The first leaked glimpse of the movie adaptation of Tomodachi ga Sukunai – which even the author seems keen to disown – appears to have revealed its casting choices were even more misguided than had been feared.

Even a blurry long-distance shot of the production has set fans off, so it is anyone’s guess how they will react when full details of the cast emerge, already having made some abortive efforts to get it cancelled by way of a petition:

“Niku has black hair!?”

“She’s not even got the butterfly!”

“Yukimura is gigantic…”

“Please just stop this!”

“You wouldn’t know who is who, apart from Yukimura and Kobato.”

“Yukimura is big, don’t tell me they actually got a man for the role…”

“Who wants 3D maids, only 2D ones are of any interest.”

“Niku looks nothing like Niku and doesn’t even have blonde hair. They aren’t even trying!”

“Please let this not be real!”

“Honestly, a live action adaptation of Haganai is impossible for a yellow race like the Japanese.”

“Even if they brought in a foreigner for it they’d still get bashed.”

“So I guess you’ll all be going to see it then?”

Long-time Macross Frontier favourite Sheryl Nome arrives in Nendoroid form, prepared for a performance this September, from none other than Good Smile Company.

Sheryl is available for pre-order now.

Those of the spring 2013 season which survived the ruthless culling of inferior shows and have been accorded the honour of being added to fan watch lists are hereby ranked – with the foremost title being a gigantic hit indeed.

The ranking:

1. Shingeki no Kyojin

2. Hataraku Maou-sama!

3. A Certain Scientific Railgun S

4. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru

5. Suisei no Gargantia

6. DEVIL SURVIVOR 2 the ANIMATION

7. Yuyushiki

8. Date A Live

9. Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko

10. RDG Red Data Girl

11. Mushibugyo

12. Uta no Prince-sama – Maji Love 1000%

13. Valvrave the Liberator

14. Aku no Hana

15. Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince

16. Photo Kano

17. Hayate the Combat Butler! Cuties

18. Ore no Imouto 2

19. Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san

20. Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge

21. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W

22. Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san Z

23. Karneval

24. Space Battleship Yamato 2199

25. Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Bride

From the anime Ore no Imouto comes this figure of tsundere otaku queen Kirino Kousaka wearing a fashionable one-piece dress – in likely preparation for a date with her fans this December, thanks to the efforts of Alphamax.

Kirino is available for pre-order now.

Square Enix’s latest exciting new title has been announced as “Grand Union” – a social card battle game for mobile phones, prompting the usual howls from the few remaining gamers who expect anything more from the company.

Aside from the usual moaning about Square Enix focusing on facile card games instead of endless JRPG sequels, the declining quality of the art employed in their card game has also aroused comment.

The game is due for release on smartphone platforms, although Square Enix has already demonstrated it has more than enough gall to consider porting such titles to handhelds as well.

This week’s Photo Kano focuses on unsmiling heroine Hikari Sanehara, as well as providing plenty of the other main subject of Japanese photography…

The manga adaptation has been attracting attention as well, being somewhat more advanced than both the anime and game in the service stakes:

Omake:

The quality of Chinese artists has been in the spotlight after some of the candidate Vocaloids for the 2nd “Vocaloid China” project were revealed – securing much approval even in Japan.

The top-runners of the 666 entrants the competition received have received much praise:

An earlier effort also secured praise:

Luo Tianyi has also inspired plenty of music:

Even amongst the Japanese, the usual monotonously anti-Chinese attitudes have given way to praise (although Japanese Vocaloid fans might do well to ask themselves why their Chinese counterparts feel the need to create a distinctly Chinese character, rather than worshipping Hatsune Miku like the rest of the world):

“Amazing stuff!”

“All cute!”

“When Yanks do it you end up with creepy stuff, but the Chinese really pull it off.”

“Where are the qipao with the long side slits? And what is with all the tiny pigs trotter feet they have?”

“China would have so much potential if they weren’t always ripping everyone’s stuff off.”

