Everyone would imagine it would be safe to ride a train, after all it is littered with people. But that’s not the case for seiyuu Ayana Taketatsu, familiar to many as the voice of Azunyan of K-ON fame.

According to Ayana Taketatsu herself she she was being peeped at by an male “predator”, believed to be an otaku. This was occurring during the one of her usual train rides in Tokyo’s subway system. Feeling uncomfortable solely knowing that she was being looked at strangely, she eventually found out that the peeping tom also was filming her.

She shared this on her twitter:

“Hmmm, this is most suspect. I may have been the subject of a peeping tom on the Fuktoshin line. And using video…

He shouldn’t have got my pantsu or anything, he seemed to be just filming me sat down. What can you do about this?”

“I should have filmed him back!! Maybe that would have been good proof of what he was up to!! But that’s a crime as well… Sorry. I was hungry, I couldn’t think properly. Curse my appetite.”

“Damn it, this is annoying! I should have at least made a face at him!”

Under normal circumstances this would both be creepy and understandable, much due to her fame. But in the case of Japan, it is actually a crime to photograph anyone (especially a woman) without the proper consent. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the the end result of this encounter resulted in a report to the authorities.

The online reaction is mixed as usual, some take it serious, other simply brush it off. Questions have also been raised whether it was an obsessive otaku which “stalked” her in the subway or just a perverted man taking interest in attractive pretty girls.

“Poor girl!”

“I can’t believe one of those peeping bastards would target Ayachi. Probably it was just a habitual offender shooting a cute girl.”

“She’s gradually turning into the next Hirano. Next she’ll be making stuff up about taxi drivers…”

“I think she’s just trolling for sympathy.”

“Upload your pics, guys.”

“So Ayanyan uses the Fukutoshin line…”

Japan seem to be out of luck lately. Apart from the 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake, scientists has now estimated that there is a 75% chance of an earthquake taking place with a magnitude of 7 within the next 4 years.

The government had previously suggested that the newly discovered data done by University of Tokyo researchers, could occur within the next 30-years. But now the seismic activities would suggest that that number is closing in and just within 4 years Tokyo, the home of a 30 million people, could be in danger.

The death counts are now foretold as of yet, but a 2006 research suggest that if a magnitude 7 hit the Tokyo bay area it would result in the death of 5,600 people and injure a further 159,100.

Whilst Japan is still suffering from the 2011 disaster, fear is already engulfing the nations inhabitants. But Japan’s Reconstruction Minister desperately asks them to not to run away:

Please rest assured, and don’t flee Tokyo.

I can prove this [safety] by pointing to the fact that despite the strong lateral movements triggered by the March 11 earthquake, the shinkansen recovered very quickly. I think this is proof how far our earthquake resistance technology has advanced.

Online reactions:

“Tokyo is finished!”

“A 30% chance of it not coming – what a relief!”

“We can finally move the capital in the next 4 years, great.”

“All the 3/11 damage was down to the tsunami. Take care over tsunami and there’s no real problem!”

“No, if it’s directly under Tokyo none of that earthquake resistance will matter at all…”

“Don’t tell me this professor is in the pay of earthquake insurers…”

“What will happen to the Tokyo Sky Tree?”

“Well, if it is underneath I suppose it will fall over. Still, a 7 in the world’s biggest metropolist with 35 million people is going to create pandemonium which will go down in history in any case.”

“Don’t you just love seismologists, giving themselves a 30% margin like that.”

“You people in the regions realise that Tokyo being finished means Japan is finished, I hope?”

“That’s why people are saying to decentralise away from Tokyo…”

“Probably just more government-beholden scholars trying to jack up their budget by causing a stir.”

“They were saying this decades ago. There are always huge quakes in Japan, it’s nothing to worry about now all of a sudden.”

“They’ll be saying exactly the same thing in 10 years.”

“This lot are the same bunch of liars TEPCO has been hiring to push nuclear safety.”

“First, they said no nuclear accident was possible. Now, they say no quake is going to happen in Tokyo. Japan = No Guard.”

