Update: The video has been removed at the request of Toei Animation.

The first international trailer for Toei Animation’s first CG feature based on Leiji Matsumoto’s Captain Harlock has just hit the internet.

Working under the title Harlock: Space Pirate, the movie is about Harlock and his band of outlaws that fight against Earth’s oppressors. I’m really excited about this for various reasons. The first being this is Toei’s first promising foray into a full CG production. I honestly want this to succeed in the international market because of its $30 million+ dollar budget for a Japanese CGI film (That’s a lot in the Japanese film industry). Second, the film’s aesthetic look is extremely faithful to the original manga and animation. The last time Japan released a full CG movie overseas was Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within, and we all know how that turned out. 

The film is planned to be released in the Fall in Japan. No word on an international release.

The post Leiji Matsumoto’s Captain Harlock gets its first eye poppin’ trailer appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Hideo Kojima recently confirmed on his web radio show that the “Ender’s Project” (The codename for the Zone of the Enders sequel) was shelved indefinitely due in part to the disappointing reception and performance of the recently released HD collections. He apologizes to the all the fans that were upset and believes that all the issues that have happened with the game are a disservice to them. Kojima has mentioned his team will be releasing a free patch for the PlayStation 3 version (There are no plans for a 360 patch at this time).

Because of the aforementioned issues, any plans for a ZoE sequel has been put on hold for now and the team has been dissolved. That being said, Kojima said he would like to reach out to fans if they still would like to see an sequel for the series.

Personally, I’m sad that the hopes of a sequel were based solely on the performance of a previous game, too many games recently have been the victim of poor outsourcing (Looking at you, Aliens). That being said, I’ll be the one to say, “I want to see a Zone of the Enders 3!”

Source: Siliconera

The post Kojima confirms Zone of the Enders sequel scrapped appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Remember that incredibly, well made anime commercial that set the internet on fire last month? ANN reports that Kyoto Animation has officially unveiled the show’s name to be Free!. Based off an honorable mention of “High Speed!!” by Kouji Ouji from Kyoto Animation’s 2011 Animation Awards, Free! is set to air during the Summer anime season. Free! is produced be done by Animation DO, a subsidiary studio. You can watch the new PV down below:

As always with their upcoming animes, KyoAni tests newer voice actors alongside veterans for their works. The character’s voice cast are as follows (Voice Actor in parentheses and notable past roles in italics):

Haruka Nanase (Nobunaga Shimazaki) Taichi Tanaka – Tari Tari

Makoto Tachibana (Tatsuhisa Suzuki) Shinichirō Tokizane – Blood+ C, Kazunari Takao – Kuroko’s Basketball

Hazuki Nagisa (Tsubasa Yonaga) Ren Mihashi – Big Windup!, Aichi Sendo – Cardfight!! Vanguard

Rei Ryugazaki (Daisuke Hirakawa) Makoto Ito – School Days, Alex Rodriguez Ichirō Shinjō – Beelzbub, Naoki Irie – Itazura no Kiss

Rin Matsuoka (Mamoru Miyano) Setsuna F Seiei - Gundam, Kiba - Wolf’s Rain

Ever since the first PV aired, anime fans have been screaming to make it real. Looks like the studio’s already been one step ahead of the internet this entire time keeping the show’s release date in the dark, and the soon fangirls everywhere will be swooned over by pretty boys complete with pretty animation.

You can find more information on the Official Japanese Website and FREE! Twitter

Source: ANN

The post KyoAni’s Swimming Anime ‘Free!’ is real and set to air this summer appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Here is a larger image of the Phoenix figure in question from different angles.

No word on an western release yet, but when it does come I hope we get the figure too!

Source: e-capcom shop

The post Ace Attorney 5 Japanese Release to comes in Four Different Flavors appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

While Hollywood is making superhero movies left and right, Japan’s own cartoon heroes, Gatchaman, is getting their own live-action movie remake. Known in its native country as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the series was originally aired in the states as Battle of the Planets and later in the 90s as G-Force: Guardians of Space. The series is about a terrorist group called the Galactor that aims to control Earth’s natural resources. The only people to oppose them are five young superheroes of the Science Organization that rise to the challenge to stop them. Check out the trailer after the jump!

