Wired is running a story about the Giants of Anime which discusses numerous things happening on the anime front, including the new Ghost in the Shell movie, and the upcoming Miyazaki release "Howl's Moving Castle". This is something of a background piece for people somewhat unfamiliar, but it also covers a lot of interesting bits that the fans might enjoy as well.

Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing Sony's showcase of new features/software for its forthcoming PSP handheld, including confirmation that "up to 16 PSPs can connect together using the device's wireless LAN... without the need of a central hub device", as well as "several new PSP games, including a version of the anime-inspired PlayStation 2 shooter Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex... [and Harvest Moon and Need for Speed conversions.]" 1UP has further information and pictures, including the unveiling of Talkman, new PSP software which "accepts voice input from a microphone peripheral.. [and lets] a multi-lingual cartoon bird named Max... translate comments in one language into another."

sentientbrendan asks: "I'm a University student home for summer vacation, living in the Greater Seattle area. While at school I have access to a lot of different clubs such as the ACM, Math Club, Anime Club, etc. Now that I am out of school, even though I have more free time to participate in them, I no longer have access to said clubs. I enjoy hanging out with intelligent technical people and discussing programming, math, science, physics, and so fort. I'm a serious student of a number of subjects and I like to hang out with people who either know their stuff, or are willing to learn about it. I'm especially interested in anything that has a Seattle chapter. It also definitely needs to be a group that still meets during the summer. I do attend 2600 meets, although I'm not that interested in security in particular. The informal atmosphere is nice and people tend to wander around Seattle at night after the meets, which is always fun. So Slashdot, what are your favorite tech/math/science clubs?"

Thanks to Insert Credit for pointing to a Namako Team story revealing new Japanese 'visual novel' DVDs coming to the West via publisher Hirameki. Insert Credit explains: "Hirameki has been slowly releasing English-language ports of Japanese dating sims in the US. They play basically the same on a PC, DVD player, PS2 or Xbox [using Dragon's Lair style branching narrative], which is the appeal of the format." The new "Summer 2004"-due DVD releases include the wonderfully named Tea Society Of A Witch, as well as Hourglass Summer, apparently "A summer vacation that crosses the boundaries of space and time."

IronicGrin writes "Just alerting you to a story I wrote for SFGate.com about the emergence of manga as a cultural and commercial force in the U.S.; in addition to discussing the fact that manga has begun to appear on national bestseller lists (volumes of Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin both cracked the USA Today Top 150), I also discuss scanlation communities--that is to say, distributed groups that use the Internet to translate and distribute as-yet unlicensed manga works--comparing this form of culture hacking to other open source development efforts. Do you think the comparison is apt? How many of you guys read manga (as opposed to watch anime), anyway?"

ChibiOne writes "The Asahi Shinbun has a story about the critical state that the Japanese animation industry currently faces, claiming: 'As merchandisers grow rich, the animation industry is losing jobs to cheaper labor abroad.' The article quotes Oh Production President Koichi Murata as saying: 'Unless something is done, Japanese anime will be ruined.' An animator, toiling away on cels in a tiny Tokyo studio, might be fortunate to pull in just 50,000 yen [about $500 USD] a month."

News for nerds writes "At Tokyo Motorcycle Show in Japan (2/3/4 Apr.), the official licensed model of the motorcycle in the anime movie Akira (poster) is displayed. This Kaneda bike is not a mere replica, but a full working model (more pics at ITmedia) with twin-steering system and 249-998cc water-cooled 4-cycle engine, and on its cockpit is DVD-navi-system + trackball & ten-key + custom computer-controlled LED meters - all licenced by the author and the publisher of Akira. Though at the show only miniature figures are sold and real price or release date is unclear, you can check out the manufacturer's website for later info."

Silverhammer writes "Apple Japan is hosting the trailer (Quicktime required, of course) for an upcoming movie called simply CASSHERN. There have been many attempts at so-called 'live-action anime', but this is possibly the most impressive attempt I've ever seen. Part 'Final Fantasy', part 'Brazil', with CG and green screen work that puts even 'LoTR' to shame. (Hat tip: Penny Arcade)."

darrellberry writes "We went to see the World Sneak Preview of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed at the ICA tonight. Complimentary sake and sushi, a loving but silly flipchart presentation from the producer about the politics of the world in which it is set, then the film. The animation is amazing the rendering of the city of Olympus is beautiful, the battle set-pieces are fluid and very well choreographed, and the fine line betwen genre conventions and attempts at hyper-realism is treated with respect. Although the first few minutes owe too much to The Matrix-meets-Avalon, and in parts (to my eye) the human characters suffer somewhat from traditional anime styling, Appleseed is something genuinely new in animation. Detail everywhere, lovingly rendered. Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s, and music supervision that was entirely wrong: it was nice to see Basement Jaxx turning up for the premiere, but their music and that of Oakenfold and the rest on the soundtrack made no sense thematically or emotionally. I can see that they are going for a big international release with Appleseed, but the music is just wrong. On the plus side, the motion capture-based character animation is very convincing, and the Mobile Fortresses out-scale any other city-stomping weapons platform I can remember. And lovely to see anime at a high frame-rate, not jumping in triples. Go see it at a big cinema with decent Dolby when it's on release next month, or get it on DVD (evidently on release in July) and turn up the sub-woofer." I don't know if we linked to the official site in our last story.

