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13m ago
Kodansha USA Publishing announced new licenses and Kodansha Print Club releases on Thursday. The Print Club slate has seven titles, among them Moyashi Fujisawa's Burn the House Down and When Arika Went Missing, Shikako and Tsukasa Monma's Manchuria Opium Squad, and two Daisuke Igarashi books, Kamakura Bakeneko Club: Uncanny Cat Tales and Umwelt and Other Stories. The other licenses include Jackpot Girls, Powerless Without You, and Occult Times.
21h ago
MissionTime's VTuber agency REPLAY LIVE will run a limited-time event, Replay Halloween -2026-, built around 16 affiliated talents. Sales open October 15 on the Replay BOOTH store with ten kinds of Halloween goods sets, connectable garlands, and sixteen can badge designs. A made-to-order all-members mini wall hanging is also offered. On October 31 only, an original voice drama, Who Stole the Candy!?, goes on sale.
21h ago
Gen Hoshino and Yui Aragaki announced on Tuesday the birth of their first child in a joint statement released through their respective agencies. The two co-starred as Hiramasa and Mikuri Tsuzaki in the 2016 live-action adaptation of Tsunami Umino's The Full-Time Wife Escapist manga, and reunited for a sequel special in January 2021. They announced their marriage in May 2020.
1d ago
Nintendo began streaming an overview trailer on Wednesday for its Nintendo Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and opened preorders ahead of a November 5 launch. The trailer introduces the Hall of Fallen Foes, an area where statues of defeated enemies let players rematch bosses. The remake adds traditional camera controls, motion controls, a jump button, and a roll dash action. An item can be equipped to the ZR button and swapped through a pop-up menu. A Threads of Time menu recaps the story and shows the next objective, and time now passes in town. Players can hum into the Switch 2 microphone to play music in-game, and the game recognizes music from a purchasable ocarina. The game supports the Zelda Notes function in the Nintendo Switch App, including Today's Record, Gossip Quests, and an Ocarina of Time Quiz with over 2,000 questions. New amiibo for Young Link and Young Zelda ship in 2027. The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition Switch 2 console, Pro Controller, and carrying case ship on October 29.
1d ago
ThinkingAI will hold the ThinkingAI Summit 2026 Tokyo on November 10, 2026, at City Hall & Gallery Gotanda in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, with attendance limited to 300. Speakers include Takara Tomy, Bushiroad, Mirrativ, Imagineer, Betimo, South Korea's Underdog Games, and China's Duoniu Technology, plus Yoichiro Miyake of Tokyo University of the Arts, who gives the keynote. Ten lectures are planned for the day.
1d ago
Prime 1 Studio will release a Justice League (Comic) Batman 'Advanced Suit' White Ver. statue designed by concept artist Josh Nizzi, part of the Ultimate Museum Masterline line. The polystone piece stands 50.8cm tall, 29cm wide and 27.6cm deep, weighs about 6.3kg, and includes a special base and a detachable fabric cape. The chest has an LED light-up function. Edition size is 300, priced at 139,590 yen, scheduled for release around February to May 2028.
2d ago
The official THE IDOLM@STER account announced on October 13 that Ranko Kanzaki, Mirai Kasuga and Kaho Komiya will appear as guest idols in the first performance of 765 PRODUCTION x 961 PRODUCTION IDOL ULTIMATE ONCE AND FOR ALL. The show, titled TO:STARLIT OF PROMISE, is set for Keio Arena TOKYO on July 24, 2027.
2d ago
Serafini Productions and Eye Blink Twice released the psychological horror game Time To Wake Up | Time to Wake for PC and PS5. The game is set in a dream prison where the player wakes at midnight but cannot return to reality. A mysterious voice offers a contract: the player lends their eyes in exchange for help uncovering the truth of the dream. Blinking collapses and rebuilds the world, and the player's gaze is the key to escaping.
