12:30pm, and it’s already been a long day…

Anime:
- I got an anonymous tip pointing me to this post by former PiQ editor Kevin Gifford talking about why the magazine (and other magazines) fail. In it he also mentions the status of his former employers: “…the parent company is more-or-less run by the creditors at the bank, my 401(k) got cut off a couple weeks earlier and health insurance was undoubtedly following soon after, and the office was more empty and barren than most of New Mexico…” Ouch.

- SaiAni reports on the Gunslinger Girl OVA, which will be getting its own website soon.

- Aaand Moon Phase has cast details for the upcoming anime adaptation of Ga-Rei. Tooru will be voiced by Tomoaki Maeno, who is also in this summer’s Someday’s Dreamers sequel as Gouta; Eri Kitamura (Blood+’s Saya) will voice Natsuki; Tetsuya Kakihara (Minamike’s Fujioka) will play Masaki. Mami will be voiced by Masaki Fukuen (Darker than Black’s Yin) and Kudou will be played by Rikiya Koyama (Hajime no Ippo’s Mamoru Takamura).

Manga:
- Should have posted this ages ago: Same Hat! Same Hat! has acquired a copy of the first US edition of a manga ever: Barefoot Gen, published back in 1978 by a group of anti-nuclear activists. How awesome is that?

- ANN has the scoop on the second International Manga Competition from Morning, as well as information on the upcoming third competition, taken from MangaCast.

- The PW Beat has learned that cute/crazy artist Junko Mizuno is going to be doing some work for Marvel…although the original link has disappeared. Still: do want.

Cons:
- Anime Expo has announced their AX Backstage hosts in the form of a video. The hosts are: Addy (the “AX Backstage Funky Fresh Fashionista”), DeMo (”Demosthenes,” or “AX Backstage Funny Man,” or as I’m going to call him, “that Shatner Wannabe”), and Luna (”AX Backstage Professional Diva”). A so-so video with so-so personas, but I do give them kudos for the Jem reference though. HELL YES JEM.

In Japan:
- In an attempt to counteract conceptions of Akihabara being dangerous, cops have started doing random searches of peoples’ stuff. In an attempt to counteract the searches, there has been another Akihabara stabbing. That does not bode well.

Required Reading:
- Newsarama has a wide selection of responses to TOKYOPOP’s recent changes from Tpop’s current and former creators.

- This Yomiuri has a nice article on the Toy Show and “toy otaku” in Akiba, if you’re interested. And I know you are.

Sorry, I got tapped to do a rather lengthy article at the last second yesterday, so I got a bit sidetracked. Here’s yesterday’s roundup, now with 100% more stuff that came up while I was asleep!

Meta:
- Oh look, a new layout! In honor of still really enjoying the show– and coming up with a layout I liked for it –it’s Toshokan Sensou. Hope you can stand it for the next few months! :)

I still have some tweaking to do– namely that I can’t for the life of me get tags to show up on the main index, search, and archive pages. (You can see them on the individual post pages, however.)

Any WordPress experts out there want to give me a hand? @_@

Anime:

- Mmm, delicious delicious alternate universe Gurren Lagann. And no, I’m not talking fanfics: I’m talking about an officially-created AMV, the first of the Gurren Lagann Parallel Works series. Watch it here!

Manga:

- Protip, guys: don’t be this guy. Get some damn bookshelves. It’s not that tough.

- MangaBlog reports that TOKYOPOP is allegedly releasing OEL creators from their contracts at their request. Which is amazingly awesome of them, actually.

Misc:
- ANN picked up that when ShoPro renamed itself to Shogakugan Shueisha Productions, it also announced that VIZ Media is opening up a Hollywood office, presumably to represent VIZ’s interests in the world of live-action movies.

Amidst all the hubbub of the recent Akihabara stabbings and its various repercussions, a friend of mine pointed this out to me: today in Japan, an “otaku murderer” was executed.

That murderer was Tsutomu Miyazaki, a man who mutilated and slaughtered four little girls in Tokyo and Saitama in the late 1980s and became known as “the otaku murderer” when his stash of hentai was discovered by the police. This resulted in something we’re becoming familiar with: a panic about those creepy otaku.

Aside from his own self, Miyazaki’s victims were:
- Mari Konno, age 4
- Masami Yoshizawa, age 7
- Erika Nanba, age 4
- Ayako Nomoto, age 4

And, arguably, Miyazaki’s own father, who killed himself after his son’s arrest.

Just a quickie– Japan Probe has some more background on Tomohiro Kato, the man who killed 7 and injured more in Akihabara yesterday. Apparently he was a bit of an otaku himself; his own sketch from the game Tales of Destiny from a yearbook was unearthed (above) and he had apparently been to Akiba many times.

Japan Today has even more, specifically word of Internet postings possibly written by Kato and posted via mobile phone immediately prior to his stabbing spree.

It does seem kind of ironic, doesn’t it? While New York City was celebrating Lolita and Maid Day with the New York Anime Fest crew at Kinokuniya– see AnimeAlmanac’s twitter for pics and updates from throughout that event, if you’d like –a man named Tomohiro Kato (pictured, left) drove a truck into a group of pedestrians on Chuo Dori, an Akihabara street that closes to vehicles on weekends due to the number of shoppers and sight-seers who visit. Kato then got out of the truck and began indiscriminately stabbing those around him, including a police officer.

Current reports state that Kato stabbed 17, 7 of whom have since died. All reports– and I’ll link them at the bottom because there are many –state that since being taken into custody by the cops, Kato has said that he’s sick of life, and that he didn’t care who he killed.

No answers yet as to why he did it or why he chose Akihabara, though it’s safe to assume that its being packed with people on a weekend would be part of the reason. PC World notes that this particular attack took place exactly seven years after a similar attack in Osaka where a man named Mamoru Takuma invaded an elementary school and killed eight children with a knife.

I wonder if there’s going to be some kind of fund for the victims and their families? If anyone hears about any such thing (or, hell, starts one? I dunno how you’d go about it, or I’d do it), please let me know so I can post about it.

For more coverage, try alafista, Moetron, Sankaku Complex, the slightly outdated Yomiuri, the Asahi (JP), ANN, Japan Probe, Yahoo! (JP), the AFP, PC World, the New York Times…