Akira Kurosawa

Maijo Otaro cubes meta

When 九十九十九 (Tsukumo Juku) came out in bunko, the covers happily described it as meta squared.
Tsukumo Juku himself is a character from Seiryoin Ryusui's meta/deconstructionist mystery novels (which are fascinating in theory but rather boring to actually read, sadly) and Maijo Otaro took the character and sprawled him into a horrifically long series of contradicting slices of his life, at one point declaring him so beautiful all who saw him fell in love, while also informing us that he has two heads and is disgusting. The character is regularly killed off throughout the stories, and at one point escapes into the real world and murders the editor working on the novel.
Maijo has been quiet for a few years; his last big project, The Disco Detective, has yet to come out in bunko (along with his second novel) but everything else kinda has. He did a thing on his website where he pitched a movie idea every week for a year, and each was more bizarre than the last. He seemed to be making a serious effort to move into film.
Apparently, he has. There's a movie out this summer called Neck (trailers appear to not be online yet), and he has a story credit. Plot appears to be standard boy meets girl, girl turns out to have a terrifying disembodied head in a tank in her laboratory. Never one to be satisfied with simplicity, he has also written a stage play on a similar theme.
Both productions feature a character who is a popular novelist name Echizen Mataro.
Echizen Mataro is launching a new series of books from BOTH Dengeki Bunko AND Kodansha Novels this April. One Pluto 0 novel from each in April, two each in June, and there's already one more scheduled for after that.
Echizen Mataro is giving interviews vehemently denying that he is from Fukui (Maijo Otaro is -- the fact that Maijo notoriously refuses to make public appearances is a small part of this whole stunt), declaring that Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is the greatest manga ever, that he is also an actor appearing in the movie Neck, and that he has the mysterious supernatural ability to divide himself into two people and write two novels simultaneously in his sleep.
Words fail me.
Edit: Apparently this awful thing is the Dengeki Bunko cover. I remember seeing that and thinking it was unspeakable. I trust Maijo enough to think he could make the wheelchair girl not the pandering moe cliche I assumed it was, but anyone wearing one pant leg pulled up like that is begging to have it chopped off.
Edit 2: Movie website. How could it not have Kuriyama Chiaki in it? Joe said much the same thing about Nicolas Cage when I sent around the trailer for Kick Ass, so I guess I've just proven that Kuriyama Chiaki is the Nicolas Cage of Japan.

"this book's Alan Moore is CUTE GIRL!"

Words fail.

Hausu

This may actually be the most accurate trailer ever.
The entire movie is like this. If the trailer makes you cackle with glee, by all means get your hands on it. Even the set up, before they get to the house, is from another planet, with shit like a bus pulling up in front of a matte painting so they can get off it and stand in front of another, smaller painting clearly visible in the wide shot, or ADRed comments clearly taken from some sort of early DVD commentary that results in the girls effectively MSTing the movie themselves.
Then you have cats being tossed into frame, chandeliers attacking people who calmly unleash some bizarrely edited kung fu before going on with things as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and, in a precursor to moe traditions, all the one-note characters are named after their sole defining characteristic.
Apparently this director is also responsible for a live action -- and bizarrely international -- film of Drifting Classroom.

DON'T LOOK

True story: when I saw the scene starting at 6:53 I laughed so hard one of my contacts came out.

Yummy.

The best part? The AT field is coming out of his butt

Not really much to say here.

from Something Awful

Akikan!, episode 1

An archetypal example of "this could only have been created as a joke or dare," Akikan! asks the tragic question of what happens to a soda can after it has been emptied and tossed aside - in the uniquely Japanese way of having it turn into an adorable girl and throwing her at a sex-crazed high school student. Who loves nothing so much as prancing around his apartment naked, adoring his collection of empty cans.

