
'Demon Slayer' tops ¥10 bil at Japan box office in record 8 days
The latest film, "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba 'Infinity Castle -- Part 1: Akaza Returns'" sold more than 9.10 million tickets and earned 12.87 billion yen in box office revenue in the 10 days since its release on July 18, Aniplex Inc. said.
The film had already set a record by earning 5.52 billion yen in its first three days, eclipsing the 4.62 billion yen recorded by the previous Demon Slayer film released in 2020.
The manga, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2016 to 2020, tells the story of Tanjiro Kamado, an adolescent boy who battles human-eating demons while searching for a cure for his sister, who has turned into one.
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SoraNews24
3 hours ago
- SoraNews24
New service lets you get calls from anime magical girls to say goodnight and that they love you
PreCure offer encouragement and praise for a monthly price. Every magical girl anime series has its own distinguishing hook, twist, or quirk, but something that almost all of them share is a positive atmosphere. Sure, there have been a handful of dark deconstructions of the genre, but if we're talking about classic, orthodox aspects of magical girl series, the heroines are symbols of hope, embodying the attitude that as long as you believe in yourself and your friends, things will turn out all right in the end. And for those who need a more direct pep talk, there's now a service where the stars of the biggest contemporary magical girl anime will call you on the phone to encourage, comfort, and even say they love you. Earlier this year, Pretty Cure, a.k.a. PreCure, started its newest arc, You and Idol Pretty Cure, introducing a cast of five new magical girls. Now Toei Animation and Media Active are getting ready to launch the Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone service ( moshimoshi being the standard telephone greeting in Japanese). To use the app, you select which character you'd like to receive a phone call from, and also what kind of mood has you wanting to hear from them, after which they'll call you back. Options include 'I want to be praised,' which could get you a call in which your favorite Cure tells you how proud she is of you for doing your best. 'I want to be cheered up,' might instead have the magical girl reassuring you by saying that she's always on your side. There's also 'I want to be encouraged,' as well as morning wakeup calls and before-bed good night calls. Preview images also include the selection 'Fan service for you♡' followed by the phrase ' Daisuki da yo ,' which can mean either 'I love you' or 'I like you a lot,' depending on context. These aren't AI-generated messages, either, as the designers say the PreCure voice actresses have recorded new dialogue lines for Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone . It should be pointed out that the Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone website describes it as a 'virtual phone' app, since the whole thing runs though the Internet, not the phone network. Still, the interface is designed in a way that mimics the operations and visuals of a phone call to cultivate a sense of immersion. Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone is free to download, and users have access to a 'You kept your promise' call from the Cures for free as well. However, the majority of the service requires a subscription, with two tiers available. For 330 yen (US$2.30) a month, the Moshimoshi Course provides full access to calls from one character of the user's choice, while stepping up to the 660-yen-a-month Motto! Moshimoshi Course gives full access to all five Cures, plus a bonus cafe mini game. New wakeup calls are scheduled to be added every month. The ostensible target market of the PreCure franchise is adolescent and younger girls. However, as is sometimes the case with such anime, there's also an adult male fanbase, and some online commenters have been wondering if maybe that's who Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone is really targeting, seeing as how most of the kids who watch PreCure are too young to have their own smartphone. Considering that the You and Idol Pretty Cure cast are the franchise's 20th generation of magical girls, it would seem like there's also plenty of potential to draw in more subscribers by including characters from much farther back in the anime's 21-year history further down the line. In any case, there's no official upper-age restriction mentioned on the app's iOS or Android pages (here and here), though, so grown-up fans are apparently free to enjoy Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone too, with the service scheduled to launch on September 1. Source: PR Times, Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone official website, Jin Top image: PR Times Insert images: Google Play, PR Times ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!


Yomiuri Shimbun
9 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Participants Showcase Japanese Calligraphy Skills at Event in Japan; Event Organizer Hopes to Pass Japanese Calligraphy on to Future Generations
KANAZAWA — About 390 people took part in a calligraphy event in which calligraphers displayed their skills in the traditional Japanese art, in Kanazawa. The event was organized by the Japan Shodo Culture Association, an entity engaged in promoting Japanese calligraphy, in an effort to pass the art on to future generations. Serving as instructors were Token Nishimura and Hisako Shida, both of whom are members of The Yomiuri Shohokai, an organization of calligraphers; and Daiun Tsujimoto, a member of the association. The event was held at Ishikawa Ongakudo's Hougaku Hall on July 12. The three calligraphers displayed their skills, writing messages wishing for the recovery of the Noto Peninsula following the major earthquake and torrential rain that hit the area. They also produced works based on themes from haiku and waka poems as well as Chinese books, which mention cherry blossoms. 'Today, we don't have as many opportunities to write [by hand] due to the internet,' said a 30-year-old man, who holds calligraphy classes in Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture. 'But I think it's necessary to convey the attractiveness of writing.'


