“We will, absolutely, rebuild Shuri Castle” Okinawa governor promises after devastating fire

Castle’s main hall, two other buildings completely consumed by flames.

In the early hours of the morning on October 31, long before sunrise, the dark sky of Okinawa’s capital city Naha was lit by flames rising from Shuri Castle. A fire broke out at the historical site sometime around 2:30 a.m., and despite the efforts of over 100 firefighters who rushed to the scene, by the time the blaze was contained three buildings, including the castle’s main hall, had burned completely to the ground, with another three structures also severely damaged.

Shuri Castle is unique among Japan’s traditional strongholds in that it incorporates a mix of Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian influences. As such, it’s a reflection of the special mixture of heritages that gave birth to Okinawan culture itself, and the fire was a traumatic shock to the prefecture’s people. On the afternoon of October 31, Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki held a press conference at the prefectural capital building, where he addressed his constituents’ pain and assured them that the beloved landmark is not gone forever.

“Many people have contacted us to say they want the castle rebuilt as soon as possible. We will, absolutely, rebuild Shuri Castle,” Tamaki promised. Describing the destruction as “the loss of a fundamental element of our identity,” the governor made immediate plans to travel to Tokyo, where he will begin a series of meetings with federal government figures and agencies including the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (of ultra-luxurious pancake fame).

“The residents of Okinawa, as well as people of Okinawan descent throughout the world, feel a great sense of loss, and I will be asking the [federal] government to provide as much cooperation as possible,” Tamaki said. The governor also let it be known that his office is in the process of establishing a special bank account to accept donations, both domestic and international, for the restoration of the castle.

While the project will be a massive undertaking, all of Shuri Castle’s original buildings had been destroyed or dismantled by 1945 at the latest. Both the structures lost in the October 31 fire and those still standing are modern reconstructions, and so with enough effort and support, Shuri Castle can be rebuilt once again.

Source: Okinawa Times via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Wikipedia/663highland
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Japanese Hermione cosplayer goes with something much more terrifying for Halloween【Photos】

So…so many teeth. Dear God, why are there so many teeth?!?

This year, Halloween in Japan seemed just a little more kid and family-friendly. The public drinking ban in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood, where the country’s biggest Halloween gatherings occur, kept things a lot less rowdy than they were a year ago, and an ever-increasing number of preschools and daycare centers had bright, colorful parties for the little tykes.

And hey, there’s nothing wrong with a softer, gentler Halloween, right? You can still show off your fun costuming skills without getting dark and gruesome. Look at, for example, this great Hermione costume from Japanese cosplayer Angelica (@angelica_30_w on Twitter). That’d be a great, wholesome Halloween getup, right?

Except, when Halloween night rolled around, Angelica decided to go with something just a bit scarier.

Oh, sorry, did we say “a bit” scarier? We meant “oh dear lord what is that nonononono” scarier. “It’s impossible to have anything but drinks,” Angelica said of her costume while tweeting with her cafe pics, but we think it’d be equally hard for us to eat anything in the presence of her Alice in Haunt-your-nightmares-forever-land outfit, on account of all the terror vomiting we’d be doing.

While all those teeth are definitely the first things that stick out, if you’ve got the courage to take a closer look, you’ll start to notice plenty of other depraved details, like the milky white eyes and the fact that she no longer has any nostrils, with those gnashing fangs having apparently torn off all the flesh below her cheekbones.

▼ Is…is she going to eat that owl???

While Angelica’s Harry Potter cosplay proves she can impress without scaring us to tears, she’s definitely got a knack for the creepier side of cosplay, as some of her other projects show.

Now please excuse as we go turn on all the lights in our house and check under the bed multiple times.

Source: Twitter/@ angelica_30_w via Otakomu
Featured image: Twitter/@ angelica_30_w
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Gundam creator thinks Makoto Shinkai anime need more female crotch grabbing and/or horniness

”Shinkai-kun is still young, so that’s why he can make that sort of anime.”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about just what’s made anime director Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and Weathering with You such huge hits, and I’ve got a theory: Shinkai’s recent films are successes because they can be highly entertaining to a huge swath of the movie-going audience. The polished visuals are appealing to hard-core anime fans, but the character and costume designs aren’t so outlandishly otaku-trendy as to alienate mainstream viewers. Likewise, the films have compelling supernatural elements, but they’re not pandering power fantasies. The magic is there to lead the characters to emotional discoveries, not vice-versa, so you don’t need to have studied an encyclopedia’s worth of lore and attack names to understand what’s going on.

