General Japan News

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J-pop sensation and #1 Itunes dance music recording artist Jin Akanishi is soon releasing his much anticipated U.S debut album JAPONICANA and you could be among the select few to attend his upcoming promotional tour!

The JAPONICANA tour will hit five major cities in the U.S and Canada immediately following the album’s release. Here at Japanator we are delighted to announce that we have gotten our hands on two tickets for the upcoming tour. We will be giving them away to one lucky winner. Listen up, fans --here’s your chance to win!

It's the news you've been waiting for, PS Vita owners and Atlus nerds! Persona 4: The Golden is coming (to Japan, at least) on June 14th, 2012. No word yet on an Atlus USA release, but it'll be a foggy day in the TV World if they don't announce it at some point.

In case you've been living under a rock these past few months, The Golden is an enhanced PS Vita port of arguably the great PS2 RPG (hint: Persona 4). It will contain, among other things, new story events, new animated cutscenes, new battle system tweaks, new characters, new social links, new music, and..mopeds. Which are also new.

Importers who fear not the language barrier can opt to cough up extra yens for  a "Famitsu DX Pack" special edition, which comes with postcards, posters, and a pouch. Check out an old trailer for the game below.

Between this news and the Persona 4 Arena announcement, this is a good time for Atlus nerds. SO EXCITE!

Confirmed via the latest issue of Nintendo Power as well as some of the folks from Aksys Games, the semi-sequel/follow-up to the surprise hit Nintendo DS title, 999, will be making its way to US 3DS' at some point. We don't have a time frame as of yet, but expect press releases to go out very soon considering that the info has already leaked.

Being a Nintendo rag of course, there's no news of the Playstation Vita coming overseas, but don't be too concerned. I have heard rumblings that say otherwise. Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to bring one but not the other over after all. 

According to said Nintendo Power article, the game most likely will not be called Good People Die. Until we get a proper title however, we'll continue to use the translated one from a while back.

More info as it comes up.

[via Neogaf and Nintendo Power]

Explanations on a postcard. 

Ohohoho! According to the good folks over at Neogaf, XSEED (Partner) has been added to Steam's registry. Additionally, XSEED is saying on their official Facebook page that they'll be making an announcement tomorrow. There's been a lot of talk this past year about how XSEED should start releasing Falcom titles on to Steam, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This would also fix a lot of the issues with releasing Trails in the Sky SC. 

Of course, this is all just speculation. What's important here is that XSEED and Steam are being mentioned in the same sentence.

Don't mind me. I'll be in the corner rocking back and forth in anticipation.

[via Neogaf and the XSEED Games Facebook page]

When you decide to commit to a show for over a year, one must deal with many circumstances. First, can the show maintain its quality throughout the whole series? Second, can the show be forgiven when it has its weak moments? Last but not least, can the show leave the viewer with a satisfying impression?

Taking these three things into consideration, I have decided to embark on the journey that is Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. Now that we have reached the end of our voyage, will this adventure continue to live within my heart for all eternity?

Find out after the jump, as I reveal to you the last pages of my final voyage.

Happy Tuesday, readers! It's a light week for releases, which means it's a good chance to catch up on some of your backlog. There are a few worthwhile manga titles, such as the latest volume of GTO: The Early Years, but unless you're big into live action movies, you should be set to relax this week.

Oh, and for the few ero fans here at Japanator (amongst the sea of puritans), there is a new DVD release called Kink. Why not buy it and see if it matches up to your desires?

[Update: We've added hot new screenshots to our gallery, fresh from Atlus.]

We figured this might be what Atlus was teasing a few days ago, and it feels so good to be right. Atlus just sent out an email to the Atlus Faithful confirming that their Persona 4 fighting game collaboration with Arc System Works will be coming west. Wisely, they're dropping the convoluted Japanese title Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena and just calling it Persona 4 Arena, which is much more to the point.

The console port will feature new story and online modes, which I was hoping for after having fun with BlazBlue's surprisingly enjoyable story mode. And luckily, we won't have to wait long: Atlus plans to release Persona 4 Arena as soon as this summer. Until then, you'll have to make due with preordering.

