So today, 3 February, is the day that Setsubun (節分) is celebrated in Japan. Setsubun is also known as the bean-throwing festival, although the literal translation of the term is something a little closer to “seasonal division”, and it is celebrated yearly on the 3rd of February as part of the haru matsuri (spring festival).

In earlier years, Setsubun was treated as something similar to a New Year celebration, and for this reason was accompanied by a ritual meant to cleanse and drive away evil and disease from the household, and bring good fortune for the new year.

The ritual was known as makemaki (豆撒き, bean thowing) and has its origins in a Chinese custom that was introduced to Japan in the eighth century. It involves throwing fortune beans – either out the door, or at a member of the family dressed as an oni (usually the head of the family) while shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (Demons out! Luck in!)

Lum's also an (alien) oni. Although I wouldn't mind her staying ...

The belief is that the beans purify the home by driving away evil spirits, while luck is brought by then eating a handful of beans – an amount equal to the number of years a person has lived.

There are several other traditions that form part of the festival, although in many cases they vary from region to region – it seems though that it is becoming less common for these rituals to be carried out at home, but Buddhist and Shinto shrines around the country hold celebrations for Setsubun, some of them even inviting celebrities to toss the beans.

Plenty of additional info at the links below.

Sources: Wikipedia, Japan-Guide, J-List Side Blog

According to a recent post on Moetron it was announced in the latest issue of Weekly Shounen Magazine that Mahou Sensei Negima! would be finishing off serialisation at chapter 355.

This means that there are only 3 chapters remaining in the series – but after Wednesday’s publication Akamatsu will be taking a 2 week break in the run-up to the finale; chapter 353 will be published in the February 29 issue. Meaning that we’ll see the series end in the middle of March, probably.

Volume 33 of the English translation released on 31 January, and the next Japanese volume (37) is due for release this month. I’m guessing this means 2 more volumes are still to come.

Being a huge fan of the series, I’ll be sad to see it go – I loved the cast and the story, and I kinda don’t really want to know who Negi chooses as his final partner. But all good things need to come to an end I guess.

Here’s to hoping Ken Akamatsu has something new lined up.

Okay – my plans for the year post comes a little late, but I still thought I’d share some of what I have planned for 2012, and of course, here’s to hoping a lot of it comes to fruition. A little warning though – this post is going to be a blend things from Animated Meanderings and some personal stuff, since especially over the course of 2011, my life and the existence of this site has started to become more intertwined.

This trend looks to be continuing over the course of 2012 … but let me not get too far ahead of myself – jump ahead and keep reading :)

My first major plan of the year involves a complete cosmetic rebuild of Animated Meanderings. Don’t get me wrong, I love the current theme, but there are things I want to do which my theme at the moment doesn’t really make too easy. With any luck – and a lot of effort – the new theme will be ready to fly by March (yes, I plan on taking my time ^_^ ). Part of this involves speeding up page loading times to some small degree, since I feel the site is a bit slow at the moment.

To coincide with, and celebrate, the re-theme, I’m planning on running a competition. I’m horribly short of artwork for Mitsuki, the site mascot, so the competition will be revolving around that. If you feel like doodling away to kill some time, go for it, but the idea isn’t set in stone just yet. Mostly because I’m still considering what I’d like to make available as a prize – I’d like to make the comp equally accessible to both my local and my international readers. That, and I’m still trying to bang out the rules. Also – a lot of this depends on what kind of budget I have available.

Speaking of Mitsuki, I’m also going to be spending a little more time fleshing her profile out and to give her a little more of a personality that anime/manga fans in particular can relate to. This will be an on-going project, so I don’t think it will ever really come to an end, although Mitsuki is going to be an everlasting 16. Or maybe 17.

Other goals for the year are the usual – increasing the amount of visitors and exposure I get for Animated Meanderings. As a part of this, I’ve been moving to get a little more involved with the local anime community and this started last year when I joined the Cape Town Cosplay group for their cosplay event. There is another one coming up, by the way, and I’ll be reporting on that one as well.

I’ve also given up trying to learn Japanese on my own – instead I’ve invested some of my time in Nihongo Kai – a local Japanese Language School. I don’t expect to be a master of the language any time soon, but just the short time I’ve been there I’ve made noticeable progress. I can now at least read stuff. Slowly. Although no kanji yet, but that’s coming. It’s all been good fun so far though, and I’m happy I’ve made the leap.