Give Shinkai an hour and a half or so of your time, and he’ll give you laughs, thrills, mystery, and romance, all wrapped up in a package that looks and sounds great. But you know what he won’t give you? A scene where the female lead gets finger-banged (at the very least figuratively), which is apparently a nigh-unforgivable omission in the eyes of Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino.

Speaking in an interview published in the November 4 edition of Japan’s Weekly Playboy magazine, Tomino gave some of his thoughts on the anime from Shinkai as well as Kyoto Animation, describing the two as sources of anime that are “dominating” the industry, saying:

“I think of them thoroughly as rivals. For people of my generation, you don’t have to make an anime out of stories like theirs, that feel like an autobiographical novel. Especially with Shinkai anime, it’s all about ‘me’ (the main character) and ‘that girl’ (the female lead) reaching out their hands to each other…it’s so long and drawn-out.”

▼ Tomino’s interview

On one hand, a sense of rivalry, even if he’s the only one feeling it, is nothing new for Tomino, who, despite being one of the most influential anime directors ever, is still vexed by his inability to “crush Hayao Miyazaki.” Tomino’s specific beef with Shinkai anime has a rather unexpected taste, though. When the interviewer pointed out that Shinkai’s focus on the love between two people changing the world is a defining trope of anime’s “sekai-kei” genre, which Shinkai’s works are often considered a part of, Tomino responded with:

“Be that as it may, no matter what they do [in Shinkai anime], the main character’s hand never reaches the chick’s (the female lead’s) crotch, so why should they be satisfied?”

However, that’s not to say that Tomino absolutely needs to see Your Name’s Taki and Mitsuha or Weathering with You’s Hodaka and Hina join their predecessors Space Battleship Yamato’s Susumu and Yuki as characters who bone during an anime movie. But if Shinkai’s stars aren’t going to do the deed, Tomino at least wants that lack of physical intimacy to be reflected in their on-screen relationship, going on to say:

“It’s not a satisfying situation, and I want the anime to properly depict that. But hey, Shinkai-kun is still young, so that’s why he can make that sort of anime.”

Setting aside the subtle jab of referring to Shinkai with the diminutive -kun suffix, Tomino seems to be overlooking something from Shinkai’s biggest hit. Your Name‘s plot hinges on its two leads switching bodies, and we’re shown, on multiple occasions, that every time Taki wakes up in Mitsuha’s body, the first thing he does is lovingly fondle her breasts for an extended period of time before getting out of bed.

▼ Trailer for Your Name

It’s also worth noting that while love and longing is a central element in almost all of Shinkai’s works, his films don’t fall 100-percent into the romance category. The lead characters’ relationship usually builds in step with some looming crisis, which comes to a head at roughly the exact moment the two declare their love for each other. Sure, sexual intimacy and compatibility is an important part of a mature romantic connection, but when the fate of the world has just been decided, no one in the theater wants to sit around and watch an awkward denouement where the newly formed couple bickers over how much foreplay is the best amount, or whether they both have the same preference regarding doing the deed at night or in the morning. “The world didn’t end, and the reason why is because these two realize they love each other” is the story Shinkai generally sets out to tell, and the nitty-gritty details of the characters’ sex lives isn’t really something that’s needed, or that there’s time for, in his single-shot movies.

▼ While we’re on the subject, the fact that Shinkai and his wife have a seven-year-old daughter, child actress Chise Niitsu, is pretty solid proof that he understands a thing or two about physical intimacy.

As salty as Tomino may sound, he’s at least willing to acknowledge all that sweet, sweet ticket sale revenue Shinkai’s films produce. “And then [Shinkai] anime go on to make over 10 billion yen at the box office,” he says. “But ‘Wait, isn’t that strange?’ is the question that Gundam Reconguista in G asks in objection.”

For those who’ve forgotten, Gundam Reconguista in G is a Tomino-directed-and-written arm of the Gundam franchise that started out as a TV series in 2014 and was met with a mixture of criticism and indifference from reviewers and audiences, but which is now being reworked as a movie series, with its first installment scheduled to come out on November 29.

Oddly enough, shortly before its premier Tomino boldly asserted that “Preexisting fans of Gundam won’t be able to understand it…I’m not making this for you, so please show it to your children and grandchildren,” and also that “We can’t expect anything from people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s,” so it’s odd to hear him now switch gears and criticize Shinkai and Kyoto Animation, whose works are extremely popular with teens, for telling stories that Tomino claims his (older) generation of anime fans doesn’t feel need to be animated. But hey, if there’s one thing you can expect from the father of modern anime sci-fi war stories, it’s a constant willingness to pick a fight with anyone and everyone, though given Shinkai’s surprisingly sharp comeback capability, he might want to be careful this time.

