I always liked this song. Oh, those were the days when I first started watching anime:

For 24 hours on Saturday, January 2, the first part of the Halo anime project, "Origins I" will be available for free viewing on Xbox Live's Halo Waypoint. This first short is being animated by Japan's revered Studio 4C (Tekkonkinkreet, Batman: Gotham Knight, Steamboy). This is a world premiere so it will be the first time anyone will be getting a look at a full short instead of just trailers. Origins focuses on the background history of Halo the game universe, showing the Forerunners and their battle against The Flood. Origins will be available in either Japanese (subtitled?) or English. Or course this is all part of a larger anthology entitled "Halo Legends" which is being produced along with other top Japanese anime studios like Production IG, Bones, and Toei.

I don't pride myself on being much of a Halo fan. I've only played about half of the first game.  I never had the original Xbox console so I kinda missed the whole phenomenon. But I AM an anime fan so I'm quite excited about this project, even though the earlier Batman: Gotham Knight was a bit lackluster. It was still cool to see another perspective looking at very familiar characters which American viewers have become very jaded about. Halo doesn't quite bring as much baggage to the table as Batman so I expect it to be even more fresh. And who knows, it might get me to finish playing Halo and progress to the other two games in the series.

Here's the trailer for Origins I:

Yep, here we have it. The very definition of weirdness. What you have is a dude dressed up in a Michael Myers jumpsuit and a Jason hockey mask cutting up huge logs with a giant chainsaw (I guess that means he's taking inspiration from Leatherface as well?). Anyway, the video shows the process of how he carves these logs into an anime character. It runs about 9 minutes. I would watch the beginning and the end (where he makes her wings). In the middle we briefly see that this guy is really skilled at woodcarving with more traditonal tools and religious motifs. I have no idea who the winged girl is that he makes. She looks a bit like KOS-MOS from Xenosaga. Does anybody know who the figure is of? Also reminds me that I need to do a podcast review for Kannagi! Are you not entertained?

Somehow, when I saw a headline on MSN.com titled "Man Marries Virtual Wife", the first thing that crossed my mind was "he's gotta be Japanese". I don't know, there's just this weird sense of unreality that pervades Japanese weirdos that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. I mean, where has all the machismo gone? These dudes used to test out their katanas on live convicts! Now they're practicing perverted acts with moe throw pillows. Apparently, a Japanese man decided to marry Nene Anegasaki, a character from a Nintendo DS game called Love Plus. Here's a video report from Boing Boing editor Lisa Katayama:

And here's the promo for the Love Plus game:

Check out this music video by Asobi Seksu, a New York based band, entitled "Walk on the Moon". By the way, "asobi seksu" is a Japanese term meaning "casual sex".

Here's a cool video shot on the streets of Shibuya that Danny Choo turned me on to. Backed by simple instrumental accompaniment, it shows some of the interesting people you might see just walking around the area:

Shibuya Faces from eleven23 on Vimeo.

Here's a beautiful Hikaru Utada song from her cd "Ultra Blue", which is available on Itunes for $7.99:

What can I say? I love this song from En Ciel's Truth cd. Lovely and powerful ballad. Excellent picture and sound quality.

Media Factory has released a promotional trailer for the upcoming Dance in the Vampire Bund anime, based on the manga by Nozomu Tamaki. 4 volumes of the manga have been released in the US by Seven Seas. Animation is being done by SHAFT (can you dig it?), which has had a hand in almost every major anime series to be released here to one degree or another. Akiyuki Shinbo (Devil Hunter Yohko, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Negima) will be directing. While Shinbo can do comedy very well, he should be able to handle the creepy mood and explicitness of this title. The manga is almost a joining together of two of Shinbo's earlier shows, Moonphase and Le Portrait de Petit Cossette in flavor and theme so I think he'll be allright with the subject matter.

What can I say, I just like this song. The video doesn't make any sense, but then again, not many do! This is off the Truth cd, which you can buy from Itunes. Amazon and Ebay probably have it for sale as well.