Thursday, June 26, 2014

Japan’s Artistic Manhole Covers...

Japan is a country full of amazing art - as we all know. Some of it is found in museums and galleries and in their Anime and Manga, while others are right underneath our feet.

I’m talking, of course, about Japan’s peculiar obsession with manhole covers...


Just about anywhere in the country you can find stylized manhole covers, each more beautiful and intricate than the next. According to the Japan Society of Manhole Covers (yes, that’s a real organization) today there are almost 6000 artistic manhole covers throughout Japan. For the past several years photographer S. Morita has traveled around Japan photographing these artistic manhole covers.

Morita has posted hundreds of his manhole cover photo's here to his Flickr account. Please check them out, some of them are absolutely incredible!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Section 23's October 2014 Anime Releases - Now Available for Pre-Order!

Section 23 just sent over their October 2014 Anime release schedule and we now have them up on the store site for pre-order! Here's what's coming:

Bodacious Space Pirates Complete Collection DVD (Eps #1-26) - Oct 7
Bodacious Space Pirates Complete Collection BLURAY (Eps #1-26) - Oct 7
Rozen Maiden : Zuruckspulen DVD (Eps #1-13) - Oct 7
Fate/Stay Night Complete Collection BLURAY Set (Eps #1-24) - Oct 14
Kill Me Baby Complete Collection BLURAY (Eps #1-13) - Oct 14
Meganebu! Complete Collection DVD (Eps #1-12) - Oct 14
Meganebu! Complete Collection BLURAY (Eps #1-12) - Oct 14
Sunday Without God Complete Collection DVD (Eps #1-13) - Oct 21
Sunday Without God Complete Collection BLURAY (Eps #1-13) - Oct 21
Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East Season 2 Collection DVD (Eps #14-26) - Oct 28
Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East Season 2 Collection BLURAY (Eps #14-26) - Oct 28

Funimation Delays Ben-To Until Further Notice

As announced in last Fridays newsletter, Funimation has delayed the release of Ben-To (originally scheduled for July) until further notice with a new date TBA:

"We have realized that there are inconsistencies associated with the materials used to create the release. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause fans who are eager to see this series, but we want to ensure that the product we are releasing is to the highest standard that our fans expect. We will provide a new release date once it becomes available."

We're going to continue to leave the title up for pre-order with a TBA date, and we're also going to keep all existing pre-orders open for it for now, but I just wanted to let everyone know that the inside word is that Ben-To is now unlikely to be released this year, so please don't add it to a new order with other stuff as a hold expecting it to be circling back around in a couple of months.

And as always, if you already have an order in for it and want to make a change, just drop us a line and let us know.

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Monday, June 02, 2014

Little Golden Manga...

...by Matt Reedy:


Matt Reedy, an artist in Alton, Illinois, is developing a series that he calls Little Golden Manga. It shows the covers of Japanese comic books as if they were part of the classic Little Golden Books series. I remember my folks teaching me to read with books from the Little Golden Books series when I was 3 or 4 years old.

That was a LONG time ago... -_^