The recently launched Ameba Pico social gaming community on Facebook now features a collaboration with visual kei band AliceNine, whereby avatars can be created with virtual outfits resembling the stage wardrobe of lead singer Shou in celebration of the bands latest single in “Senko”.  The collaboration between CyberAgent America and AliceNine’s management agency PS Company also encompasses additional content yet to be announced aside from the above images detailing the virtual wardobe available.

The game is available via Facebook application and is available here.

Famed Japanese director Satoshi Kon, known for Perfect Blue, Paprika and Tokyo Godfathers passed away yesterday August 24th at 6:08 am JST  of pancreatic cancer.  Many within and outside the anime community have been paying their respects to the talented director.  In lieu of turning this into a post describing my thoughts and feelings toward the man and his work, I will let the nearly complete translation of his farewell letter speak for him.

To the anon that undertook the effort to translate it this morning, thank you.  Your effort, while not professional in your eyes, made the man’s thoughts ring truer and more authentic than the overly sanitized statements seen in the last day.

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The latest episode of Highschool of the Dead has caused a massive stir in the otaku sphere for its incorporation of Wachowski-style bullet time, although I’ll bet the gross of the shitty Matrix sequels they never though that an overdeveloped teenager with sadistic tendencies would be the best example of the trope.  (NSFW if boob jiggle or panty shots aren’t kosher)

[via AnimeVision]

Much has been made about Western attempts at creating visual novels, from Katawa Shoujo to various other fan projects with varying degrees of success.  Maybe you have an idea for a visual novel but you’ve been put off by the sheer amount of programming and development, or you lack the time and resources to do so.

A new tool has surfaced in Novelty, which claims to be the first WYSIWYG visual novel editor for the creation of such games for Windows, currently in beta with many core features implemented.  Aside from the visual editor, the tool does include a scripting engine for more advanced development.

Other features also include graphics acceleration support, art asset sharing and the capability to play completed games inside and outside of the editor.  The program is available now and is free.

The first scans of this week’s Shonen Ace have surfaced confirming the staff and release details for the forthcoming Nichijou OAD being bundled with the 6th volume of the comedy manga in January of 2011.  Kyoto Animation is handling the project with the following staff:

Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Co-Director: Taichi Ishidate
Character Designer: Futoshi Nishiya
Series Composer: Jukki Hanada

The series will also be getting a companion PSP game currently in development.

[via Mision Tokyo]

Manga Entertainment’s Twitter account has announced and confirmed a 2011 release for the 2009 Production I.G. feature film Musashi on Blu-Ray and DVD, based on the Japanese tale The Book of the Five Rings and the exploits of swordsman Miyamoto Musashi during the immediate aftermath of the Warring States period.   This follows previous confirmation of the license in March.

The film was produced by Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell fame with an all star production team consisting of frequent collaborator Mizuho Nishikubo, character designer Kazuto Nakazawa and animation chief Kazuchika Kise.  The message also confirmed that the release will feature an English voiceover for the narration segments in the film.

Viz Media has announced the August 28th premiere of the ninth season of Bleach on Adult Swim beginning with episode 168. 

This follows the previous confirmation of the premiere within the pages of Shonen Jump in June.  The ninth season of series was also plagued with delays, as it was originally meant to premiere last March before being delayed and replaced with another Viz Media series in Kekkaishi.

Ahead of the premiere, Viz is also offering an 18 minute free preview of the new season on iTunes as well as a season pass for $19.99.  The series is also currently being released on DVD, with the latest single volume being released on August 24th and the sixth boxset being released on September 28th.

A new application for managing digital comics and manga in ComicBookLover promises to do for those books what iTunes did for music management on the Mac.

The Mac exclusive desktop application developed by BitCartel, allows for reading in western or Japanese double page mode, tagging, support for metadata entry using the ComicBookInfo standard, title entry in multiple languages, CBR/CBZ/PDF/image folder support, Apple Remote support for page control, motion sensor support and automatic resizing. Other features include dual display and playlist support.

A free companion reader app for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad is also offered, featuring comic/manga sync via Wi-Fi and FTP on Windows/Linux with comic/manga sync accomplished via the ComicBookLover app. Features supported include resizing pages and support for CBR/CBZ archives, while  Mac OS X ComicBookApp users can sync with the iPhone app via the ComicBookHelper Sync companion application.

The desktop application is currently available as a fully functional free trial, with the paid version eliminating the watermark found in the trial version for $24.99.

The first volume of the Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan manga has been listed on the Simon & Schuster portal with a February 2011 release date along with the second volume, which is also listed for an April 2011 release.  Viz Media has not officially announced the manga license at this time, although the distributor is currently streaming the anime adaptation via Hulu and its own VizAnime portal.

The manga is authored by Hiroshi Shibashi and centers around the adventures of Rikuo Nura, a teenager training to become the leader of the Nura clan of 100 demon warriors with his grandfather, clan leader Nurarihyon.

[via Michelle Smith on Twitter]

Japan’s Nikkei business daily is reporting (subscription required) that Capcom is preparing games for launch on Facebook starting next month as a response to decreasing home market sales and a desire to jump into the social gaming phenomenon currently experiencing massive success on the social networking portal.

The report goes into further detail stating that the games (which will be free to play) will be supported by virtual item sales akin to other games such as Zynga’s FarmVille, with Capcom USA handling the US/EU launch under the goal of attracting one million users from the US and Europe.  No specific games were mentioned in the report.

This follows statements made by company president Harumi Tsujimoto in May regarding intentions to move into social gaming following lower game sales in Japan, totaling a 6.9 percent drop in 2009 to $6.3 billion from the year prior.

[via CrunchGear]