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Aoba stormed into Kyoto Animation's No. 1 studio on July 18, 2019, and set it on fire. Many of the victims were believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. More than 30 other people were badly burned or injured. Judge Keisuke Masuda said Aoba had wanted to be a novelist but was unsuccessful and so he sought revenge, thinking that Kyoto Animation had stolen novels he submitted as part of a company contest, according to NHK national television. Aoba plotted the attacks after studying past criminal cases involving arson, the court said in the ruling, noting the process showed...

Republicans and other anti-grooming activists are seething after a photo resurfaced of Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman's family posing with a controversial anime character best known for enslaving a child. The photo, which Fetterman posted on Twitter in April 2019, shows the candidate's wife and three children posing with an exceedingly large man in a creepy demon mask and long black cloak. Experts familiar with the anime genre tell the Washington Free Beacon the masked individual was portraying the character Elias Ainsworth from the Japanese manga series The Ancient Magus' Bride. https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1117517185759547392?s=20&t=M5HnoEB1-vvva5Mk_kUh8g Fetterman claims to have been in Blair County,...

She’s not real — but his feelings are. A “fictosexual” man who wed a fictional, computer-synthesized pop singer four years ago said he’s now unable to communicate with his wife, but is still in love with her. Akihiko Kondo, 38, was dating Hatsune Miku — depicted in pop culture as a 16-year-old with turquoise hair — for a decade before they had an unofficial wedding ceremony in 2018. Kondo — one of many who identifies as “fictosexual,” or someone who is sexually attracted to fictional characters — spent 2 million yen, or about $17,300, on the nuptials, but his family...

The Minneapolis man who tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in one of the US’s first cases has spoken out, saying it had not “crossed my mind” that he might have been exposed to the virus. Peter McGinn, 30, who is fully vaccinated and received a booster shot, said he went out following the Anime NYC 2021 event at the Javits Center last month to a bar with several other vaccinated attendees, half of whom have since tested positive for the virus, ABC News reported. “I felt perfectly safe with the people that I was with, and so...

Fully automatic guns are illegal, but the ban on semi-automatics (of the kind used in the Orlando shootings) and related ammunition expired in 2004. That restriction should be revived; nobody needs what many call an assault rifle to hunt game or shoot clay pigeons. At the least, the size of the magazines should be limited, which could lessen the carnage of mass shootings.

Fire department officials in Kyoto said they have confirmed 33 people died in a suspected arson attack in Kyoto. They say 36 others were injured. The fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at the studio of Kyoto Animation. It took firefighters nearly five hours to extinguish the blaze. Officials say about 70 people were in the building at the time of the fire. Police say one suspect, believed to be in his 40s, has been taken into custody. The man was reportedly seen pouring a flammable liquid inside the building before it went up in flames. Witnesses also...

Most of the dead and the 36 injured were workers at Kyoto Animation, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls, with places featured in the stories even becoming “pilgrimage sites” for their fans. The fire started in the three-story building in Japan’s ancient capital after the suspect sprayed an unidentified liquid accelerant, Kyoto prefectural police and fire department officials said. Japanese media reported the fire might have been set near the front door, forcing people to find other exits and possibly delaying their escape. So far, 20 people were confirmed dead, including 12 on the first and second floors,...

You may not have heard of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but, among anime fans at least, it’s a pretty big deal. Originally a series of light novels, it follows the adventures of typical high schooler Kyon and the time-travel alien ESP club he is forced to help create by his beautiful if eccentric friend, the titular Haruhi. Since its original run in 2003, it has spawned 10 additional volumes, a film adaptation, several video games, and even its own religion, Haruhiism. It was first adapted into an anime back in 2006. The show only lasted three months but there...

CIA documents published by WikiLeaks show that the CIA kept a database of “Japanese style faces” to utilize in online forums. The WikiLeaks data dump, which consists of 8,761 files and documents, was taken from a high-security isolated network situated inside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Within the data dump a folder called “Japanese Style Faces” can be found. These consist of ASCII expressions designed to represent faces and emotions, commonly used on internet message boards to denote a particular reaction. Some of the faces are listed below.

