Baby Star Ramen’s mascot, Bei-chan, is to be retired by the Oyatsu Company Ltd. and new mascot, Hoshio-kun will be gracing the packages of Japan’s popular snack food which has sold nationwide since 1959. Announced at a press conference, Hoshio-kun’s first commercial (CM) appearance will be with fashion model and pop singer Natsume Mito advertising Baby Star’s newest snack food, Baby Star Panmen. The commercial will be broadcast nationwide in Japan from February 6th.
Watching One Piece Film: Gold only makes me pine for more Lupin III material than Luffy (the lead character). The only reason is that I’m more of a fan of this character more than the other. The Lupin series by Monkey Punch has been around since the late 60’s and One Piece by creator/illustrator, Eiichiro Oda, was first serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1997. Both are popular in their own right, and who can’t love a gang of pirates having some pretty crazy, whacked out adventures?
Both still have an ongoing television series. When concerning the latter, these pirates have not gotten the ‘reboot’ (the series began in 1999) and this film is the thirteenth in the series. Both universes have their fans, and while I prefer one over the other, it has not stopped me from looking at the newer one on and off over the years, when there’s a story to pique my interest. Continue reading →
With just a week away from the premiere of the anime based on Carlo Zen and Shinobu Shinotsuki’s gender-swapping military strategy light novel series Youjo Senki (published by Enterbrain of Kadokawa Corporation), this commercial aired on Japanese television. It was made available for worldwide viewing today on Kodakawa’s anime YouTube channel. The commercial gives details on the dates, times and stations Youjo will broadcast.
According to the Youjo Senki anime website the story follows the blond hair blue-eyed young girl Tanya Degrechaf in the unified calendar of 1923 during her final course at the Imperial Military Academy. She is engaged in training at the third patrol line of the Northern military district Norden battlefield as part of the unit’s work. Training, which is the first step towards a brilliant career as an aviation magician. It was supposed to have finished without any problems.
The official Yamato 2202 website was updated today with new designs of characters for the upcoming Yamato 2202 series, a sequel to Space Battleship Yamato 2199 which premiered in 2012.
In the latest group of photos published by Oricon Style from the filming of Gaki no Tsukai’s No Laughing Science Laboratory batsu, one of those photos will be of interest to fans of the 1985 feature film Back to the Future starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson. With each batsu Hiroshi Fujiwara (藤原 寛), former manager of comedy team Downtown (Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada), appears in costume (sometimes dressed as a woman) and acts as guide for the five comics, Matsumoto, Hamada, Endō Shōzō, Tanaka Naoki and Hōsei Tsukitei.
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