“Pandako is my favourite here.”

“I like these better than that Miku one!”

“Really good efforts, though I prefer simpler designs.”

“Some high level stuff for competition level…”

“Chinese art at Pixiv or Comiket is pretty good, they have some seriously good artists.”

“There are loads on Pixiv. They are just as skilled as the Japanese artists there.”

“They’ve really been poisoned well by Japanese anime, haven’t they?”

“There isn’t much individuality to their artistic styles though…”

“They really are all a bit mass-produced looking.”

“Hooray for China and Vocaloids!”

“It’s funny how they ended up like the kind of characters Japanese think up as ‘Chinese.’ It would be like Japanese emulating how Americans think of them (ninja and geisha, etc.).”

“Creepy otaku of all countries basically associate China with the likes of Chun-li so it’s not that surprising that they came out this way.”

“Aren’t they supposed to hate Japan?”

“I wanted to see something a bit more Chinese…”

“I guess in 10 years we’ll be busy salivating over Chinese anime as well.”

“Filthy Chinese and Koreans ought to establish their own artistic style, although I guess that would be difficult for them. Japanese art is special and belongs only to Japan, I think that is amazing.”

“Only Asians can draw moe art! Westerners always create total montrosities!”

With the spring 2013 season reaching its halfway point, fans have collectively ranked the anime series they have most frequently dumped from their watch lists – revealing imouto fanciers are none too satisfied with their latest offering….

The ranking:

1. Ore no Imouto 2

2. Hataraku Maou-sama!

3. Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru

4. Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko

5. Aku no Hana

6. Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W

7. Uta no Prince-sama – Maji Love 1000%

8. Karneval

9. Suisei no Gargantia

10. Mushibugyo

11. Date A Live

12. Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince

13. A Certain Scientific Railgun S

14. Valvrave the Liberator

15. Yuyushiki

16. Photo Kano

17. Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge

18. Shingeki no Kyojin

19. RDG Red Data Girl

20. Hayate the Combat Butler! Cuties

21. DEVIL SURVIVOR 2 the ANIMATION

22. Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san

23. Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Bride

24. Sparrow’s Hotel

25. Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san Z

Maou of buxom demoness anime Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is receiving a Nendoroid edition coming with such essential accessories as detachable horns and a cuddly yuushamakura, and is ready to ally with willing heroes this September, thanks to the craftsmen at Good Smile Company.

Maou is available for pre-orders now.

One of Japan’s valiant defenders has been arrested for controlling his sexual energy with the help of two schoolgirls.

The 20-year-old leading private was apparently led by his privates into an encounter with two girls aged 15 and 16.

He used an “Internet community site” to arrange a night with the pair at a local Akita prefecture hotel, though whether any money changed hands or they were merely acting out of a sense of patriotism is not specified.

Their night of passion in any case led to charges of indecent activity with a minor for the soldier, which he admits.

The prospect of a Hollywood movie version of shocking titan anime Shingeki no Kyojin has been causing some enthusiasm for once, after a parody Hollywood-style poster stimulated the imagination (to say nothing of naive optimism) of fans.

By Kouji Tajima, the theatrical poster is strictly unofficial – but has inspired the vanishingly rare sight of actual enthusiasm about a Hollywood adaptation online:

“I thought this was real, damn it.”

“It’s a really professional looking poster.”

“Please yes, a Hollywood version!”

“If they have to make a movie adaptation, please have Hollywood do it. I have a really bad feeling about what a Japanese movie version would do to it…”

“A Hollywood edition would just be some panic thriller without any of the character emotions of the original. I bet they’d cut the 9-year-old killer too.”

“Don’t worry, Hollywood made such a success of Dragon Ball it’s sure to be fine.”

Japanese gamers have been stunned to learn that the market cap of Puzzle & Dragons maker GungHo now exceeds that of Nintendo, prompting both despair and incredulity and perhaps explaining about the Japanese gaming industry’s rapid decline into idolising card and puzzle games for phones.

