Strange

Highschool DxD has got onto that great classic of anime, clothes dissolving slime, along with a side-order of sports service.

Omake:

Creepy mahou shoujo fans have once again been causing trouble, this time apparently having the temerity to go to the same cinema as a mother with her daughter – who naturally felt there was some danger of her daughter being ravished somehow by such an unwelcome interloper.

From a question posed to the notoriously erudite inhabitants of Yahoo! (and now removed for reasons which can only be guessed at):

I went to the cinema with my daughter to watch Precure and there was a single man there!

I went to the cinema with my daughter, and I couldn’t help but notice what appeared to be a single man there.

Honestly, it’s creepy, and I wouldn’t want him to sit next to a child or anything.

I’d be worried about what he might do…

Can’t they at least keep out of cinemas showing films for kids during the day?

How she would respond on learning that the makers of Precure deliberately market their anime both to little girls and creepy otaku men is probably best left to the imagination.

Creepy single men have a lot to say about this in any case:

“This is a bit too frank…”

“One of the responses says that ‘Maybe the guy didn’t want to sit next to your kid because he thought she was creepy. I’d like them to ban noisy kids from the cinema!’ Stop that!”

“Adults should go at night though.”

“People like this think only families should be allowed in at Disney movies, and only couples at romances. They just want to force their own rules on other people.”

“The persecution complex of the questioner and the megalomania of all the answers seem to be at cross-purposes there.”

“I bet you guys were all going in there on the opening day weekend with all the families. I would have crept in on the early morning weekday showing and shamefully sat at the back.”

“Next up is banning men from toy and sweet shops, isn’t it?”

“They should ban schoolgirls from sentai and Kamen Rider movies too then.”

“If you sit at the front they are not going to be able to see past your head. Please sit at the back.”

“Perhaps they should do it like with the women only carriages – allocate a block of family seating in each theatre?”

“I bet she doesn’t realise he was there for the MILFs…”

“Relax ladies, we’re only interested in middle schoolers, not your little brats.”

The final disc release of top guro anime Blood-C has not disappointed fans of horrendous bloodshed, with blood and brains flying from a variety of terrifying wounds, even as the unfortunate heroines are impaled, blown to bits and torn to shreds.

A cast-off capable PVC version of the previously released cold cast and ever under-dressed Kanu Unchou figure will be released in April 2012, thanks again to Griffon Enterprises.

Kanu can be pre-ordered now.

In a startling display of the originality the series is so known for, naked elves are the main focus of Zero no Tsukaima F‘s latest episode – although as usual viewers might have to wait for the Blu-ray edition before getting a complete eyeful …

Omake:

Beautiful crybaby mermaid princess Shirahoshi from One Piece is set to receive a figure by MegaHouse in which she displays all of her charms, particularly her sinuous tail and well developed fins, as seen at the Winter 2012 Wonder Festival. She also comes with a palmtop Luffy to keep her company…

The figure is due for a June 2012 release:

Shirahoshi can be pre-ordered now.

Manga fans are now hailing “Crimsons,” a stirring shonen manga tale about the adventures of a young salmon, as possibly the most bizarre manga title ever to find itself published.

Naturally, there is a scene in which a female salmon is molested by a gang of shrimp…

Crimsons: The Red Navigators, by Takanori Kanno and serialised in Shonen Sunday Super, is described as a “hot-blooded ocean drama centred on the journeys of young Shintaro (salmon sp.) as he voyages out in the unknown with his comrades.”

The manga is also written under the editorial supervision of a professor of ichthyology at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and so is supposed to be particularly accurate.

Japanese speakers can read it on Shogakukan’s official site; tragically there is as yet no official English language release.

Even amongst manga aficionados online there is incredulity that such a manga could be published:

“What the…”

“A salmon manga, this is messed up!”

“The contents are worse than I could possibly have imagined.”

“It will get an anime for sure!”

“It even has service scenes…”

“And boobs!”

“Why do these fish have eyebrows?”

“I can imagine what is going to happen at the end.”

“Spawning time?”

“I want to see some doujinshi of this.”

“This is a joke manga, right?”

“The universe sure is big…”

Service omake:

Players who enjoyed Fate/Extra are probably awaiting for the sequel, Fate/Extra CCC, which will come along with a nice Figma of Saber in her bride outfit amongst other goodies, all of which will be released in Spring 2012 (although possibly this is a case of a free game being included with a set of Saber goodies).

The limited edition game can be pre-ordered now.

