As for a "nerd layer" of Japan, 290 billion yen - Nomura Research Institute
estimate 2,850,000 people and a market scale.
Nomura Research Institute released the results of an investigation about the
market scale of a maniac consumer layer of Japan in five fields of
"animation", a "comic", an "idol", a "game", and "Assembly PC" on 24 Aug
2004. These "a nerd layer" state, and if population amounts to about 290
billion yen, it will estimate 2,850,000 people and the market scale. For
200,000 people / 20 billion yen, and a comic, 1 million people / 100 billion
yen, and an idol are [ the population and the estimation market scale
according to field / animation ] 800,000 people / 60 billion yen. About the
game, it is dividing and estimating to four items according to a platform.
Although there was most "home use" as 570,000 people / 45 billion yen,
oligopoly-ization of "big title continues, there is no creation of a new
genre, and it is said that it is dullness feeling." On the other hand, the
"network" is 30,000 people / 1 billion yen, and "PC" has indicated 140,000
people / 19 billion yen "Aging progresses and the core user is flowing in
the network game and PC game in which a new device game appears." In
addition, the prices of an arcade or a board game etc. were 60,000 people /
13 billion yen. In addition, a game maniac says that he is distributed over
his 30's with the 13-24-year-old younger age group. It carries out
"purchasing a new product at an initial price by PC parts shop of the
Akihabara electricity town" of the assembly PC. The "rich maniac" (mainly
distributed over his 18 years old - 30's) of "getting ashore at a used shop
at next week, and looking for the following part if it installs and a
benchmark can be taken", "in the back street of the Akihabara electricity
town The junk parts and used part of inventory disposal are classified into
the "junk maniac" (the number of the mains is 40 and they are a small number
of distributions to no less than 15-18 years old) of collection" Carrying
out. The junk maniac is estimating [ the rich maniac ] 30,000 people / 30
billion yen at 20,000 people / 2 billion yen. By Nomura Research Institute,
in the market scale of the whole industry of contents 4 field called
animation, a comic, an idol, and a game being about 2,300 billion yen, the
rate for which a nerd layer market accounts explains that it becomes 11%
with an amount-of-money base. It has indicated "It is impossible to already
call "niche" the influence to a market and the consumption scale of a maniac
consumer layer."
http://www.nri.co.jp/news/2004/040824.html
- The Official Tofu Records Website has mentioned a special L'Arc en Ciel offering can be found online from this Wednesday,
September 1st.
The channel, the first to provide pan-Asian coverage, will offer an extensive library of VOD and pay-per-view content. With 12 million Asians currently residing in the United States, the channel will no doubt pick up a heavy following right off the bat, offering series from South Korea, anime and drama from Japan, classic kung-fu, a Chinese reality dating show, as well as Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Indian programming. All will have English subtitles and hosts and announcements in between programming will be in English. In addition, the company has made a seperate agreement with Equity for a satellite uplink, so the channel will be carried on the Galaxy Satellite.
A two-volume fantasy-romance Manga series, Until the Full Moon is like a fairy tale, only about vampires and the darker side of the supernatural spectrum instead. "It's our first non-Broccoli title, and I believe fans of bishounen titles like Juvenile Orion will enjoy Until the Full Moon," says managing editor Shizuki Yamashita.
Publisher Hideki Uchino comments, "Juvenile Orion did great at Borders Group, and we're happy to be continuing our relationship with them on our newest title." About Until the Full Moon Marlo has a problem. On the night of the full moon, this half-werewolf, half-vampire undergoes a mysterious and terrifying transformation: He turns into a girl.
Desperate for a cure, his parents call on Doctor Vincent, a long time family friend. But Marlo wants to keep his condition secret from Vincent's son, the vampire playboy David. Unfortunately, the secret gets out, and a new problem surfaces: David is interested in Marlo's female form! If a remedy can't be found, their parents believe the next best solution is marriage - a marriage between Marlo and David!
