As the latest entry into its ongoing saga, Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls shelves away all of the trials, relationship building and evidence collecting from the main flagship titles and replaces them with an action-packed third person shooter (TPS) spinoff that focuses on Makoto Naegi’s sister Komaru and Toko from the first game. Considering that the game was taking away what many considered quintessential pieces of the series, many fans including myself, were worried that something would be lost in developing the spin-off as a TPS rather than as a full-fledged third adventure title.

Celebrating the seventh year since their inception, J-POP Summit 2015 in San Francisco was simply a resounding success. Building upon their excellent traction in attendance from last year, this year's event would prove to be a defining crossroad for the annual festival as it was the first year that the organizers decided to charge for attendance in addition to moving it to a new centralized location; or as one of the event's organizers Erik Jansen put it, “it's a reboot of the entire event.”

In preparation for their upcoming concert at Anime Expo 2015, there will be a special Momoiro Clover Z event at the JW Marriott/Platinum Ballroom on Day 0, Wednesday July 1 from 7-9PM. It will feature the proper steps and techniques so fans can learn about otagei and follow along with the lovely members of Momoiro Clover Z during their concert. Concert ticket holders will get priority seating. In addition, there appears to be a "special guest" at the screening too!

As the premiere anime convention in the San Francisco Bay Area, our expectations for FanimeCon 2015 were raised after their numerous improvements from last year over 2013. We were hoping that the hardworking staff would take the lessons they learned throughout the past two years and create a smoother, more efficient convention than ever before; much to our delight they did.

Following the success of Little Witch Academia 1, Little Witch Academia was founded successfully through Studio TRIGGER's Kickstarter program; which we're proud to support. Although it was a bit quiet on the TRIGGER front for quite a while, backers were surprised to learn that the official trailer for Little Witch Academia The Enchanted Parade is now available and that the short film itself would be released very very soon!

During their panel at Sakura-Con 2015, Under the Dog (UTD)'s Jiro Ishii and Koji Morimoto sat down in a room full of backers to give their supporters the latest updates on their Kickstarter-funded animation project including a special inside look into studio Kinema Citrus. 

As a longtime fan of Nitro+ visual novels such as Steins;Gate, Demonbane and of course, Saya no Uta, Kanako Itou's second appearance in America was a concert that I knew I couldn't miss. What started as a convention that I was only mildly interested in took off into the stratosphere, finally giving me a reason to go to Seattle's long-running convention for the second time.

Performing as the opening act for Sakura-Con's big musical concert on Saturday April 4th, Itou-san sang a set of fan favorite theme songs inside of a fully packed hall at the Washington State Convention Center. These songs included her opening number "Hacking to the Gate (Steins;Gate)," "Tsuso no Despair (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni)" and "TOPOLOGY (Robotics;Notes)."

With Sakura-Con soon approaching, we are pleased to announce that The-O Network will be participating in a special collaboration with Kinema Citrus, the creators, of the upcoming Under the Dog (UTD) anime. Not only will we be interviewing Koji Morimoto (producer) and Jiro Ishii (original storywriter), but we will be providing a video recording of their entire sixty minute panel on our website and YouTube channels. Please stay tuned for exciting updates on production, artwork, visuals and questions regarding the Kickstarter funded anime project, originally announced at Otakon 2014.

While in attendance at NIS America's 2015 Press Event in San Francisco, we had a chance to interview NIS America President Sohei Niikawa to follow up on our interview from 2013. Find out what he to say about the Japanese video game industry along with the status of the company in America.

Fresh off the success of her 2014 Oricon charting singles, "Rising Hope," "Bright Flight/L.Miranic," and "Shirushi," JPOP artist LiSA is back with her fifth album titled Launcher. Released on March 4th, Launcher is her third album and features songs from the anime series Sword Art Online II and the Irregular at Magic High School. Along with a very striking album cover of our JPOP starlet, I've personally been looking forward to this release for a while as I've done with most of her work. However, for those on the fence about the purchase and want to find out whether the album hit its targets with megaton precision or if it fires a dud, read on!