Site Remodeling

Please excuse any mess you see for a few hours.  I am doing some rennovations.

I decided I really needed a theme with 2 columns ^_^

Lucky Star Makes Shrine Popular

I am sure those of you who watched the Lucky Star series remember that Kagami and Tsukasa were both shrine maidens.  (One of my recent favorite costumes on a girl for some reason).  It seems though that after people watch the anime they have been visiting the shrine themselves.

Article found at ANN

The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on its front page on Wednesday on Japan’s Washinomiya Shrine and its recent surge of visitors due to the Lucky Star anime. This adaptation of Kagami Yoshimizu’s manga highlighted the shrine by having the twin sister characters Kagami and Tsukasa Hiiragi working at the shrine as miko (shrine maidens). Citizens were at first trepidacious about the new visitors, but later embraced them and the boost they gave to the local economy. Hundreds of thousands of visitors took part in the traditional shrine visits over the New Year’s holiday this year. Since the anime debuted last year, visitors have reportedly spent 42 million yen (about US$390,000) in Lucky Star food and goods, including 20,000 charms.

Thank you to Starks for the news tip.

It is actually pretty funny to think about, even I myself wanted to visit that shrne sometime.  I could see how the locals would be angry with all the random otakus racing in to see the shrine because of the show, but at least they are helping the economy out.  Otakus are really good people aren’t they ^_^

My question, Do you plan on visiting the shrine becase of Lucky Star?  Is there any real life location portrayed in an anime you want to see?  and why?

Ongaku: Abingdon Boys School

Starting up something new here at the blog.  I am a pretty big fan of Japanese music, typicaly rock.  I thought perhaps I would share the bands I like with you here and there.  Ongaku is the Japanese word for music….I hope.  If I am wrong tell me XD.  First off is a new band that I have become obsessed with, Abingdon Boys School.

Let me see, where to start off.  The band is simply amazing.  One of the better rock bands I have seen.  They have only released one actual album so far, and according to wikipedia 4 different singles.  Since I am lazy, here is the wikipedia band bio ^^.

“Stay away”, an English-language song written by Nishikawa and composed by Shibasaki, was on Love for Nana ~Only 1 Tribute~, a tribute album to the shōjo anime and manga series Nana. The band also recorded a cover of the Buck-Tick song, “Dress” (ドレス, Doresu^?), featured on Parade ~Respective Tracks of Buck-Tick~, an album featuring covers of Buck Tick songs by various artists.

The band performed their first live concert, “CD Data Present Music Evolution ’06″, on November 24, 2005, alongside other bands UVERworld and Tsubakiya Quartet (椿屋四重奏, Tsubakiya Shijūsō^?). CD Data (CDでーた, CD Data^?) is a Japanese music magazine.

The band announced on September 3, 2006 that they would make their official debut through Sony Music Japan’s Epic Records (also T. M. Revolution’s record label). Their first single, Innocent Sorrow, used as the first opening to the anime D.Gray-Man, was released on December 6, 2006 and peaked at #5 on the Oricon music charts.

On 16 July 2008, Abingdon Boys School will release a live DVD from the Live concert they held in February 2008. The DVD will be sold in two versions, a limited edition with two DVDs, different packaging, pictures, and stickers. The normal edition will contain only one DVD. The price will be 5,565 yen for the limited edition and 5,040 yen for the normal edition.

The b-side song off their Innocent Sorrow single, Fre@k $HoW, was used in a tribute compilation CD for the movie Death Note: the Last Name.

Their second single, Howling, was released on May 16, 2007. It was used as the first opening to the anime Darker Than Black and peaked at #4 on the Oricon charts in its first week. Their third single, entitled Nephilim, was released on July 4, 2007, and was used as the main theme to the PlayStation 3 game FolksSoul. The single reached a peak of #5 on the oricon music charts.

On July 7, 2007, a.b.s performed their three singles as well as the b-side from their latest single NephilimJapanese leg of Live Earth in Tokyo. ^[1] “Lost Reason” at the

The band’s first full studio album was released on October 17, 2007. ^[2] Their 4th single, Blade Chord, was also released on December 5th, 2007 and was used as the theme song to Sengoku Basara: Heroes. They have also recorded a song for the Luna Sea: Memorial Cover album, a full album of Luna Sea covers dedicated to the defunct rock band. The song they covered is called “Sweetest Coma Again”.

A personal note from me though, one of my favorite songs by them is Innocent Sorrow.  It just has this nice beat to it.  The band all togehter is very talented, glad I ran across them. Anyway, hope you check them out sometime if you are into this type of music.

Here is the link to the full wiki on them: Abingdon Boys School

Naruto and Fruits Basket Only Top Mangas?

According to an article from ANN it seems that Naruto and Fruits Basket are currently the ONLY 2 manga on the USA’s 150 top booklist.  Even with the dropping ranks for the both of them that was reported earlier on.

Here is the article:

Volume 30 of Masashi Kishimoto and Viz Media’s Naruto manga continues to be the most popular Japanese comic in the United States, based on the USA Today newspaper’s list of the top 150 bestselling books for the week of July 14 to July 20. It is now #73 on the list, down from #50 in the previous week.

The 20th volume of Takaya Natsuki’s Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) is once again the only other manga bestseller. It has trailed the Naruto volume in each of the three weeks since it has been published, and is now at #132, dropping over 50 spots from the previous week’s #79 position.

I have to admit, this does worry me.  After seeing such a popular show in Japan like Gurren Lagann air last night a part of me thought anime was becoming more mainstream in areas outside of Japan.  Though this article does make me reaconsider these thoughts.