The live-action film is being directed by Toya Sato (who also adapted live-action versions of Gokusen and Kaiji. ) The first teaser trailer just went live on the official site. The live-action movie looks to take a much more darker and dramatic approach than the original animation. After Imagi’s CG movie project was cancelled, I was worried that the series would fall into development hell, thankfully the initial trailer looks promising and I’m certainly looking forward to it!

Gatchaman hits Japanese screens August 24th this year.

Source: ANN, Official Gachaman Movie Website

The post Teaser trailer debuts for live-action Gatchaman movie appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

After being re-hired by Electronic Arts back in 2007, John Riccitiello has formally step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer. His resignation will be effective on March 30th after failing to increase EA’s revenue and share price. Taking over his position will be Larry Probst, the current Chairman of EA.  During his tenure was a number of studios such as Pandemic Studios, BioWare, PlayFish, Bright Lights and PopCap (The former of which has now been dissolved). EA was also awarded the Worst Company in America by the Consumerist last year. Clearly after the whole SimCity fiasco, they needed someone to take the heat.

Considering what they’ve been through in the past few years, I’d say this was a smart move on EA’s part. After establishing well known franchises and later burrowing them into the ground (looking at you Mass Effect!). Hopefully, things will turn around and we’ll actually have good games to look forward to again.

Sources: WSJ , Forbes

The post EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, resigns appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

The past month was an exhilarating time for video games, particularly Fighting Game fans. The Evolution Champion Series recently held a donation drive for Breast Cancer that allows a variety of fighting game titles to compete for a spot as an official game at its yearly EVO tournament in Las Vegas. Essentially it was an auction for these games to show how much they really want a spot in the world’s premier fighting game tournament where the proceeds all go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Among the games were popular past games like Guilty Gear, to indie hits like Skullgirls. Even unreleased titles such as the fan-developed My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic and Nether Realm’s to-be-released Injustice: Gods Among Us were also part of the lineup. Over the course of the month, unexpected games fought to hold the top spot.

At first, MLP‘s unreleased game seemed poised to take the spot with over $3,000 donated within the first week. Later, Melee and Skullgirls struck back with their own donation rallies and blew past MLP. From there on, it became a fight between these two supportive communities with Melee pulling a surprise lead. It seemed that it would be either of these two games for several weeks. The biggest wake-up call came from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo‘s community, which donated collectively over $30,000 several days before the deadline, propelling them to 1st at the time.

The final day became a battle between Melee and Skullgirls. Both held donation streams featuring top players, gameplay, special guests (SG featured a plethora of the game’s developers and voice actors!). However, only one that came out on top was Super Smash Brothers Melee with a whopping $94,683. Regardless of the victor, that’s over $225,000 donated to Breast Cancer Research! Now that’s what I call bringing together a community for a common cause. You can see a breakdown of each game’s contribution here.

The post Video Game Donation Drive raises $225,744 for Breast Cancer appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Nerd Reactor had a sneak peak at ADATA’s upcoming products to come for 2013. ADATA has had a subtle presence throughout retailers. This time, they hope to step up their game with brand new top-of-the-line memory solutions. First up is the XPG Gaming Series 2.0, a gaming DRAM module (2600 MHz and CAS latency of 11-13-13-35 for the fastest model). These little speed sticks will supercharge any gamer’s ability to load and multitask efficiently.

Next up is the DashDrive Air AE400, a portable wireless device that does a variety of things. Much like other portable wireless, it acts as a portable wireless hard drive that compliments a smartphone’s capacity through the use of SD cards, Flash Drives or external HDD and streams it to your phone. The DataDrive also acts as a wireless repeater, connecting up to ten devices. It can also be used as a mobile phone charger thanks to its big 5000 mAH battery pack. The AE400 is available now and supports iOS/Android/OSX/Windows/Linux. There was also a preview of the AE800 coming soon this year with built-in storage.