GungHo Online Entertainment, now known almost exclusively for Puzzle & Dragons but also once famed as the creator of Ragnarok Online and perhaps not coincidentally run by the brother of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, recently made headlines after their stock appreciated so rapidly that the market capitalisation of the company exceeded that of Nintendo.

Nintendo narrowly has since narrowly recovered its lead with GungHo now standing at at 1.615 trillion yen to Nintendo’s 1.63, but the two appear likely to be trading places for some time (or at least until GungHo crashes or incites further speculative mania):

Social gaming competitors Gree and DeNA are worth a pathetic 0.23 and 0.33 trillion respectively, whilst Sega is still worth 0.76.

Sony currently stands at 2.1 trillion, so there is still a chance that the unthinkable will happen.

So great was the frenzy of buying that the exchange ordered a temporary halt to trading of their shares after they appreciated 28.8% to ¥1,342,000 each over the week, and presently trade at ¥1,470,000.

Puzzle & Dragons itself, a F2P “puzzle RPG” themed social game (although its creators insist it is an “online game”) for the Android and iOS platforms, has enjoyed huge success, now having racked up over 11 million downloads and, amazingly, the CEDEC Game Design Award for 2012.

The title’s ground-breaking gameplay in more detail:

GungHo’s stock has sky-rocketed an incredible 8000% in the last year on the back of this and little else:

This has prompted more sensible observers to wonder just when and how spectacularly Japan’s social gaming bubble will burst, not least with fellow Japanese social gaming giants Gree and DeNA having already suffered huge collapses in stock valuation:

The fate of Zynga also tends to suggest they may be somewhat behind the barbarian markets, but catching up fast:

Online there is near near universal loathing for social games and incomprehension over why anyone would play them, let alone spend millions of yen a month on them as the top ranked players reportedly do – along with more than a little concern at the toll a social gaming bubble could take on the already enervated Japanese gaming market:

“Are social games the only ones making money these days?”

“Yes yes. If they are still around in 20 years I’ll hand it to them.”

“What is even fun about these monthly billed games anyway?”

“It is not like they are competing with Nintendo in the first place though.”

“Hardly. The Wii and DS had all the light users, but now they have been taken by Gree, Mobage and GungHo.”

“Compared to the likes of Nintendo trust in their brand is nothing. It’ll be fun watching how far they fall when it comes.”

“Wasn’t it Gree who were bragging ‘we know how to destroy Nintendo?’ – and GungHo came along and did it before them…”

“Poor Gree…”

“GungHo is doing great even as Nintendo is on the way down! I remember when everyone was bashing RO, but it seems they knew what they were doing.”

“Remember, Nintendo’s market cap has really shrunk in the last few years.”

“Puzzle Dragon’s growth is spectacular, but with no real characters or anything it will be extremely tough maintaining its popularity a few years on. They have no Mario, Pikachu or Zelda type characters to market or create new works with.”

“Shame Nintendo didn’t buy them when their stock was worth something.”

“The whole marketing strategy is something they perfected with RO a decade ago. But back then there weren’t all these hordes of commoners and casuals ready to pile in. They just managed to hook all the commoners with smartness into the whole online gaming thing, so it’s big.”

“GungHo at present: RO is long since finished, and just mocks its remaining users now. ECO: has the best average per-user expenditure in the industry. PazuDora: Has users spending on a vast scale. Keri Hime Sweets: easy to manage if with light users.

“No, I don’t see any commoners playing a masochistic game like RO somehow…”

The only people bashing GungHo these days are bitter old RO players!”

“And yet RO2 sunk without trace.”

“I am saying there is something wrong with this whole picture. No normal investor should touch this stock unless they want to get seriously burned, it is in the throes of a massive speculative bubble. Puzzle & Dragon was made by a team of 20, is a 20 man department worth a trillion yen? Something is obviously wrong here.”

“Right, it is pretty obvious.”

“The whole stock valuation is 100% speculative at this point. I don’t want to get burned, no way would I touch it.”

