It was revealed on the 25th that Shoko Nakagawa (28), a.k.a. Shokotan, is in a relationship with actor Ryota Ozawa (26). This is Nakagawa's first romantic relationship in her 12 years in the industry. Ozawa was the main character in the tokusatsu series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (TV Asahi 2011~2012) and played the role of Gokai Red. Nakagawa has previously declared that the man of her dreams was Vegeta of Dragonball. The person who caught her heart was a "Space Pirate", a bad boy protagonist rarely seen in tokusastsu flicks. And their cupid of love was one of her beloved feline friends. According to an insider, the two met each other at a gathering of cat-loving celebrities 2 years ago. The two grew closer to each other when Nakagawa saved a cat from being put down as Ozawa helped her find a new owner for the cat. Their relationship blossomed into a romantic one at the beginning of this year. Nakagawa is a major cat-lover who takes care of 10 cats at her home and has even titled her autobiographical essayNeko no Ashiato (Footsteps of a Cat). Ozawa also revealed on his blog that he bought a cat-shaped piggy bank back in February and wrote, "I like dogs, but cats are cute too", seemingly having been influenced by Nakagawa. Nakagawa has made a lot of romantic declarations these past 1 to 2 years, and said at her birthday concert in 2012 that: "I have never had any romantic relationships in the past 10 years, and I want to put an end to this situation". During the screening event of her movie Nuiguruma-Z in January, she also mentioned that she wants to "leave an offspring behind". She once revealed a number of conditions that one would have to meet in order to become her boyfriend: 1) Loves cats, 2) Better than me at video games, 3) Has a beautiful kicking form, 4) can swing the nunchaku, 5) has old scars or fresh wounds. It's unknown if Ozawa fulfills conditions 2~4 but based on his role as "Captain Marvelous", there's a possibility that he also meets conditions 3~5. Following her first leading role in the movie Nuiguruma-Z, Nakagawa is currently seen in NHK's Gunshi Kanbee. She also has an upcoming movie TOKYO TRIBE which will be shown in August, and has been busy as of late with her acting career. She also has an upcoming birthday concert on May 4 and 5 at the Maihama Ampitheater. People will be anticipating how she will announce her relationship at this event. Ozawa on the other hand, has been cast for the leading role in the upcoming movie Akira No.2, which is slated for an autumn release.
Actress Rena Nounen has been cast to play the lead in the movie adaptation of the popular manga Kuragehime (scheduled for a December 2014 release). She plays the role of an otaku who loves jellyfish. Starring alongside her are Masaki Suda, playing the role of a good-looking young man whose hobby is cross-dressing, and Hiroki Hasegawa, who plays the role of the virgin ikemen elite who has a fear of women. Nounen comments on the upcoming otaku role and says: "I'm currently thinking hard how I should be playing this role in order to make the viewers enjoy the movie". The manga of the same name started publication in 2008 and has circulated over 2.7M copies to date (Vol. 1~13). The manga won 3rd place in the 2011 "Kono manga wa sugoi!" female division awards and was also adapted into anime in 2010 (Fuji). The story revolves around a group of otaku women who call themselves the "Amars"--- terrified of men, who live in an apartment called Amamizukan, where men are off limits. When the main character gets in trouble with a tropical fish shop one day, she is suddenly saved by a fashionable girl. This fashionable girl would start going to the apartment, but it turns out that this girl is actually a cross-dressed boy, as the story starts focusing on the development of their peculiar friendship. The other wotas residing in the apartment will be played by Chizuru Ikewaki (Train-wota), Rina Ohta (Romance of the 3 Kingdoms-wota), Tomoe Shinohara (Kare-sen; or wota of mature, old men) and Azusa Babazono (Japanese clothes-wota). Taisuke Kawamura (Himitsu no Akko-chan, Nodame Cantabile the Final Score Part 2) will be calling the shots, as filming is scheduled to begin in May.