Studio 4°C, the brains behind great animations like Mind Game, Steamboy and of course, Detroit Metal City, have announced that they will be doing what they do best for the upcoming Capcom title; Asura's Wrath. This will come in the form of two downloadable 'episodes', which seem to slot in between episodes already on the disc.

These two episodes are known as "Episode 11.5: Ano Chikara wa Mazui" (That Power is Terrible) and "Episode 15.5 Aonisai" (The Novice), with the latter apparently being playable content, rather than pure animation. No release date has been announced, but the game itself released today in North America, one day before the Japanese get to lay their mitts on it. 

If you live in Europe you'll be able to purchase the game this Friday, unless you are from the UK, in which you will be waiting until March 9th. Why? Who knows! Still, it gives us ample time to pre-order and get some goodies for the trouble, so let this be a reminder if you plan to do so!

The game has been developed by CyberConnect2, the folk who made the pretty darn cool Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series of games, so if nothing else this game is going to look fantastic cel-shaded. The game is certainly right up my alley with the crazy combat system, so I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm busting skulls and searching for my daughter as the super cool Asura. Anyone else excited for it? If you've yet to hear anything about this game, remedy that by hitting the jump and checking out the video!

[via ANN]

Imaginatively, it's going to be titled Bakemonogatari Portable. Not much else is known, but given the "Bakemonogatari" moniker, it'll probably involve girls with both personal and supernatural problems to be solved by one Koyomi Ararararararararagi.

Sorry, I stuttered.

It's also bound for the PSP. Namco Bandai have been mum on what type of game it'll be, but polygonal characters will be involved (rather than the usual visual-novelization), and that the genre of the game is "Under Investigation". Speculation abounds as to whether that's a euphemism for "we don't know yet" or the actual genre.

In any case, I hope to someday plow through rambling, seemingly non-sequiturial conversations, seeking to tease out character details and plot points tossed out almost at random. And then an enticing shot of someone's collarbone or something.

Mmmm.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you yet another anime convention-related news report!

Sakura Con has recently added two more guests to its lengthy list of attendees: Atsuhiro Iwakami, producer of the hit anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, and Katsushi Ota, editor in chief for the literary magazine Faust and the Kodansha Box line. Other distinguished guests at this year's event include writer Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero light novel) and Kawajiri Yoshiaki, director of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. 

Sakura Con will be held on April 6th through the 8th at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in beautiful downtown Seattle. Make sure to visit their site for additional information.

Anime Boston has just announced that Japanese voice actress, singer and composer Haruko Momoi will be among the Guests of Honor at this year's convention. Aside from being the founder of the music label Akihaba Love Records, Momoi is also known for her work as a voice actress in shows such as Steins;Gate (where she played the character Feiris Nyannyan), Seto no Hanayome, and Tales of the Abyss. 

Among this year's Guests of Honor will also be vocalist Kanako Ito, performer of the opening theme of the Steins;Gate animated series, and author Takamasa Sakurai. 

Anime Boston will be held April 6th through the 8th at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information on the event, please visit the Anime Boston official website.

Back in 2010, Sunrise teamed up with Dengeki G's Magazine and recording company Landis to create Love Live! School Idol Project, a virtual idol group; their backstory was that they were nine girls who wanted to become as famous as idol groups so that they could prevent their school from closing. Since then they've released several singles, some music videos, and even a few full albums.

Now, Moetron reports that Sunrise is going all the way with the collaboration, making the virtual idol group into an anime. Love Live! School Idol Project will premiere sometime next year, and while the plot details aren't clear yet, I'd expect it to keep to the same premise of girls trying to save their school.

All I hope is that Sunrise gives a little more attention to the animation, because some of the CG dancing used in the music videos looks really bad. Check out the group's first single after the jump, and you'll see what I mean.

[Dengeki G's Magazine via Moetron]

Jealous that Hokago Tea Time are spending all of their time in London as of late? Well, it looks like we have news of the next best thing, as the second season of the moe-music show will be localised by Sentai Filmworks on both DVD and Blu-ray. 

Some of you may be aware that the first season was released by Bandai Entertainment before they stepped out of the localisation business, so the dubbing of the show may be an issue. Fortunately, Sentai are working with Bang Zoom! Entertainment, so the chances are good that the same vocal cast will return. 

