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Welcome to our News archive for November 2009 - to see this month's news please click on the button below.
 


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15th November 2009

Amecon 2010 Dates & Venue Announced!

Amecon - one of the biggest UK anime conventions - have announced the dates and venue for Amecon 2010.  It will be held on the weekend of 13th - 15th August 2010 at Keele University in Staffordshire.  Registrations will be opening shortly on the Amecon website, which you can find here. 

Animetion can't wait to attend Amecon again next year, as it certainly has great parties!  To read about the previous Amecon, read our feature here. 

In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on the Amecon website as registrations could fill up quickly once they open.  We recommended everyone reading to attend!

Source: Amecon Facebook group
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15th November 2009

Hikaru Utada to Play London

J-pop star Hikaru Utada has announced a gig in London on her forthcoming tour!  Utada, who holds the record for the biggest-selling debut album in Japanese chart history, is set to play several dates in America before rounding her tour off at Islington's O2 Academy on 12th February 2010.  Anime fans will probably be most familiar with Utada from the song Beautiful World, which features in Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone, but her songs have also been used in the anime series Freedom and the live action Casshern film.

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork
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15th November 2009

Wallflower to Become Live Action Series

The popular comedy romance manga The Wallflower is reported to be in line for a live-action Japanese TV adaptation.  The series revolves around four pretty boys who are told that their landlady will kick them out of the mansion they live in unless they can turn her creepy and introverted niece into a proper lady.  The series is best known in the UK from the anime adaptation which ADV Films was releasing prior to their closure.

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork
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12th November 2009

Cosplay Ball Guest Announcement

The people behind the forthcoming Grand International Cosplay Ball have announced a new guest!  Italian cosplayer and singer Giorgia Vecchini is the latest guest confirmed for the event in the Clapham Grand Theatre in London on 29th of November, for full details and images please read the full press release!

Source: Emily Bastian
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12th November 2009

Ponyo and Astro Boy Submitted for Oscar Nomination

Hayao Miyazaki's latest film Ponyo and the CG animated version of the Osamu Tezuka classic Astro Boy are amongst 20 films submitted for Oscar nomination in the Best Animated Feature category.  In order for five films to be nominated at least sixteen have to be submitted and accepted, if the number of accepted films falls between nine and fifteen the number of nominations is reduced to just three.  It promises to be a hotly contested award this time too, with Ponyo and Astro Boy facing the likes of Pixar's latest film UP, Disney's CG animated A Christmas Carol and the acclaimed stop-motion films Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox.

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork
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1st November 2009

Recent News Roundup

  • Manga Entertainment announced the acquisition of D.Gray-Man and Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone on their Twitter page.  Both a slated for a February 2010 release.

  • UK anime convention Amecon is set to return in 2010 after making way for Ayacon this year.

  • MVM & Beez announce that Sailor Moon is not set to be re-released and that no-one currently has the rights to release Akira on Blu-Ray in the UK.

  • MVM are set to release the live action film Geishas vs Ninjas in 2010.

  • There were double delays for UK Ghibli fans to get annoyed about - the release of both Ponyo and Ocean Waves was pushed back to February 2010.

  • Short lived anime TV channel Anime Network was resurrected in the UK as a subscription based streaming service.  The www.theanimenetwork.co.uk website allows subscribers to stream several anime series for just £4.95 per month, with some episodes also offered for free as tasters to non-subscribers.

  • The Bandai Channel streaming service is set to launch in the UK next year.  It is currently being trialled in Japan.

  • Prices were slashed on a host of anime DVDs on Play.Com, with some DVDs dropping to just £3 and some 7-disc boxsets going down to just £23.99.  Check the full list of offers here.

  • Retailer Tokyo15 announced that UK artist Sonia Leong will be appearing in their shop in Manchester on 12th September.

  • Film magazine Empire featured a six-page article on the films of Hayao Miyazaki, including comments on each film from the great man himself.

  • Quentin Tarantino revealed that the anime segment from Kill Bill vol 1 will be significantly lengthened in the forthcoming combined final cut Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.  The extra footage will focus on Lucy Liu's character O-Ren Ishii hunting down the man who killed her father.

  • Live-action J-Horror film Grotesque was banned by the BBFC after a long deliberation.  It was only the fourth film banned in the last four years.

  • It was revealed that Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and all-female manga artist powerhouse CLAMP have created costume designs for the forthcoming console game Tekken 6.  Check them out here and here.

  • The toll of drawing for a weekly anthology seemingly proved too much for D.Gray-Man author Katsura Hoshino.  After a second prolonged hiatus prompted by the author's health, Japanese manga anthology Akamaru Jump has announced that the popular series will be moved to the monthly Jump Square magazine from November onwards.

  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game was awarded a world record for being the Best Selling Trading Card Game.  22,587,728,173 cards had been sold as of April 2009.

  • Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata revealed that his forthcoming film - his first for ten years - will be based on the Japanese folk tale Taketori Monogatari.  The story focuses on a mysterious princess who is discovered as a baby inside a bamboo stalk.

  • The official Japanese website for the forthcoming One Piece: Strong World film started streaming the trailer, check it out here.

Source: Various
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