2d ago
Richard Garriott has begun the process to reclaim the Ultima copyright he transferred to Electronic Arts when EA acquired Origin Systems in 1992. Under Section 203 of the U.S. Copyright Act, a grant can be terminated 35 to 40 years after transfer, and Garriott said he can reclaim the rights in 2027. EA told him it will follow the law and return them.
5d ago
Sazae-san led the Japanese animation TV rankings for September 14-20 with a 6.6% rating, followed by Detective Conan at 6.3% and Chibi Maruko-chan at 4.6%. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime season 4 posted a 3.1%. A live-action A Solitary Gourmet marathon re-airing on TV Tokyo scored 4.5%, while The Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko earned 0.8% on NHK Educational.
5d ago
Gohgo, who writes, composes, and directs the total stage production for the virtual artist duo HIMEHINA at Studio LaRa, told PANORA in an interview that he handled Nico Nico Cho Party stage direction from 2012 to 2016. He said viewers of HIMEHINA's October 4 grand finale compared its glass-break staging to a 2015 Cho Party moment he made with an MMD team.
5d ago
Dengeki Hobby Web's roundup of Amazon.co.jp's Kindle manga sales ranking for October 9, 2026 lists the top 20 comic volumes. The newest entries of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Kyouran Reijou Nia Liston and Grand Blue rank among the week's top sellers, alongside volumes of Aho Girl spin-off Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic, The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun and Laid-Back Camp. The article also notes pre-orders for Bookworm Part 4 Volume 13 and Shangri-La Frontier Volume 28.
6d ago
The Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, set for release on November 5, 2026, carries a CERO B rating (ages 12 and up) with four content icons: Sexual, Violence, Fear, and Crime. The Nintendo 64 original and the 3DS version Ocarina of Time 3D were both rated CERO A for all ages. The US ESRB rating is E10+, the same as the 3DS version, but it drops the Suggestive Themes descriptor.
Oct 8
GKIDS will screen the live-action film of Makoto Shinkai's 5 Centimeters per Second in North American theaters starting October 23. The company streamed an English-subtitled trailer and says home video details will come later this year. The film opened in Japan in October 2025, sold 278,000 tickets and earned 420 million yen (about US$2.78 million) in its first three days, and ranked at #2 in its opening weekend.
Oct 8
Prime 1 Studio opened preorders on October 8 for a 1/4-scale Reze/Bomb statue from Chainsaw Man: The Movie: Reze Arc, part of its Ultimate Premium Masterline line. The standard edition costs 187,990 yen. A DX version at 238,590 yen adds a Bom upper body, two dynamite bundles, and a bust stand. A DX Bonus version adds a right-arm part for the pin-pulling pose and is handled in Japan only through Prime 1 Studio's official online store. Preorders close December 8, with release set for around February to May 2028.
Oct 8
AMATA Games announced on October 8 that the Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S versions of SNØ: Ultimate Freeriding arrive on October 29. Studio Gauntlet's downhill skiing game launched on Steam in February 2025 and holds an Overwhelmingly Positive rating there. The Switch 2 version costs 1,600 yen with tax, while the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions cost 1,650 yen. A 20 percent launch sale runs for two weeks from release, with the PlayStation Store discount limited to PlayStation Plus members.
Oct 8
Netflix's The Father Misadventure of Cliff Booth, starring Brad Pitt as stuntman Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, gets a limited IMAX run from November 25 to December 10. Quentin Tarantino wrote the script and David Fincher directs. The story moves from 1969 to 1977 Hollywood, with Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Peter Weller in the cast.
Oct 8
Timekettle opened Makuake pre-orders for the W4 Plus, its latest set of AI interpreting earbuds, on October 8. The earbuds handle face-to-face two-way interpretation, phone and web conference interpretation, and audio/video translation, with AI meeting minutes generated after a conversation. Online interpretation covers 52 languages and 106 accents, with 13 language pairs available offline. Makuake pricing starts at 47,599 yen against a planned retail price of 67,999 yen, with delivery scheduled by the end of January 2027.
