The announcement is even more exciting than the trailer; the theatrical release of Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale- on February 18, 2017, is no longer exclusive to Japan. It will simultaneously be released in a thousand theaters world wide, including here in the US. Based on a brand new story by Reki Kawahara, the creator of this series, I am ready to see this one on the big screen!
When Anime fans travel to a place where scenes from their favorite shows took place it is referred to as an anime pilgrimage, and enough people have been making those pilgrimages that all kind of cities have had their local economies seriously boosted across Japan. Enough so that a coalition has formed which includes Anime producer Kadokawa Corp., Anime/Manga magazine publisher Newtype, travel agency JTB Corp., Narita International Airport Corp. and Japan Airlines Co., with the goal of increasing that tourist business by catering directly to it. As their initial step, they have set up a web site for fans to log in and do a survey to vote for the sites they really want to visit at Anime Tourism 88, a reference to the 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Shikoku according to Otaku Magazine. Based on the results of the surveys they will be putting together packaged tours designed to bring tourists to a series of locations, including the more rural locations and smaller towns; most tourists to Japan tend to stay in the larger cities like Tokyo or Osaka. The organizations president is Yoshiyuki Tomino, best known for his Gundam series, but I am thinking what a hoot it would be to visit all my favorite places from the Ghibli Studios films. At the very least I would have to stop by the Ghibli Museum in West Tokyo at some point during my tour. They do bribe you with an Anime screen saver to fill out the survey, which doesn’t hurt.
I really enjoy Yukihiro Takahashi’s new project MetaFive, they are amazing. The band member who is their primary singer is Leo Imai, and he used to be with a band called the Kimonos. The first track is MetaFive’s Maisie’s Avenue, the second is the Kimonos Soundtrack To Murder, and the 3rd is Kimonos Almost Human.
The Power Punk/Doujin band Story of Hope burst on the Indi scene in April of 2013, selling CDs in the back of the halls where they played. In 2015 their Historia EP was released nationally and immediately outsold everything they had done to date, earning them a small but intensely devoted audience. The first track here is from that release, Your Colors, Your Feelings, a Screamo anthem featuring Ryuto Ajima, the second track is Forever from the Alethea full album released in January of 2016.
Just Chronicle is a fairly new Pop-Punk Band from Japan, with their first national release mini-album Million Falls coming out this past December. The first track here is the first track from that CD, Fire, the second song is the first track from their single released six months earlier, both the song and the disc being called Glitter. Apparently a Single in Japan can have up to three tracks on it because this one does, while a mini-album is anything from 5 to 9 songs (Million Falls has 6 tracks on it, most of them fairly tasty), and starting at 10 songs the CD is an entire album. While this may be their first national release, they had another First Mini-Album back in 2012 called Shake The World that had some good tunes, but no longer seem to be available.
Shin Godzilla will be on the big screen across theaters in the US and Canada October 11th through the 18th. If you are a Kaiju fan, you won’t want to miss this event. The presentation will be in Japanese with English subtitles. Also known as Godzilla: Resurgence in English, and probably pronounced Shin-Gojira, this one should be fun.