Netflix is branching into toys, games and clothing based on its popular shows, looking to mine popular characters for added revenue much like Walt Disney. From a report: The streaming service is launching Netflix.shop, a retail arm that will sell curated products from its catalog of shows and movies. As part of the launch, Netflix is introducing a collection of anime-inspired products, according to a statement Thursday. Products from other programs are in the works, too. The move into merchandising is a logical extension for Netflix. Other major studios generate billions of dollars in revenue from toys, collectibles and other goods based on popular characters and shows. [...] The shop will open in the U.S. before expanding to other countries, Netflix said.

Variety magazine reports that Netflix has ordered Terminator anime series: "'Terminator' is one of the most iconic sci-fi stories ever created -- and has only grown more relevant to our world over time," said John Derderian, Netflix's vice president of Japan and anime. "The new animated series will explore this universe in a way that has never been done before. We can't wait for fans to experience this amazing new chapter in the epic battle between machines and humans."

Mattson Tomlin will serve as showrunner and executive producer on the series. Tomlin most recently wrote the Netflix original film "Project Power" and worked on the screenplay for Matt Reeves' upcoming film "The Batman...."

"Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart," Tomlin said. "I'm honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach 'Terminator' in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations and has real guts."

Inside.com's developer newsletter spotted this code repository story: GitHub posted a DMCA notice it received from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) last week asking the platform to take down a repository associated with NYAA.si, a popular torrent site specializing in anime content. The DMCA captured attention as the code doesn't belong to the MPA. Rather, the MPA argues the code is used for the development of the site, which allows for copyright infringement, while the repo also makes it possible to create NYAA clones.

The news comes a few months after GitHub restored the youtube-dl repository and created a $1m legal defense fund to help open source developers fight unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown claims. At the same time, the platform also announced it will be improving its Section 1201 claim review process to make it harder to take down repos.
But the next day, the newsletter reported GitHub had reversed the takedown: The company explains the notice didn't meet its DMCA Takedown Policy requirements as it failed to "establish that the code is preconfigured to infringe." GitHub adds that it also restored any content that was disabled because of the notice.
Some context from TorrentFreak: This isn't the first time the MPA has gone after the anime torrent site. Last November we reported that the anti-piracy group sent cease and desist letters to several people who are allegedly connected to the site, describing it as an "Anime Cartel".
TorrentFreak's latest update: A few weeks ago, the Motion Picture Association tried to shut the project down by going after several people who are allegedly linked to the site. Framing NYAA as an "Anime Cartel", the movie group demanded a total shutdown and tens of thousands of dollars in settlements...

This takedown request initially succeeded as GitHub disabled the repository earlier this week. Before doing so, the platform reached out to the developers and gave them the option to respond or make changes, but that request went unanswered. Without a response from the developers, this is usually where things end. In this case, however, GitHub decided to carry out another review after the project was taken down, perhaps in part motivated by the news coverage. "While we didn't hear back from the maintainers, we chose to do another review ourselves to proactively see how we could resolve the issue," a GitHub spokesperson informs TorrentFreak...

[A]t the time of writing the NYAA repository is up and running again. The MPA still has the option to provide additional information about the allegedly-infringing nature of the code, which would then trigger another review.

GitHub stresses that it's their purpose to make sure that developers can host code within the boundaries of the law. Unless the entire repository is infringing, it's standard policy to allow developers to respond to DMCA claims before any content is removed.

Ahsoka Tano, the popular character from The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, is finally getting her own series starring Rosario Dawson. It's set within the timeline for The Mandalorian and will debut on Disney Plus around Christmas of 2021. CNET reports: Disney revealed the news Thursday during an investor presentation, where the company also announced its plans for upcoming movie releases -- both theatrical and streaming on Disney Plus. Ahsoka made her live-action debut in The Mandalorian episode titled The Jedi. In the episode, Mando (Pedro Pascal) continues his quest to bring Baby Yoda (aka The Child) to former Jedi Ahsoka Tano in the years following Return of the Jedi. [...] Not much has been revealed as of yet about the new Ahsoka Tano live-action series for Disney Plus, but fingers crossed we get to see more characters from both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels pop up in the new adventures. UPDATE: In addition to Star Wars: Ahsoka, Lucasfilm also announced Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic, a new Original Series set within the timeline of The Mandalorian.

"The two series are just several of the new Star Wars shows coming to Disney Plus in the future, along with Star Wars: Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: Lando, The Acolyte, the animated Clone Wars spin-off The Bad Batch, and the anime anthology Star Wars: Visions," adds The Verge.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The pandemic is helping Japan's demon slayers, monsters and robots make the leap to the global market. Animated video in the Japanese style -- aka anime -- has long been a niche taste for fans in the U.S. and elsewhere, and some anime films such as those by Hayao Miyazaki have become mainstream hits. Now, with the pandemic putting a premium on escapist video content, the business is getting hotter. Streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are scouring the globe for fresh content, from documentaries to calming videos, and anime has an advantage over live-action content because it doesn't require actors and crew to expose themselves to virus contagion. With the latest anime hit bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in Japan, industry players say the next year is likely to bring more deals and more content for the U.S. "I used to have the sense that the anime category was spreading widely around the world, but what we're seeing these days is a big leap beyond that," said Taiki Sakurai, Netflix's chief anime producer. "The global anime fan base is expanding rapidly." Last month, Netflix said it had 16 projects in the works at its Tokyo-based anime production hub, including "Godzilla" and "Transformers" titles, with plans for global distribution that it said were pushed forward by the evidence of higher demand.