Model Mizuki Yamamoto (22) graduated from Meiji University School of Agriculture's life science department on the 26th. Yamamoto was at the Nihon Budokan in Tokyo for the graduation rites and commented: "I was able to graduate in 4 years without any hitches. Thank you for all your support. I want to pursue modeling and acting seriously from now on.". Yamamoto wore a hakama which she personally designed and said, "I was extra cautious with the coloring. The theme of this is a 'retro-literary girl'.". Looking back at her campus life, she said that she enjoyed "studying for exams until late at night with my friends, eating lunch on the grass with them and playing cards at the cafeteria". She also said, "I struggled with the subjects that put emphasis on attendance. I had trouble trying to stay awake, especially when I had to film until early in the morning". She continues: "I enjoyed studying subjects which involved solving problems using the scientific method. I would have wanted to join more lab experiments, though. I hope I can put these things that I have learned to good use at work.". Yamamoto said that people have expressed their support for her, but she insisted that she did not meet a special someone. Some people did confess their feelings to her, but she said that "Unfortunately, there haven't been any drama-like situations for me". She also said, "I also wanted to take part in joint parties, but I couldn't. I would have liked to have more fun with everyone else.".
Rock band BUMP OF CHICKEN revealed the music video of "BUMP OF CHICKEN feat. HATSUNE MIKU「ray" on the 13th on their official website, their first ever collaboration with another artist. This is a different version of their new song "ray" which is included in their latest album titled [RAY]. Digital versions went on sale at the same time the album was released, and got 1st in the iTunes Store ranking. This collaboration has attracted the attention of music fans and Japanese pop culture fans alike. The official website has also posted an interview with the band members as to how this collaboration happened. Hatsune Miku's official YouTube channel has uploaded a behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the video.
Hello everyone! We're pleased to announce that マジで!? MAJI DE!? is back to its original format. Yay! Thanks for bearing with us over the past few days that we had to go into "safe mode". Have fun reading!
1: 禿の月φ ★2014/02/27 23:23:20
(Partial Translation) Actress Chiaki Kuriyama was at an event held at the Aeon Mall in Makuhari and was asked what her objectives are moving forward. To this she responded, "Normally, I just either read manga or watch anime so I want to have an outdoor hobby. I want to start doing sports which will help make me healthy. I want to try snowboarding.".
許斐剛 @konomi_takeshi 毎年沢山のチョコをキャラに送って戴きありがとうございます(*´▽`)ゞ 先程、編集部から連絡があり不二くん宛に8千個の不二家のLOOKチョコが届いて騒然(゜ロ゜;ノ)ノ ありがとうでも無理はしないでね…(^-^) 今年は波乱の予感です Thank you everyone for sending chocolates to the characters every year (*´▽`)ゞ I was called by the editing department a while back, and they were all surprised since they received 8,000 of Fujiya's LOOK chocolate (゜ロ゜;ノ)ノ Thank you, but don't force yourselves, ok?... (^-^) I've got a feeling that this year will be quite eventful.
AKB岩田華怜ファンの大西秀宜 Karen Iwata's fan Hidenobu Onishi http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/mashlife/imgs/6/a/6a6e0d73-s.jpg
I just filed a lawsuit on 1/21. I brought up various facts, but the bottomline here is that I want to prove in this trial that they (AKS) have a relatively evil business model by forcing the member to treat the fans who have become extremely close friends with the member harshly so that the fans will change their "oshi".
By the way, I spilled the beans about the wrongdoings of Hitachi, but I still got dismissed for disciplinary reasons, and previously filed this lawsuit: http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/mashlife/imgs/a/0/a0b9ba46-s.jpg
http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/mashlife/imgs/9/6/96329766-s.jpg (Continued after the jump)
The Agency for Cultural Affairs' animator development project Anime Mirai 2014 had a talk show on the 22nd, as the event's public relations ambassador T.M. Revolution - Takanori Nishikawa was on hand to talk about and discuss the future possibilities of anime. The Anime Mirai project, which kicked off in 2010, called for original animated features from anime production houses within the country. The 4 companies which were selected will then proceed to develop their animators with potential for the future and create an original short-featured anime. This year, Ultra Super Pictures, A-1 Pictures, Shinei Animation, and STUDIO4℃ were chosen, and are currently working diligently on the project. Nishikawa, a huge anime fan, talked about Kuro no su -Chronos-, which is animator Naoyuki Onda's first shot at directing an anime: "Onda-san has worked on the animation for all these historical animes from Sunrise. Of the recent ones, I especially loved Psycho-Pass. It was a work of art.". As Nishikawa started to talk in detail about the anime, Nishikawa told the people in attendance who were not able to follow his talk: "I'm getting so happy and worked up just talking about anime. You guys are too quiet!".
Ex-KAT-TUN member Koki Tanaka (28) showed off his "wotaku" side on his own Twitter account from the 24th to the 25th. He talked about his favorite manga and even responded to his followers' requests. Tanaka tweeted on the 24th: "I'm actually a movie, manga, anime, game, and novel otaku. Correction, a wotaku." He continued: "There have been a lot of really good mangas and anime recently like BTOOOM, Danganronpa, and Shingeki no kyojin. There's also Ishin Nishio-sensei's <monogatari> series that you just can't ignore". About the manga he likes: "I can't choose from JUMP so I won't include it. Recently there's Gangking, pupa, I am a hero, Imawanokuni no Alice, TERRA FORMARS, Ao no exorcist, Montage, ah, I can't write them all. If I write them all, it might take me about 200 tweets so I'll stop here". On the 25th, he revealed: "I'm actually a cosplayer too, I've already done FF10's Auron, One Piece's Ace and Law, Tokyo Ghoul's Kaneki, Shingeki no Kyojin's Levi". Followers requested that they wanted to see these, so Tanaka revealed his pictures as Ace and Law. He then tweeted: "Aren't you guys just toying with me? Please take this as my last one", as he posted his cosplay of Levi. Fans and followers got surprised at how high the quality was, as people have been "favoriting" his tweets and retweeting them. People have suddenly started saying: "I thought you were one of those people", "So it's true", "An ikemen ota..."
Is it true that the reason why Ryunosuke Kamiki doesn't appear on variety shows is because he's an anime otaku!!?
Kamiki only guests on variety and talk shows when he promotes his movies or dramas. Even when he does, he only makes simple comments. He doesn't even have a personal blog, leaving most of his private life shrouded in mystery. A showbiz insider makes a surprising revelation about this.
"Kamiki-kun's actually a 'hardcore otaku' who loves games and anime. Even when they're filming, all he ever talks about on set are things about anime. But apparently, his agency doesn't like the idea of pinning an 'otaku' image on Kamiki-kun. That's the reason why he doesn't have a blog, and why he isn't aggressively appearing on variety shows. During his rest days, he goes to his local video arcade. He was also addicted to the anime K-ON! a while back. According to his character description in the drama SPEC (TBS), his role Juichi Ninomae also likes K-ON! which reflects his personal taste."
Kamiki previously appeared on BOOK asahi.com's corner "My comic resume" in August of 2011, and he mentioned titles such as Kami nomizo shiru sekai and Baka to test to shoukanjuu which led to a few sectors actually doubting if Kamiki is indeed an otaku.
Kamiki has also lent his voice to several animation projects, starting off with Spirited Away in 2001. He proceeded to do various other animation films which include Howl's Moving Castle, and The Secret World of Arrietty from Studio Ghibli, and even voiced the lead character in 2009's Summer Wars directed by Mamoru Hosoda.
He also voiced the main character in The Princess and the Pilot, which gives him a pretty impressive track record as a voice actor. If Kamiki really is a hardcore otaku, then he must've been really happy with these projects.
* One CD gives the fan the opportunity to vote once for the member of his/her choice in the ongoing elections which will determine the members and the groups who will sing their 32nd single. http://i.imgur.com/uytlY4t.jpg