When he puts his lips to a can of melon soda, it turns into a beautiful girl. He is, of course, convinced that this is all a dream (especially when she turns back into a can and communicates with him telepathically) and proceeds to act accordingly. There's also a lesbian schoolgirl witch who pulls razor-sharp playing cards out of her crotch and a predatory homosexual salaryman from the government who is somehow investigating cans-turned-into-girls... or something.

In addition to the unbelievably ridiculous premise, it also revels in the puns, drowns in double entendres, and embraces improbably ludicrous dialogue. "You'll open wide for anyone as long as they have money." "It's Refreshing Beverage Magic." "The sixth sense of my loins tells me this is a dream." This is wildly fun for a while, but it remains to be seen if the insanity can be maintained.

The show also suffers from being pretty darn ugly. The character designs are dated, angular and amateur. If it were easier on the eyes, the fundamentally bizarre nature of the show would come through stronger and more compelling.

This is probably worth checking out an episode of just for the retarded nature of it, but it's too ealry to tell if Akikan! will be able to avoid the predictable moe trap and rise to be anything more than an amusing "believe-it-or-not" oddity otaku pull out when trying to one-up each other with their knowledge of the stupidest anime shows ever created.

based on one episode : ANN : Wikipedia

Does Viz want Taiyo Matsumoto to fail here?

I simply cannot understand their licensing choices.
Tekkon Kinkreet/Black and White is fantastic, and the obvious first choice, I'll grant that.
But they nearly killed him over here with No. 5, the worst thing he's ever done.
The reprint of Tekkon Kinkreet does well, finally, so they start to look at bringing something else out by him, but rather than do Ping Pong or Hanaotoko they bring out Go Go Monster? WTF?
Don't get me wrong, 3/4 of Go Go Monster are fantastic.
But the fucking last quarter is largely complimentary black pages. He attempts to have things happen in the dark, and basically crosshatches over his drawings so much he fucking obscures them entirely. I sat their staring at the damn things, trying to see what the fucking drawings under them were, almost making out shapes but not quite ever managing to decipher anything. Wound up very frustrated, and given the shoddy printing standards over here, I imagine it'll be fucking inkblots. Does Viz not even fucking read shit before they pick it up?

Undeniable facts

No book by Kia Asamiya can ever appear on a top ten list of anything. Unless that list is a "Top Ten Shittiest Things Ever Drawn" list. And he will undoubtedly be all ten fucking entries.
There is nobody worse. There never will be anyone worse. All his works should be burned, and his hands should be cut off and fed to his children.

Especially do not include one of his works on a top ten list of manly manga that does not include Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is required on just about any top ten list, particularly ones involving words like "Manly", "Awesome", "Fucking Awesome", "Orgasmic", "Genius", "Virile", "Oddly Gay", and "Fucking go read this now".

Goth: Mori no Yoru

I was more than a little surprised to see this title pop up on the novel release charts last month. Otsu Ichi is not exactly known for sequels, and Goth was written six years ago.
On closer inspection, the thing appears to be some sort of photo essay; the actress who played Morino in the movie teaming up with a photographer and Otsu Ichi to do 79 pages of text and story set a number of years after the original novel.
I'm curious, but not enough to actually pick it up...

Tamil is part of Asia, right?

Deserves some sort of award for most absurdly turbocharged trailer ever.

Gentlemen, Behold! moe Watchmen

Even the Watchmen are not immune to Japan's adorable obsession with making everything cute as possible.

I demand a re-shoot of the movie, and a re-issue of the graphic novel, stat (but maybe with a better artist).

via MangaBlog

Fashion imitates anime

In the continuing saga of "Why We Love Japan" comes some incredible new jeans.

Apparently this is actually old news (circa 2007) but it's just came up on Attack of the Show and it's news to me: a company in Japan is offering a pair of jeans that doubles as underwear - apparently women were having trouble keeping their low-cut jeans from falling down, so a designer decided to just attach the jeans to bikini bottoms and the outfits of many an anime heroine was brought to a department store near you (in Japan).

Sanna's via Attack of the Show via Weird Asia News