Gunota Headlines
Friday, April 30, 2004
Coming Soon: A Sign of Zeta?
Go Sasakibara, the author of "This is V Gundam!", posted on his site that the rumored Zeta compilation should be officially announced soon.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
In the past, we have mentioned how SEED's DVD sales have been a surprise hit with Bandai/Sunrise. A recent magazine called "My Gundam Report: Analysis of All Gundam DVD" posted estimated Region 2 DVD sales figures of each Gundam series.
MSG I Special Edition - 200,000
MSG II Special Edition - 200,000
MSG III Special Edition - 200,000
08th Team (All 4 volumes and Miller's Report) - 300,000
0080 (Both volumes) - 150,000
0083 (All 4 volumes and Last Blitz of Zeon) - 300,000
Zeta Gundam (All 13 volumes) - 950,000
Gundam ZZ (All 12 volumes) - 400,000
CCA - 250,000
F91 - 150,000
V Gundam (All 13 volumes) - 300,000
G Gundam (All 12 volumes) - 300,000
Wing (All 5 Boxsets inc. Endless Waltz movie) - 500,000
Turn A (All 13 volumes and both movies) - 300,000
SEED (All 13 volumes) - 1,300,000
For reference purposes, the DVD release dates of each series are:
MSG I,II,III: Dec 2000
08th Team: Oct - Nov 2000 (Miller's Report - Jan 2002)
0080: Dec 1999
0083: Jan - Feb 2000 (Last Blitz of Zeon - Jan 2002)
Zeta: July - Sept 2001
ZZ: March - May 2002
CCA: March 2001
F91: March 2001
V: Jan - Feb 2004
G: Dec 2002 - Feb 2003
Wing: June - Oct 2000
Turn A: Nov 1999 - Dec 2000 (Movies I & II - June 2002)
SEED: March 2003 - March 2004
Softbank Games has pics up of Yamato's upcoming 1/600 scale (190mm) Ideon figure. Release date is the middle of June at a price of 6,090 yen.
The Char Custom blog has a couple more Famitsu scans of the "Gundam SEED: Tomo To Kimi To Koko De" GBA game:
1 (including a shot of the "Gunbarrel Strike"), 2 (reviewers' scores)
Additionally, it looks as though the picturebooks that come with reserved copies of the game are actually character postcards and not split between characters and mecha as previously reported. The "Tomo Edition" is a set with male SEED characters and the "Kimi Edition" is one with the chicks.
Excite Books is reporting that Kadokawa Shouten has started a new project called "Gundam Comic Award" where readers will submit their original manga. The submitted manga will be judged by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Tony Takezaki, and Haruhiko Mikimoto. First prize winner will receive 1,000,000 yen with that manga published in Gundam Ace.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Gundamofficial.com update
On Gundamofficial.com, they've added a SEED glossary as well as the very interesting official Cosmic Era timeline (in English for the first time). Again, it should be noted that there are details in these sections that haven't yet been shown on Gundam SEED's TV broadcast so beware if you're a first-time viewer. Updates to these sections are also to come.
On the homepage of seiyuu Yumiko Kobayashi, it's mentioned that the character she voices, Genkimaru, appears as a regular starting from the first episode of the second season of SD Gundam Force (episode 27). It doesn't give a date when that particular episode will air in Japan other than "before the end of the year". At the rate SD Gundam Force is moving along there, the first season will be finished by the end of June.
Mitsuo Fukuda, the director of Gundam SEED, will be appearing as guest this week in All Night Nippon's radio show called, "HOT'n HOT". Here he will discuss about some of the production stories of SEED. HOT'n HOT comes on air at 10pm Monday through Fridays.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Once again, Sampo's Web Page has screencaps and audio clips of edits made to the CN broadcast version of the latest ep of Gundam SEED. Some interesting changes in this one.
The official Japanese SEED site updated with a few more SEED MSV such as the 105 Dagger, the Beam Test Type CGUE (aka the CGUE Deep Arms), and the GINN High Mobility Type. Everything is clickable now and some of the still-silhouetted mobile weapons have info in their profiles.