Anyways, this is just a rough idea of what’s coming – I’m definitely going to try and be a little more active on the blog this year; I’ll also be looking at what I can possibly add to the site. I’m still mulling over the idea of forums, previous mishaps non-withstanding … so let’s see what happens.

I’m going to try and get some reviews up as well; I believe it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed anything, and it’s not for lack of watching either. It seems that most of my time seems to be taken up with previews lately.

If you want to keep track of my doings (not sure why, but maybe you feel like indulging your stalking tendencies :p) feel free to follow me on Twitter, or join Animated Meanderings on Facebook, or even on my slightly less active Google+ page. Maybe if I get more followers there I’ll be more active :3

Hope you all have a good 2012!!

So, firstly, let me start with wishing all of you who read this a happy new year. 2012 is lying ahead of us, full of glitter and promise – just waiting for us to come along and screw things up again ^_^

Of course, I’m trying to get away from all of the screwing up by making plans and setting goals, and hopefully this year, I’ll even meet some of them … but more on that in a later post.

The main reason for this post is to announce that I’ve completed my preview opinion of the series for the Winter 2012 season. I’ve used various sources for the information gathered on my preview page – although primarily I need to give thanks to the producers of two rather excellent charts (I’m including them both in the post below – you can choose which one you like best) – cowboybibimbop and Zana@Neregate. A fair amount of info also came from Moetron.com. More after the break :)

My mission, of course, is more about giving an opinion on the shows coming than the actual information – although I’ve included that as well – and I hope you’ll find it useful. This is also the first time I’ve actually completely finished one of these previews 0.o – even if it is a tad on the late side. Both of the above have already released initial Spring 2012 charts, so I’m going to be getting started with that relatively soon on my side as well.

Having gone through the series approaching, my pick for this season – or at least the shows I’m really keen to watch are the following:

• Amagami SS+
• Another
• Ano Natsu de Matteru
• Black★Rock Shooter
• Papa no Iu Koto wo Kikinasai!
• Zero no Tsukaima F
• Nisemonogatari
• Kill Me Baby!

There are a few other shows which kind of pique my interest, and will probably get a watch down the line, although I’m not driven to see them as soon as I can.

Below – the charts – click on them to get the full sized versions:

Neregate Winter Chart v5	Animu Charts Winter Chart v4

Lately, I just tend to get a little bit excited when I come across one of the MMD PVs created by Wakamura-P – he really does do an epic job. I’ve posted a couple of PVs done by him previously (keep in mind, he only does the videos, not the music), and they seem to be fairly popular, so I figure I’m going to keep going :)

The song, Melody Line, was composed by SmileR (Piapro profile) and was posted to NicoNicoDouga last year, and this particular video was posted a little later at the beginning of this year.

Watch and enjoy!!

Like a lot of other anime related things and activities in South Africa, cosplay is probably another something that tends not to happen very often, and when it does, it happens at very specific events, and the groups are usually small. The exception was at the rAge expo this year, where we saw quite a turn-out, with some very good cosplay taking place.

Beyond that, there are a few other events where cosplayers would feel free to strut their stuff, and we didn’t see it happen anywhere else, until Cape Town based Genevieve Lesch and Sasha Perdiago decided to kick some Capetonians into gear and get them together for a day in the sun.

While not a cosplayer myself (yet…), I wasn’t going to miss this, and thus, armored with my Mirai t-shirt of geekiness + 10, and armed with something that I am now ashamed to call a camera, I headed over to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to join in the fun.

As to whether the kicking was successful? Well, firstly – how many people would you guess turned up?

I probably wasn’t the only one surprised. I was expecting somewhere in the range of twenty to thirty people to rock up, and I seemed to be right … initially anyway. Spectators and other cosplayers kept arriving in dribs and drabs, and I decided to stop counting when I hit the forties.

We had mostly spectators though – with 12 definite cosplayers, but in all honesty I don’t think the ratio mattered all that much. Joining the cosplayers were a horde of photographers with Hubble-sized cameras, a whole group of Cape Town based artists from Legion Ink, while Grant Hinds from MWeb’s Gamezone also put in an appearance to take in the sights and interview a couple of the cosplayers.

There were numerous bloggers added into the mix, myself included, so you’re likely to see a couple of posts pop up over the course of the week following – I’ll linking them at the bottom in case you like some other (probably shorter) perspectives.