The post CES 2013: ADATA brings XPG 2.0 and DashDrive Air appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

As a gamer myself, I have my own suspicions of cloud-based gaming. The idea of simply streaming the footage of the games controlled from a server sounded like a gamer’s worst nightmare. The lag, the variable picture quality, and lack of configuration was completely out of the question for people who want the full experience. Despite this, I took the time to check out Nvidia’s devised cloud-gaming server called NVIDIA GRID at CES2013. I walked up to the screens running grid and decided to pluck down and see what it was all about. The demo had selection of 20 games, which included Asassin’s Creed 3, Borderlands 2, Battlefield 3 and Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition off the top of my head. The demo guy mentioned to me that the game was running off an LG SmartTV with the Grid application connected through Wireless internet.

All the games were lined up on “grid”. The first game I started up was Borderlands 2. The game boots up a little bit slow trying to load up the game, but once that’s done. the game works just as if it it was on your own PC. The controls felt smooth, something the Nvidia demo guy really wanted to hit home. There are a few restrictions that will be implemented with the service, most notably a locked graphic setting. The reason for this is so the cloud servers can handle the amount of traffic and processing needed to stream to all of its users. While they don’t plan to scale all the games down to its lowest setting, it will still look reasonably pretty. All these factors will be dependent on the user’s internet connection.

Next, I fired up Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition. This was a game that required that frame-by-frame accuracy. The game loaded considerable faster than Borderlands 2. To my surprise the game ran a comfortable 59-60FPS, the time between my inputs and the movements on the screen were snappy and responsive.  Whether or not this is consistent over real-world situations leaves to be seen. Nvidia hopes to implement GRID on as many platforms as possible. The GRID itself won’t be run by Nvidia but will be licensed to other cloud-based services.

The post CES 2013: Hands On Impression with NVIDIA GRID appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Continuing its trail of global software dominance, the much touted Google TV will be pre-installed on LG’s new G2 lineup of SmartTVs. For those that don’t know what GogoleTV is, it is a digital platform for accessing all of your TV shows, movies, apps, and it even has a browser through Chrome.

Thanks to LG’s L9 dual core processor, everything will be quick and snappy. Because the platform is shared throughout all of Google’s services, you will be able to access the Google Play store to download apps and use it on the TV just like if it was a smartphone (only you can’t make calls through it, or can it?).

Will GoogleTV do what cable and satellite providers have attempted for years? Only time will tell, but for now these are available on LG’s official website. With CES coming around soon, we’ll let you know if Google’s one step closer to taking over the world.

LG Google TV website

The post Google TV on LG’s new Smart TV appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

A special thanks to Dean Cain, Johnny Young Bosch, Mackenzie Mason, Joe Romersa, and many others guests for attending and interacting with our fans!

The post ReactorCon 2012 Photo Gallery appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Magical Drop is a puzzle game in which players pick up colored balloons from the top of the screen and shoots them back up in order to clear them. The game’s default controls are extremely simple, moving your little helper left and right to position yourself.  Match up at least three of the same color in a vertical line and watch it disappear. Like any head to head puzzle game, chaining together consecutive clears allows you to send dead balls to litter their screen and wreak havoc on them. A match is won by either clearing a set quota of balloons, or a player loses when the balloons reach the bottom of the screen. An extra ability that sets Magical Drop away from other puzzle games is it lets you add more rows to your own pile. With practice, caution, and some planning, you can devise some devastating tricks.

For a new update in a long forgotten series, I was disappointed at the lack of single player options, which consists of a simplistic story that takes you through 10 stages. Despite what difficulty you picked at the beginning of the game, the story CPUs can varied between easily beatable to hair-raising difficult. This can either be plain frustrating when trying to advance to the next stage. Clearing a story mode gets you that respective character’s ending and gallery. Gone are the survival mode, the challenge mode (which is really what story mode is), and the adventure mode from MD3. This is as barebone as you can get.

The biggest addition to the series is an online multiplayer which pits you and up to 3 other friends in either 2v2 or Free-for-All style mayhem. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play against any human opponents as the matchmaking seems to be a ghost town at the time of this review. There are standard quick matches and custom settings. I even created a public lobby, but no one showed up for 20 minutes. Again, it’s a very barebone online component, but I have yet to test out this significant part of the game. Fortunately, I invited a few friends to play locally and it was certainly a throwback to the past. It is fast, frantic, and at the same time nostalgic.

