Alainmendez

A new study by the National Science Foundation shows that more than 40% of Americans think that astrology is a science, the highest levels since 1983.

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If you watched the third season of Sherlock on PBS, you haven't seen the whole thing. The channel makes edits some for time, some for content, and some to keep people from seeing Sherlock and John enter a gay bar during his bachelor party pub crawl. Luckily, the unedited Sherlock arrives in America tomorrow!

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This past week, we exchanged a few e-mails regarding the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona games, and how we felt about director Katsura Hashino’s comments on Persona 5.

Read Discussing Persona 5 And Wish Fulfilment on Siliconera!

GreenManGaming and Yogscast have teamed up to gather some info via a survey. Fill out the survey, and in exchange you get a discount code.

Read 25% Discount Code Available At GreenManGaming on Siliconera!

Fox Business thinks the blockbuster, feature-length toy commercial The Lego Movie is anti-business. The mind boggles.

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Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is coming to 3DS in the west soon, with Europe receiving the crossover game first on February 28. The fun won't end when the credits roll, either, since players will be able to access free DLC once the main story is completed. 

The meat of the free offerings comes in the form of 12 bonus mini-episodes. There will also be art galleries complete with over 60 illustrations and comments from the developers regarding the game's creation.

A North American release for Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is scheduled for later this year. 

Via Siliconera

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. His blog can be found at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter at @Moldilox.

Winter Wonder Festival this year seems poised to ruin me financially and, just when I thought I couldn't get any more excited following a figma Motoko Kusanagi announcement, here comes an image of Detective Conan's (US: Case Closed) eponymous boy detective, Conan Edogawa! But wait, there's more! Pictured right next to him is a shadowy figure (a.k.a. the unseen guilty suspect or criminal) in figma form as well. C'mon! This much DO WANT! is just criminal.

The pair will presumably be packaged together and the criminal seen in the background (the one that mirrors the black silhouette seen on the show) will likely be the paint deco for the figure. My only concern is that Conan himself doesn't look like he has joints worked in yet. Although a figurine scaled within the figma line is neat and all, I'm not sure if I'd bother buying the character in a non-articulated form. Oh well, maybe he'll receive a Nendoroid down the road...

You better believe I'll be following this case closely.

Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, Resident Evil: Revelations and Dead Rising 3 have all achieved their projected sales, Capcom said in a financial results report last night.

Read Ace Attorney, DuckTales And Dead Rising 3 All Did Well For Capcom on Siliconera!

The Moonlight Butterfly is the most destructive attack in all of the Gundam metaverse. Those beautiful wings of energy will make every piece of technology useless from here to Jupiter. Since their debut, people have asked for them to be included with the Gunpla, but only to find them with a special exclusive release for the Robot Damashii. Now they will finally be made available for the upcoming HGCC Turn A Gundam. Just like the Robot Damashii though, they'll be embargoed behind the Premium Bandai Shop.

For the price of ¥1,728 yen plus proxy fees, you can add the Moonlight Butterfly to your HGCC Turn A. I've tried to come up with ways to do it myself, as have others, but none of these solutions has really satisfied me. I'm finding myself having to need this, especially as a fan of the design of the Turn A. I'll just need to be finding a seller that won't gouge my eyes out for it. I've got until May to find one, so hopefully there's a soul out there who won't charge me for mine for it.

If these Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth videos were in English, Yukari would have called Junpei "Stupei" at least once.

Read Persona Q: Shadow Of The Labyrinth Gets Sillier With Junpei And Yukari on Siliconera!

Hello and welcome back to a very busy Tomopop LinkUP! I suppose that title is worthy of a little explanation. You see, back in the heyday of anime fansubs there was a number of speed subbers that were notorious for their nonsensical translations. In one case a line in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex talking about children being abducted by the mafia was translated as "Are you aware of the frequent occurrences of the mass naked child events within the country?" by a particularly awful fansub group. For a time the phrase "mass naked child events" became a meme referring to terrible translations.

When you think about it, Wonder Festival really is a mass naked figure event. Let's face it, most of the figures we'll be drooling over the pictures of this weekend probably won't be wearing a lot of clothes. And yes, some of them will indeed be naked, or pretty near it, especially if some of the previews in this edition of LinkUP is anything to go by. Plus we've got some other stuff to gawk at like videos, an interview, and various other things all after the jump!

So, there was a little game called Persona 4 Arena last year. Since Persona has become all of the genres, they started to merchandise the series. After several releases of the cast from the fourth entry, the release of Arena gave reason to go back and revisit Persona 3. After the release of D-Arts Thanatos, we arrive at the release of D-Arts Elizabeth.

Is this new D-Arts release worth stepping into the Velvet Room for? Find out in today's review of D-Arts Elizabeth!

