July 24th, 2008 Japanese niche fashion retailer Marui One and the Japan Foundation have teamed up to run a fashion contest for non-Japanese citizens. The grand prize: two round-trip air tickets to Japan. June 2nd, 2008 Fireworks season begins July 26 in Tokyo with the 30th anniversary of the Sumida River Fireworks. Around 22,000 fireworks will be set in this incredible display. The Tokyo Bay fireworks will be held every weekend from July to mid-August, with the climax at the second Saturday in August. The number of fireworks launched can reach 12,000, lighting up the whole eastern part of the city. For more information, click
here.
May 19th, 2008 A celebration of 30 years of Leiji Matsumoto's space epic will open May 27 at the Suginami Animation Museum. May 12th, 2008 Our friend Jamie at Japan L.A. let us know that the J-pop band Love Psychedelico will be in Los Angeles this Wednesday to play a show at Bordello near Little Tokyo. Admission is free with an RSVP, plus free Asahi from 9 to 10 p.m. May 12th, 2008 The first glimpse at what the "Dragon Ball" Hollywood adaptation might look like is in this week's Shonen Jump, the original publisher of the classic manga by Akira Toriyama. May 6th, 2008 The Wachowskis' film adaptation of the classic "Speed Racer," itself an Americanization of Tatsunoko Pro's "Mach Go Go Go," opens in American theaters this Friday. (And if you need even more Speed, the original manga by Tatsuo Yoshida is now on sale from Akadot affiliate Digital Manga.) May 1st, 2008 Storyboards from "Howl's Moving Castle" drawn by Mamoru Hosoda ("The Girl Who Leapt Through Time"), the original director of the project who was later replaced by Hayao Miyazaki, have turned up online at GhibliWorld. April 10th, 2008 The formerly tiny Akiba Mandarake has been replaced by a larger dojin and anime goods shop dubbed "Mandarake Complex" a block away. April 9th, 2008 The picturesque Tokyo neighborhood finally gets a branch of the famous dojinshi and manga shop. April 4th, 2008 Cosplayers marched down the main drag in the otaku neighborhood of Denden Town in Nipponbashi, Osaka March 20, Iza News Reports. They were protesting nothing in particular, but there was a guy dressed like Porco Rosso. April 3rd, 2008 The old Namba Osaka location of Mandarake, the Japanese comics and doujinshi chain, has closed to make room for Mandarake Grand Chaos, a new store in Amerika-mura, a fashion neighborhood not known for otaku. April 2nd, 2008 Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura appointed Doraemon, the cartoon robot cat well-loved in Japan and Asia but little-known in the United States, last week to be Japan's world ambassador for anime. March 20th, 2008 Board a train at Kami-Igusa Station in Tokyo's Suginami Ward, and instead of some dull chime informing you the doors are closing, you'll hear the strains of "Fly, Gundam," the theme song to the original "Mobile Suit Gundam." March 18th, 2008 Hayao Miyazaki has revealed that his closely guarded upcoming film will be a retelling of "The Little Mermaid," set in Japan. March 18th, 2008 About 250 priceless cels, backgrounds and other artwork from early Walt Disney films, discovered in storage at Chiba University near Tokyo in 2005, will be returned to the Walt Disney Co. in the United States. March 17th, 2008 Fourteen shops selling merchandise from movies, manga and anime, plus one restaurant, located in the underground shopping arcades at Tokyo Station have officially organized. March 13th, 2008 Disney's first Japan-produced is a short about two robots tasked to take care of a girl in the near future. June 3rd, 2003 Aka-san's kind roam here... February 28th, 2003 Traveling in Japan |