With all the posting and updating a few days ago, one kit managed to slip by. G-GOODS.net states that a 1/144 HG "CGUE Deep Arms" is also planned but no release date or price is available yet.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Animeondvd.com points out that on Sakura-Con's official site, English language casting director Kaeko Sakamoto has Tomino's Overman King Gainer listed among her credits.
Friday, April 23, 2004
First mentioned here, Akiman's (aka Yasuda Akira) new manga appearing in July issue of Gundam Ace (coming out on May 26) will be about Turn A Gundam. This information was revealed by Akiman himself at his site.
According to several reports on Japanese sites, turns out the original rumor was true: AEUG Vs. Titans DX is a go. A handful of tiny, blurry pics can be seen at the GAZO.BIZ Sample Bulletin Board. New levels, MS, and pilots are naturally rumored.
Another report on this month's Gundam Ace and model magazine mention that with advance tickets for Katsuhiro Otomo's upcoming Steamboy purchased through Japanese store Lawson, one can get a limited "Making Of" DVD that contains Otomo's "Gundam: Mission To The Rise". "Mission To The Rise" was an approximately 3-minute, full CGI short film Otomo made for Gundam's 20th Anniversary (Gundam Big Bang Project). Pics can be seen here and here .
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Posted in a couple of Japanese message board threads are rumors of a new Gundam arcade work being referred to as the "Gundam vs. Gundam series". It's possible that it might have something to do with the rumors of a location test for a new Capcom Gundam game from several days back.
4/25 UPDATE:
"Gundam vs Gundam" will not be an arcade game. Instead, it will be a new toy by Banpresto.
Posted in Hobby 2chan bbs, Hobby Japan magazine mentioned that Bandai Museum will be showing "MS IGLOO". MS IGLOO consists of 3 episodes, each 25 minutes long. It is a 3D anime directed by Takashi Imanishi (0083 director) with design contributions by Hajime Katoki and Yutaka Izubuchi.
1st Ep: Battle of Loum
2nd Ep: Earth Invasion
3rd Ep: Battle of Odessa
UPDATE: Once again, Pam's Homepage provides further details. In addition to designs from Katoki and Izubuchi, MS IGLOO will also have mecha designs provided by Kimitoshi Yamane (Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, 08th MS Team), Shinji Aramaki (Mospeada, Gasaraki, & director of the new Appleseed film), and Kenki Fujioka (Advance Of Zeta). Izubuchi is listed as also being the supervisor. It'll start showing at the Bandai Museum on July 19th.
Based on the early sales of Hobby Japan, Dengeki Hobby Magazine, and Gundam Ace, all 3 publications will do a special on Zeta in their next issue (coming out on end of May). Strong indication of Newtype magazine making the supposed official announcement based on their ad in Gundam Ace.
UPDATE: And if that's not enough, see the ad for next month's Newtype (courtesy of the Char Custom blog).
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Scans at Mokei.net reveal that a MG Perfect Zeong is coming out in June. Price is 8,400 yen. It'll be approximately 30cm tall and come with a long sword.
Also up are pics of the HGUC Alex and HGUC GM Command. Finally, it's mentioned on their message board that a 1/144 HG GINN High Mobility Type (from SEED-MSV and the Special Editions) will be released in June as well. Price is 1,260 yen, according to Pam's Homepage .
A clip of "Kokoro Odoru", the 2nd ED theme of SD Gundam Force, can be heard at Sony Music Online Japan (the first song on the page). I don't think Gundam has ever been associated with hip-hop before now. As with the other Japanese SDGF singles, the more expensive version of this release comes with a Captain Gundam plamodel.
SEED 2 rumor has once again surfaced this time courtesy of Bandai and Sunrise themselves. The rumor first started surfacing based on Bandai's job fair (aka company explanation to the recruits). Apparently, one of Bandai's Human Resources personnel said to the possible recruits that SEED 2 will come out this fall. A second rumor appeared after Sunrise held their job fair, which occurred on April 20. Here, Sunrise staff mentioned SEED 2 is in production with Oct 2004 premier in mind. The information of Sunrise's job fair was posted on this Japanese BBS.