Oct 7
The premiere of Even Though I'm a Super Timid Noble Girl, I Accepted the Bet From My Cunning Fiancé introduces Lady Pia Rockwell, who recalls a past life as a paleontology postgraduate after a fever. She tries to break her engagement to avoid the villainess's fate, but her fiancé promises to stay with her. The episode frames her scientific knowledge as her defining strength.
Oct 7
BANDAI SPIRITS' Banpresto brand has shown the painted prototypes for two crane game figures of Hololive VTubers Fuwawa Abyssgard and Mococo Abyssgard. The pair, sold as hololive IF Relax time Fuwawa Abyssgard and hololive IF Relax time Mococo Abyssgard, are set to appear in crane games nationwide in March 2027. The costumes were designed with the talents' own wishes built in, under the hololive IF line that imagines situations for Hololive members.
Oct 6
Even Though I'm a Super Timid Noble Girl, I Accepted the Bet From My Cunning Fiancé follows Pia Rockwell, a noble who at ten remembers her past life as a Japanese university student and realizes she is a villainess in an otome game. Her fiancé Rufus refuses her attempt to call off their engagement and instead makes a bet. The series streams on Crunchyroll.
Oct 6
Orange Inc.'s emaqi e-bookstore is adding 11 new titles this month, eight of them through the emaqi Premium monthly subscription. The picks include Yuka Tatami's Streaming Under My Control, koma's The Soldier Groom and the Daikon Bride, Yuji Shiozaki's Shin Ikki Tousen, Kaduho's Kill Me Baby, Ryokuji Yoshizawa's And So, We Mostly Destroyed, and Kawakami Daishiro's Song of the Thirty-Year-Olds' Blues. The service also added a chat assistant meant to help readers find titles by mood and preference.
Oct 6
The 2016 compilation film Assassination Classroom: 365 Days' Time is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, U-NEXT, d Anime Store and FOD, all as subscription titles. DMM TV and TELASA carry it as a rental, and TSUTAYA DISCAS offers it as a DVD home rental. No streaming availability was confirmed on Lemino, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+ or TVer. The film runs 1 hour 32 minutes and adds an original episode set seven years after graduation.
Oct 6
The third cour of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 4 will begin airing in July 2027, and a TV anime of the spinoff Clayman REVENGE starts April 2027, ahead of it. Clayman REVENGE adapts the Monthly Shonen Sirius spinoff starring the Demon Lord Clayman, with Takehito Koyasu voicing Clayman and 8bit on animation production. The Season 4 soundtrack vol.1 went up for distribution on September 26 with 76 tracks.
Oct 6
The 30th anniversary Detective Conan TV special "Case 30" aired on Nippon TV's Friday Road Show on September 25, drawing live viewers and a wave of social media reaction. The two-hour original story about counterfeit new banknotes assembles detectives, police, Public Security, and FBI. Fans celebrated returns including Toru Amuro, Shuichi Akai, Heiji Hattori, Kazuha Toyama, and the anime-only forensic officer Tome.
Oct 6
SNK producers discussed METAL SLUG ULTIMATE COLLECTION in a Game Spark interview, covering the project's origin with developer M2, the decision to include every numbered entry plus METAL SLUG ADVANCE, and a location test version of the original game that staff found while searching past data. The collection adds quick save, rewind, online co-op, and score attack. METAL SLUG 7 was prioritized over METAL SLUG XX.
Oct 5
Solo developer sgthale said on September 26, 2026 that the wishlist count for the PC parenting simulation Family Time has reached 500,000. The Steam store page opened on September 12, 2026, passed 170,000 wishlists a week later, and crossed 500,000 two weeks after that. The game is scheduled for release on Steam and supports Japanese.
Oct 5
Avail will release Poppy Playtime goods on October 3, 2026, in stores and online from noon the same day. The lineup includes shopping bags and stickers featuring Huggy Wuggy and CatNap. Avail directs customers to its official account for details. Prices and stock availability are listed as of the article's publication.