“Ignoring some rubbish uni’s predictions I can understand, but as this is Toudai the repercussions will be big. Who’d buy new apartments in Tokyo now…”

“Remember, it’s magnitude 7.0, which is only shindo 6 or so. That’s not too bad.”

“Does anyone still believe these ridiculous percentages they keep coming out with?”

“I doubt the capital would be severely damaged, but the paralysis would be something else…”

“Please hurry up and correct this overconcentration!”

“Nobody minds if they get it wrong and it doesn’t happen, but if it happens unpredicted they will be hung out to dry – naturally it’s better to exaggerate the risk, isn’t being a seismologist great?”

The mighty arms of US censorship has led to one of the biggest “piracy” related take downs in a while.

Right before the SOPA related wickedness, the us federal government has shown how much to trust them with “power”. In a swift move, the federal government took out the file uploading site Megaupload. The file uploading website was suspected of causing $500 million of revenue becoming lost for content sellers.

Although the company itself is located in Hong Kong, their servers which hosted all the files were located within the United States. This made it possible for the federal government to take down the site. Along with that 6 of Megaupload’s CEO’s has been indicted, and 4 of them have already been arrested. Many of them live outside of the US in various countries.

One of the CEO’s by the name of Kim Schmitz (look at the picture above) was claimed by the US to have made $42 million by in 2010 solely on piracy related activities presumably somehow connected to Megaupload.

Whilst nobody can say what will now happen with Megaupload, the attack on it was done outside of the SOPA & PIPA mess using nothing but current US Laws.

2011 was a great year for Anime fans, and when great diverse titles pop up during the year there will always be a rank list highlighting the best of the best, and this one is no different.

Anime fans has gathered once more to introduce to the world to what Anime from 2011 is worth investing and will have all watch over and over again.

1. Blue Exorcist

2. Kimi ni Todoke 2

3. Ano Hi

4. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

5. Usagi Drop

6. Nichijou

7. Baka to Test to Shokanju 2

8. Tiger & Bunny

9. Hanasaku Iroha

10. Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san

Comiket 81 excellency continues in a new batch of cosplay phenomenon, and this time around we also see a female Rilakkuma (Relax Bear) with real cleavage appeal. And those are not the only pair of breasts you will be able to spot.

Want to watch the earlier batch from day 1? Click here.

Golden cosplay fairies found nowhere else on earth except on Comiket continues its tradition with even more stunning display of passionated Cosplay at Comiket 81.

Comiket 81 began on December 29, 2011.

Due to Piracy an unknown number of losses made from the Anime industry, Bandai has decided enough is enough and retreated from further dealings with US market.

The reason seems to stem from the failure to generate great revenue even though having such as Cowboy Bebop, K-ON, Ghost in the Shell and Haruhi, in their library. Bandai has concluded that it must be the work of dirty foreign pirates.

Due to this, Bandai see’s it as no other way than to abandon the US market and let others be granted a “license” to continue distributing within US. However, it is still believed that they will still be distributing their own titles such as Gundam.

As a result, Japanese Anime otaku, who worships the media as religion, has lost their faith in their foreign counterparts even further after the move Bandai made. Categorizing every foreigner further into the pit of unclean filths.

“Cool Japan…”

“Cool, but not in that sense.”

“So the Yanks got tired of Japanime?”

“Just how much were they selling them for?”

“Weren’t they selling them at rip-off prices?”

“They were trying to sell them at prices similar to the Japanese ones. This is the result.”

“It’s obvious you’ll fail if you sell BDs at ¥7,000 overseas.”

“Who’d buy at that price? Not me.”

“I’ve bought a few of their US DVDs. They certainly weren’t as expensive as the Japanese releases. However, by American standards they were still expensive.”

“Bandai as a whole has not been producing many hits lately. They are too dependent on Gundam.”

“They are making some CG anime of Tekken… seems a total waste of money.”

“They say the tastes of US fans have changed, but really they are the same. The problem is all the anime made in Japan is now for the creepy otaku demographic and doesn’t interest them.”

“They just illegally upload as much as they want and have no intention of paying a dime for anime. It’s incredibly cheap compared to Japan, yet still they pirate. Rather than sell titles cheaply on Amazon.com and have Japanese buy them there, they might well make more by withdrawing.”