“At this very moment a great many developers are getting orders from their bosses to ‘make something like Puzzle & Dragons,’ count on it.”

“SoftBank capped out at 20 trillion yen in 2000. Now they are worth 5, it’s the same pattern.”

“They got a hit with RO, then slumped, now they have a hit with PazuDora, and got pumped.”

Soviet mech pilot Inia Sestina, joins in the shiny Total Eclipse figure action wearing her skin-tight pilot suit, and is cleared for arrival this September thanks to Kotobukiya.

Inia is available for pre-order now.

Just when everyone thought there were enough sexy samurai girls, Hyakka Ryoran introduces ki master Maeda Keiji – another bushi who can keep neither her clothes on nor her hand off…

Omake:

After having posted the worst losses in its history and sacking its CEO, Square Enix has announced its new focus will be social games.

Its final balance sheet for the last fiscal year showed an operating loss of 6 billion yen – the first time since the merger with Enix that the company has posted an operating loss – and total losses stood at 13.7 billion yen, the worst result in its history.

Most of these losses stemmed from writing off all the games it has cancelled over the last year.

Square Enix maintains its problems had nothing to do with it – according to group manager Michihiro Sasaki’s statements at a recent press conference, the massive slump in its revenues was because of “intense environmental change,” and its concentration on console and arcade games slowed its progress in the field of social and online gaming, damaging the company’s performance, whilst North American video game sales were “stagnant.”

He emphasised that for the next financial year “the driver will be social games,” and that the company is expecting to return to profitability by focusing on social gaming, forecasting profits of 3.5-6 billion yen next year.

Markets have actually responded favourably to the news, although the company’s shares still trade at rock-bottom lows:

The leader of Japan’s third largest party has spoken of the “cold” reaction his suggestion to the commander of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma that he have his soldiers make better use of Japanese prostitutes received, and for good measure has stated that Japan’s wartime use of “comfort women” was justified too.

Tooru Hashimoto, Osaka’s ex-mayor and the founder of the Japan Restoration Party, now Japan’s third largest, made the comments at a recent press conference.

He told the base commander he wanted him to have his soldiers use more prostitutes:

Even if they aren’t operating a comfort women system, the sex trade is still necessary.

I mentioned this to the American commander:

‘There are places in Japan where you can legally relieve your sexual energy, and if it is within the bounds of the law I’d like to have you make more serious use of them, as you’d be able to better control the sexual energy of your valiant marines. It’s not something I’m just saying, you really should use them.’

The commander gave me a frozen smile and told me ‘it’s forbidden.’ ‘There is a directive forbidding them from going to these places, let’s just stop this conversation here.’

Being a soldier is a job which involves putting yourself in extreme situations where you don’t know whether your next breath will be your last. The build up a lot of energy and need to dissipate it somehow. I think we should think carefully about where they can do this.

This appears to have been a crude attempt at justifying the Imperial Japanese Army’s extensive and highly controversial usage of “comfort women” by linking it to general usage of prostitutes by all armies, as he went on to say the IJA’s use of comfort women was “necessary at the time,” if “a tragic consequence of the war,” and that the Koreans still have not produced any historical proof that any women were forced into it.

In response, the US Department of Defense has said that “this runs contrary to our plans, values and laws. We do not think any issue can be solved merely by resorting to prostitution. His comments make him look foolish.”

During his tenure as mayor of Osaka, Hashimoto was an enthusiastic proponent of reopening Osaka’s red-light district, and has displayed both scepticism of Korean and Chinese historical claims and a frightening lack of insight into barbarian affairs, making the comments none too surprising for him.

They did surprise even the nest of right-wing loons which is Japan’s largest online forum, however:

“Isn’t this guy a moron? He seems to just want to stand out by any means necessary.”

“What is he on? How could you think to say something like this in public?”

“Hashimoto seems to be unable to control his own urges so these comments are not surprising.”

“This coming from a guy whose adultery got exposed.”