Source: Twitter/@Meimi1031 via Yaraon via Anime News Network/Kim Morrissy
Top image: YouTube/東宝MOVIEチャンネル
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We hit Japan’s biggest Halloween party poorly dressed as Japan’s hottest beverage

SoraNews24: Where amazing ideas are horribly executed, and horrible ideas are amazingly executed.

If one were to look back at the year 2019, few things would stand out quite as much as the “tapioca” wave that took Japan by storm. The milky tea filled with balls of tapioca goes by many names and is nothing new, but for some reason it has suddenly become the big thing here for both young and old.

So, it was a no-brainer that the SoraNews24 team decided to dress up as the drink for this year’s gathering in Shibuya. In fact, the decision had been made months ago. However, no one did anything about it until 31 October.

Tasked with slapping together some sort of tapioca-themed costume for that same evening, Mr. Sato first bought some cheap soccer ball hats.

However, as they exist in the wild, tapioca balls don’t have pentagons, so Mr. Sato spray painted them black. Time was of the essence, however, so he could only give each one a quick, single coat.

Meanwhile, the others painted their faces black to complete the tapioca ball look. Luckily, mother nature provided the tea portion of the costume with each writer’s natural creamy skin tone.

When completed, everything came together rather poorly. It somehow registered below even a half-assed attempt. It was like a solid sixteenth-assed job at best.

▼ “Totally not tapioca”

At the very least, our five-man Halloween crew of Yoshio, P.K., Ahiruneko, Seiji, and Mr. Sato ended up looking slightly more like tapioca than soccer balls, so hopefully there wouldn’t be too much confusion.

On the street, everyone felt a little uneasier than usual. This wasn’t the first time they’ve gone out in shoddy outfits, but this one was especially poorly thought out and each member was constantly wondering if anyone would “get it.”

They then decided to stop by one of Tokyo’s roughly two-gagillion tapioca vendors to buy some and really drive the costume’s concept home. It would also give them something to do with their hands rather than fidget nervously in their pockets, which is not a good look for a shirtless guy.

Luckily, this particular shop didn’t have a no-shoes-no-shirt-no-service rule so they equipped our half-naked reporters with their bubble teas.

With renewed confidence, the five tapiocas set off for Shibuya. They even walked by the local police box with a bold swagger.

▼ Nothing to see here officer, just a bunch of guys who like really sweet tea.

Their self-confidence peaked at the station and as they walked through the corridor, they no longer felt like old men wearing crudely spray painted soccer balls on their heads. They were tapioca.

Shibuya wasn’t going to know what hit it…either literally or figuratively.

The guys didn’t really know what to expect this year. After the notorious truck-flipping of last year’s event, the city clamped down on alcohol consumption. It was quite possible that this regulation would have turned most people off.

However, when they emerged from the station…

In the sea of people there were many dressed up, but it seemed like the crowd was made up largely of foreign tourists and people with cameras looking to take pictures of costumed party-goers.

Every few meters our boys walked, someone shouted out asking to take a picture, and when they did other people with cameras swarmed around.

There were a few confused remarks of “Wha?” but once people saw the milk tea in our writers’ hands it was soon followed by, “Oooohhhh, tapioca!”

Thankfully people were getting it. More than that though, people were loving it. The guys could barely move without getting stopped and asked for photos.

This year’s gathering was a little different though. Rather than crowds of people lingering here and there, the numerous police officers were keeping everyone moving. In this way each impromptu photoshoot had to be brief before a cop would tell everyone to get going.

As for our raggedy costumes, they were a smash hit. Despite the inherent terribleness of them, our guys had tapped into the zeitgeist of this Halloween and reaped the fame and adoration that came with it.

Eventually, the team was exhausted from sucking in their guts for all those pictures and decided to call it a night. Back at the office, everyone helped each other remove their spots.

This Halloween had been a rousing success, but next year was to be an Olympic year, promising an even bigger celebration. We will be ready though, and vow to prepare costumes at least a few days in advance…probably.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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We’re going to see Pikachu as a baby in the new Pokémon anime!【Video】

”This is the very beginning of the entire story.”

In the very first Pokémon anime episode, aspiring Pokémon Master Ash is given a Pikachu by Professor Oak. But wait a second… Professor Oak is a scientist, not a breeder, right? It’s not like Pikachu was born right there in the lab, so where was he before that?

It looks like we’re about to find out.

With the Alola League tournament having crowned its champion and the Sun and Moon segment of the Pokémon anime wrapping up, it’s time for the animated series to transition into a new arc. Premiering this month, the upcoming Pokémon anime will simply be called Pocket Monsters, the unfettered name the anime originally had way back in 1997.