No word on dates or pricing, but we'll bring you details as they come. We do know that they are throwing in the OVA as a bonus, so that works out at twenty-seven episodes for the taking. That's nice, I guess? I can imagine that when the film releases on home media in Japan, it won't be too long before we hear from Sentai again. 

Welcome back to J-Drama-O-Rama! This time around we are going to look at Oh! My Girl!!, a more light hearted drama then the others that we have watched. I'd have to say that this is like a diet soda of the drama world. It's light, fun, and means well, just like diet soda, but can still rot your teeth.

Let's just jump right on in, shall we?

Xenoblade Chronicles is coming out April 2, 2012 in America, which still seems surreal, considering that Nintendo of America was steadfast in its refusal to release the game in this country. If it was coming out on April 1, I might almost think it was a joke!

What isn't a joke is how good this game is looking. I admit that I'm more interested in The Last Story, but I'm still excited to play Xenoblade Chronicles. This latest trailer showcases the battles and menu options, the meat of any good RPG.

The whole thing looks like a PS2-era JRPG, and I mean that in a good way. It's not as pretty as modern games, but I've never found myself needing amazing graphics to enjoy a game. I've got my preorder at Gamestop to try to show Nintendo that there is a market that will buy these games at retail. Have you preordered your copy yet?

[Joystiq via VG247]

Last weekend saw the US debut of the newest Studio Ghibli film, The Secret World of Arrietty. Despite living in Japan, I've actually not seen the movie yet. I had been meaning to catch it in theaters, but totally missed its run. Since then it just kind of casually enters my mind and slips out at random times. 

Looks like Arrietty saw some pretty decent (?) numbers its opening weekend. Box Office Mojo is reporting that the film made about 6.4 million dollars across 1,522 theaters. This puts the film at 8th in terms of overall box office gross for anime films in America. 

It's kind of hard to look at these numbers and be all that impressed though, quite frankly. It's depressing that great Japanese cinema, even with a fantastic dub, is incapable of doing more than pocket change in the film world. 

If you haven't already, go check out Flixist's review. Our buddies over their seemed to like the film a bit.

[via ANN]

Actually, there might be a third condition implied that I wasn't able to fit into the headline: You should probably be willing to shell out monies for figures, as well, particularly Kotobukiya's "Bishoujo" rendition of everyone's favorite bisexual blue space biotic, Liara T'Soni.

Playing the PVC-phile and plopping down for the figure, which is based on the Shunya Yamashita illustration you'll find below will score you a "Reinforcement Pack", which is some kind of downloadable content to enhance Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode. And while you're at it, EA and BioWare would like you to spend a lot more money on other peripheral Mass Effect-branded items, all of which have some kind of tie-in DLC attached.

To be honest, I was thinking of making the investment, but not so much for DLC as for having a sexy Shunya Yamashita illustration in figure form. It's also hilarious that when unveiled the design raised a teacup-sized tempest over the size of poor Liara's bust. The line's called "Bishoujo" for a reason, prudes!

Hey fighting game fans! As if this year wasn't looking crowded enough, it looks like we have another beautiful 2D fighter to look forward to.

From French Bread, the makers of Melty Blood, comes the brand new Under Night In-Birth. Complete with typically silly name and gorgeously animated characters, the game is looking fast and furious. No clue one when we're going to see a Japanese arcade release, but hopefully it's sometime soon now that French Bread is ready to start showing off the game to the public. Given how much tweaking they did to Melty Blood before it ended up in its current form, I'm looking forward to seeing first hand how much they've learned over the years.

With AOU2012 (an entertainment expo for arcade games) having just wrapped up, there are a ton of new gameplay videos floating around. I've collected some of them for your enjoyment below.

I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

So this week I decided to dig one of them romantic AMV for you guys to make up for last week's shenanigans. Ok, well sort of. Snegov1k's "Spicy Love" still isn't your typical lovey-dovey romantic affair but I don't think you guys will mind.

The story is something like this: Holo found herself smitten with her traveling partner but much to her dismay it seems wolves don't quite strike his fancy, or at least not until she turns on her charm. What really sets this one apart from the pack is the foot stomping beats courtesy of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour's Around The Bend.

Add in the general silliness that is Holo and this one ends up being a lot of fun so hurry up and hit that jump already!

[Header by vesta777]