“America’s army doesn’t want to do any Japs!”

“I thought most brothels refused to serve foreigners in any case.”

“Right, most of them ban white and black men anyway. And their girls hate whites. How sad, even if a white has money he can’t even get a woman in a brothel.”

“A hot white guy can just sit there silent and the girls will come to him so it hardly matters.”

“I can’t believe how rude this guy is. Like he views American soldiers as animals… most of them are just simple young lads.”

“What a shameless fool. What is he thinking? Where else can you find a politician asking members of a foreign military to make better use of his own nation’s prostitutes?”

The latest exhibition of the Japanese army’s moe arsenal saw 2 “ita-heli” sporting moe girls on display to the general public – only the latest of Camp Kisarazu’s efforts to impress the world with its ability to paint pretty girls on the side of their old choppers.

The event was attended by bandwidth-challenged journalists but few otaku it would seem:

From last year:

Now available in kit form:

Anime fans have again been busily voting on which titles they most want to see sequels to, this time apparently being in more difficulty than usual as continuations for most of the previous top choices are already confirmed…

The ranking:

1. Hyouka

2. Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

3. Accel World

4. Girls & Panzer

5. Strike Witches

6. Inu x Boku SS

7. Seitokai Yakuindomo

8. Lucky Star

9. Natsume’s Book of Friends

10. Acchi Kocchi

11. Mayo Chiki!

12. Shirokuma Cafe

13. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

14. Kill Me Baby

15. Joshiraku

16. Sword Art Online

17. Spice and Wolf

18. Aria the Scarlet Ammo

19. Pani Poni Dash!

20. Kimi to Boku

21. Ookiku Furikabutte

22. Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

23. Kannagi

24. Mondaiji-tachi ga Isekai kara Kuru Sou Desu yo?

25. Ben-To

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W turns down the chaotic comedy and goes deeper into love drama territory in this lovey-dovey continuation of the yuri oral chaos episode, providing fans with some unexpectedly serious action for once.

Omake:

In a likely bid to top its beach service, this time Suisei no Gargantia showcases some rather provocative belly dancing – causing some to wonder if this anime should still remain about mecha…

With no shortage of animated omake:

Ultimate production controversy anime Aku no Hana continues to elicit highs of both praise and scorn from its tsundere fans, with the shameful action heating up in what many hope is the prelude to creepy protagonist actually getting laid properly for once.

The show has even scored its first omake which omits either a satirical comparison of the manga and anime or “that” still of Nakamura:

A new trailer for the highly controversial Ghost in the Shell ARISE movie series has been released, and the scepticism of GitS fans disturbed by radical changes in both character design and voice casting appear to be evaporating rapidly.

The latest trailer:

An updated site also reveals old school Tachikoma, although it is hard to see Tsumugi being the object of much more than ridicule:

Online there has been an significant reversal in opinion after the trailer’s release:

“I thought Maaya’s voice would be too light, but she carries it off perfectly!”

“Maaya’s doing great. Though apart from Togusa the rest do sound off.”

“This is awful!”

“When they changed the seiyuu this ceased to be worth watching. Hurry up and make another proper sequel!”

“Saito’s new look is atrocious:”

“Please tell me this is a joke…”

“Maya really carried off Tanaka’s vocal style nicely. Not too sure about Batou though…”

“Did you guys forget Maya played loli Motoko!”

“I remembered, so I was concerned. But the preview is great.”

“The real problem here is that the movie and SAC were so good they are seriously tough acts to follow.”

“This PV is seriously promising. I didn’t think wooden Maya could pull off Motoko but she did it. She sounds like a young Motoko. I don’t think the seiyuu changes are a problem now.”

Continuing from the surprise nipple episode of Valvrave the Liberator, the show’s anarchic antics and heavy service quotient seem to have won it an enthusiastic following…

Omake:

A Certain Scientific Railgun S has shocked fans with the grisly dismemberment of a certain female character in its latest episode, bringing to mind the titanic events of another recent anime…

Omake: