The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the name of the 2006 television anime about a girl who, unknown to her, possesses the power to change reality. The story is based on the series of novels, the first of the same name. The anime adaptation, directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and produced by Kyoto Animation, shares the first novel's plotline, contained in six self-contained episodes. Intermingled between them were seven episodes based on chapters from the second, third, fifth, and sixth novels. The ninth episode, "Someday in the Rain", was a new totally story written for the anime by Nagaru Tanigawa, the author of the novels. The fourteen episode series premiered in Japan on April 2, 2006 and aired until July 2, 2006. Notably, these episodes were not originally broadcast in chronological order.

Soon after the show aired, Kadokawa Shoten received offers from companies in regards to licensing the anime, manga, and novels. On December 22, 2006, the website asosbrigade.com revealed that the anime version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was licensed for North American distribution by Kadokawa Pictures USA, who sublicensed production and distribution to Bandai Entertainment. The first and second DVDs were released on May 29, 2007 and July 3, 2007, respectively, with the third and fourth on September 25, 2007 and November 6, 2007.

The series was extremely popular and has become a cult television series with a large and dedicated fanbase. As of December 2006, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the most popular anime in Japan according to Newtype magazine. Similar to Star Trek's fans as Trekkies, fans of the series call themselves "Haruhiists", and the collective fandom is known as Haruhiism.

Eureka Seven / Psalms of Planets Eureka Seven

Eureka Seven, known in Japan as Psalms of Planets Eureka Seven, is a mecha anime TV series by Bones. Eureka Seven tells the story of Renton Thurston and the outlaw group Gekkostate, his relationship with the enigmatic mecha pilot Eureka, and the mystery of the Coralians. Bandai produced three video games based on Eureka Seven; two of them are based on events prior to the show, while the third is based on the first half of the show. Both the original concept of the anime and the video game Eureka Seven vol.1: New Wave have been adapted into manga series, as well. The TV series has also been adapted into a series of four novels in Japan.

A movie based on the series was announced in the May issue of Newtype. The creators announced it will contain a new mythos, despite still featuring Renton and Eureka as the main characters. It will be produced by Kinema Citrus.

The series' origins can be traced to a pitch of a mecha anime series that Bandai had proposed to the animation studio Bones. At first, the studio rejected it, but later reversed its position because it had already planned to create an anime using mecha designs by Shoji Kawamori. With the appointment of director Tomoki Kyoda and writer Dai Satō, Bandai's proposal was more or less scrapped and the staff began work on their own series that would become Eureka Seven.

While conceptualizing Eureka Seven, director Tomoki Kyoda wished to design the series as one that would at first focus on the personal elements and conflicts of the characters, then subsequently move the framework into a broader scale and perspective. The series' two halves each have their own very clear focus that reflects this design choice. The series was Tomoki Kyoda's first as chief director for a TV anime; his major credits to date before that were his position as Assistant director of the RahXephon TV series and subsequent position of Director for the movie adaption, also from studio Bones. RahXephon creator and director Yutaka Izubuchi provided additional design works for Eureka Seven, as well.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion is an anime television series created by Sunrise. Directed by Gorō Taniguchi and written by Ichirō Ōkouchi, both of whom had earlier worked on another Sunrise series, the acclaimed Planetes, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion features original character designs by Clamp.

The first season of the series premiered across Japan on MBS from October 5, 2006,and concluded its run on July 28, 2007, after running for 25 episodes. A second season and sequel to the series, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, premiered on MBS and TBS on April 6, 2008.

Both seasons of Code Geass have been licensed for release in the United States and Canada by Bandai Entertainment, and the first season began airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block in the U.S. on April 27, 2008.

Since its premiere, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion has collected numerous awards and accolades. At the sixth annual Tokyo Anime Awards held at the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair, Code Geass won the best TV anime series award. In noted Japanese anime magazine Animage's 29th Annual Anime Grand Prix, Code Geass won the most popular series award, with Lelouch Lamperouge also being chosen as the most popular male character and "Colors" being chosen as the most popular song. At the first Seiyū Awards held in 2007, Jun Fukuyama won the award for best actor in a leading role for his performance as Lelouch Lamperouge in the series, while Ami Koshimizu won the award for best actress in a supporting role for her performance as Kallen Stadtfeld. Furthermore, Code Geass won the award for Best TV Animation at the twelfth Animation Kobe event, held annually in Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture.

Fate/stay night

Fate/stay night is a Japanese eroge visual novel game created by Type-Moon, which was originally released on January 30, 2004, for the PC. It has been adapted into an anime television series, which was animated by Studio Deen and aired between January 6, 2006, through June 16, 2006.

The official announcement and teaser trailer of the anime were first shown at the Rondo Robe 2005 "-Gate to Date-" event in Japan on June 26, 2005, and a curtain-raiser DVD was released in Japan during November 2005. An all-ages version of Fate/stay night, titled Fate/stay night Réalta Nua, was released for the PlayStation 2 on April 19, 2007, and features the seiyū from the anime series. The series has been adapted into a manga series, which began serialization in the monthly Shōnen Ace magazine. is a Japanese eroge visual novel game created by Type-Moon, which was originally released on January 30, 2004, for the PC. It has been adapted into an anime television series, which was animated by Studio Deen and aired between January 6, 2006, through June 16, 2006.

The official announcement and teaser trailer of the anime were first shown at the Rondo Robe 2005 "-Gate to Date-" event in Japan on June 26, 2005, and a curtain-raiser DVD was released in Japan during November 2005. An all-ages version of Fate/stay night, titled Fate/stay night Réalta Nua, was released for the PlayStation 2 on April 19, 2007, and features the seiyū from the anime series. The series has been adapted into a manga series, which began serialization in the monthly Shōnen Ace magazine.

D.N.Angel

D.N.Angel is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yukiru Sugisaki. There was also an anime adaptation and a PS2 video game.

Yukiru Sugisaki's D.N.Angel manga started in Japan in Monthly Asuka in 1997 and inspired a 26-episode anime adaptation in 2003. The manga is published in English by Tokyopop. The manga currently consists of 11 volumes in tankōbon form. The series went on an extended hiatus after the August 2005 issue of Monthly Asuka, but the magazine announced in its March issue (released on January 24, 2008) that the manga would resume the next month in its April issue. This issue was released in Japan in February, and it featured a 123 page comeback issue, including 20 free extra illustrations by Sugisaki.

A series of drama CDs (D.N.Angel Wink) were also released, although it should be noted that the seiyū cast for the drama CDs is largely different from the anime cast.

The 26 episode television series aired in Japan on TV Tokyo, and has been released on DVD in the US and the UK by ADV Films and in Australia by Madman Entertainment. The final broadcast of the anime coincided with the release of the game, which carried on the story from that point. Due to the anime series having a different storyline than the manga series, a two-volume special manga series was serialized in Monthly Asuka titled D.N.Angel TV Animation Series in 2003 which followed the anime storyline.

Daisuke Niwa is a 14 year-old-boy who has a special genetic ability: Whenever he sees or thinks about his crush, Risa Harada, he turns into the infamous phantom thief Dark. During the start of the anime, Daisuke carries a picture of Risa Harada in his back pocket for such occasion. This will continue until his crush learns to love both him and Dark.

Satoshi Hiwatari is a student at the same school as Daisuke and the Harada twins and also the Commander of the police force, heading the investigation on Dark. This is because he is a member of the Hikari family, a clan of artists which has opposed the Niwa family of thieves for centuries. Satoshi has Krad, Dark's opposite and, like him, part of the Hikari artwork "Black Wings", within him in much the same way Daisuke has Dark within him.

Interestingly enough, Risa falls in love with Dark, and proceeds to do all sort of absurd things to get him to go out with her, which he eventually does. She has also kissed him on more than one occasion, and it is hinted that Dark loves Risa; but Dark claims that he does not love her, and that (according to the anime) Risa's grandmother, Rika, is the only woman he has ever loved. In the manga, Dark's reasons for rejecting Risa seem to be so that she is not hurt by the fact that he is immortal and not really human, and therefore cannot participate in a functional relationship. As expected, Risa doesn't really listen to him and continues to try to get him to go out with her.

During much of the plot, Satoshi Hiwatari's (adoptive) father, who is a high ranking Police Officer, happens to butt in, and ruin a few of Hiwatari's plans to capture Dark. His father also plans to capture Dark himself. But Dark and Daisuke always manage to escape his plans.

InuYasha

InuYasha, full title InuYasha, a Feudal Fairy Tale, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. The story centers on a time-traveling middle school student, a half-demon, a lecherous monk, a fox demon, a demon slayer, and a nekomata during the Sengoku period who seek to find all the fragments of the Jewel of Four Souls (Shikon no Tama) and to keep them out of the hands of evildoers, especially Naraku.

The manga was adapted into a 167 episode anime series produced by Sunrise. Masashi Ikeda directed the first forty-four episodes, while Yasunao Aoki directed the remainder of the series. InuYasha premiered on Yomiuri TV in Japan on 16 October 2000 and ran until 13 September 2004. The television run of the anime ceased without a conclusion to the story. As of April 2008, the manga is still being released in Japan, but has recently begun its final story arc.

In 2002, the manga won the Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen title of the year.



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Wild Arms

The Wild Arms series is a collection of role-playing video games and related media developed by Japanese software company Media.Vision. Since the launch of the original Wild Arms title in 1996, the series has gone on to encompass several media, including toys, manga, mobile phone applications, and a 22-episode anime. Wild Arms remains noteworthy in the computer and video game industry as being one of the few role-playing series to adapt an American Old West visual style and motif. Characters, settings, and music within the series contain visual and audio cues to American westerns, as well as traditional fantasy and science fiction elements.

The series has largely been overseen by producer Akifumi Kaneko, and is viewed as a "cult classic" among other role-playing game franchises. While reception in North America and Europe remains modest, the series still retains a small, yet active western fanbase. The Wild Arms games remain popular in Japan, with a ten-year heritage that is still celebrated

Video Girl Ai

Video Girl Ai is a manga series created by Masakazu Katsura and published by Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump. It also has an anime adaptation. The manga is published in English by Viz Communications and in Spanish by Grupo Editorial Vid. It was formerly published in the anthology Animerica Extra by Viz.

It was started in 1990 and continued until 1993, and fifteen manga volumes were produced. The first 13 volumes tell a story about a video girl named Ai Amano. The last two volumes, which came years later, focus on a video girl named Len, hence the new name for these two volumes – Video Girl Len. In fact, a pun is present here which is lost in translation; the two video girls' names, "Ren" and "Ai", combine to form ren'ai – a Japanese word used to describe the type of romantic comedy that Video Girl Ai is. Although they have different protagonists, the "Ai" and "Len" sub-stories are not entirely unrelated; they take place in the same setting, with a similar premise. Two characters from the first 13 volumes also appear in volumes 14 & 15. Volume 15 concludes with a bonus chapter about Video Girl Haruno. Her story is totally separate from the stories of Ai and Len.

A live-action movie of Video Girl Ai was released in 1991.

The Video Girl Ai anime is a six part OVA series which was produced by I.G. Tatsunoko. The series was released in 1992 by Jump Video. It roughly covers most of the material found in volumes 1 and 3 of the manga (and some of Volume 2). The character designs for the anime remained faithful to the manga style.

It is commonly speculated that the author, Masakazu Katsura, used this series as what could be described as a pilot; although he wanted to write a straight romantic comedy, he included sci-fi and action elements, so that the series would guarantee to be a success with both his publishers and (teenage male) audience.

Video Girl Ai was followed in 1993 with another sci-fi/romantic comedy manga DNA² and by the straight romantic comedy I"s in 1997.

Sexy Magical Girl Ai Vol. 1 - Magical Girl Cometh DVD




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Vandread

Vandread is a Japanese anime series directed by Takeshi Mori and created by GONZO and Media Factory animation studios. Vandread, as a science fiction space opera, combines elements of action, romance, ecchi, comedy, and mecha elements.

Vandread presents a mix of comedy ranging from slapstick humor to subtle humor. It also utilizes well-animated characters and cleanly rendered CG action sequences.

The series is composed of two seasons (Vandread, released in 2000 and Vandread: The Second Stage, released in 2001), each composed of thirteen episodes of twenty-five minutes. The first series is summarized in the Vandread Taidouhen OVA in 2001, and the second in the Vandread Gekitouhen ("Turbulence") OVA, released in 2002. There is a Vandread Extra Stage Novel, that explains the events after Vandread: The Second Stage.


Vandread: The Complete Series


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Super Robot Wars

Super Robot Wars (abbreviated as SRW) is a series of tactical role-playing video games produced by the Japanese gaming company, Banpresto, a division of Bandai, for various video game consoles and video game handheld consoles. The games' main feature is the use of mecha units from multiple Japanese anime and manga titles, mixing them together in a battle simulation and adding a complex plot involving some of their respective storylines, characters, and backgrounds. Another feature is a simple menu interface that can be understood by the gamer, even if he or she does not know how to read Japanese.

The very first game in the franchise was released for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1991. The first animated mecha series featured on the game (and the ones usually present in all the series' games) are Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and the earliest incarnations of Mobile Suit Gundam. The first two, both creations of famous Japanese manga artist, Go Nagai, and his production company, Dynamic Productions, are representatives of the super robot type of units, while Gundam, realized by animator Yoshiyuki Tomino, represents the real robot units. It is a tradition for a Super Robot Wars game to include a Mazinger, Getter and a Gundam series, forming what fans call the "Holy Trinity", but as of July 2007, only the Mazinger franchise has appeared in every non-original incarnation of Super Robot Wars.

As more games were released, more characters, units and storylines were added to these games, both from existing mecha series and/or original units designed by Banpresto, exclusively for the games. As the number of series involved in the games increased, the stories have become increasingly complex.

Some series that have been featured, including Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gundam, are well-known worldwide, whereas others, such as Heavy Metal L-Gaim and Raideen, have little to no fame at all outside of Japan. Because much of the appeal of any Super Robot Wars title resides in the player's knowledge of and familiarity with the various series involved, the games are most successful and have their biggest fanbase in Japan. There is, however, a small but loyal fanbase for the games, internationally. It was widely believed that the series would never see release outside of Japan, largely due to potentially complicated rights and licensing issues (a problem that also affects other games, such as Jump Superstars). Because of this, fan translations of some of the games have been made.

On March 3, 2006, Atlus USA released two Original Generation titles for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance in North America, thus making them the first games in the series to ever see release outside of the Asian market. Because the Original Generation lineup uses original robots and characters not from any anime or manga series, these games do not have the licensing problems that other games might have.

Super Robot Wars Advance Portable for Sony PSP [Asian Version]



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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time ( Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo )

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an animated Japanese film produced by the animation studio Madhouse and distributed through Kadokawa Herald Pictures, first released in theatres in Japan on July 15, 2006. The film was later released on DVD on April 20, 2007 in Japan in regular and limited editions. A German RC2 DVD (with German and Japanese dub and German and Polish subtitles) was released on September 24, 2007 by Anime Virtual/AV Visionen. A manga story, set as a prelude to the film, was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Shōnen Ace manga magazine between April 26, 2006 and June 26, 2006; the chapters were later collected into a single bound volume which went on sale on July 26, 2006.

On December 9, 2007 Bandai Entertainment announced that the anime film will be released as a region 1 DVD. Bandai Entertainment, who had very recently obtained the North American distributing rights to the film said in a New York press conference that they are also considering releasing the film in limited release in selected theaters in Los Angeles, New York, and possibly other locations. Bandai Entertainment did not specify whether or not they will release the film dubbed or subbed for American viewers, though they are considering both options.

Tsutsui Yasutaka's novel, Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (unofficial translation: The Little Girl Who Conquered Time) is the basis of the film, but the film is not a movie version of the book. Instead, the film is set as a continuation of the book in the same setting some twenty years later. Tsutsui Yasutaka praised the film as being "a true second-generation" of his book at the Tokyo International Anime Fair on March 24, 2006.

Death Note

Death Note

Death Note is a Japanese manga series created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata. The series primarily centers around a high school student who decides to rid the world of evil with the help of a supernatural notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it.

Death Note was first serialized by Shueisha in the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump from the first issue in December 2003 to May 2006, with 108 chapters in total. The series has been published in its entirety in 12 tankōbon volumes in Japan and in North America. The series has been adapted into a pair of live-action films released in Japan on June 17, 2006 and November 3, 2006, and an anime series which aired in Japan from October 3, 2006 to June 26, 2007. Also, a novelization of the series, written by light novelist Nisio Isin, was released in Japan on August 1, 2006.

Some schools in Shenyang, People's Republic of China have banned the manga after some of their students started to tease friends and teachers by altering a notebook to resemble a Death Note and writing their names in them.

The newspaper Shenyang Night Report called Death Note "poison, creating wicked hearts". One major Chinese newspaper felt that the ban is an overreaction and is inappropriate.

Beijing also has a ban on "horror stories" around schools to protect the "physical and mental health" of students, which includes local adaptations of Death Note. China itself is likewise trying to weed out pirated copies of the books and television series, as well other Japanese horror magazines, where no legal publication house prints it. Wang Song of the National Anti-piracy and Anti-pornography Working Committee has said that the series "misleads innocent children and distorts their mind and spirit".

On September 28, 2007, two notes stating "Watashi wa Kira dess" (I am Kira, with "desu" being the more phonetic transliteration of the verb) were found near the unidentified remains of a Caucasian male. Nothing was found on or near the victim besides these two notes. Belgian police are investigating the matter further.

A senior at the Franklin Military Academy in Richmond, Virginia was suspended after being caught possessing a replica Death Note notebook with the names of fellow students

Rurouni Kenshin

Rurouni Kenshin

Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki with an anime adaptation. The story is set during the early Meiji period in Japan. The English-language versions of the OVAs as well the film is released as Samurai X, although the original title was included in the DVD releases. The series tells the story of an assassin named Himura Kenshin, who was known as the Hitokiri Battōsai. Kenshin later grieves for all the lives he has taken, and vows that he will never kill again.

The manga originally appeared in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from September 2, 1994, to November 4, 1999, and the completed work consists of 28 tankōbon volumes. The United States release of the manga has been completed by Viz Media. Rurouni Kenshin is subtitled "Wandering Samurai" in some English releases, as a rough translation of "Rurouni."

Writer Kaoru Shizuka has written an official Rurouni Kenshin novel titled Voyage to the Moon World. The novel has been translated by Viz and distributed in the United States and Canada.