Not only has Puella Magi Madoka Magica been awarded the Grand Prize for Animation by the government’s Japan Media Arts Festival, it seems to occupy pride of place at the exhibition with a huge display, and for reasons nobody is quite sure of Mercedes Benz has got in on the act with an official Madoka itasha as well…

Madoka got an entire room to herself, with much of the rest of the event taken up by high-brow modern art nobody is much interested in, although there are also plenty of anime, manga and game works about:

The event itself runs from the 22nd of February to March 4th at the National Arts Center in Tokyo.

The nearby Mercedes Benz Connection displayed a rather colourful if not very imposing Madoka itasha as well:

Whether the full-blown “Yamato Nadeshiko” Japanese maiden of legend, the katana waving female samurai, or merely the token black-haired girl in a kimono, Japanese style girls are an anime staple, and their many fans have seen fit to rank them accordingly.

The ranking:

1. Kanzaki Kaori (To Aru Majutsu no Index)

2. Anastasia (Brave 10)

3. Kazanari Tsubasa (Senki Zesshou Symphogear)

4. Shiina (Angel Beats!)

5. Sinonono Houki (Infinite Stratos)

6. Ririchiyo Shirakiin (Inu x Boku SS)

7. Enma Ai (Jigoku Shoujo)

8. Tsukihi Araragi (Nisemonogatari)

9. Saeko Busujima (Highschool Of The Dead)

10. Aoi Kunieda (Beelzebub)

11. Ryogi Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai)

12. Yomi Isayama (Ga-Rei Zero)

13. Sheena Fujibayashi (Tales Of Symphonia The Animation)

14. Yune (Ikoku Meiro no Croisée)

15. Yukikaze Panettone (Dog Days)

16. Yuki Onna (Nurarihyon no Mago)

17. Hino Rei (Sailor Moon)

18. Shimura Tae (Gintama)

19. Isanami (Brave 10)

20. Yukimura Chizuru (Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan)

21. Kaoru Kamiya (Rurouni Kenshin)

22. Miya Asama (Sekirei)

23. Hotogi Shirayuki (Hidan no Aria)

24. Shinguuji Sakura (Sakura Wars)

25. Tomoyo (Tsubasa Chronicles)

Hyper-observant readers of the latest To Love-Ru Darkness chapter cannot help but notice how slyly Yabuki Kentaro is going about his stock-in-trade of ultra-finely detailed ero-manga antics, yet again…

The “reflected in pupil” effect evidently now joins the “distorted through a droplet of water” effect (to say nothing of the infamous “tail with a seam in it” seen below once more) as being one of the author’s favourite ways of cocking a snook at Ishihara and company.

Gratuitous omake:

Sentinel’s RIO:bone action figure of Stocking has finally appeared to complete with the already released Panty action figure. She comes along with her cat, sunglasses and her stocking-katana for a release in May 2012.

Stocking is pre-orderable now.

One goddess of 2ch seems to have abandoned the traditional confines of her room in favour of the more public (and, according to her, quite chilly) confines of a public toilet, something not helped by how few clothes she finds herself wearing, and how many holes there are in her hosiery.

More goddesses.

Shy little Mahiru Inami will get a new Nendoroid release in June 2012 to join her little friends in the Wagnaria restaurant set, such as Popura.

Inami can be pre-ordered now.

The extremes of devotion with which some otaku have decorated their precious itasha have lately fallen under critical scrutiny for the deleterious effects they may exert on the concentration and driving ability of the lucky owners, to say nothing of other road users…

Some of the more extreme examples – to what extent some of the more egregious cases actually find themselves driven about in that condition is not clear (the dolls and dakimakura are presumably for show, although moeblob-obscured windows are clearly not), but all are apparently road legal at any rate:

A youth who killed a housewife and her baby daughter and then proceeded to rape the woman’s corpse, in what he claimed was a ceremony intended to bring her back to life, has finally been sentenced to death after 12 years of trials and appeals.

The incident, dubbed the “Hikari city mother and child murder incident,” occurred in 1999 when the man, then an 18-year-old youth, entered the Yamaguchi prefecture home of a 23-year-old housewife, who he attempted to rape.

So intense was her resistance that he instead ended up strangling her to death with his bare hands whilst they struggled on the floor, and he then proceeded to fulfil his original intent by raping her corpse instead.

All the while the woman’s 11-month-old daughter was crying nearby, so after he had finished with her mother he dashed her on the floor and throttled her to death with a cord as well.

He then stowed the woman’s corpse in a closet, placed her daughter’s remains in the cupboard above, stole her purse and fled the scene.

After the incident he used her valuables up in trips to arcades and whilst relaxing with friends, until his arrest 4 days after the murder.

In his initial trial he protested his partial innocence, saying he “only wanted to hug her tenderly” and had no intention of raping her, that he was only trying to stop her baby crying when he accidentally throttled her in the process, and that he put her daughter’s corpse in the cupboard “because I thought Doraemon would help her.”

As if these excuses were not bizarre enough, he went on to claim that the only reason he had sex with her corpse was because he was trying to resurrect her using a ceremony he had read about in the 1964 novel “Makai Tenshou.”

His defence was hampered by the fact that he only came out with these excuses later in the trial, saying that he was afraid people would make fun of him and that the police had ridiculed him when he first told them.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty, generally only used in Japan for multiple murders of exceptional brutality.

Unsurprisingly, the judges chose not to believe his version of events and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

After the sentencing his bizarre behaviour continued, including him asking a judge in a letter whether the fact he “did” a “cute dog” one day was a sin.  In a series of interviews given to the press he begged for clemency, saying he was “afraid” of dying.

Courts had let him off with a life sentence as he was a minor (in Japan legal adulthood starts at 20, but death penalties are possible for those aged over 18), but in 2006 a judge decided to toss out the original sentence on the grounds that youth was not acceptable grounds on which to spare his life, and sentenced him to death instead.

He appealed the sentence, but successive courts were so impressed by the hideous nature of his crimes and unconvinced by arguments that he could be rehabilitated that they opted to uphold the death sentence, culminating in the rejection of his final appeal on the 20th of February, 2012.

As it took 12 years to confirm his death sentence and may well take decades for him to actually be hanged, there is however still a modest chance that he will die from natural causes prior to the sentence actually being carried out.

Idolmaster‘s cute tsundere Iori Minase dons her Ryugukomachi Princess Melody costume for one of Megahouse’s latest figures, due for release in June 2012.

Iori is available for pre-orders now.

Yuri fans are rejoicing once again – not content with a normal obligatory bathing episode, Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne has gone so far as to include eel molestation amongst its rather more conventional bathing service, along with yuri, maids, bloomers, and just about every other service theme required.

Viewers of Aquarion Evol’s 8th episode have been delighted by the levels of risqué content on display, with the anime even managing to get some uncensored genitalia past the censors…

Japanese nationalists are complaining that Guilty Crown is part of an anti-Japanese conspiracy to impugn Japanese territorial integrity.

Episode 17 of Guilty Crown has been accused of being “anti-Japanese” for depicting a map of Japanese territory which fails to highlight the disputed “Northern Territories” (the lower part of the Kuril Islands, between Hokkaido and Kamchatka) as being part of Japan and not Russia:

Opinions range from this being anything from a simple mistake to a conspiratorial attempt by the broadcasters (none other than Fuji TV, the bane of Japan’s crazy right-wingers) to negate Japan’s claim to the islands.

The territorial map for people lucky enough to have not encountered this issue before:

The territories are claimed by Japan but occupied by Russia, having been grabbed just after Japan surrendered at the end of WWII, on the basis that anything Russia can get troops onto belongs to it.

Complicated wrangling over the wording of the post-war treaties and which islands they actually refer to has only led to Russia and Japan maintaining their conflicting claims, with the US and EU generally supporting Japan’s position.

The islands themselves are of essentially symbolic significance, being small, frigid, sparsely populated and largely only of economic interest to fishermen.

Thanks to Fuji TV’s involvement, online this is either being taken as yet more evidence of their supposed treasonous political bias against Japanese national interests, or as evidence of just how obsessive the net right are:

“Uji again!” [uji = maggots]

“Caught red-handed…”

“Uji thinks it’s only an anime so nobody’ll care what they put in it, don’t they? Even if it is just a mistake, they should be pressed over it so they don’t try this sort of thing on.”

“I thought this would cause a fuss. But is’t the map by foreigners, so it’s not an issue?”

“God, these damn right wing nuts are even watching the anime for this stuff. They are so annoying…”

“All our anime is being drawn by filthy Chinese and Koreans, so what do you expect?”

“It’s a map from within Guilty Crown’s setting, so I think it is fine to have it that way.”

“I can’t help but think otaku culture itself is just a grand conspiracy to make Japanese apathetic and indifferent to politics…”

“Wasn’t Japan already destroyed in Guilty Crown? So what does this stuff matter?”

“Leaving aside the matter of the territories, the way they are presenting this issue is incredibly malign.”

“GitS had Japanese control up to Etorofu, didn’t it?”

“Come on, Guilty Crown has Japan being destroyed and controlled by GHQ. It’s a resistance story, so the setting is completely different to the real world.”

“Aniplex subliminals…”

“This lot got into trouble over Geass as well for something similar as I recall.”

“How can people who watch anime like this get any enjoyment from it? Not that this one is very good…”