Posted by kevin at 12:46pm EDT on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Filed under: Comedy, Business, Future releases
Shonen Merikensack distributor Toei has come up with a bizarre-yet-innovative way to promote their upcoming punk rock comedy while generating good will by saving Japanese motorists gas money. Gas prices have reached 180 yen per liter recently; the highest price in history. Toei is offering a special sticker people can put on their cars so that when they fill up at “Usami” gas stations they can get a discount of 5 yen per liter. There will be 900 stickers total distributed evenly to 9 stores nationwide. If my math is right that amounts to about 18 cents per gallon. Not too shabby. Check out this image for a cutesy illustrated representation of the process.
Posted by kevin at 12:42am EDT on Thursday, July 3, 2008
Filed under: Business
Not 100% Japanese movie-related but I just saw this article on how Google is being forced to hand over all records of videos watched on YouTube along with users’ IP addresses to Viacom in an attempt to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created, and it reminded me of some finger-wagging I’ve been meaning to do. I’ve been a fan of YouTube since the beginning and I’ve probably learned more stupid, pointless crap there than anywhere else (which I enjoy immensely), but it’s not without its negatives. In the beginning YouTube was a seemingly-endless wonderland of Japanese variety shows, movie clips, and hard to find odds and ends. Then Google bought them out and every mega corporation, foreign and domestic, started seeing them as a target.
Posted by kevin at 10:23pm EDT on Saturday, February 16, 2008
Filed under: Business
It looks like the confusion over which high definition digital format to go with next is over. After a tough few weeks in which major US corporations such as Netflix, Warner Brothers and Wal-Mart gave up on the HD-DVD format in favor of Sony’s Blu-ray Toshiba has finally given up the ghost. Today the company, which had been one of the leading manufacturers of HD-DVD media and equipment confirmed recent NHK reports that it’s dropping the format altogether from this point forward, with an official announcement coming sometime next week.
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