Oct 5
The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition is available for preorder on Amazon.co.jp at 88,920 yen as of October 5. The set pairs a specially designed Nintendo Switch 2 console and dock with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a limited-design Pro Controller and carrying case, plus an acrylic coaster and early purchase art cards and stickers. Nintendo releases the Ocarina of Time remake on November 5, 2026.
Oct 4
Bandai Namco Filmworks will release the Blu-ray Limited Special Edition, Blu-ray Standard Edition, and DVD of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Tears of the Blue Sea on September 25, 2026. The film opened in theaters in February 2026, and the limited edition includes a serial code for the Demon Lord and Dragon Founding Chronicle app.
Oct 4
Virtual artist unit HIMEHINA will hold a solo concert at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on Tuesday, July 13, 2027, the unit and its studio Studio LaRa announced on October 4, 2026, at the finale of the HIMEHINA WORLD Tour 2026 "LIFETIME is BUBBLIN" at SGC HALL ARIAKE. Doors open at 16:30 and the show starts at 17:30. General reserved seats cost 11,000 yen including tax, and all seats are reserved. The fastest advance lottery for fan club members and the general public opened on Sunday, October 4 at 21:00 and runs through Sunday, October 18 at 23:59, with results on Friday, October 23. Applications allow up to four tickets, with no age restriction and tickets required for ages 6 and up. Upgrade tickets for reserved-seat buyers will be announced later in fan club and general versions. The unit set the Budokan goal in August 2023.
Oct 4
Shinseido WonderGOO announced its original reservation bonus for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, set for release on November 5. The bonus is an acrylic figure measuring 100 by 120 millimeters. In-store price is 8,980 yen, while the company's e-commerce site lists it at 10,080 yen. The bonus is limited and ends when stock runs out.
Oct 3
Nintendo used the official Zelda X account to post new footage of Hyrule Castle Town from its remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, scheduled for release on November 5. The clip shows the town center with reworked graphics, residents going about the area, shops, and the series' familiar upbeat background music. The Temple of Time appears briefly in the second half. The post is one entry in a daily sequence of location teasers tied to the November 5 launch date. Nintendo lists the game at 8,980 yen for the package version and 7,980 yen for the download version. The remake adds camera control, new actions, a Dash option for movement speed, and a voice input feature. Hyrule Castle Town is an early stop in the original adventure and a central hub that connects to the Temple of Time and surrounding regions.
Oct 3
Mob Entertainment opened the open beta for Escape From Playtime on October 2 at 2:00 JST, with the test running until October 5 at 10:00 JST. The co-op survival horror game is set in the Poppy Playtime universe, and players control the Smiling Critters, the plush characters introduced in Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3, inside the abandoned Playtime Co. toy factory. The beta builds a shifting factory layout with failed experiments as enemies. Teams collect scrap, carry it back to the cart Barry, and meet a quota to escape. The store page lists 1 to 4 players, but the beta allows up to 8, and the most balanced count is stated as 4. Registration runs through FirstLook, and linking a Steam account and a Discord account is required. The playable content is limited to the first four shifts, with much of the story-focused material held back for release.
Oct 3
TiMi Studio Group is developing the smartphone title Monster Hunter Outlanders under an official license from Capcom, with a worldwide release set for October 29, 2026 in regions outside mainland China. The game is free to play with item-based microtransactions and runs on iOS and Android. At Tokyo Game Show 2026, outlets played a hunt against the game's original Elder Dragon, Luga Earda, a monster whose design concept TiMi producer Don Huang described as a holy knight clad in golden armor, drawing on swordplay and shield imagery. Players sortie in a four-person party, and in the demo three NPCs joined. The demo offered two control schemes: Starting Mode, played with attack, special, and evade buttons that connect combos automatically, and Hunting Mode, which hands players multiple buttons for manual combos and skills. Capcom producer Akio Sekino said the core cycle of hunting, gathering materials, and crafting equipment is preserved, with adventurers added as an Outlanders-specific element.
