players accompany Josh and his wife Kate as they travel European by train. As the story unfolds, the couple is found fighting over Josh’s boozing. Kate storms off, leaving Josh (and the player) to pursue her. Kate is kidnapped by a mad scientist and Josh then sets off to rescue her from a castle of creepy only to be met by brain starved zombies who are let loose on him. The game allows you to use what ever tools you can find to defeat the zombie masses and reach new levels in an attempt to free Kate. One thing I’ll admit though is even though fighting the undead may be easy (in the beginning) getting control of the game and your character is not. To begin it will be difficult as you try to steer your character through corridors and train cars, often running into walls of falling off to one side, but once you have mastered your movement it can be rewarding. I am impressed that all control of the character is given to the player, it’s a BIG leap in Kinetic games that may be the first step toward true virtual reality gaming. Another great feature in this game is the interactively of your surroundings. Whether you are required to climb ladders, pull levers or kick in doors you can do this all with the real world movements you would normally use. One such situation sees Josh exploring a derailed train on the verge of tumbling over a waterfall. Here you are forced to keep balance until it was time to just run. As you get farther in the game fighting becomes more difficult, now you are required to aim at certain weak points in your enemies defences rather than just swinging and hoping to hit. Your weapons become more complex although you have become accustom to the games movements you a expected to be able to pull off better combos and tasks. Properly applied, the games ideas could make for a grand adventure game, opening us up to an entirely new breed of gaming. As it stands, I believe that for a first try this game exceeds any expectation, and any flaws it may have are just technicalities. Many other games have made it to the top of the list with more faults than this one on charm alone. And while Rise of Nightmares is a novel experiment, it has a good chance at being one of our best games of the year.

Twisted Metal 2 One of this years biggest and longest running PS franchises releases, Twisted Metal 2, seems to have stayed true to its predecessor’s cruel and twisted form. While the game sees no change ion format of playability (which is a good thing) it does sport a few additions including more vehicles, more weapons and eight new worlds in which to run riot. Instead of the fictional worlds of the first Twisted Metal this game hosts a variety of real world playgrounds for you to rev your hard core engine in. TM2 features maps based on Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, Moscow, and Paris. It even showcases the frozen Iceland of Antarctica; the moulten lava ruins of Amazonia; and the serene farmlands of Holland. While I am sure there are those who will disagree with me I think I prefer the make up battle tracks. They seemed a bit more inventive, but because of the shear size of these tracks it is easy to get lost in exploration, but we all know that is not why most of us pick up this type of game. This latest addition to the Twisted Metal legacy will have you jumping about in excitement as you play one of ten characters, a few of which we are all familiar with (Mr. Grimm;Warthog; Sweet Tooth and even Minion) and a few new recruits who will give you a real run for your money. The game features a tournament mode which requires you to destroy all opponents on that level before you are allowed to advance, while a challenge match lets you select levels and opponents to tackle. Your characters ultimate goal is to compete in one of the most grandly destructive vehicle combat races and survive. Should you manage to avoid being smashed to little bits, chomped by metal jaws or blown to smithereens in a fiery ball of scrap metal and win you will be awarded “anything your heart desires” by an insanely evil man named Calypso. Like in the original game the characters have a very human aspect making you hate or fear them, this brings a realistic sense of competition that leaves you screaming at your screen or insulting your opponents. The playability like the rest of the game is smooth but with such a variety of weaponry you will be wishing you had a third hand with which to bash your console. And now with the ability to play online disciples of this wicked car killer can strategically dismantle opponents through the Playstation Network. Players will unleash destruction with up to 16 players and battle through a variety of favourite and new game modes.

