Who is Nobuyukii Tsujii? Why, he's the young man in the photo above -- a gifted 21 year old pianist who is completely blind. According to a report from Time (via News On Japan), Tsujii has been playing a solo tour which has had Japan bursting with tears of joy and thunderous applause. The report calls the phenomenon "Nobu Fever". Apparently people are obsessed (and perhaps with good reason)!

Still in his junior year of music school, the young pianist recently won a gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Competition held in Fort Worth, Texas. If you're interested in seeing what all the fuss is about, you can go check out his official website, watch videos of his performances and purchase his CDs. I'm a fan of classical music, so I personally really enjoyed it!

Last week I asked you folks if you had any manga you'd like to contribute to the feature, and as I expected, you came through. A reader by the name of Austin contributed several panels, including the infinitely awesome "f*ck dinosaurs" which is pretty much the best thing I've heard all week. The header image this week was sent in to us courtesy of reader NortonAntivirus, and we thank you for it -- these intense women are so confusing!

As you may have heard last week, we welcome your submissions for these articles as well. We've gotten lots of positive feedback about the feature, so we definitely want to keep them coming! If you have any manga that simply cannot be missed as far as funny goes, send it to me at colette@tomopop.com and if it fits the bill, we'll throw it in next week. Just according to keikaku...

I had only heard bits and pieces about upcoming "high suspense" anime Durarara!! up until now, but thanks to a post over at Animenation, I've now seen an incredible twelve minute streaming trailer for the show and am one hundred percent convinced I must see it as soon as it begins.

This "Perfect Guide" gives us an introduction to the show and fills us in on the characters we can look forward to getting to know. Based on the original light novel series by Ryohgo Narita and tells the story of young punk gangs fighting each other in Ikebukuro and the headless motorcyclist they all fear. The show begins airing on January 7th and you can see the trailer here. Interested?

You may have heard of Otacool by now -- a little project between toy makers Kotobukiya and Danny Choo that compiled the world's best otaku bedrooms into one book of amazing pictures. We heard today that they will be holding an event at Anime Festival Asia this year in Singapore, and if you are planning on attending you should go check it out.

The event will be held on November 22nd from 3:30 to 4 pm at booth D01. Both Danny Choo and the famously gorgeous Alodia will be in attendance to sign books and meet fans. If you don't already have a copy of the book, you can get one at the AFA Shop booth, which is both D02. This entire event sounds like so much fun, I wish I could go -- but perhaps we'll hear some reports from some of our Singapore blogger friends like ToysREvil!

People are capable of doing lots of scary things, to be sure, but for me one of the worst is the type who will hack into your email or read all your text messages in your cell phone. One crazed fan of the all-girl pop band AKB48 decided to go this route recently. Since the Japanese post office does not require proof of ID when changing your address, he decided to change their mailing address to his own so he could receive their mail instead.

Japan Probe reports that the man registered his own address as one of the members of the band between September and October of last year. The member in question reported she was no longer receiving her mail and the police were able to uncover the whole scheme from there. Further investigation revealed he had registered his address as that of eleven total members of the band (it has forty in total). He was quoted as saying "I just wanted some of their stuff, I didn't care what."

I guess it's not up there with peering into their window and whacking off in the bushes, but it's up there. What do you think is the creepiest thing a stalker can do?

Well ... I admit the whole phenomenon of marrying 2D characters gives me a chuckle. After all, I have an eternal thing for Kuroshitsuji's Sebastian, but when I realize the height of intimacy I can have with him is humping a dakimakura of him, the fantasy kind of fizzles for me. On the other hand, maybe some people have stronger imaginations than I do.

Anyway, we've heard tons about DS game Love Plus and all the crazy stuff it seems to make otaku do since it was released. Sankaku Complex reports that one man has taken it as far as to actually marry the game character Nene Anegasaki in a Guam church (see gallery for a photo of the church and the invitation). He also is planning a wedding reception back in Japan, where he apparently has invited media figures to attend.

NicoNicoDouga will be broadcasting the event live on November 22nd at 12:00 pm, in case you'd like to study it for your future marriage to Mio Akiyama.

I was already praising UpLark when they were called Eye Up and making figures like Gurren Lagann's Kamina, but I realized with the unveiling of this Mio figure from K-ON! that they are well on the way to becoming masters of their craft, not to mention heavies in the collecting world. Jonathan Tubbs brought us the teaser pics of the figure yesterday, and today we have one better -- the official blog posted pics from all angles, and they are all breathtaking.

Mio comes with two faces -- the happy one you see above as well as a bashful one -- and is slated for release next year between February and March. She will retail for 8,190 yen, which I think is pretty reasonable for the level of detail the figure has -- even the guitar strings are real!I haven't watched much of K-ON!, but I know a masterful figure when I see it. I wish they would take on the characters of Persona 4!

I should be used to these types of ads from Japan by now, but for some reason I never get tired of laughing at them. I love the expression of the guy crying his eyes out laughing while he uses this little device. Uh, what are you doing there, sir?

This thing in the picture is called Mugen Tokoroten and is a gadget which dispenses the summer snack with little happy faces imprinted on the ends. Made by Bandai Asovision, it's one of those things no one needs, but inevitably someone will want. I've personally never tried tokoroten before -- have you?

[Via Japan Trends]

Mmm, me and my Asian horror films, You already know I can't get enough of them, and when I heard Koji Matsumoto's manga Higanjima was to get the live action treatment I was pretty psyched as I already loved the source material. ANN just reported that Yahoo.jp is streaming the trailer for the film, which is being scripted by Tetsuya Oishi, the screenwriter for the live action Death Note films.

The story revolves around a fictional island where main character Akira Miyamoto's brother ventured and never returned. Miyamoto leads a search party there only to find the island is crawling with vampires and more. It's a good, suspenseful read, and from the looks of the trailer the film looks like it could deal some thrills as well.  it comes out in Japan on January 9th, so we'll keep you posted if it ends up being as good as it looks.

Of all the idols I've gotten crushes on, the story of how I discovered Matsumoto Jun is my favorite. After watching Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, I was instantly drama crazy and had to have more. I started reading up and asking friends for recommendations, and the next one I watched was Hana Yori Dango, which of course stars Jun as the rich snob Domyoji Tsukasa. A friend mentioned what a good actor he was, and I distinctly remember grumbling and thinking I hated him.

Of course, by the end of Hana Yori Dango I was madly in love with Jun thanks to his expert performance as Tsukasa, and it's easy to see why -- he's handsome and talented, but he's also goofy and seems like the type to be easygoing and not take himself too seriously. He's also in his tenth year with popular Johnny's band Arashi and has been in a long list of dramas, not to mention the Arashi variety show.  The guy keeps busy! Every time I see that ridiculous smile, my crush gets a little worse (in the best way).