UPDATE: Due to major mistranslation by one of the anime sites, here is the quick summary of the post.
At Sunrise's job seminar/recruit, one of their recruiters mentioned SEED 2 was under production with Oct 2004 schedule. The poster, who attended the seminar, also heard that Inuyasha is going to end this Sept (NOTE: Sunrise produces Inuyasha, however Nihon TV airs Inuyasha not TBS/MBS, which aired SEED. No where does it state that SEED 2 will replace Inuyasha's timeslot). The poster then assumes one of the anime magazines must be close to making an official announcement based on what he heard at this seminar/recruit.
Kodansha publisher has updated their Gundam Historica website with commericals (2 versions : Male and Female) and the cover illustration and details of the 5th book.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Gundamofficial.com updated with a synopsis of Phase-01 and a map of space in the Cosmic Era.
According to Chuosha's magazine info, DeAGONSTI Japan will be publishing "Weekly Gundam Fact File", which will cover all 14 Gundam series. It will be priced 533 yen for each issue with 100 volumes scheduled. First volume will be available on June 8 with a special price of 276 yen and will come with a binder. Gundam Fact File will only be available in the Miyagi prefecture. Based on the test sales in Miyagi prefecture, DeAGONSTINI plans to release it nationwide (Japan).
In the past, DeAGONSTI has released similar magazine like "Weekly Star Trek Fact File", "Weekly Star Wars Fact File", and "Weekly World Weapon Fact File".
Toonami Digital Arsenal's Gundam SEED section is completely up. It has all 4 Japanese openings as well as the Toonami one & both promos for the show. The later openings have some spoiler material so beware...
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Anyone curious about things that were changed for the Cartoon Network broadcast of Gundam SEED episode 1 might want to check out Sampo's Web Page's Gundam SEED page.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Tofu Records announced that a domestic version of Nami Tamaki's album, "Greeting", will be released on April 20th. It also seems, based on posts at their site's forum, that they will release T.M. Revolution's latest album, "Seventh Heaven", on May 4th.
Friday, April 16, 2004
At the Gamecube Gundam official site, they finally put up some of the movies in the MS Graphics section. Movies for the Zeon suits on the page (Char's Zaku II, Zaku II, Gouf, Dom) are up. The Federation ones will be on-site formally next week though they're actually up right now but just not linked to from the page. You can access them simply by taking the standard movie URL and changing the name of the suit before the ".asx" part (eg. "gcg_guntank.asx", "gcg_gm.asx", etc.).
An update at the official Japanese SD Gundam Force site reveals the seiyuu for the following characters:
Gunbiker (US name - Gunbike): Eiji Yanagisawa (Zapper Zaku in SD Gundam Force)
Guneagle: Daisuke Namikawa (Al Izuruha from 0080)
Gundiver: Kazuya Nakai (Witz Sou from Gundam X) and "others"
Tallgeese, Knight Of The Tempest: Taiten Kusunoki
Pawn Leo, commanding officer: Takashi Nagasumi
Pawn Leos: Takayuki Kondou, Kiyotaka Furushima
Ashuramaru: Katsuyuki Konishi
Thursday, April 15, 2004
While not explicitly Gundam-related news, I thought it'd be appropriate to mention here since we've covered Imagawa's new Tetsujin 28 series several times of late.
It's being reported by Japanese news sources such as Yomiuri On-line and Sankei Web that mangaka Mitsuteru Yokoyama died on April 15 at about 10:30 pm at a Tokyo hospital as a result of serious burns he suffered in a fire at his home. Yokoyama's two younger sisters were also injured. Police say that since an ashtray was at Yokoyama's bedside, carelessness with a cigerette was potentially the cause of the fire.
Yokoyama was the creator of popular manga like Tetsujin 28, Giant Robo, Babel II, and Sally The Witch. He was 69 years old. Fellow mangaka Go Nagai expressed shock at the news as well as his appreciation for Tetsujin 28, which was a childhood favorite.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
The Toonami promo for Gundam SEED just aired on Cartoon Network. While Toonami Digital Arsenal is sure to have it up at some point, for now, it can be downloaded here (.wmv format).
