Strapya World is obviously trying to kill us this morning.

EDIT: Sorries, kiddies, tiki R idjit and forget linkety-link to pretty pretty straps.

We've really gotta unsub from our anime junk lists. So we'll quit being tempted.



Bonus LULZ:

"Please note that you may not be able to collect the entire series with just one BOX."

Well, yeah, because someone's undoubtedly gone through and picked out all the Kaworu. Duh.

Looks very cute!!!

Disney unveils anime 'made in Japan'

TOKYO (AFP) — US entertainment giant Walt Disney on Thursday unveiled pilot versions of television animation series it is producing in first-of-a-kind tie-ups with Japanese animation studios.

The move, first announced earlier this month, marks a change of strategy for Disney, which has traditionally distributed US-made characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck around the world.

A Japanese adaptation of the popular US "Lilo and Stitch" series will start in late 2008 as "the first Disney animation made in Japan and set in Japan," an official at the Japanese arm of Walt Disney said.

"It's important for Disney's business to produce contents that suit the taste of the country" where they are marketed, the official said at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008.

The original "Lilo and Stitch" series told of the bonding between the orphan girl Lilo and a little blue alien named Stitch on the lush Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The Japanese version, jointly produced by mid-sized studio Madhouse, will feature a Japanese girl skilled at karate and be set on a fictional island in Japan's subtropical southern chain of Okinawa.

In the three-minute pilot version, the girl, tentatively named Hanako, and other characters dance to the tunes of traditional Okinawan music while eating a bowl of rice with chopsticks.

Via seanyoda....

Totoro Statue Erected at Bus Stop in Southern Japan

Local man builds umbrella-wielding statue from recycled parts

The Nagasaki Shimbun paper reports that a local man erected a Totoro statue next to a bus stop in the city of Sankai in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Nagasaki. The statue features the giant Totoro creature, wielding an umbrella, from Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro anime film. 43-year-old Yoshiyuki Yamamichi said he crafted the statue out of scrap wood, boat cushioning, and polystyrene "to improve the image of the area." After receiving permission from the bus company, he placed the statue at the bus stop at the end of last month. With the forest backdrop and the statue's faithfulness to a well-known scene in the movie, Yamamichi joked that a neko-bus "might really stop by."

We wants a giant Totoro at our bus stop!!!!

When the Mach 5 flips....it makes the sound! Heh.

Uh-oh...



They have Pucca toasters.

Only, they're in France. So they call it a "grille pain." And, charge 50 Euro.

Japan's next PM is related to a samurai. AND an anime fan!

Sayonara, Shinzo Abe

You do not get more connected than Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Taro Aso, a leading candidate to be the next prime minister of Japan. He is the grandson of one prime minister -- Shigeru Yoshida, who negotiated the peace treaty ending World War II -- and the son-in-law of another, Zenko Suzuki. His father was close to Kakuei Tanaka, Japan's most powerful postwar prime minister, and his younger sister is married to the first cousin of Emperor Akihito.

And to top it all off, he is the great-great grandson of Okubo Toshimichi, one of the most fascinating figures in modern Japanese history. Okubo was a key leader of Japan's Meiji Reformation, which ended the 240-year rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and ushered in a period of rapid government-directed modernization. For industrial policy fans, the Meiji Reformation sets the gold standard.

So, we've been hankering to try out the region-free feature of the snazzy new DVD player, so, seeing as we can't wait for the SciFi channel to give over the rights to Earthsea for the official US release, we ordered the J version from CD Japan. And, after just a few short minutes of cursing and stomping around, we located the code to enter into the player to unlock its awesome seekrit powers, and started to watch.

But the best part?

( look inside )

Tsuki no Waltz. It's our understanding that this was just used as a bumper between shows on TV in Japan?

Via igrrl, via DOA, via SOME SPECIAL CIRCLE OF HELL!!!



Volks you are full of teh suck!



92,000 yen?

APIECE???

Die die die stabby stabby.....