Screening of Tokyu Hands by Cheryl Dunn
Sep 23 • Free Basin skate bowl
New York-based filmmaker Cheryl Dunn joined many of the Beautiful Losers artists on a group trip to Tokyo in January 2001. The footage she captured over the course of their stay comes together as a filmic collage and travel diary showing this young group of American artists being celebrated in a foreign land. Cheryl Dunn will be here in person to talk about her film.
ANIME MIX is a weekly anime news magazine television program that incorporates a variety of topics targeting the anime/manga industry in the US by providing the latest in unbiased anime news, live event coverage, and exclusive interviews with leading industry professionals. ANIME MIX was originally broadcasted on San Francisco local cable television for three consecutive years. ANIME MIX on TUN is eigoMANGA’s first initiative to produce original television programming for national broadcast.
The first set of episodes of ANIME MIX will cover anime events and various university oriented anime events.” We felt that ANIME MIX was most appropriate on The U Network because the show is catered towards a college audience”, claims Austin Osueke, CEO of eigoMANGA and executive producer of ANIME MIX. ”The format for the original ANIME MIX was most appealing to anime fans who were apart of university anime clubs. They always gave us the most contributing comments and critiques on what they want to watch when it comes to a show about the anime industry. With the ANIME MIX, we’re trying to kill two birds with one stone; reach the experienced anime fan audience and reach ‘the trendsetters’ of the mainstream – both of these groups are college students.”
Spectators at the Olympic Games will be able to catch all the action on twelve Panasonic Astrovision LED screens placed in the Olympic venues and two screens in Athens City. The Panasonic Astrovision is recognized as reproducing one of the highest-quality images with 1 billion colors, full 10-bit color gradation and its proprietary image-enhancing technology.
In Athens, seven Olympic Games venues will be equipped permanently with eight screens. The two screens at the Olympic Stadium measure 1194.79 square feet, weigh 12 tons each, and can show both real-time Track and Field events, as well as action replays to the spectators seated over 650 feet away from the screens. Other screens range from 172 square feet to 398 square feet. In addition, for temporary use, two screens will be installed at the Hockey and Regatta venues, while two truck-mounted screens will be used at more than five venues. The magnificent Panathinaiko Stadium, where up to 40,000 spectators sitting on a horseshoe of stone steps will watch the finish of the men's and women's Marathon Race, will use a giant, 301-square foot Astrovision mounted on the back of a truck to keep spectators informed. These temporary screens range from 301 square feet to 861 square feet. In the City of Athens, Panasonic will set up two temporary screens: one screen at the Common Domain in the Athens Olympic Sports Complex (OAKA) at Maroussi, and one screen at the Water Plaza in the Faliro Coastal Zone. All the screens will give spectators a view of the Olympic competition during the Games.
LED Technology: Panasonic's giant Astrovision screens use state-of-the-art LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology to produce crisp, incredibly bright images that can be seen clearly in direct sunlight. The Astrovision screens consist of hundreds of 15-inch square LED units that are snapped into place on a metal latticework frame. Each unit contains a layer of LEDs, many times brighter than a home TV, in a grid of red, blue and green.
The picture on the Astrovision screen is first captured on camera, sent in the form of a broadcast signal to the Astrovision's built-in processor. From the processor, the signal is sent to the LED units, which use different combinations of color to form the resultant image. The LEDs in each panel are "tuned" by computers to make a harmonious giant picture, providing a brightness of 5,000 cd/m2, with a horizontal viewing angle of more than 130 degrees. The ability of LEDs to withstand variations in temperature is very useful, given Athens' expected 100°- heat this summer. In addition, the Astrovision screens are designed to withstand wind-driven rain. In the unlikely event of something going wrong, each LED unit is "hot-swappable"', allowing units to be unclipped, replaced and individually returned, without shutting down the main display.
Astrovision History: Panasonic has been providing Astrovision screens for over 20 years to some of the world's most renowned locations such as New York City's Times Square and Orlando's Universal Studios, and virtually every Olympic Games since 1984.
On the topic of micromotors in Japn this weekend, Nanomuscle (www.nanomuscle.com) and CREATA have entered a partnership from March to create lifelike toys for a variety of outlets. The first toy produced as a result of this collaboration, Ojarumaru Man, is currently available in McDonald’s Japan restaurants.
Ojarumaru Man is a talking, moving toy modeled after the famous Japanese anime character. The NanoMuscle motor inside Ojarumaru Man provides silent, lifelike motion at a fraction of the cost of a traditional electric motor.“CREATA prides itself on developing innovative products at an affordable cost for our customers,” said Dr. Tao Xu, Executive Vice President Global Supply Chain & Product Integrity at Creata. “We anticipate that our work with NanoMuscle will enable CREATA in developing novel products that cannot be found anywhere else.”
Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") today announced that it has successfully developed a lighter and more advanced successor to the FR, the world's smallest and lightest micro-flying robot. Turning once again to its micromechatronics technology, Epson has redefined the state of the art with its FR-II micro-flying robot—the world's new lightest and most advanced microrobot, which also features Bluetooth wireless control and independent flight*2. The FR-II will be on display at the Emerging Technology Fair, part of the Future Creation Fair that runs from August 27 to 30 at the Tokyo International Forum.
Epson has long been engaged in the research and development of microrobots and in the development of applications for their enabling technologies. The FR-II is only the latest chapter in an Epson success story that began with Monsieur, a microrobot that was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest microrobot and was put on sale in 1993. Having made micromechatronics one of its core technologies, the company has since created and marketed several more microrobots in the EMRoS series*3. April 2003 saw the introduction of the Monsieur II-P, a prototype microrobot that operates on the world's thinnest microactuator (an ultra-thin, ultrasonic motor)*4 and is remote-controllable via a power-saving Bluetooth module. The following November, Epson unveiled the prototype micro-flying robot FR, which featured two ultra-thin, ultrasonic motors driving two contra-rotating propellers for levitation, plus the world's first*5 linear actuator stabilizing mechanism for attitude control during flight.
However, the FR prototype microrobot's flying range was limited by the length of the power cord attaching it to an external battery, and although it was radio-controlled, it had to be kept within sight of the operator while flying. Consequently, Epson decided that the next step was to extend the flying range by developing fully wireless operation paired with independent flight capability. The main issue to be tackled with regard to wireless flight was the need to combine lighter weight with greater dynamic lift. Epson made the robot lighter by developing a new gyro-sensor that is a mere one-fifth the weight of its predecessor, making it the world's smallest and lightest*6 gyro-sensor. Also helping to shed weight is the high-density mounting technology used to package the microrobot's two microcontrollers including the Epson-original S1C33-family 32-bit RISC. Dynamic lift was boosted 30% by introducing more powerful ultra-thin ultrasonic motors and newly designed, optimally shaped main rotors. As for the challenge of independent flight, Epson brought its many years of micromechatronics experience to bear in realizing the development of a linear actuator with faster response time and a high-precision attitude control mechanism, and a flight path control and independent flight system (primarily for hovering).
To top it off, Epson added an image sensor unit that can capture and transmit aerial images via a Bluetooth wireless connection to a monitor on land, and they also devised two LED lamps that can be controlled as a means of signaling. Epson was assisted by Chiba University's Nonami (Control and Robotics) Laboratory in developing the control system for independent flight. The company also received advice on the rotor design from the Kawachi (Aeronautics and Astronautics) Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.
The key concept behind Epson's R&D efforts in micro-flying robots has been to expand the horizons of microrobot activities from two-dimensional space to three-dimensional space. Now, with the successful implementation of Bluetooth communications and independent flight in the FR-II, Epson has literally added a new dimension to microrobotics while greatly expanding the potential range of microrobot applications by incorporating image capture and transmission functions. At the Emerging Technology Fair, the FR-II micro-flying robot's features are expected to be showcased in artistic aerial performances. Epson hopes to gain feedback from visitors at this exhibit that may be useful as the company strives toward further progress in developing original micromechatronics technologies and applications.