So, Cape Town’s weather, being temperamental as always, decided to do its best to blow us away, but didn’t reckon with the fact that we were hiding behind the mountain, and as a result we managed to enjoy a glorious day parking off in what happened to become very much “our spot”. And of course, no report would be complete without some pictures, so here we go:

First off … the girls who were doing the kicking, Genevieve  as Suzumiya Haruhi on the left, and Sasha (Asahina Mikuru) on the right. I’m guessing this would be from one of the Endless Eight episodes -

You wouldn't mind these two kicking you ... probably

I’m not going to be posting all the photos here; between myself and the rest of the photographers  – not to mention the studio shoots – hundreds of photos are going to be making their way online in the very near future. If you scroll down to the bottom of this post, you’ll find a collection of links to the various albums, blog and other articles, and possibly a video or two (Genevieve hinted in her post that one is in the making).

And now some more photos:

Asheeqa - Yuuki Cross from Vampire Knight

Francois here as Frankenstein from Soul Eater

Elza has turned into quite the cosplaying junkie, apart from already being a talented artist and being responsible for that incredibly cute mascot for the CT Cosplay group (although I should probably point out the poor thing hasn’t been named yet). Below she’s cosplaying as Hirasawa Yui, the lovable guitarist of the K-On! light music club – and taking part in Yui’s favourite activity:

Hint: Om-nom-nom-nom

And next – my personal favourite of the day – Ruth, being perfectly in character as Miyazawa Yukino from Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (His and Her Circumstances); personally it’s my first time coming across someone cosplaying from the series.

Star student ...

For the rest – well … you’ll have to go visit the albums  and links I’ve posted at the bottom. :)

As I mentioned earlier, we had quite a turn-out of spectators and people just generally enjoying the event:

Some of the group were quick to sit down and reach for the munchy items ...

These two decided the relaxing atmosphere wasn’t enough for them and decided to relax a little harder.

Seriously ... they had like, pillows and everything

And to finish off … a group shot of the cosplayers – some looking in another direction -

... because big cameras deserve more attention :p

Just so we can get the names of the characters down:

Right at the back in the middle – Asheeqa (Yuuki Cross| Vampire Knight) and Chris (Mugen | Samurai Champloo)
Back-right – Fay (Tifa Lockheart | FF VII) and Ruth (Miyazawa Yukino | Kare Kano)
Far right – Darren (Uchiha Itachi | Naruto)
Far left – Francois(Dr Frankenstein | Soul Eater) and Carlyn (Hyuuga Hinata | Naruto)
Front row – Sasha and Genevieve (Asahina Mikuru & Suzumiya Haruhi | Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), Anzel (Amane Misa | Death Note) and Elza (Hirasawa Yui | K-On!)

And finally -

A duck ... cosplaying as a goose

As promised, some linky’s to albums and reports:

• KomboKitten Online – Genevieve’s blog
• KomboKitten’s Facebook Album
• Cape Town Cosplay Group album on Facebook
• Animated Meanderings’s Picasa slideshow and Facebook Album
• Hy-sê-Sy-sê – a local blog, was also in attendance – photos here – and here’s their report.

GameZone included a section about the cosplay event in their Christmas Special – so somewhere in the middle of the top 10 games of 2011 you’ll find an interview with some of the cosplayers.

I’m sure I’m missing some – so this list will be updated as I find additional photos and articles. While small, it was an awesome get together – we had a lot of fun and some interesting conversations and it’s definitely serving as the launchpad for future events – some of the cosplayers will definitely be making an appearance at this weekend’s Organised Chaos LAN event, and I’m hearing whispers of the next event being organised.

Feel free to join the group on Facebook, since discussions are pretty much permanently ongoing; and a local South African cosplaying forum is in the works as well.

As someone that works full-time, studies part-time and lives in a country that’s far removed from the general doings of the anime universe, it becomes tricky to both keep up with developments and still write full on posts about it. So, I’ve decided to do slightly more regular posts with a summary of recent happenings.

I’m going to try and do this on a weekly basis, but I make no promises – it’s going to get done as and how I have time. I’ve also noticed that videos embedded in the actual post don’t make it through to the e-mails, so if you want to see them you’ll have to visit the full post.

While I am based in South Africa, I do try to make things as relevant to a broader audience as I can (and I hope I’m succeeding to some small degree); however, some of the news is going to be specific to the region. Feedback is always appreciated though – so please sound off in the comments or get hold of me directly via the contact form, Facebook, or Twitter.