With all the redrawn characters, HD resolutions, and familiar characters, the biggest gripe I had with the game was its lackluster and dry presentation. Despite the bigger resolution, everything feels lifeless and lacking in personality. Magical Drop 3 was all about fast and busy, where as MD5 feels empty especially in matches where there are so much empty space left utilized. The character portraits and animation pales in comparison to the wonderful spritework seen in its arcade days. The epic orchestral pieces that permeate the backgrounds are out of place in such a lighthearted game. Probably the coolest edition to the game is in fact from another game. Bruce, a character from a previously unreleased Data East game Ghostlop, is included as a playable character in MD5. Instead of shooting balloons, his stage is a PuzzleBobble-meets-Ikaruga where you shoot up either red or blue balls to pop its respective color. Unfortunately in terms of character balance, Bruce feels wildly over powered against another player playing standard Magical Drop.

As much as I really wanted to like Magical Drop V, it’s a setback for the series and while it looks shinier and cleaner, there is a distinct lack of energy in the game. The difficulty ramps between piece of cake to losing even under the best games you played. Those looking to play a fun puzzler can start here and the charm of the series is somewhat intact, but its soul seems to be still suck somewhere between the 90s and today. The core gameplay is still there and is as great as ever, but everything else from visuals to audio seem to be unfitting. Just make sure you have friends to play with to experience it.

Grade: C+

The post Magical Drop V Review appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Renowned Japanese Animation, Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh, Animated sequences of Kill Bill), started a Kickstarter today looking to fund a 10-minute original short named Kick-Heart. Helmed by director Masaaki Yuasa, the project is an experiment to see if crowdsourcing is a viable alternative to creating new anime as opposed to looking for sponsors or big corporations.

This is an interesting experiment to see if the fanbase would like to have more original animation coming out of Japan instead of the recent trend of adapting popular comics & light novels into anime. Like all kickstarters, there are several tiers ranging from $5 to $10,000 (includes a trip to Japan and dinner with the team). Frankly, I think this is what the anime industry needs, a wake-up call that the industry needs change in order to appeal to a larger audience.

The Kickstarter ends on October 31st.

The post Production I.G.’s Kickstarter Anime Project about Love, Pain, & Wrestling appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Theatrical Release starts in Los Angeles followed by major cities in the U.S.

SANTA MONICA, CA (September 13, 2012) – This October, Madoka Magica fans will be treated to something special. Following the release of the entire television series on video, Aniplex of America has just announced that the first two Puella Magi Madoka Magica movies Part 1: Beginnings and Part 2: Eternal will debut in the US this October. The not-so-typical story of a middle school girl named Madoka Kaname and her choice to become a magical girl has taken the world by storm. Part 1 and Part 2 of the Madoka Magica movies retells the original TV series and is set for the big screen. There is no doubt both movies will provide a new experience for both fans who have enjoyed the TV series or who are just seeing Madoka Magica for the first time.

Distributed by Eleven Arts, select theaters in five major cities across the US will be having showtimes for both movies. The cost of admission will allow fans to watch both Part 1 and Part 2. For those whoattend the Los Angeles showings will receive some city exclusive specials. Los Angeles ticket holders will receive select giveaways on opening night and throughout the scheduled screening times while supplies last. In addition, there will also be exclusive Madoka Magica the Movie Merchandise sold only at the Los Angeles Theater while supplies last.

 

For a complete set of showtimes and merchandise information, please go to MadokaMagicaUSA.com

 

Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Showtimes and Locations :

Los Angeles Downtown  Independent http://www.downtownindependent.com 

2012/10/19 Fri

2012/10/20 Sat

2012/10/21 Sun

2012/10/22 Mon

2012/10/23 Tue

2012/10/24 Wed

2012/10/25 Thu

 

New York 

Big Cinema Manhattan http://us.bigcinemas.com/loc_Manhattan.asp

2012/10/20 Sat 

 

Chicago 

Music Box http://www.musicboxtheatre.com/

2012/10/20 Sat 

 

Houston 

Alamo Drafthouse  http://drafthouse.com/houston

2012/10/20 Sat 

 

San Francisco 

New People http://www.newpeopleworld.com/

2012/10/20 Sat 

 

