The feminine duet YanaKiku have a light, energetic pop style with some good harmonies and a unique stage presence. The unusual outfits they are wearing they call Kimo-Cos by which they mean Kimono Cosplay, which all by itself would make them a perfect band for any Anime Con to invite to their stage. Since they just formed in 2012 they don’t have a huge catalog of music yet, but they are off to a nice start. The first track is called Fujiyama Disco, the second is PakuPaku Kingoyo.
Terrestrial Human
Over on the PotterMore site, J.K. Rowling has returned to the world of Harry Potter for a new short story that reunites now-adult Harry with his old friends. You can read the full story here on PotterMore after registering, or over at Today Dot Com without the registration process. She is a wonderful writer, the Potter series is amazing, and I am hoping for lots more from this fun universe. Thanks to Open Culture and another double dozen sites for the heads up on this one.
In Spring and Chaos we see the animated biography of Kenji Miyazawa. He was Japan’s most read and beloved modern poet. The film was released as a TV Special in 1996 to mark the 100th anniversary of Miyazawa’s birth, and while I do not know how they got permission to mirror it, it seems TokyoPop TV apparently did. Enjoy, and learn a bit about one of the worlds best artists, if you do not already know about him.
This appears to be a unique take on the origin story of Dracula, with a bit of the historical Vlad Tepes embedded to explain the forces driving him to make bad choices for good reasons. With the tag line Every bloodline has a beginning, Dracula Untold will be hitting the big screen in October.
The film this time is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the second in the series of the recent reboot. The CGI work on the characters looks a lot more realistic than the ape makeup they used in the classic films, making the reboot worth doing just for that. I am not sure the changes to the underlying story are an improvement, but at least they have a better evolutionary driver than nuclear war radiation/fallout this time around.