TV Tokyo has a 51-episode drama entitled Keitai Sousakan 7 (Cellphone Investigation 7) in the works, with Takashi Miike serving as supervising director. Some of the other directors involved in the project are Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell), Shusuke Kaneko (Death Note), and Manabu Aso (One Missed Call: Final). The main protagonist of the show, Kieta (Masataka Kubota), is a high school freshman who is enlisted to join an organization called "Anchor" in order to bring down an internet crime syndicate. He's given a little robot named "Phonebraver 7" to assist him which is capable of transforming into a cellphone. Apparently it's also capable of becoming a marketing gimmick to sell creepy little SoftBank cellphones with arms and legs at some point in the future, as one would expect.

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Earlier today renowned Japanese photographer Kazumi Kurigami held a press conference at Cinema Jack & Betty movie theater to announce production of his directorial debut entitled Gelatin Silver Love. Also in attendance were the film's stars, Masatoshi Nagase, Rie Miyazawa, and Koji Yakusho. "Gelatin silver" is a reference to the process of developing black and white photographs and in the film Rie Miyazawa wears a silver-colored wig which she showed off at the press conference.

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Phantom Film released the poster art and a new trailer for the live-action adaptation of 'Higurashi no Naku Koro ni' today. The movie, which will be released on May 10th, is a murder mystery based on a visual novel which was later adapted to a manga and anime series. In the story a boy named Keiichi (Goki Maeda) moves to the small village of Hinamizawa in 1983 and quickly fits in with his new peers. However, after the annual Watanagashi Festival some of his friends start to act weird and it's revealed through conversations with a veteran police officer (Tetta Sugimoto) that every year around this time mysterious murders and disappearances occur. Judging from the characters involved the movie is most likely limited to the first visual novel, Onikakushi-hen.

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It could just be the previous Laguna Productions releases mercilessly pounding my J-horror standards into submission, but this one wasn't half as bad as I expected it to be. Still kinda bad though...

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Korean distributor CJ Entertainment is releasing Takashi Miike's Ryu ga Gotoku (Like a Dragon) on region 3 DVD with English and Korean subtitles on February 26th. The movie, which was originally released in early 2007, is based on a big-budget PS2 game from 2005. The following year it was released in the US under the title "Yakuza".

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