EDIT: Toonami Digital Arsenal has it and a longer one will be coming soon.
Rumors originating from Hamapika Shop state that a new "Gundam series" arcade game from Capcom is going to be location testing in Osaka in the next few days. Speculation seems to favor a "AEUG vs. Titans DX" version.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Bandai Museum's official site updated with pics of limited edition goods for April:
HGUC Hyaku Shiki Bandai Museum limited special version (Apr. 24 - 1,890 yen)
HGUC Zeong Bandai Museum limited special version (Apr. 24 - 2,100 yen)
MSiA Yumiko Shaku's custom Zaku II (Apr. 29 - 2,625 yen)
Universal Century Gundam Keyholders: Full Armor Gundam Char custom version & Gundam full equipment Char custom version (Apr. 29 - each 399 yen)
Chess piece collection DX Bandai Museum limited G-3 Gundam, 2 kinds (Apr. 29 - 798 yen)
Toybook Gundam Operation A Baoa Qu Bandai Museum Limited Emblem #5, Gelgoog (Apr. 23 - 1,500 yen)
Gundam & Sunrise Festival pics
Hitman's Hong Kong has a photo report up of this past weekend's Gundam & Sunrise Festival in HK.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Kanazawa Institute of Technology has announced they will be doing a 2nd installment of "Gundam Creation Studies". The very first class will be April 17 with Yoshiyuki Tomino as the guest lecturer. The 2nd installment is titled "Future" with total of 10 lectures scheduled. Below are the scheduled date of lecture, the lecturer, and the theme of the lecture.
1. April 17 - Yoshiyuki Tomino - Introduction: "In order to meet with reality"
2. April 24 - Masatsugu Arimoto (sometime goes by the name of Takumi Chiba) - Universal Century Car Study: "Robot-evolution of Car"
3. May 15 - Kenshou Ikeda (Freelance editor) - Gundam Culture: "The Secret of Gundam Culture"
4. May 22 - Atsushi Noda - Future of Universal Century: "Can humankind live in space?"
5. June 5 - Hourin Takayuki (Freelance writer) - Newtype Theory: "The Future of Communication Technology which continues to evolve"
6. Aug 28 - Hitoshi Nakamura (Editor of Nikkei Characters!) - Gundam Business: "Gundam Minds save the Japanese Industry"
7. Sept 4 - Shuji Takada (Patent Attorney) - Rights of Protecting Gundam: "Right Derivation and Its Protection of an Entertainment Work"
8. Sep 18 - Shouji Kawamori - Gundam Design Study: "What is a Gundam-design"
9. Sep 25 - Tadashi Ootsuki (Researcher of AIBO, the robot dog by Sony) - Future Robot Science: "Making a Mobile Suit"
10. Oct 10 - Yoshiyuki Tomino - Conclusion: "There are lots of entrance"
Seems as though everyone was distracted enough by the HCM Pro news that even Japanese Gundam news sites didn't notice that the official SEED site updated its MSV development genealogy chart 2 days ago. Click on the pics of the MSV and you get a pop-up with a larger pic and some details. The silhouetted mobile weapons remain shrouded in secrecy.
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Hobby Fanatics is running a competition for Gunpla-heads: the 2004 Gundam Modeling Contest, sponsored by Hobbyfan.com and HobbyLink Japan. They're also doing a Mecha Modeling Contest for non-Gundam kits. Details can be found at the site.
It's being mentioned on a number of message board threads that next month's Newtype will have a feature on Gundam's 25th anniversary. It's expected that the Zeta compilation will finally be officially announced by that time.
Friday, April 09, 2004
The first report of further Gundam SEED Special Editions comes from the Char Custom blog. Someone dropped them a note claiming they saw an advance order listing at a CD shop with the following DVD release dates:
1) Battlefield Of Empty Space (8/27)
2) Dawn Becomes Distant (9/24)
3) Rumbling Universe (10/22)
Momotaro Kingdom has the cover of the game as well as tiny shots of one of the two picture books you get when you reserve a copy. The "Kimi edition" is dedicated to mecha while the "Tomo edition" has character illustrations.