The Mainichi
16 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Edging Toward Japan: The Japanese soul of John Lennon
I was watching recently the 1988 documentary film "Imagine: John Lennon" about the short, memorable life (1940-80) of the famous rock musician. The former Beatle has legions of fans across the world, though I never particularly counted myself as one of them. But of late I have become quite intrigued by aspects of John Lennon which do not really seem to feature in public consciousness. I am greatly fascinated by the mountain resort of Karuizawa -- Tokyo's cool retreat from the oppressive summer heat and teeming with secluded, wooded residences. It's a place I try to get to whenever I can. John Lennon is said to have visited Karuizawa during the last three summers of his life and stayed each time at the historic Mampei Hotel, deeply nestled in the forests there. John Lennox's connection with Karuizawa seems to be relatively little known -- it is not mentioned at all in the "Imagine" film and when I asked quite a knowledgeable Japanese friend about it, he said he had never heard about it. I discovered an article in a local Karuizawa magazine, which noted that Lennon liked to visit the Shiraito Waterfall and the Usui Pass Lookout point in Karuizawa, and that he is reputed to have taught the recipe for "Royal Milk Tea" to the head waiter at the Mampei Hotel. Lennon appeared to enjoy the simple life in Karuizawa, eating apple pie in the hotel cafe and wandering over to the French bakery on the main street to buy baguettes. This was all at a period of Lennon's life when he was prioritizing spending time with his infant son Sean (born in 1975) with his Japanese wife Yoko Ono. I was curious to know more about the Japanese life of John Lennon. When on a recent trip from my home in Kansai, I was excited to see from Google Maps that a hotel (the Metropole Hotel, Omiya) I was staying at outside Tokyo just happened to be immediately next to the John Lennon Museum. But when I got to the hotel, I discovered to my disappointment that the museum had in fact closed down in 2010. Apparently, Yoko Ono had cooperated in the opening of the museum in 2000 to commemorate Lennon's 60th anniversary and had lent many papers and artefacts relating to the musician, but the museum had existed for a mere 10 years. What everyone seems to know about John Lennon in his final years is that he lived in New York (where he was assassinated in December 1980) and that he often spoke of his love of that city. In the "Imagine" film, Yoko Ono shrewdly observed that Lennon saw in New York a larger, more cosmopolitan version of his home city of Liverpool. Both port cities drew in influences from around the world and had the comforting familiarity of the docks. In other words, the seeds of Lennon's final positioning in New York were sown in his Liverpool upbringing. That may be true, but I also think that the seeds of his final positioning in a hotel in the woods of Karuizawa, Japan, were also buried far deeper than we might think. There is a general tendency to assume that Lennon's connection with Japan was the almost accidental product of his having fallen in love with Yoko Ono. But I perceive it differently. If you find yourself living with a Japanese woman in New York and spending your summers in Japan, then it is reasonable to assume that there is something about Japan which is calling out to you. When Lennon became regularly sequestered in the mountains of Japan, I don't see that as an accidental occurrence, but the consequence of some inner yearning. It's curious that when chronicling and analyzing the lives of artists, biographers often ignore the parts of their psyche with which they have little familiarity or understanding. The great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, for example, was utterly obsessed during the last years of his life with the 1906 novel "Kusamakura" ("The Three Cornered World") by Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki and kept the book alongside the Bible by his bedside. He once read the entire novel on consecutive evenings over the phone to his cousin, and broadcast a chapter from it on his radio show. Yet if you read a biography of Glenn Gould, you are unlikely to see this mentioned at all or else quickly dismissed as a piece of "eastern mysticism". Similarly, for me, while New York represents the public face of John Lennon in his final years, the more hidden, private space was occupied by Japan and Karuizawa. I sometimes walk the streets of Liverpool and stand outside the Cavern Club where the Beatles first found fame, and walk down to the statue of the Fab Four on the dockside. John Lennon will always belong in some form or other to Liverpool. But in ways that are not yet fully understood, I feel the ultimate destination of Lennon's soul-searching life story were the quiet forests of Karuizawa, Japan. How those Karuizawa woods might have impacted his music in the 1980s had he lived a little longer is a subject that is fascinating to imagine. @DamianFlanagan (This is Part 67 of a series) In this column, Damian Flanagan, a researcher in Japanese literature, ponders about Japanese culture as he travels back and forth between Japan and Britain. Profile: Damian Flanagan is an author and critic born in Britain in 1969. He studied in Tokyo and Kyoto between 1989 and 1990 while a student at Cambridge University. He was engaged in research activities at Kobe University from 1993 through 1999. After taking the master's and doctoral courses in Japanese literature, he earned a Ph.D. in 2000. He is now based in both Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and Manchester. He is the author of "Natsume Soseki: Superstar of World Literature" (Sekai Bungaku no superstar Natsume Soseki).