To find out more go to their web site www.twistedmetal.com/

November Game Review

Zombie Panic: Source

The basic idea of the Zombie Panic is to create a scenario in which players are able to play both humans and zombies. Allowing for the situation you are faced with to seem more realistic. The game calls for players to join each other on a server where one person will volunteer themselves as the first zombie. If no-one volunteers some one will be chosen and the game will begin. The idea is that one zombie then infects the other humans playing and they turn into zombies themselves. At this point your objective to fight off the undead and survive the outbreak changes to hunting down and infecting the remaining survivors. The humans not only have to survive but complete tasks and even attempt to wipe out all of the zombies, the catch here is that they cannot tell just by looking at their players list who is and isn’t zombiefied. However the zombies have their weaknesses to, they only have a certain number of lives before they are destroyed. When a zombie is killed they lose 1 life from the counter. However, when a human is killed they gain 1 life. If the zombies only have 1 respawn left the humans can win the round by killing off the remaining undead. Zombie Panic may seem simple, kill all zombies and survive, but it can get a little complex at times. For example the game allows for weight/speed control, while zombies cannot run faster than a human can by carrying lots of weaponry and ammo you will slow your character down and allow them to be caught. Weapons are also a big thing in this game, you will have a wide range of weapons to choose from if you can find and collect them. You will start out with a random melee weapon and handgun but with a little bit of skill and team work you can locate a treasury of zombie destruction. The down side is that at the beginning of the round, everyone else is a Survivor. This means that they can easily watch each others backs but once their ammo starts to run dry they begin to squabble amongst themselves. Another great feature in this game is instead of typing messages to each other (occupying busy hands), the humans will have the ability to communicate by voice commands. There is a menu with several commands that can help the humans to organize a defence, trade ammunition and request help. However the humans are not the only ones who have fun in this game, zombies also have their perks. One such perk being regeneration, over time a zombie will regenerate hit points making it more difficult to make the undead dead. They are persistent little f***ers who will keep on coming back until their last life, and as the game commences and the survivors are turned by the bucket load the zombies will also have numbers on their side. Another cool feature is Z-vision, allowing the zombies to see in dark corners and monitor who is most active on the field by seeing your prey surrounded by a red glow. Those who camp or play hide and seek will also appear with this glow. To add to this the original zombie looks and sounds different to the rest of his droning cronies and sports talents they wish they had. He is the Carrier! With the power to infect people (10% infection chance per hit by default) and he causes panic and paranoia amongst the living. The mod on this game is well creepy but it is not the kind of game that takes itself too seriously. Like any good zombie game Zombie Panic has a sense of exciting desperation in which the player can make choices for themselves, getting the blood pumping in anticipation. As I said it has a lot of freedom, which not too many zombie games are open to, allowing you to kick zombie ass your own way. And while this makes it one of the hardest zombie games out there it brings a certain authenticity to the experience. Whether you are a survivor or a zombie you will be able to enjoy the thrill of killing your team mates in a friendly fit of glee as you shoot, slash, hack, gnore, bite, tear and obliterate your way through the game. I believe in all honesty that this game is one of the greatest in zombie bashing history, and is one for the record books for many years to come.

Mon-Thurs:: 9am-5:30pm Friday: 9am-6pm Saturday: 9am-5pm Sunday: 9:30am-3pm Public Holidays: 9am-3pm

Randburg: Telephone: (011) 789-8215 Fax: (011) 781-2551 e-mail: info@awx. co.za Address: Shop G16A Brightwater Commons Randburg Centurion: Telephone: (012) 654-4735 Fax: (012) 6544735 e-mail: centurion@ awx.co.za Address: Shop 45 Eldoraigne Shopping Centre Centurion, Pretoria Fouways: Telephone: (011) 465-6641 e-mail: fourways@ awx.co.za Address: Shop G12A1 Fourways Crossing Fourways Be sure to visit them online at: www.awx.co.za

Yes. I know this is not a big smash out game with big explosions and mutant creatures who’s soul purpose is to rip you limb for limb. But this game deserves to be in the magazine, if not for the sake of it’s creativity alone. Little Big Planet has been described as a platforming game, but its dedication to creativity in every area takes it far beyond the restrictions of platforming. Now with the release of Little Big Planet 2 things are even bigger, better, and more interactive than before. Everything from your character to the environment is geared towards user creation and adaptation, whether you are adding costumes and stickers to your little sack guy or acting like god in level and game world creation, you are able to adapt things to your hearts content. Each level is a wild trip through one of many different worlds, all a collective of the human imagination. The overall effect is a game that has the potential to be taken further by its community, growing in size while the number of it’s followers grow. Being fed by the thoughts of thousands until it becomes a living idea in which hundreds of people can play. Unfortunately the actual story mode of the game is over very quickly and while it may seem like a brilliant idea to give the general public the power to try and develop comlex games that will entertain any one, some people just can’t. The ability to create new character, games and levels also takes a lot of time, so if you are like me that is ok but if you work a 9 to 5 it maybe a little difficult for you to get into this game.