The producers are yet to release much in the way of story details, but have revealed that at least the first episode of the 2019 Pocket Monster anime will take place before the first episode of the 1997 Pocket Monster anime. The new episode is titled “The Birth of Pikachu,” and its teaser description reads:

“In a forest somewhere in the Kanto Region, there was a Pichu who was all alone. When this Pichu was still just a young child, it met someone, but then they parted ways. This happened a short while before Ash and his partner Pikachu set out on their journey.”

▼ Animated preview for the new Pocket Monster series, with a very important-looking Pichu at the seven-second mark.

For those who have been failed by their local school systems that don’t adequately cover Pokémon biology in their curriculum, Pichus are part of the Pikachu evolution chain. It’s weird to think about it now, but the creators of Pokémon actually underestimated how endearingly cute Pikachu was.

Like just about all species, Pikachu can evolve into a stronger form (called Raichu in Pikachu’s case), but more powerful Pokémon naturally have a more powerful appearance, which means they look less cute. Nobody wanted to see Pikachu evolve into Raichu, and so eventually Pokémon’s designers went in the other direction, making the rare move of adding a new species that’s a less-evolved version of an existing Pokémon with Pichu, one step below Pikachu on the evolution tree.

▼ The presence in the video of Ash’s grown-up Pikachu (seen here getting kicked in the face by Sword and Shield starter Pokémon Scorbunny) suggests there  might a time-skip occurring at some point in the new anime.

Pichu was added as part of the second-generation of Pokémon species, but since Ash’s Pikachu was already on the second tier of its evolution path, we never got to see the Pikachu as a baby Pichu. The description, though, and especially the title “The Birth of Pikachu” (plus that it’s almost certainly Pikachu voice actress Ikue Otani voicing the Pichu in the video) sure makes it seem like that’s what we’ll be seeing when it airs on November 17 on broadcaster TV Tokyo.

Source: Twitter/@anipoke_PR via Jin
Images: YouTube/ポケモン公式
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Shibuya Halloween: 9 people arrested for theft, assault, and groping【Pics & Videos】

Insane crowds caused a standstill on Shibuya streets as police kept partygoers in line. 

Thousands of revellers took to the streets of Shibuya last night for Tokyo’s most notorious unofficial Halloween street party. Following last year’s ruckus, where people were arrested for overturning a truck, Shibuya officials were keen to prevent those scenes from recurring this year, with hundreds of police and private security teams out in force to keep the crowds under control.

They even brought out the heavy equipment, using trucks rarely seen in everyday situations.

This year at the Halloween street party there were girls in skimpy outfits…

▼ A guy dressed as a Tenga cup…

▼ Anime girls…

▼ Chiitan…

▼ And Kim Jong Un, with his finger on the red button.

However, what really surprised everyone was the crowds. There appeared to be many more people at the event this year, which may be due in part to the Rugby World Cup bringing more international tourists to Japan at the moment.

Shibuya is pretty popular at any time of the year, but last night the crowds were on a whole other level.

It was shoulder-to-shoulder outside the station, with people saying it took over ten minutes to walk across the Shibuya Scramble Crossing from the station gates.

▼ A view of the scramble crossing, with the station complex behind it.

All the streets leading to the scramble crossing were packed.

Despite the widespread ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in the area, there were still reports of nuisance on the night. However, with over 6,000 people gathering in the area for Halloween, this year only nine arrests were made.

According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the nine arrested were all young males, including an 18-year-old man, who put his hand up a woman’s skirt and touched her body, a 22-year-old college student who got into a heated quarrel with a riot officer, a man who slapped a store clerk across the face, and a man who stole a wallet from a trouser pocket.

As you can see in this video below, though, it takes a lot for police to arrest people. Even these youths who rode through the city on the bonnet of a car and then tussled with police after they were stopped weren’t immediately handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police vehicle.

Thankfully, however, the only hint of truck-toppling on the night came when this guy was spotted cosplaying as the toppled truck from last year.

Whether it was due to the police presence, the strict ban on alcohol sales and consumption in the area, or possibly a combination of the two, everybody today breathed a sigh of relief that there weren’t any major scenes of chaos on the streets of Shibuya this Halloween.

Let’s hope this new trend continues, and with bubble tea cosplay bringing couples together and cosplay cleanup crews restoring our faith in humanity, Shibuya Halloween may just be turning a corner with an improved image for future years.

Source: NHK via Otakomu  
Featured image: Twtter/@tomostarshi
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