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Screencaps of the first episode of Yasuhiro Imagawa's Tetsujin 28, which aired the other day in Japan, can be seen on Hanepen's Anime Diary.
And some nice person also encoded the opening in a decent-looking 18MB compressed .ogm file. The password to unzip is "yokoyama".
The Char Custom blog once again has Famitsu scans of the upcoming Gundam SEED GBA adventure game:
1, 2
Kodansha starts their 25th anniversary with the release of Vol 1 and 2 of Gundam Historica. Through their online store, Book Club Kodansha, you can see the cover of the first 4 issues. They also have the logo of the "25th Anniversary" on that page as well.
The new merchandise line is announced: the roughly 90mm (1/200 scale) "High Complete Model Progressive" (HCM Pro) series.
The merchandises are fully painted, and full movable. It will offer details never seen before in this scale.
The announced line-up for HCM Pro's debut in June (each 1,575 yen): RX-78-2 Gundam, Zaku II, Guncannon, and Rick Dom. The Guntank is planned for sometime during the Summer (price undecided).
Update: A bit more info from the press release on Bandai's site. The exact sale date for the initial lineup is June 11th. Their aim is to sell 1.5 million HCM Pro units in their first year of release. The stated target audience is elementary school kids to adults. The HCM Pro's themselves are made of ABS and POM plastics. They also mention that Gundam plamo to date have sold a total of 360 million units in 25 countries, including Japan. Gundam SEED kits make up 10 million of that number.
A post on 2ch's Mokei board claims that the Guntank is coming out in August, the Gundam Mk II in September, and Char's Zaku in November.
Finally, Gundam Perfect Web has pics from the HCM Pro presentation, which includes shots of the packaging + contents and omnipresent special guests Toru Furuya and T.M. Revolution's Takanori Nishikawa.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
It was on April 7, 1979 that the very first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam, "Gundam daichi ni tatsu!!" ("The Gundam Stands On The Ground!!"), was broadcast in Japan. 25 years later, the impact of that one show is as great as that of any single anime title in history. Yoshiyuki Tomino, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Kunio Okawara, and the rest of the creative minds behind the original series influenced a generation.
Happy 25th Birthday, Gundam.
Sunrise officially announced on its site today that a DVD release of the Special Edition "Battlefield Of Empty Space" is forthcoming. Price is 5,040 yen. Runtime is 90 minutes. Release date is indeed August 27th. Nothing mentioned in the way of any extras at the moment.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Anime Alberta posted a review of the recently released, unofficial tome known as The Gundam Explorer.
Gundamofficial.com now has a Spring 2004 products section up.
A press release on Bandai Visual's site announces that Gundam SEED has achieved 1.3 million in DVD and video sales as of the end of March with the release of the final volume of the series. This is exactly as predicted by Sunrise's Managing Director a few months ago. Oricon's weekly integrated DVD sales chart shows Gundam SEED's 13th volume as the #1 selling DVD in Japan through the week (up to April 5th) following its release. Back in January, Gundam SEED reached 1 million in DVD sales.
Monday, April 05, 2004
Bandai's Plamo Net states that on April 8th at 1 pm (Japan Standard Time), Bandai will be holding a meeting at their offices to present a new Gundam "hobby brand".
From 12:55 pm to around 1:30 pm, this page dedicated to the announcement will have the presentation streaming live over the net. At 5 pm the same day, the MS line-up will be put up along with details about the release dates & prices and an explanation of the features. Finally, on April 12 at 5 pm, an interview with Kunio Okawara will be up as well. The only items there at the moment are a page outlining the schedule above and another with a brief look at the evolution of Gunpla over the past 24 years.
It'd seem to be a safe bet that this announcement will be of the merchandise line that's been mentioned by Hyper Hobby magazine, of which
pics have been spreading around for the last several days.