“ The titular Little Big Planet is the place where all human imagination collects--the planet above the cosmos where our untapped creativity escapes when we’re asleep or daydreaming. ” Each level of the game incorporates games like centipede, skipping contests, ping pong and drag racing competitions. There is an oasis of gaming options waiting to be compiled into the ultimate game. To make things even more exciting you can now compose your own music, direct cinematic masterpieces, wire controllers directly in to your contraptions, and even use switches, microchips and circuit boards to build epic bosses, vehicles, machines, and puzzles. For those of you who would rather play than create you have over 5 000 000 levels to choose from. Item collection is a must as it affords you more creative freedom in the shape of stickers and costumes, it also means that you can place loot drops by putting stickers down in certain places. The game becomes a little more difficult when they throw puzzles at you that can only be solve by playing multi-player mode. These include gates that can only be opened remotely, objects

that require multiple characters to pull. The Little Big Planet’s mascot is the icon of creativity, Sackboy is the raggedy little doll who’s creative potential is infinite. This incredibly cute rag doll acts as a blank slate for your creativity, and as traverse the games story mode you can collect new materials and clothing with which to dress him. Or her, Little Big Planet two has brought out a new character Sackgirl for those of you who like to play with little girl dolls. You can dress them up and add a multitude of accessories to make your character what you want it to be. You can even change their appearance to any colour you like. Your little sack person can be very expressive, using your controllers you can make them happy, sad, angry, or scared, you can even make then smack other players by using the analog stick. You can also use the motion sensor to move Sackboy’s head and hips. With so much variety you will often be spending a lot of time just changing clothes, pulling faces, and adding to your sack persons personality.

“What makes Little Big Planet unique is that it frequently goes way beyond platforming into something else entirely, seemingly for no other reason than to satisfy the designer’s rampant imagination. With scenarios such as hot-air balloon riding, animal prison breaks, and ninja henchmen battles, every level of Little Big Planet demonstrates incredible imagination.” Sadly, the game is very generic when it comes to actual gaming structure, there is no such thing as progressive level difficulty and rather few truly testing challenges. But for those of you who don’t need logical story progression to have fun with a game then this is just for you. And with over 5 million levels you will be sitting in front of your screen for hours.

LittleBigPlanet is a manifested embodiment of your perfect dream world. It’s all about your imagination, and your creativity and to date you’ve filled it with over 5 Million levels. LittleBigPlanet 2 is part of that very same dream world, it’s all one big ever-expanding cheese-stuffedcrust community, which means each and every one of those five million creations will be yours to play, right out of the box, along with everything you’ve already collected or built in LittleBigPlanet. We’ve given the searching system a total overhaul, and we’ve added Activity Streams so you can follow your friends and hearted creators to see what they’re getting up to, helping you unearth all the top notch playable nuggets that are popping into existence all around you. A new web portal called LBP.me gives every single LittleBigPlanet creation its own home on the web, with a page for every creator and every level. To see more go to their site: http://www.littlebigplanet.com/en/news/archive/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy_a3oCDzRA

This years

December Christmas Issue 2011 We bring you all of this years Favourite anime and more.

For those of you who would like to added to our mailing list please send us: Name Email Address And why you would like us to add you.

1st Issue October 2011

December Issue 2011 Next months hot-off-the-press issue will feature all your favourites for the Christmas season. We put together a Best Otaku Presents list in which we tell you who has the best stuff and where to get it, then we cover the best anime of this year, see what is coming next in the new year, Find out why Sunrise Studios is one of the best, discover what LARPing is about and see what you can do to save money on the anime you buy. Also we will be releasing our first Gadgets 1o1 page as well as anime personality for the month and All Otaku Team Event of the month. So get ready for an issue of immense proportions This is our

Christmas issue!!!

We would also like to thank our viewers for supporting

To: fanmail@all-otaku.co.za