Moimoi

August 25th, 2010

Hisae Iwaoka’s website is here.

Vol. 6 will be out next week.

Skip Beat 21

August 9th, 2010

Is out already.

Vol. 26 should be out here in October.

SMAP Sports Drink

July 31st, 2010

A tie-in sports drink to coincide the release of the latest album.

smap

Saturn Apartments

July 28th, 2010

I’ve taken over the translation/adaptation of Saturn Apartments from Vol. 2, ch.11. Ch. 11 is now available from the IKKI site.

I can’t read it myself though – I get a “content not available in your region” message (sigh)

GRAMM Fashion Show

July 25th, 2010

I was at the h.NAOTO hEAVEN store yesterday evening for the GRAMM Autumn Fashion Show.

Here’s the invitation:

invitation

Previous shows used classical music for the show BGM, but this time, the BGM was composed by moa, who also appeared in the show as a model, wearing the mannish coordinates. 2 GRAMM-moa collab T-shirts were on sale this day (available only at the hEAVEN store and the Japanese e-shop for now).

Designer Z8 mentioned that the motifs used for the collection are the male/female genitals and the female womb. (The bags all had “internal organs” in the item title as well, and the huge rabbit fur scarf Z8 was wearing had red internal organs dangling on the inside.) Graphic designer Z9 mentioned that the fourth catalogue should be ready by the next show.

At Asakusa

July 10th, 2010

Yesterday I headed over to Sensoji temple in Asakusa for the “Houzuki-ichi” (Lantern plant festival). The festival is held 7/9-10, and it is said that if you visit the temple during this time, it is equivalent to visiting the temple 46,000 times (!)

There were many many stalls selling houzuki:

asakusa

Most of the plants are sold in baskets. You could also buy a branch of the plant (see above photo), with lots of orange fruits on them.

asakusa

I bought a small basket with just the orange fruits in them.

asakusa

NANA 21

July 8th, 2010

Is out.

This is the last volume that was published before Yazawa-sensei fell ill.

Talking of ill mangakas, Nakamura Asumiko has announced on her website that she’s suspending all creative activities because of health problems (she’s even shutting down her site this month.). I’ll be missing her “Nokemono to Hanayome” manga that runs in KERA.

Kamisama Kiss

July 6th, 2010

Now there’s been official announcement about this series, I can write that I’m translating/adapting this series by Julietta Suzuki.

Vampire Knight Artbook

July 5th, 2010

The artbook came out today, together with Vol. 12.

Here’s the front cover:

cover

And the continuation on the back cover:

cover

(Hmm…so will Zero win over Yuki in the end?)

The cover illustration is a new illustration, and there’s a poster version of it inside, as well as photos and comments explaining the steps taken in drawing it.

There’re information in the back about when each of the illustrations were first published, with comments from Hino-sensei. There’s also a message to the readers as well.

Black Butler Exhibit

July 2nd, 2010

Part Two of the Marui one – Black Butler collab is the anime-related exhibit. DVDs and other goods were on sale, and you could watch previews of the second season. What looked like reproduction manuscripts of both the manga and anime were on display as well. You could take pictures of the musical costumes, so here’s what they look like:

musical

The displays near the escalator had changed as well. Here’s the A&P Ciel set:

AP

And here’re the BPN Ciel and Elizabeth sets:

BPN