Chii's Sweet Home episodes streamed for free...in Japanese [ANN]

For everyone who's obsessing over Chii and how cute s/he is, you can head on over to the website Animate.tv and watch the first four episodes for free. Of course, you'll need Windows Media Player in order to watch them, because of ever-so-fun DRM issues. Also, the episodes are streaming only until December, so practice your Japanese between now and then so you can figure out what they're saying.

Sony picks up international rights to Sky Crawlers [Variety Asia]

Ever since writing up a piece on the game based on this anime film from Mamoru Oshii and Production I.G. Set in an alternate history world, the film follows young fighter pilots and their dogfighting days. From the wiki entry:

The Sky Crawlers features characters called Kildren that are humanoids genetically designed to live eternally in adolescence until shot down in an air battle or an “Air Show” to be presented commercially as a peacetime entertainment, for which they are reproduced.

This has my interest for a few reasons: It's a chance to see the Japanese doing alternate history (something that fascinates me, personally), it's aerial combat, which can be beautifully performed, and it's Production I.G. My only worry right now is that Sony isn't going to do all that good of a job with the translation, like they did with Blood+. But then again, they showed less of an interest

Interview with Jason Hoffs of Viz Productions [giapet]

Back at SDCC, Gia got the chance to talk with Mr. Hoffs of Viz Productions, their movie-license-handling division. While Hoffs tends to answer most of the questions with generic PR speak, he does give off a few nuggets: namely, that Viz Productions is also looking at titles that Shueisha and Shogakugan have but are yet to be translated into English.

It also seems like Viz's role in the Hollywood process once the title has been optioned, is to try and act as a liason for the original Japanese creator, which I think is a nice move -- although I'm not sure that it will run too well with Hollywood. I guess it's usually a case-by-case basis. Nonetheless, go and read the interview!

Kanye West arrested for a scuffle [MSNBC]

Kanye, I'm disappointed in you. A scuffle, and you broke a photographer's camera? That's it? How pathetic. Next time you're getting busted for something, it had better be stealing a Gundam or such like that.

Canned Dogs does anime business [Canned Dogs]

Here's an important read, basically summarizing how the anime business works. If you're planning on arguing about the business of anime, read this.

Shugo Chara is big, apparently [giapet]

Gia's got a summary of a couple of Shugo Chara news stories, highlighting the increasining popularity of the show. From the fact that the show has higher production values (2x the normal key frames) to the show getting its own festival in Odaiba, Shugo Chara is reaching a frightening level of popuarity. I should probably go ahead and start checking it out, shouldn't I?