Bravely Default finally flies to Nintendo 3DS in North America this week, and Nintendo is celebrating with an up close and personal look at the RPG's Collector's Edition. Watch as Nintendo Minute spends some quality time with the release in the unboxing video below.

In case you didn't feel like watching the whole thing, the set comes with Bravely Default, a soundtrack CD, 34 AR cards, and an art book.

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Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. His blog can be found at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter at @Moldilox.

The great thing about job systems is that they can continue to feel fresh for as long as the jobs themselves break new ground. Bravely Default's job system is no different.

Read Bravely Default Has 24 Jobs, But Infinite Possibilities on Siliconera!

We already loved the original version of Frozen's "Let it Go". So how to improve on it?Well, adding Captain Jean Luc Picard, the Borg Queen, and a couple exploding spaceships is a pretty great start.

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The entire cosmos, apparently.

Read What’s Under Rosalina’s Gown In Super Smash Bros.? on Siliconera!

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney will have free downloadable content, just like the regular Professor Layton series does.

Read Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney Will Get Free Mini-Episodes As DLC on Siliconera!

In an interview in a recently-published issue of the Persona magazine, Persona series director Katsura Hashino discusses Atlus’ thematic approach to Persona 5.

Read Persona 5 Aimed At People That Are Discontent With Their Lives on Siliconera!

Fist of the North Star characters Kenshiro and Raoh are confirmed for J-Stars Victory Vs. The news comes from a Jump scan which shows both characters in the game.

Read The Other J-Stars Victory Vs. Fighters Are Already Dead, Kenshiro And Raoh Are In It on Siliconera!

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia for PlayStation Vita will be fully-voiced, Kadokawa Games have confirmed.

Read Fate/Hollow Ataraxia To Be Fully-Voiced On Vita on Siliconera!

Seriously, these are the only things we want to wear, ever. See Finn and Jake — and the Ice King and Flame Princess! — a whole new way, and sport them on your chest. Including a brilliant Star Wars/Adventure Time mashup.

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Does it seem like manga readers have slightly different tastes from anime viewers? In the results of a recent poll question where the Japanese male users of the site chose who they wanted to receive chocolate from, they picked many characters that seasoned veterans in the scene could probably appreciate. Here is the other part of poll results by eBookJapan.

Top 5 female Manga characters that Japanese males wish to get Valentine's Day chocolate from

#1 Kyoko Otonashi from Maison Ikkoku

"She is older than me and sometimes too smothering but still very sweet, I would fall easiliy if she gave me chocolate."

"Kyoko is forever my madonna"

#2 Nami from ONE PIECE

"I like girls who are cheerful"

"I'd be very happy if she gave me chocolate because she is not the type to do that. And she is cute"

#3 Minami Asakura from Touch

"She represents females of 1980s and I would forever be honored if I could receive her chocolate even if it's for friendship. I have been a big fan of Noriko Hidaka, who did the voice for her as well."

"She is forever my idol"

#4 Lum from Urusei Yatsura

"I love how she is direct and to the point"

"She is a devoted lover"

#5 Amir Halgal from Otoyomegatari (The Bride's Stories)

Manga by Kaoru Mori, click here for a short description in the previous news post.

"She is adorable in many ways"

"I can trust her to make a good chocolate"

There you have it! I noticed that there are more thorough and passionate reasons for the votes from the male audience compared to how females were focused on which character will be the happiest to receive chocolate, sort of confirming the rumor that the event has more impact on males than females in Japan.

Souce: eBookJapan

Bleeding Cool's Brendon Connelly got a chance to sit down with Jeremy Shada, who voices Finn on Adventure Time, for this extensive 20-minute Q&A.

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Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Fate/Stay Night, and creator Kinoko Nasu of Type-Moon had a few words to share with fans on his blog, about the upcoming anime.

Read Fate/Stay Night Co-Creator Talks About The Upcoming Anime on Siliconera!

Additionally, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle will see a limited run of physical copies released exclusively via Amazon and ClubNamco.com.

Read JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle Has A New Arcade Mode For The West on Siliconera!

Today, Phil Foglio posted about Tor Books, the current publisher of his graphic novel series Girl Genius with Kaja Foglio, giving him the silent treatment,

So after a year of this (yes, an entire year. We are Slow to Take Offense, here at Studio Foglio), I write to Mr. Hayden, asking him if our editor is dead, or just fired? This question surprises him, as he saw her in the office that morning. He seems sympathetic. We even have a face-to-face meeting at worldcon the next week where he explains that TOR just really doesn’t know how to sell graphic novels, and when someone takes on a job they don’t know how to do, they tend to just stick their fingers in their ears and hope that eventually, it goes away. Fair enough, I am occasionally like this with The Experiments.