“With the BD releases of Akira and Freedom, they were simultaneous in the US and Japan, but the price in the US was far cheaper.

Obviously all the Japanese ordered from Amazon.com and sales were great, but it turned out most were just Japanese buying it overseas. So they revised the pricing on Gundam UC so it’s just as expensive everywhere.”

“With all the Japanese using those sites to order, they either have to sell at prices too high for foreigners or withdraw.”

“This is a conundrum. You can’t sell overseas at those prices, but at lower prices the Japanese start buying them instead. How will the Japanese contents business cope in the age of the Internet?”

“I felt no satisfaction buying those overseas editions. They are fine just to watch, but they have no specials or anything, you can’t collect them.

And how come the original was in stereo but the US versions end up in 5.1?”

“The biggest problem is illegal downloads. Self-proclaimed right-wing patriots are always whining about how horrible China is to Japan, but really Americans are just as horrible to us.”

“What they were actually selling:

5 Centimeters Per Second
Freedom
Ghost Slayers Ayashi
The Girl Who Leapt Through Space
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Gurren Lagann
Hayate the Combat Butler
K-ON!
Kurokami
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Mobile Suit Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Mobile Suit Gundam UC
Tekken: Blood Vengeance

Was it really that hard to sell all these popular titles in the US?

If you look at Amazon.com’s anime best seller ranking, they are all anime which didn’t really take off in Japan. Interesting.”

“They won’t buy even at those low prices!”

“The market was small to begin with. You cannot just increase sales by reducing the price like that, there simply isn’t a large audience to begin with.”

“Isn’t it just because only a few ever got shown on TV? If the only way they see the first episodes is by having to go to the trouble of downloading it, your audience is not going to increase.”

“All this despite increasing numbers attending their events…”

“Yankee otaku don’t care about video or audio quality so they just watch on YouTube.”

“It’s just because overseas a culture of piracy has taken root.”

“There is no way this is solely the fault of illegal downloads.”

“Bandai has already failed to expand into Europe and America numerous times. I guess they’ll just have to keep trying.”

“What do you expect from a company which didn’t even bother including the Japanese language audio track on its Kurokami BD release? All the NA fans think they are total retards.”

“That is just moronic. Even the most basic market research will reveal that the majority of the fans there don’t care about dubs and listen in Japanese with subtitles. It’s obvious Bandai is not cut out for this kind of business.”

As 2011 is coming towards an unavoidable end fans have united as one, Anime fans have gathered a top 25th ranking of what promises to be the best of the best squeezed out of 2011.

1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

2. Ano Hi Mita Hana

3. Working!!

4. Dog Days

5. Hanasaku Iroha

6. Nichijou

7. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai

8. Baka to Test II

9. Ro-Kyu-Bu!

10. YuruYuri

11. Tamayura -hitotose-

12. Ika Musume

13. Natsume’s Book of Friends

14. Infinite Stratos

15. Hidan no Aria

16. GOSICK

17. Blue Exorcist

18. Ben-to [tied]

19. Ikoku Meiro no Croisée

20. Chihayafuru

21. Mashiroiro Symphony

22. Mayochiki!

23. The World Only God Knows

24. Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

25. Heaven’s Memo Pad

The otaku netizens from 2ch usually gather photographies of their usual “Christmas” celebration in their ronery quarters. This year is no different, and as expected, even Christmas Eve – the most important day some would say, is just as ronery as ever. Well, that is if only 2D wifes doesn’t count.

But even with all that, the crowd over at 2ch never cease to surprise with their extravagant display of collectors items, dedication and not to mention cooking skills.

This must be the cutest Christmas yet.

Google is on the hunt after a piece of the Japanese browser market and has cleverly hired one of the more popular virtual idols, Hatsune Miku, in order to have more of an impact.

The browser market in Japan isn’t as competitive as in the western world due to the populations refusal to stray away from the Windows OS built in Internet Explorer. Due to this 50% of the market share belongs to Internet Explorer. But Google is looking to gain some of that using their very own popular browser Google Chrome.

To achieve their goal Google has hired Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. But as their ace in the game they have managed to hire the virtual diva Hatsune Miku, and together they have produced the following marketing video: