Originally written by Ursula K. Le Guin, “Earthsea: Farthest Shore (1972)” will become an animation film directed by Goro Miyazaki, a son of Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away,” “Howl’s Moving Castle”). Miyazaki was interested in making a film of this story while “Chronicles of Narnia,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Earthsea” became the top three fantasy novels over 20 years ago. However, at the time, Le Guin was not accepting any movie offers from Miyazaki along with many others who were also interested. Yet, this perspective changed as Miyazaki’s work became known to the world. Le Guin viewed his work and this time initiated the idea herself. The film will be released in Japan in July 2006, with the Japanese title “Gedo Senki.” According to Nausicaa.net, the possible English title is “Gedo War History.” Keep your look out for this title.

Entertaining people in Japan, “PokePark,” the temporary Pokemon theme park, is now heading to Taiwan. It will open this summer on June 23^rdand will end on September 24^that the Shilin district, Taipei City. The “PokePark” has been considered tovisit the United States, Europe and Shanghai (China) after Taiwan.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ) announced that major train stations and 150 cafes all over Japan would establish “PlayStation Spot” that utilized the PSP game-sharing system in order to distribute trial versions of PSP at multiple stations. This way, the consumers can enjoy their wait at these train stations and cafés while SCEJ can also commercialize their new products. Eighty-one stores have already contained the program as of March 23^rd.

**References: PlayStation. Portable Website (Japanese)

Artistgoods.com, a website supporting independent animation artists, created “anime-flash,” an official information website for all animations such as flash anime, independent anime and artistic anime. Anime-flash includes information of showtime schedules, new products, and even the updates on the latest projects. Thus, it will facilitate the process of data gathering for producers and audiences. Flash anime is referred to the animation created with macromedia flash. Independent anime is a type of animation that is not created by an already existing anime production, but instead is a final product of only a few artists. Finally, Artistic anime is more credited for its creativity. Nevertheless, these works are overlapping in many cases.

Last year, fewer people went to theaters in Japan and box office revenues declined. However, the domestic film industry is finding reason for optimism. “In comparison with the top 10 imported movies from 2004, last year’s production fared poorly,” said Yuko Nakano, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, “but the positive part is that Japanese films performed very well, and there were a number of popular homemade hits.”

Here are Japan’s top 10 domestic films in box office of 2005. 

Kadokawa Holdings Inc., one of the biggest publishers in Japan, stated that it would sell its 2.91% stake in DreamWorks SKG to Paramount Pictures for about $21 million by the end of February. Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., announced in December 2005 that it would buy privately held DreamWorks, which was co-founded by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, in a $1.6 billion cash-and-debt deal. Kadokawa invested $100 million in DreamWorks in 2004 to gain exclusive rights to distribute the studio's films, videos, DVDs and other products in Japan.

Vivendi Universal announced, on February 9^th, that it had acquired a 7.7% stake in Universal Studios Holding Corp. from Japan’s Matsushita Electric. The $1.2 Billion deal, to be completed on February 14th, will allow the French media and telecom group to increase its 92% stake in Universal Music Group to 100% and raise its 18.5% stake in NBC Universal to 20% in addition to giving Vivendi full ownership of the holding company, which also owns a game developer, Universal Interactive.

The Best Directors Award                      “Sunset On Third Street”

The Best Visual Designer Award              “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children”

The Best Programmer Award                   “Google Earth/ Google Local/ Google Desktop”

The Best Writer Award                             “Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Japanese Version”

On January 16^th, Yumi Yoshimura and Ami Onuki from a popular female duo, “Puffy,” were honored at the “Visit Japan Campaign” ceremony for their efforts to bring the U.S. and Japan closer together via entertainment. Surprised by the award handed by Japan’s transportation minister, Puffy stated that they hope to further share the “Best” of Japan to the rest of the world. The goal of “Visit Japan Campaign” is to attract enterprises interested in working with Japan through the year 2010. So far, they have selected Yoshino Kimura as the ambassador of the Tourism Campaign. However, Puffy has been selected as the candidate because the focus of this event is international business expansion between Japan and the U.S.

The James Kirst family purchased the Linda Lea Theatre in 2005 and formed an operating company, Cinema Properties Group, with ImaginAsian Entertainment, a New-York-based venture company that undertakes Asian contents and down-to-earth management. This historical theatre had been a rare place that featured Japanese films in Los Angeles. Located in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles, the Linda Lea Theatre will aim for the regional revitalization and the advancement of the Asian community. It will be opened by the end of this year as ”The ImaginAsian Center.”