 

About Puella Magi Madoka Magica Originally airing in Japan in the beginning of 2011, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an original story developed into TV series by Gen Urobuchi of Nitro+ (Togainu no chi), directed by Akiyuki Shinbo (Goodbye Zetsubo Sensei, Bakemonogatari Arakawa under the Bridge) and produced by Aniplex’s Atsuhiro Iwakami (the Garden of Sinners, Bakemonogatari Oreimo, and recent project Fate/Zero). Puella Magi Madoka Magica follows the story of a 14-year-old girl named Madoka Kaname. Madoka is offered the opportunity of gaining magical powers if she agrees to make a contract with a strange little being named Kyubey, Kyubey will also grant Madoka one wish, but in exchange she shall risk her life by accepting the responsibilities of fighting witches. Little does Madoka know what the real risks of making a contract has in-store for her. With the popularity of the series growing worldwide, Aniplex of America has recently announced plans of releasing the series to the US audience. MadokaMagicaUSA.com About Aniplex of America Inc. Aniplex of America Inc. (Santa Monica, California) is a subsidiary of Aniplex Inc. (headquartered in Tokyo, Japan), a group of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. and leading provider of anime content and music production and distribution in Japan. Aniplex of America has launched fan-favorite DVD and Blu-Ray releases such as Gurren Lagann the Movies, Durarara!!, R.O.D series, the Garden of Sinners and Baccano! The company’s ever-growing line-up of shows includes our most recent titles, Blue Exorcist, Rurouki Kenshin OVA and Movie, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica. www.AniplexUSA.com www.Youtube.com/AniplexUS About ELEVEN ARTS ELEVEN ARTS (EA) is the company that has brought you various Japanese films to U.S. from live-action to animation. EA’s major live-action titles include Japan Academy Awards winner “MEMORIES OF TOMORROW” (starring Ken Watanabe) and Oscar nominated director (with “THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI” in 2004) Yoji Yamada’s samurai film “LOVE AND HONOR” and EA is also known distributor of highly acclaimed animation titles such as “EVANGELION” franchise and “FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: THE SACRED STAR OF MILOS”. Official Website: www.elevenarts.net

The post Puella Magi Madoka Magica Movies to premiere in US theaters next month appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

The Kurumi arc comes to a conclusion and sets itself as the high point of the latter half of the first season. Setting aside all the mishaps, the show doesn’t want you to hate Kurumi. Amidst all the simple-minded characters, Kurumi is in fact the most complex. Her long standing unrequited relationship with Kazehaya drives her to the brink of sabotaging any other girl’s chances thereby keeping everyone on the same level.  I expected Kazehaya and Sawako to make strides in their relationship only for both parties awkwardness to take hold of each other. As a character, I found Kurumi perhaps a well-written character. Her innocent demeanor coupled with a manipulative, but fragile insecurity contrasts Sawako’s naive and optimistic nature. Ending with bittersweet confession, she ceases to become an integral part during the rest of the story despite becoming Sawako’s supposed love rival. Shifting the focus to Chizuru slows the series just a little bit back down. Learning about the love triangle between Ryuu, Chizuru and Toru.

Chizuru always liked Toru, but have been unable to confess to him. Knowing Toru’s many relationships, she knows they often don’t last. With Toru getting engaged, Chizuru faces the reality that he may not be there for her anymore.  helps Sawako to realize it is not only her who’s confused about her own feelings and sets new perspective her realtionship with Kazehaya. Even though it is obvious to everyone around them that the two clearly like each other. Mamiko Noto shines through as her signature voice lends Sawako her awkward, but innocence self. Her over analyzing and adorable inner monologues brim with whimsical to sometimes shock. Quite the riot indeed.

Production IG shines through with crisp clean animation with consistent quality even when changing styles and facial expressions. and a very appropriate soundtrack that helps set the slice-of-life tone of the show. The show ends with a bittersweet (I admit), unsatisfied conclusion and the relationship moves at a snail pace, but overall it is a marvelous piece of work that continues onward into Volume three.

The post Kimi ni Todoke: From me to you Vol.2 Premium Edition appeared first on Nerd Reactor.