I mention that we’ve been selling graphic novels fairly well for quite awhile, and that we’d cheerfully give them pointers. However, if they just can’t wrap their heads around it, which seems obvious since after three years they have yet to sell through the initial print run (We’d have done it in 16 months- and that’s with no advertising, which is a fair comparison, as they did no advertising either), then we’ll just sing a chorus of “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know You”, and then we’ll publish them ourselves, because if there’s one thing we know how to do, it’s publish and sell Girl Genius graphic novels.

But we can’t. Because our contract with TOR says we can’t publish “a competing product” for five years. Okay, what can we do about this? But now, Mr. Patrick Nielsen Hayden has apparently decided that we’re too much trouble.

Silence.

No, seriously. You don’t want the series. You can’t sell it. We’ll even buy the remainder sitting in your warehouse. Talk to me. Talk to my agent. Prove you’re not dead or fired.

Silence.

The only conclusion I can come to, is that Mr. Patrick Nielsen Hayden has decided that he can ignore us. Eventually, we, like many other confusing things that he cannot make money from, will go away. It may take five years, but really, who cares?

Personally, I think that the problem is that we’re this little studio alllll the way out on the west coast, and thus, easy to ignore. If you have stayed with me all through this screed, then I would like your help. Mr. Patrick Nielsen Hayden has a Facebook page.

That would be here.

So does TOR Books.

That would be here. Also on Twitter.

We very rarely ask our readership to do anything other than enjoy the strip and purchase the occasional book (Hey, TOR, your first lesson in marketing. And it’s Free!) But if some of you would write to let the folks at TOR know that we’d like to take our book and go home now, we’d appreciate it.

And his readers have begun to do as requested. On the TOR Facebook page we now read,

Alan Cooper Hey, I understand you’re “sitting” on the Girl Genius omnibus, way to go at making money and gaining customers NOT!

Julie Sim Why haven’t you responded to Girl Genius Webcomic? They deserve to have either their books published or the ability to publish themselves as they did before.

M. Alan Thomas II I generally like Tor. For example, I had a perfectly nice time visiting your booth at ALA Midwinter this past weekend. Furthermore, when you are nice to my friends, I like that. As a publisher, Tor has been reasonably nice to two of my friends who are authors. Good for you.

On the other hand, when Tor is mean to other friends who are also authors, I dislike that. When I’m fairly sure that the difference between the first group and the second group is how much money you’re making off of them, I’m not inclined to allow you to charge the meanness against goodwill from the niceness, because you don’t earn any credit for only being nice to those who benefit you.

As a librarian who doesn’t want to feel bad about having the library purchase books by his friends just because they’re published by Tor, I’d rather like to see the apparent mistreatment of Kaja & Phil Foglio come to a halt and a satisfactory conclusion to their problem arrived at. You cannot ignore this and make it go away.

Gary Montgomery I think Phil and Kaja deserve to be able to buy the remainder of the Girl Genius print run, if not gracefully exit their contract. If Phil’s blog is to be believed (and I see no reason it shouldn’t) the treatment Studio Foglio has gotten is silly verging on asinine with a dash of insulting sauce.

Phil Folgio Vs Tor Books Over Girl Genius

The new Super Smash Bros. games will take a large number of factors into account during face-offs between different characters.

Read Super Smash Bros. Director Gives Example Of Intricate Character Match-ups on Siliconera!

ufotable, the studio who adapted prequel Fate/zero, will be revisiting the families and Grail War a generation later in the Fate/stay night anime. This week, Volume 9 of Type-Moon Ace will be revealing the details, and early reports have a TV anime coming this fall with Takahiro Miura (director of the 6th Kara no Kyoukai: Garden of Sinners movie, storyboard artist on the Fate/zero opening) directing.

Character designers include Tomonori Sudo (KnK, Fate/Zero, Coyote Ragtime Show), Hisayuki Tabata (Yuyushiki), and Atsushi Ikariya (Fate/zero, Devil is a Part Timer).

Early rumors and buzz include the suggestion that visual novel writer Kinoko Nasu has come up with an original route for the series, which will feature Shirō Emiya as its lead. Reportedly the Ace piece will offer a look at new, modern casual costume designs for Shirō and Rin and some jacket for casual Saber.

There's also talk that half the scripts are completed, and most are already storyboarded. Voice recording started last Fall, and several eps are done.

 
Fate / stay night PV by pKjd

From ufotable's work on the PS Vita port of the Realta Nua version of the original light novel.

via RollingPirahna

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Before he transformed into the greatest Marvel villain of all, Tom Hiddleston originally auditioned for Chris Hemsworth's role as Thor. And we now have a tiny glimpse of that audition tape — and it is awesome.

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An interview in the latest volume of Type-Moon Ace magazine brings further details on the new Fate/Stay Night anime by ufotable.

Read New Fate/Stay Night Anime To Be More Serious Like Fate/Zero on Siliconera!