Oct 3
Netflix's Downtime, starring Mayu Matsuoka and Riisa Naka, depicts the cosmetic surgery industry's hopes and conflicts. Ken Naoko plays Yuriko Sakashita, a 75-year-old widow seeking full-body plastic surgery. Director Yuki Saito said filming was grueling: Ken sometimes arrived around 3 a.m. for three hours of special makeup before shooting began. Ken stayed playful on set, keeping the mood light with jokes. Sakashita also has terminal cancer, so Saito told Ken to lower her voice and speak hoarsely. Special makeup was trial-and-errored to show the surgery's before-and-after. Before the operation, she looks so wrinkled that a character says, "You're all skin and bones." Cast members including Hana Amano and Yumi Adachi underwent transformations without dubbing. Saito said a year of preparation made the special makeup possible, something he called difficult for terrestrial TV dramas.
Sep 29
Bandai Spirits is re-releasing two BB Senshi LEGENDBB plastic models. Pre-orders open at Premium Bandai from 11:00 on September 29, 2026. Knight Unicorn Gundam (Beast Mode Ultimate Battle Ver.) is priced at 3,080 yen and Zaku Head (Dark General Super Steel Ver.) at 3,300 yen. Both are non-scale assembly kits using PS and PE, scheduled to ship in March 2027.
Sep 27
The Detective Precure! LIVE2026 Cureatto Nessho! Hanamaru Showtime☆ stage show is getting a Blu-ray release on February 19, 2027. The main feature carries the complete Mystery Night Performance, with daytime-only songs and MC segments as extras. A first-production-run edition adds an acrylic music box that plays an arrangement of the first-season ending theme Naze! Nazo?! ANSWER. Performers include Hikari Senga, Kaede Hondo, Ikumi Hasegawa and Nao Toyama.
Sep 26
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 4 will continue with its third cour in July 2027, per an announcement reported by Anime Corner and The Indonesian Anime Times. Alongside that, a spinoff anime adaptation of Clayman's Revenge is set to begin in April 2027. The two dates arrive together, with the spinoff scheduled ahead of the third cour of Season 4. Anime Corner reported the July 2027 cour placement and the April 2027 spinoff in the same story, while The Indonesian Anime Times carried the same two dates in its own writeup. No studio, staff, or cast details appear in either account. Neither article names an episode count for the cour or the spinoff, and neither states a specific premiere day within either month. Season 4 is the continuation of the series, and Clayman's Revenge is described as a spinoff adaptation.
Sep 20
Mob Entertainment announced at the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct that Escape from Playtime, a co-op survival horror game set in the Poppy Playtime universe, enters Steam Early Access on October 21, 2026. Players control the Smiling Critters, the toy line introduced in Poppy Playtime: Chapter 3, exploring the ruined Playtime Co. factory. The facility spans classrooms, warehouses, testing labs, and connecting corridors. A mysterious Voice directs the Critters to gather parts and resources for a construction project it says leads to escape and a promised home. Playtime Co.'s failed experiments hunt the corridors, so players find tools, hide, set distractions, and take alternate routes. The factory's layout is rewritten by the Voice and changes each run. The game supports one to four players with proximity voice chat. A playtest starts October 1, with registration open on the official website. Pricing is undecided.
Sep 20
Entergram announced new details for Sentimental Graffiti Remake at Tokyo Game Show 2026 on September 20. Six voice actors were chosen for the six heroines from a public audition that drew 1,864 applicants. Kana Sakura plays Taeko Adachi, Moeno Shiraki plays Asuka Hoshino, Noa Honda plays Rurika Yamamoto, Misa Segawa plays Miyuki Hosaka, Akari Yura plays Yu Nanase, and Yui Ninomiya plays Akira Endo. The theme song is SHAZNA's "Melty Love -30th Anniversary ver.," a rearrangement of the band's 1997 debut single, co-produced by SHAZNA and guitarist Masaki Suzuki. It will be released as a digital single on January 1, 2027, with a music video on the same day. The remake of the 1998 Sega Saturn romance simulation keeps the original character settings, redraws all illustrations for a 16:9 aspect ratio, and renews the game system and UI. A merchandise package, Sentimental Graffiti Remake First Window, is set for January 2027.
