(Thanks to Aria fanlisting's Mazzie for this update!:)

According to this ad, Aria vols 7 & 8 will have special editions that come with chibi-figures of Akari, Aika, Alice, Alicia, Akira and Athena. From what I can tell, the Akari, Aika and Alice figures will come with vol 7 with one half of a gondola, and vol 8 will have Alicia, Akira and Athena with the other half, and the two gondola halves will fit together. Sounds really cute.:)

Release dates:
Vol 7: September 10, 2005
Vol 8: January 10, 2006

Each special edition volume will cost ¥1600 (about US$15). Which is not too bad, considering the regular volumes cost about ¥525.

There are also rumblings of a TV anime, but I'm holding out for confirmation on Amano-sensei's site. (btw, Aria-shachou's tail is flipping again...:) It may already be there, but I can't read Japanese fast enough, so bear with me if I keep my enthusiasm in check for a bit longer.:)

Misc housekeeping: Yes, the big site update IS coming. :) I've been kind of HTML-d out working on my friend's site, to get it updated in time for the summer con season (my goal, not hers). Please visit if you wish!

:edit: I read too fast. Vol 8 actually comes out January 10 2006, not October 6.XD

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm back from Japan! A few Aria-related updates:
- The third water fairy's name is At(h?)ena. Apparently she sings. Personality-wise she seems to be quite a gloomy and/or anemic person. She's Alice's sempai.
- In addition to Aria, Aqua and Crescent Noise, Amano-sensei did a high school romance series called Roman Club and a series of short stories (I think these feature the Roman Club characters, but I haven't been able to figure them out) during her stint with Enix's G-Fantasy. These were published in tankoubon format under the GanGan Comics (GC) imprint.
- I had the opportunity to speak with a manga editor for Enix's manga line. He said that Mag Garden now owns the rights to republish ALL of Amano-sensei's GanGan Comics works, so there's a good chance that Crescent Noise will be reprinted under the Mag Garden imprint. So far from the GC imprint, the short stories and Aqua have been reprinted by Mag Garden (with new covers!) This explains why there have been 2 sets of covers seen for Aqua.
- Stella is out! Quite pretty. Contains color art up to vol 6 of the Aria manga, and more color art from Roman Club and short stories.
Whew! That's all I have for now. I will scan the covers of Stella and the GC tankoubon at a later date.

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Reading the transcript of current Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's keynote at GDC, I noticed he mentioned that he was part of the group that created Mother, a game that Amano-sensei notes as one of her favorites. Iwata-san mentioned in his speech that Mother was released as Earthbound in the US, a crucial clue. So I went to look it up, and here's what I found. Amano-sensei has good taste.:)

In other news, Amano-sensei has posted some interesting new sketches on the Aria site, featuring a woman in an Orange Planet uniform. (from the home page, click the middle graphic (chibi-Akari) and click on the 2nd-to-last dot in the last row of large dots. sorry I can't be more specific.) It's not Alice, as she has no gloves, so I'm guessing that this is the third Water Fairy. I don't see anything that would be her name - nothing in the captions starts with "A." XD The first caption reads "Dougare kyuuden no nakaniwa" (Doges' Palace Courtyard?) and the second caption is "Dougare kyuuden no shirou no you desu" (Seems like Doges' palace castle[?]), so I think the setting is the Neo-Venezia version of the Doges' Palace in present-day Venice.

Why does she look so sad?

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Now it's his paws and mouth twitching. Happily his tail no longer does the flippy thing. I wonder if this really is the Aria anime that was rumored.^^;

In other news, Alice is the cover girl for vol 6. I predict Akira will be on vol 7. Dare we hope that Akatsuki will ever get a cover of his very own?

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not sure if it did this before, but the new picture of Aria-shachou on Amano-sensei's home page is now animated. It's rather disturbing to see his bobtail moving.XD

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alas, Sasuga Books also does not have Alpha in stock. I also checked publisher Mag Garden's site, and it appears that they are sold out at the source. *kicks self for not getting it at Otakon* I am still getting the 2005 calendar, however.

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, it seems that vol 3 of Aria just flew off the shelves. On a random check of Arlington bookstores while holiday shopping over the weekend, no one had it - including the Borders where I got mine during lunch two weeks ago. :sweat: Lucky!

Anyway, many good revelations in vol 3. Not the least of which:

Continue reading "the quiet popularity of Aria" »

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aria vol 3 is out and in my hands. :D

Also got FMP! v6. Looks like more Fumoffu? than Panic! though.

Continue reading "glee!" »

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

..the Big O II box set will be out tomorrow. can't wait to hear them all speaking Japanese.:D Also the final volume of Azumanga Daioh - with the Maya pin!!! Plus Chr(o)no Crusade (I shall NEVER get used to spelling it the R1 way) vol 2 came out last week, so I officially have a backlog of stuff waiting to be bought!

Plus street date for Aria vol 3 is tomorrow as well. *sigh* I wonder why ADV Manga put such a huge gap between the first 2 volumes and the third. There was a similar delay for Chr(o)no Crusade - the first volume came out in May and the second voume came out last month. Come to think of it, it's been a while since Full Metal Panic! vol 5 was released, too... Who knows what else they publish that I don't read that suffered a similar delay.

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With all the rampant street-date breaking that's being going on with manga releases lately, I rather naively expected to find Aria vol 3 on the shelves by now. But alas, no luck. Maybe I'll try B&N today.

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aqua *looks* like it would be easy to translate, but it actually has lots of fun SF terminology that has made me realize that my J/E dictionary isn't nearly big enough.

However, there are some things I can tell without actually having to read. Like Akari actually has been up to the floating island where the salamanders do their weather control thing. Also, that Akatsuki's nickname for Akari is actually "momiko" = "little sideburns", not "pigtails" (benpatsu). xd I still say that he likes her though. :luv:

Continue reading "translating Aqua" »

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This blog is now running in MySQL. Pardon our dust.

Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It may be just me, but all my current favorite anime/manga series seem to be direct challenges from the manga-ka to cosplay. Aria's form-fitting outfits are lovely but a tailoring nightmare. Bleach... well, OK, that's manageable, but I'm having a HELL of a time with the hakama. I don't even want to think of how to cosplay anyone from Samurai 7 (although it would be niftycool to see a whole group of all 10 Kirara-ikkou).
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Posted by Aria-Kakaricho at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)