Word cycling around the interweb recently is that a new Batman anime movie piece is going to be thrown in as a companion piece to the recent Christian Bale Batman movies. You heard me; a Batman Anime.

The animated film, which will bridge the gap left between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, will introduce a few new characters, as well as develop some already existing ones. The plot has yet to be fully revealed thus far, but hopes for a PG-13 release not long before the second movie drops into theaters. Batman Begins Screenwriter David Goyer has put his talents into this little piece, as well as comic book writer Brian Azzarello and others.

How this will classify as “anime” has yet to be seen, and will be interesting to keep an eye on.

It would appear that there’s more to reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con than just neat toys and teasers for comics. TokyoPop, which is the #1 publisher of manga and graphic novels in the US and the and the largest supplier in the world, has seen fit to team up with in a marketing partnership with the largest touring video game music concert, Video Games Live.

“We are extremely excited to form this exclusive marketing alliance with Video Games Live,” quotes Marco Pavia, Director of Marketing at TOKYOPOP. ”There is strong crossover between manga fans and gamers. Some of our hottest manga is video-game based, including Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry 3, .hack, and Archlord. Forming this partnership with the sizzling Video Games Live concert series was a perfect fit.”

For those who don’t know, Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present, and tours the country in concert-style featuring music from popular games such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy.

This partnership makes TokyoPop the exclusive sponsor for Video Games Live, and will be sponsoring shows for the world-renowned tour for the rest of 2007, including special promotions and giveaways for each stop in the tour. Exclusive live video of the concerts will also be featured on the TP.com website.

This, of course, helps bridge the gap between video games and anime/manga a little closer. With big-name games being released as manga and anime, such as the new Devil May Cry anime (and the manga which has been out for a while), this could help signal the beginning of a large-scale boom in game-based manga and anime being created in the near future. Shall we be seeing things such as Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania manga and anime on the horizon? We can only hope.

As many of you may know, Otakon 2007 was last weekend in Baltimore – surprisingly early for the con. A bunch of the Powet crew were present to witness the awesome glory and crazy mayhem that was the largest anime convention on the east coast. Though visual documentary on the convention for us may be a bit on the slim side, I did manage to have enough footage (both my own and a few snippets donated) to put together a small video-tour of the convention.

It also documents just how big a bunch of nutty geeks we here at Powet are.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Anyone with an Xbox Live account can find the Blue Dragon demo in Live Marketplace right now. There are 2 available levels, a dungeon and a forest. Both appear to be well into the game: you begin with 5 party members, lots of magic at your disposal, and in the middle of a quest.

Its nearly impossible to judge how good an RPG will be based on a demo because the things that make games like this enjoyable are the story, characters, and the scope of the adventure, none of which you can get a feel for in 2 hours of play. That said, the 2 hours is fun. Battles all take place with not yourself attacking monsters, but your shadow. If your party takes a beating, it raises a tension meter that when filled you can unleash a powerful summon attack. You can also charge your magic and physical attacks for more power (DBZ style!). I’m sure a lot of the nuances of battle were lost on me not having played the 50 levels before the one I was given, but I can see myself having a good time with this.

The battles are not random either, you see an enemy on screen and you can run from it or attack it to initial an encounter. you can also choose to take on large groups at once, which can give you a power up advantage as the battles progress, as well as more experience for inevitable level grinding.

This is a title thats been out in Japan for some time, but will come to the states August 28th. As many have mentioned its the first project since Chrono Trigger on the SNES that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama have worked together on. I count Chrono Trigger as one of my favorite games, and if Blue Dragon can give me something half as good, I’ll have a worthy addition to the Xbox 360 Library

It would seem I haven’t been keeping up on my gaming news as much as I should. Madhouse animation studio had been pumping out trailers for the new Devil May Cry animated series well before it’s June 14th debut in Japan on the WOWOW network.

Based on the popular action/sci-fi gaming series by Capcom, the anime series will focus on Dante’s exploits between the storylines of the games. It would appear that the series takes place somewhere after DMC1, as Trish and Lady both are slated to make appearances as well as some new characters not seen in the games.

Thus far, the artistic styles used for the animation look top notch and the character designs are dead-on in terms of looking like their gaming counterparts. Twelve episodes have been announced to comprise the series, making it short, but that’s probably a good thing considering you don’t want the story of the anime to get too over-involved to where it seems unrealistic to the story of the games. I suppose that’s why they have Bingo Morihashi as a writer, since he was also the writer for the second, third and fourth games.

Here’s the teaser trailer that was released on the Japanese website.

A very sexy review of the Cutie Honey movie and DVD.

Purchase either just the movie or the super lunch box set
.

Every few months ADV holds the same sale. It’s not a rare event by any stretch but it really is a great sale. Basically the sale includes only ADV titles ranging anywhere from 5 or 6 dollars a DVD for older stuff to the 15 to 20 dollar range for newer releases. I’ve ordered from these sales in the past and have not been dissapointed. They’ll even throw in a “free gift” which I suppose could be anything but last time I made an order and fully expected a free bookmark or coaster it was a free Angelic Layer vol. 1 DVD.

The only downside to this deal is that your barcodes will be drilled. Yes drilled. They literally drill a hole in the DVD case where the barcode is so that it becomes obscured to the point of not being resold. I imagine this is because some of the cheaper priced items are cheap enough that retailers could order them for less than they could through their normal channels.

The reasons for the sale are always random. This time it’s celebrating “Golden Week” and the sale is on until May 6th. So head over to ADV’s web site and see if anything on that list peeks your interests and if you miss the deadline don’t sweat it because another sale is always just around the corner.

Oh and this is not an ad. I’m not making any money off of this post.

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, the Wii has been out 5 months, where all the Gundam games?!?”

Well step down off your mobile horse and take a look at this.

I can’t read a lick of Japanese so someone will have to tell me if the Kanji for “minigames” appears on this page. Otherwise, looks like motion controlled shooting in the Universal Century as the RX-78-2. Now I gotta get me one of these. Char’s Wiimote!