Sep 20
Kadokawa showed a new teaser video at KyoMAF on Sunday for the second season of Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian. The season was previously slated to debut this year but was delayed to 2027 to improve quality. Hiroshi Haraguchi directs at Doga Kobo, replacing Ryota Itoh, with Yuka Yamada on series scripts. The novels have 5.5 million copies in circulation worldwide.
Sep 18
Kadokawa Store opens preorders on September 18, 2026 at 17:00 for bathrobe-version goods from Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian. The lineup includes acrylic stands of Alya, Yuki, Masha, Ayano, and Masachika at 1,650 yen each, a trading can badge box at 2,200 yen, a trading omamori-style acrylic keychain box at 3,850 yen, and a clear file set. Preorders close October 27, 2026, with release scheduled for January 2027.
Sep 18
enish announced on September 18 that its Yuru Camp mobile and PC game will be fully renewed as "Yuru Camp Tsunageru Minna no All-in-One!! Chiru Time" on October 22, with the shortened name "Chiru Camp." The current version ends service at 11:00 on October 21. A buy-to-play Steam early access version launches the same day as the renewal.
Sep 17
Director Yuki Saito spent six months interviewing cosmetic surgery patients and doctors for the Netflix series Downtime, which stars Mayu Matsuoka and Riisa Naka. Patient subjects ranged from first-timers to people who had undergone multiple surgeries. Doctors interviewed included staff at Takasu Clinic, which supervised the series, and younger surgeons who opened their own practices. Contact was made through Nekura-chan, who runs a plastic surgery website.
Sep 17
HORI is displaying the Electric Ocarina of Time, an electronic instrument modeled on the ocarina Link uses, at its Tokyo Game Show 2026 booth. The product is set for a November release at 7,980 yen and works with the voice recognition feature of the Nintendo Switch 2 software The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, pairing its sound with in-game effects.
Sep 17
WFS released Another Eden Begins for PC and Switch on September 17, 2026. The game rebuilds the battles, exploration, and character development of Part 1 of Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space, which began as a smartphone RPG in 2017. It adds full voice acting, a 19-character party, and new battle systems, with Masato Kato writing and Yasunori Mitsuda on the main theme.
Sep 16
Netflix's Downtime began worldwide streaming on September 17 with all eight episodes released at once. Mayu Matsuoka stars as plastic surgeon Fumi Numata, with Riisa Naka as cosmetic surgeon Rin Toyama, who directs Toyama Beauty Clinic. A character relationship chart and visuals for seven key figures were published. The series is directed by Yuki Saito, written by Junya Ikegami, and its soundtrack by Yudai Bando went on digital distribution the same day.
Sep 16
A Reddit post on September 14 showed two AI-generated images running as ads for the Steam city-building game Timberborn from developer Mechanistry's official TikTok account. Mechanistry communications manager Michal Amielanczyk said TikTok had changed its advertising system, and that AI ads were generated automatically from the trailer the company supplied. The ads ran without prior review or approval by Mechanistry, which said it has disabled them and apologized.
Sep 16
4Gamer will host a stage event for the 30th anniversary of METAL SLUG at Tokyo Game Show 2026 on September 17, from 12:45 to 13:15. Producer Shiro Mukaude and series brand manager Song Seung-ju will appear, with wrestler Danshoku Dino as MC, to discuss the series and METAL SLUG ULTIMATE COLLECTION, the anniversary's first announced project, scheduled for release in 2027.