A very enthusiastic Trump supporter from Japan. Enjoy the intelligent and fun, Yoko! A cross between Tokyo Rose and Ann Coulter :- )

Chinese Warned Dating Spies Is Risk Women Take With Foreign Men In New "Dangerous Love" Comic The Chinese warned dating spies is a risk women take with handsome foreign men. A new “dangerous love” poster was shared across government bulletin boards last Friday in honor of China’s National Security Education Day. Targeting mainly women government workers, the poster warned dating spies could be a real possibility through storytelling in a comic book-style format, according to ABC News on Tuesday. Making its way around the internet, the “dangerous love” poster is being called an odd way for the Chinese government...

I was told today that Ted Cruz's conservatism was moot because he is not eligible to run for president. I have also been told by others that true conservatives cannot win a general election. If that is true, then there is no winning, for even if you prevail by sacrificing values and principles to enlarge your "tent", you have won nothing. The truth is, regardless of Cruz's status, Cruz's conservatism is not moot anymore than the Founders ideas were moot. For if values and principles are moot, you can follow the law precisely and you have nothing. The Founders parted...

Once again the very desperate Donald Trump is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, now suggesting that Ted Cruz is worse than Hillary “when you think about it” because of his filing mistake with respect to the loan he took out to fund his Senate campaign in Texas:Donald Trump: Ted Cruz Is "Worse than Hillary, When You Think about It" (Video)You know who else thinks Cruz is worse than Hillary? The Republican establishment. I’ve said this before, that Trump fights exactly like the Republican Establishment fights when they have a conservative challenging a Republican incumbent. They will...

Lots of news on the anime front. Seems that Japanese animation will be hitting the US movie screens in the not to distant future. Ghost in the Shell live action. Robotech live action. Starblazers live action. Yamato 2199 Season 2 See below for links.

A man in Britain has been convicted for his fantasies. Robul Hoque, 39, was found guilty of downloading "prohibited images" of cartoon girls, some in school uniforms, doing dirty deeds. The fact that these manga drawings are available on legitimate sites did not sway the judge. Nor did the fact that—oh yeah—there were no actual humans in the pictures. No humans. So how old, exactly, is a cartoon? Is the cartoon 7, or 9, or just shy of 18? Trick question: A cartoon doesn't have an age, because a cartoon is never born. The life meter never started ticking. If...

Dressing up like Wolverine or Cersei Lannister is probably more fun than scouring the classifieds for menial jobs. Imagine you're a college graduate stuck in a perpetually lousy economy. That's a problem Japanese twenty-somethings have faced for more than 20 years. Two decades of stagnation after the collapse of the 1980s real-estate and stock bubbles — combined with labor laws making it tough to fire older workers — have relegated vast numbers of Japanese young adults to low-paying, temporary contract jobs. Many find themselves living with their parents well into their twenties and beyond, unmarried and childless. Then again, they...

Japan’s parliament has passed a law which bans possession of child pornography, but excludes sexually explicit depictions of children in comics, animation and computer graphics. […] The law provides for prison terms of up to one year and fines of up to 1 million yen ($9,800) for having pornographic photographs or videos of children. It allows a grace period of one year for people owning such materials to dispose of them. […] Child advocates and other critics of the new legislation say it is a long-overdue improvement, but are unhappy with the exclusion of depictions of sexual fantasies involving children...

“The Wind Rises” is the type of art film that typically speeds into the Oscar race. Critics at film festivals have swooned over its nuance. It delivers messages about turbulent modern times by examining traumatic events of the past. The film’s 72-year-old director and writer, Hayao Miyazaki, a cinematic giant, has said the ambitious animated picture will be his last, a final bow. ...................................................... One explanation for the sensitivity? Although “The Wind Rises” has a strong pacifist message, it is essentially a biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, an aeronautical engineer whose contribution to the world was a killing machine. His designs...

MOSCOW – Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications has banned the distribution of the Japanese “hentai” cartoons. Reason for banning are 13 episodes published on the Russian social network Vkontakte, Voice of Russia reported. Hentai is a genre of the Japanese animation (anime) which as basic elements contain erotic or pornographic scenes. First complaint on the anime Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications received in April, but at the time there were no competent experts of the cartoon evaluation available. As the result, outside experts made an expertise and rendered the verdict: hentai is a child pornography. Analyst...

It took awhile but they did it. The CGI is awesome and I do believe there is an English dub in the works. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-05-10/cg-captain-harlock-remake-has-international-dub-plans A quote from filmmaker James Cameron promoting the film was included on the site's front page. Cameron's involvement in the international version is not confirmed. The film will star actors Shun Oguri and Haruma Miura in the Japanese version, and will open in Japan on September 7.