Plot synopsis and preliminary casting of Akira live-action revealed

According to a post on Crunchyroll, the synopsis and preliminary casting for the live-action Akira movie has been posted on the site of a company handling actor auditions. The posting serves to confirm that the studio in charge of the production (Leonardo diCaprio’s Appian Way) not only missed the entire point of Akira, but apparently fell straight out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Among the biggest (and most unpleasant) surprises is the casting of Kristen Stewart (Bella from Twilight) as Kei (Ky in the movie). So far – there is one actualy Japanese actor in the movie, which will now be taking place in Neo-Manhattan.

So far, this is shaping up to make the Dragonball live-action look like a major block-buster of note – not sure about the rest of you, but I’ll be avoiding this. Forever.

K-On Movie starts in theatres tomorrow

K-On fans across Japan will be streaming to one of a 130 movie theaters tomorrow to catch the opening screenings of the K-On! movie. The storyline of the movie takes place while the girls are still attending Sakuragaoka High School, and essentially forms a part of the TV series.

The movie will follow the five girls of our favourite light-music club as they take a trip to the UK, and it has already been confirmed that the original cast will be reprising their roles. The movie will also feature 3 new songs as part of the sound track.

Trailer below :)

Third issue of All Otaku Mag launched

The third issue of All Otaku Magazine was made available on the site yesterday. I haven’t made any mention of it so far because I was waiting to see if it was going to hang around longer than Anime-Ima! did, but three issues in it’s still going strong, and it looks like the New Year’s Issue is already in the pipeline.

From my point of view, there are still a few things that could be nitpicked at, but the creator is really making an effort to contribute something to the South African anime community, and she deserves the support.

The mag can be downloaded in PDF format from the following link.

I should probably mention that there have been some stirrings on the Anime-Ima! message boards, so a revival may be happening in the near future.

Cape Town Cosplay Event Tomorrow

I’ve been dropping hints and tweets like there isn’t actually any tomorrow, but the cosplay is all set to take place tomorrow (Saturday, 3 December). Cape Town’s weather has been a little bit on the temperamental side over the past two weeks or so, so we’re hoping for a clear and sunny day.

While I won’t be cosplaying myself, I’ll be in attendance with my camera, and I’ll be taking photos and just generally enjoying the vibe. If you’re in the Cape Town area, and feel like dropping by to perv … err … I mean gawk, and just have some fun, please feel free. Just remember that Kirstenbosch Gardens does charge an admittance fee.

Details are at this link.

Some new anime series that were announced over the past week

We’re closing in on the Anime Winter season, and I’m busy doing my preview page – which will hopefully be up soon. In the meantime, new series are being announced thick and fast, and here are a couple I’ve caught mention of:

Cardfight!! Vanguard
The sequel to the original series that aired this year.

My Sweet Umadonna
An anime based on horse-racing. The official site is already up at http://www.jra-umadonna.jp/

Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate
This series is based on an adult visual novel, where a high-school’s Food Research Club is deemed unnecessary and possibly faces being disbanded.

Hozuki-san Chi no Aneki
This anime features a protagonist with a crush on his older step-sister. Based on a 4-koma comedy by the same name.

Hyouka
Hyouka is a mystery anime – in which the high school Classic Literature Club start investigating a case from 33 years earlier, hints of which are found in a collection of works from the club at the time.

Hagure Yuusha no Estetica
The story follows a returnee from an RPG world after he defeats Satan, the final boss. He joins an academy run by an organisation that shelters and controls returnees from other fantasy worlds.

Koi-ken!
Koi-ken will be based on a bishoujo mobile game and will be made available to smartphones via a streaming service.
online anime

Chosoku Henkei Gyrozetter
An anime based on an upcoming Square Enix card-game, which features cars which transform into battle robots.

Some others
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: The Movie 2nd A’s will be released in Summer 2012, while the Strike Witches movie will be released in theatres on March 17th 2012.

That concludes my news for this week – although I’m sure there are tons of things that I could probably go on about – if you spot a bit of news or something interesting that you feel needs to be included, give me a shout via our contact form.

So news broke earlier this week that the word kawaii had made its way into the Oxford Dictionary, joining other previous Japanese-only words such as tsunami, bokeh and otaku. Another minor victory for anime-fandom around the world, and much silly dancing and cheering commences.

But then, I took some time out of my hectically packed dancing and cheering schedule in order to apply some logical thought to this, and I had to ask myself a question: But why?

First off – we have to consider that words like otaku and tsunami are words that are pretty much in everyday use in the English language and they do have some very specific meanings for which there isn’t really an equivalent in the English language itself.

Consider otaku. In Japanese, the word refers to someone with an unhealthy obsession with any particular hobby, so you could have train otaku (yes, there are people who go bonkers for trains), anime otaku, game otaku and so forth. The word’s usage has shifted slightly with its inclusion in the English language, and here in the West we use it simply to refer to someone who is a rather big fan of anime.