LocusMote writes "Masamune Shirow, the creative genius behind the manga and anime Ghost in the Shell , has a few new irons fresh from the fire. One of his earlier manga, Appleseed, already exists as a rather disappointing television quality anime. Shirow thought so too, apparently. He went back to the original manga storyline, blew off the dust, and has produced a beautiful new all-CG Appleseed which hits the Japanese theaters in April. (Quicktime required) Oh yeah, there's a Ghost in the Shell sequel in the pipeline, too, called Innocence ... w00t!" Beautiful.

This is an unusual Slashdot Interview, since instead of using email I asked all the questions in person last week either at LinuxAsia2004 or in casual meetings with local LUG members and other techies I met during the conference. Some of your questions were answered quite well by other Slashdot readers in the original post. (Slashdot has many readers both in and from India.) I also inserted a number of personal observations, which I usually don't do in these interviews, because it seemed to be the best way to answer some of the questions. And some questions were nearly unanswerable, as you'll see when you read the rest of this article.

Xzan writes "CGNetworks has released some concept art pictures of the upcoming feature film of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. I think the characters look really ugly, especially "Ray"(Rei in the anime). The concept art is made by Weta Workshop, who also did the special effects for Lord of the rings."

The Wicked Priest writes "The Washington Post is reporting that culture is among Japan's leading exports." Talks about Anime, Manga, Music, Video Games and so forth. Interesting reading.

Thanks to The Magic Box for new screenshots and details of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, as the PlayStation 2 "action shooter", developed by Drag-on Dragoon creators Cavia in conjunction with Production I.G., the makers of the original Ghost In The Shell anime movie and the new GITS: Stand Alone Complex TV show, gets an official Japanese site and brief ASX trailer video. This third-person shooter, unrelated in gameplay to an earlier Ghost In The Shell title for PlayStation 1, has you battling against "illicit arms trades, and... terrorists", and will debut in Japan in March 2004, with a U.S. release as yet unconfirmed.

Thanks to PlanetUnreal for their news that the first-round winners of Epic/Atari's 'Make Something Unreal' FPS modding competition have been announced, with "the winners of the first-of-four contest rounds taking home a share of $50,000 in cash and high-end PC equipment." According to the linked press release: "The winning [Unreal-specific] mods include Deathball (the first place winner), which is a futuristic soccer/lacrosse/football-like sport, and fourth-place winner Jupiter Effect: Influx, which was created as an art school project and is an anime inspired battle between giant robots." The Make Something Unreal official page also has details and links to the winners, also noting that "the contest is one year long and set to conclude in the fall of 2004."

E-Rock-23 writes "Anime News Network has the scoop on more Anime series Cartoon Network plans to bring to the Adult Swim block next year. Witch Hunter Robin (2) has been confirmed for a February run. On the "Probably" list are Wolf's Rain in April and Ghost in the Shell in July, though they didn't specify if it'd be the Mamoru Oshii film or the Stand Alone Complex TV series. Either way, the latter will most likely have to be rather heavily edited for TV. Looks like I have a few more reasons to stay up past my bedtime..." Or get a tivo. Witch Hunter Robin & Wolf's Rain are both really excellent shows- it's very cool to see them hit mainstream TV.

timbloid writes "I spotted on Ain't it cool news that Mamoru Oshii's new anime Innocence Ghost In The Shell 2's website is now open! The trailer is beautiful! But I can't help thinking a translated version is some time off from the 2004 Japanese release... Maybe it would be faster for me to learn Japanese?"

altaic asks: "Today I was looking for a container format to store my anime collection (multi-language audio and subs), and I discovered popular media containers actually suck. AVIs are a hacked mess and don't even support multiple audio tracks. OGMs are catching on, but they don't have an index, nor do they support variable framerates (the fps value is stored in the header). I found some info on the Matroska container, which looks really cool (it supports multiple subtitle streams, multiple audio streams, a slew of other nice features), as well as the very young MPCF (mplayer container format). I'd really like to hear about other people's experiences with newer, more useful media containers."

Thanks to Nintendojo for revealing new details regarding the previously rumored, Namco/Nintendo co-produced GameCube-exclusive rhythm game, Donkey Konga. The site has pictures of the "new Congo Drum peripheral dubbed as 'Barrel Konga Drums'" which will be shipping with the game, and the 4-player, 32 music-track title may include the Super Mario Bros theme alongside "Latin beats, pop music, dance, classical, Anime and children's tunes." Adding to the fun, "the drums will include a microphone that's designed to pick up the sound of claps thus making the game require you to clap as well as bang on the drums", but Nintendojo reckon a U.S. release to be "highly unlikely" since "it caters too perfectly towards the Japanese audience" weaned on games like Taiko No Tatsujin.

Joe Curzon writes "The Pirate Anime FAQ has finally been updated, after year of me being far to busy to do anything on the internet! The FAQ would have been released sooner, but my request on Slashdot.org produced some "interesting" feedback via e-mail. This update includes a new and improved Fansub section, which also covers Digisubs. Scanlations have been added as a point of interest. Additionally the Audio CD and DVD sections have been improved with more details on the Pirate Companies and how to spot their "products". I would also like to say that feedback from readers and the industry is critical for keeping the FAQ up to date, and without their previous and continuing support The Pirate Anime FAQ could not exist. Finally I would to remind people to be extremely cautious when buying from on-line auction sites such as eBay. The most common e-mail I get sent is from concerned fans who have just found out that they have bought some pirate goods off a seller who claimed what they were selling was legitimate."