News
Weekly Wrapup 15/Jan - 21/Jan
posted on by Georgia Blair
Madman Entertainment announced it has acquired J.C. Staff's currently-broadcasting series Waiting in the Summer (Ano Natsu de Matteru), and will stream the series on its Madman Screening Room website later this year. Waiting in the Summer, a high school comedy about a group of students making a film during their summer break, reunites the creators of the Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins anime series, as well as the director and character designer for Toradora! and anohana. Madman will stream the series weekly and will release more details in the future, including a home release date.
File-sharing website Megaupload was shut down last week by the United States Department of Justice and four Megaupload staff, including founder Kim Dotcom and director Mathias Ortmann, were arrested in New Zealand. An indictment filed by the United States alleges that the website encourages the illegal sharing of movies and other copyrighted material and lists 103 acts of copyright infringement, including the Fruits Basket anime series being shared via the site in 2010. In February last year, a 18-year-old male student in Japan's Akita Prefecture was arrested by Japanese police for allegedly using Megaupload to distribute 260 manga titles. The shutdown came the day after various websites participated in an blackout protesting against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) bills proposed in U.S. Congress, which have since been postponed.
This week's issue of Japanese video game Weekly Famitsu magazine described the upcoming PlayStation 3 RPG Tokitowa, a collaboration between Namco Bandai and RPG developer Imageepoch (Fate/Extra, Luminous Arc, 7th Dragon), as "the first HD animation RPG", with in-game graphics created by animation studio Satelight. Having previously worked on anime titles includnig Macross Frontier, Aquarion Evol and Mōretsu Pirates, Satelight is animating Tokitowa's in-game character and battle animations by hand, in addition to its cutscenes, with character designs by Bakemonogatari illustrator VOFAN. The game will be released later this year.
Finally, the upcoming Lupin III Master File DVD and Blu-ray, released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the anime, will feature a new anime short titled "Lupin Ikka Seizoroi" (Lupin Family Lineup), featuring the series' veteran voice actors in their last session together. Three of the previous cast, which had not been changed for 16 years, were replaced for last year's Lupin III: Chi no Kokuin Eien no Mermaid TV special. The first printing of the DVD and Blu-ray, to be released on March 28, will also feature previously-unreleased commercials and pilots, including the "long-lost" 1980s pilot for Lupin VIII, which was to be a collaboration between Japanese director Rintarō, animator Shingo Araki, and future Power Rangers producer Haim Saban.