Tsunami refers very specifically to waves that are generated due to an event (usually geological) with the potential to create an abnormally large wave. While some may argue that we already have the phrase tidal wave in English, scientists and geologists tend to disagree with this usage since the wave isn’t generated by a tidal event.

Bokeh refers to the out of focus background of a photo; that’s pretty damn specific, and I’m not aware of a precise alternative in English (although any professional photographers may feel free to correct me on this).

So we get to kawaii （かわいい）. Directly translated it means “cute”. And we already have a word in English for it – that word being … well … cute? There’s no other specific meaning attached to it, and it doesn’t offer any difficulty in translation. Really. At least, none that I can think of. It’s one of the first words of the Japanese language I learnt to understand. If a character said kawaii – I knew exactly what it meant – although it took a while for my ears to adjust enough to tell the difference between kawaii and kowai (怖い) kowai means scary.

Another thing that bothers me here is the lack of general usage. I have any number of anime-fan type friends (and I can probably be classed as being relatively fanatical), and I have never EVER heard even them use the word. Except on their Facebook accounts. Or Twitter. And that doesn’t count.

So … I can think of several other words that could probably do with being in the Oxford Dict that I do actually hear quite regularly from English speakers (some of these were also taken from Danny Choo’s original post on Culture Japan:

Tsundere
Yandere
Yaoi
Yuri
Moe
Lolicon
Zettai Ryouiki

Some of the terms above are pretty easy to explain (I’m not going to do it here, but maybe an anime term glossary is an idea for the near future), but I’d love to see anyone try a conscise explanation  for terms like moe, tsundere and yandere. The point is, these terms don’t really have exact matches in English, which is almost why they would be a better idea. And I hear them being used plenty often.

That book Kyou's about to throw is the definition of tsundere. All of it.

A couple of suggestions in Danny’s post I don’t need to see in Oxford:

• Pantsu – seriously. How many more ways do you need to say panties
• Shimapan – striped panties. Same thing, although it’s a litte more specific (still trying to figure out why they’re so popular)
• Oppai – means boobs/breasts. Again – no real need for it to be in there

Does anyone else have any other suggestions or thoughts? Let us know in the comments :)

I generally don’t post enough. I realise this. Part of the problem is related to the fact that I tend to wait for something relatively substantial to come along before I post something. And then, when something substantial does pop up, I tend not to have time to actually sit down and write about it.

Epic fail there, huh?

Anyways – I’m going to try and pop in a few shorter posts from time to time – to keep things a little more on the active side over here. 7 November marked Animated Meanderings’s 4th Birthday (it’s been a while) and in honour of the event I figured it’s time to come up with some plans to make it better than ever ^_^

In any case, on to the actual reason for the post – Vocaloid Video for today – the title is “Distorted Princess” – performed by Hatsune Miku and Megurine Luka. The MMD-model used for Luka’s part is apparently Jihou-chan.

If you enjoyed the track you can download it from NicoNicoDouga at this link.

And yes … I realise the page is all in Japanese – which is why I have this useful picture below this to show you where to click :p

Click the button highlighted at the bottom to download

If I see enough demand for it I’ll try and track down the lyrics and post those as well :)

The latest iteration of Yamaha’s Vocaloid software – VocaloidTM 3 – is being made available for sales today. In addition to this, some new voice libraries – Mew, VY1V3, and Megpoid Gumi – have also been made available, so expect some tunes using the new libraries to start surfacing very soon. I’m particularly keen to hear what Gumi sounds like with the new software.

The software isn’t exactly cheap – with the Vocaloid Editor alone liable to set you back something to the tune of ¥9,800 (about $127 at the moment) – with the voice libraries for VY1 and Mew setting you back a similar amout (I’m quoting prices off the Vocaloid store here, by the way). Below is a demo song for VY1 – Cyber Thunder Cider.

Internet Co. has released updated libraries for Megpoid Gumi for use with Vocaloid 3 – and you can get each of the versions – Power, Whisper, Adult and Sweet; each of which is retailing at ¥11,340 – or you can get the full package for ¥26,250.

Crypton Future Media – Hatsune Miku’s creators – haven’t made public any plans to update their voice libraries for Vocaloid 3, although the editor has an import function available with which you can import Vocaloid 2 libraries, so I think we’ll be seeing songs from all our favourite Vocaloids using the new software before too much time has passed.