Just a reminder: Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z debuted on TV in Japan this weekend. The powerpuffgirlsz community is celebrating with discussions and mp3s and torrents and screen caps and tons and tons of icons. Also, if anyone with Japanese language skills is interested, sounds like they could use a hand with the fansub. (If you haven't subbed before, it is lots and lots and LOTS of work, so please be warned!!!!)

Just saw Howl's Moving Castle. Boneboy called us to catch a show. Just a few years back, we could barely wrestle our old buddy to the ground for long enough to force a viewing of five minutes worth of a Princess Mononoke VCD. And, now, BWA-HA-HA!! Another Miyazaki freak. Our work is done!!

We adored the movie, even though we ended up viewing the dubbed version. Billy Crystal wasn't too obnoxious. We now badly need to read the book. And we need a moving castle toy. And a scarecrow toy. And the doggie!!

BTW, we decided conclusively that Howl is gay, gay, gay. Best line was something like, "It's not worth living if I can't be beautiful!"

OB: Stitch, below cut.
( PSST! Wanna see our PINS???? )
And, update UPDATE: we've finished tagging our entries back into January. You can see links to selected tags over on the left (no, the other left!). If you'd like to suggest other tags to surface, so you can feel clever by sorting through the dross, please let us know.

As you might know, Dizzyland is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, and of course that means MERCHANDISE.

One of the cuter series we've seen are some nostalgic styled postcards, stationery, and etc. We couldn't resist this bobbledy head pen set, which features Mr. Tiki Man, as well as the Matterhorn 'Bumble snowman, Tink, a Hitchhiking Ghost, and a Lilo-esque Hula Girl (we believe she might be from the mind-deadening It's a Small World ride, but we may be mistook).

Also, for whatever reason, our pal Boneboy gave us this. Mr. Tikistitch just shook his head.



Oh, and someone just posted this link to our shoujo anime list: someone's got screen caps and other groovy stuff from Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z!! SQUEEE!!!

Stolen from avalonjones

This looks soooo cute!!

Oh, and this is Magma Heritage's picture of the new Pullip, Paja, the doll in the Goji suit.

Some people have Lives of Achievement. They each day to win the Nobel Prize for physics, to author a multiple Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, to become Assistant Director of Quality Improvement for the Western District.

We at Tikistitch United, on the other hand, strive to take a few halfway decent photos of our new Clamp minis.



Yes, we have finally received Miracle of CLAMP volumes three, four and five. There will be 12 magazines in toto in the complete set, each sporting impossibly chibi renditions of various CLAMP chara, CLAMP being the female manga collective responsible for such objects of Tikistitch's eternal worship as Cardcaptor Sakura and Magic Knight Rayearth. As you may recall, successful purchase of the entire run will result in the creation of a full CLAMP chess set. Failure to do so will cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth, due to acute kawaii deprivation.

Now, if someone could just point us to where we cleverly stowed volumes 1 and 2???

pigs is love

Every day, people come up to us on the street and ask, "Tikistitch, whyn't ya do some more of that there annie may stuff?" 'Cause, our web site is "Attack of the Anime Toys!" with the exclamation point an all. Back when Tikistitch was a chibi Stitch, we had new magical girls toys and dollies all the time. Hourly, even!! But sadly, we just haven't found much new that floats our collective boat.

This is, then, a rare find. These little piggies are from a shoujo anime called "Tonde Buurin." The double U is important in this case, since "buurin" is supposed to be the imitation of a piggie sound! Cute, huh? It involves a little girl, who we see on the back of the box. If memory serves, her name is Karin. The little piggies don't have individual names, but are called the Kobuta, after the characters on their tummies. (I believe that their tummies actually now spell out "Na bu ta," in case anyone is interested.)

Anyways, Karin is not the normal sailor-suited magical girl, because when she transforms, she transforms into this, a big pink piggie! She has to go on some kind of magical quest, but meanwhile, if anyone sees her as Buurin, the piggie, she has to stay in piggie form....forever!

Yeah, I know, somewhere in Japan, someone was doing some pretty sweet psychedelics way back when.

We've been waiting for this doll for many years now.



( say WHAT? )

Here ya go:



( Squee! Kero-chan! )