*1: Weight excluding battery, according to Epson's research *2: Independent flight is the ability to follow a computer-programmed flight path *3: "EMRoS" stands for "Epson MicroRobot System." This series included four main models: Monsieur (listed in the Guinness book of Records as the world's smallest—only 1cm3 in volume, 1993), followed by Nino (a 0.5-cm3 model introduced in 1994), Ricordo (1cm3, equipped with a recording and playback function, 1995), and Rubie (1 cm3, equipped with a capricious wandering function, 1995.) All of these models are independent traveling robots that chase a light source. Sales of the EMRoS series have been discontinued. *4, 5, 6: According to Epson's research
Being predominately state-funded, China's cartoon industry has experienced slow growth because of problems caused by outdated administrative systems such as shortages of professionals, animation and comic prototype works, and limited investment. It has been working hard to keep up with foreign productions. Zhang Songlin, deputy head of China Animation and Comic Society and a well-known producer of animation, said the country's demand for animation and comic professionals for the creation of films, TV programs, computer games is 250,000 professional people. However, there are only 10,000 college-trained animation and comic specialists across China, and each year animation programs train just 300 graduates.
Though still in the fledgling stages, China's animation and comic industry is witnessing a growing market. In the first half of this year, three fairs were held in Beijing, Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu province, and Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province each, and six in Shanghai, all packed with visitors. Surveys conducted in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou show that foreign cartoons occupy 90 percent of the Chinese market. At present, only two places in China produce animation + the Shanghai Fine Arts and Film Factory and the Animation Works Department with the China Central Television Station in Beijing. Both are state financed.
China turned out 29,000 minutes of animation and comic prototype works last year, but processed or reworked another 30, 000 minutes of animation and comic works such as "Finding the Nemo " and "The Lion King" for Chinese audiences.
A total of 2,000 provincial and city-level television stations in China have been asked to devote a show time of 60,000 minutes to domestically produced animation and comic works, but the domestic animation and comic creators can only provide works for 20,000 minutes, leaving a gap of 40,000 minutes which are filled by foreign animated programs.
Sean Zhang, a junior middle school student from Beijing and a great fan of Japanese animation and comic works, said that Chinese cartoons are unpopular with him and his friends because they do not have a dynamic sense of humor and exaggeration.
Yang Hongwen, secretary general of the China Children's Culture and Art Foundation, blamed concentration on education and disrespect of the market, which demands entertainment, were the root causes for unpopularity of Chinese animation among kids and youngsters.
Industry insiders suggest that Chinese animation and comic creators should base their works more on real life matters in order to draw a broader audience.
Source: Xinhuanet
This course is open to teens and adults. It is designed for those who love Manga and have a beginner's level of Japanese skill. This course is perfect for those who wish to learn casual Japanese language. You will learn standard Japanese conversation including grammar for one hour using the regular textbook and for another hour using Manga as alternate text for each lesson. This course is designed to cover reading (Hiragana/Katakana and 100 Kanji), writing, listening, and speaking the Japanese language. If you can read Manga in Japanese, it would be more fun and you don't have to wait until English translated Manga is published and available in America. You had better check out the new "Manga Course", consisting of 8 weeks of Japanese language lessons, 2-hours each lesson.
JLC has excellent instructors. All of them are Master's Degree/MBA/PhD holders with several years experience as University faculty, or the equivalent. Their teaching method is unique and you will learn not only Japanese language, but also Japanese culture/history. The Master Instructor, Junko is a former professor of Japanese language at Morehouse College, Atlanta for several years. In addition, she was an instructor on the nationally televised Japanese Language Program produced by Georgia Public Television for five years. She has been a guest speaker for "Japanese Language Education" at the Asian Network International Conference.
*************** Japanese Manga Course ***************
Lesson schedule: Saturday 11AM-1PM (8-weeks, 16 hours) Lesson Fees: $200 Class size: 4-6 people
The very first course starts on 18 September 2004 and the registration has already started. Registrations are due 72 hours before the first lesson of the course. Class Schedule may be changed without notice. Please visit the website, http://www.japanese-language.net for an up-to-date schedule.
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