Netflix, which hired a creative team dedicated to anime production in Tokyo four years ago, said more than 100 million households around the world watched at least one anime title on the streaming site in the year to September 2020, growing by 50% from a year earlier. Anime titles have appeared in the top-10 list in nearly 100 countries this year, it said. Amazon Prime also features a wealth of anime titles. The financial reports of Tokyo-based Toei Animation, the studio responsible for anime such as the "Dragon Ball" and "Sailor Moon" franchises, give a glimpse into how the industry is changing. Four years ago, revenue received from outside Japan accounted for one-third of Toei Animation's overall revenue. The overseas portion rose to half of the total in the year ended this past March, and overseas revenue more than doubled to the equivalent of $243 million, with "Dragon Ball" programs available on streaming services such as Hulu in the U.S. In the most recent six months, overseas sales rose to nearly three-fifths of the total.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Documents obtained by TorrentFreak dated September reveal the MPA, acting through legal representatives, attempting to pressure individuals who they believe are important at [anime site Nyaa] and could have the ability to shut the site down. Information suggests that several people in North America, Europe, and Australia have all received similar correspondence. The letters allege massive copyright infringement via the Nyaa site and include a sample of copyrighted works, to which the MPA's members hold the rights, that were allegedly infringed via the platform.

The MPA clearly states that none of its cited members (Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia, Warner Bros, and Netflix, in addition to Amazon) have granted their permission for the works to be made available via Nyaa or the BitTorrent network(s) that underpin it. As a result, "significant, irreparable damage" has already been caused to the copyright owners by the site's activities. While emailed threats are still a common anti-piracy strategy, we are informed that at least two of the individuals were personally served with legal documents at their homes. Others were served with similar documents via regular mail. We are currently unable to determine exactly how many people were served in total. At the moment the suggestion is around five but that may not be the full picture. What we do know is that some or all stand accused of being part of the mysterious 'Anime Cartel' supposedly behind Nyaa. "With immediate effect, recipients have been told to take all necessary steps to ensure that Nyaa is completely shut down," the report adds. "The MPA also wants to take control of the site's domain -- Nyaa.si -- a common tactic in other anti-piracy actions. Overall, recipients are warned that they must cease-and-desist any and all of their activities related to the site, including making available the copyrighted works of the MPA's members."

"In addition to receiving settlements, it appears that the MPA also wants information on the Nyaa service and its operations. The MPA also wants the rights to the Nyaa site and any technologies connected to it, wherever the recipient has the ability to transfer those rights. The MPA also demands that those entering into a settlement agreement should never infringe its members' rights again."

According to Nikkei, Sony is close to acquiring U.S. anime-streaming service Crunchyroll for more than $957 million. From the report: Sony has its own popular anime, titles like "Demon Slayer" and "Kimetsu no Yaiba," but has been licensing it to streaming services. Sony's Aniplex, the studio behind "Kimetsu no Yaiba," has a variety of content, including movies and music, that is mainly distributed by overseas companies. If the acquisition is realized, global competition for content among companies like Netflix and Hulu will intensify.

Crunchyroll was founded in 2006 and has its headquarters in San Francisco. In 2018, AT&T, the U.S. telecommunications giant, became its parent company. Sony recently obtained the exclusive right to negotiate for Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll has 70 million free members and 3 million paying subscribers in more than 200 countries and regions, including the U.S and Europe. Crunchyroll would also give Sony more than 1,000 titles that it can use to vary its offerings.

According to Variety, the sci-fi series "Altered Carbon" has been canceled at Netflix, after airing just two seasons. From the report: The second season of the sci-fi series aired on the streaming service back in February, while the first season aired in 2018. An anime special titled "Resleeved," which was set before the events of Season 1, was released in 2019. The series was based on the novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan. It followed the adventures of interstellar warrior Takeshi Kovacs, who was played by Joel Kinnaman in Season 1 and by Anthony Mackie in Season 2. "Altered Carbon" took place in a futuristic world where the human mind has been digitized and a person can transfer their consciousness from one body to the next. According to an individual with knowledge of the decision, the decision to cancel the show was made due to Netflix's traditional approach of cost versus viewership of a series.

A fifteen-year-old cartoon is an unlikely contender for most-watched show in America. And yet when "Avatar: The Last Airbender" arrived on Netflix, in May, it rose through the ranks to become the platform's No. 1 offering, and even now it remains a fixture in the Top Ten for the U.S. From a report: The series first ran from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon, and swiftly made a name for itself as a politically resonant, emotionally sophisticated work -- one with a sprawling but meticulously plotted mythos that destined the show for cult-classic status. Last summer, after "Game of Thrones" flubbed its finale, fans and critics held up "Avatar" as a counterexample: a fantasy series that knew what it wanted to be from the beginning. Like all such stories, "Avatar" (created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, and no relation to the James Cameron blockbuster) demands some exposition. In a world where nations are defined by their connection to one of the four elements -- water, earth, fire, and air -- maintaining the peace falls to the Avatar, the only person who can achieve mastery of them all. Just as the Fire Nation launches an attack, he vanishes.

The series begins a century later, when a twelve-year-old boy named Aang is discovered and revived by a pair of Water Tribe teen-agers -- and the Fire Nation is well on its way to global conquest. The first two episodes are largely what you'd expect: world-building punctuated by moments of whimsy. In the third, Aang returns to the temple where he was born to find the aftermath of a genocide. He is, he discovers, both the Avatar and the last of the Air Nomads. Where earlier shows might have hinted at such an atrocity for adult viewers' benefit, "Avatar" is overt, taking seriously its young audience's capacity to confront the consequences of endless war. Moral ambiguity abounds, and people from all nations see the conflict as, variously, an opportunity or a tragedy; there are Earth Kingdom citizens who have become cynical or apathetic after generations of fighting, and those from the Fire Nation who are fully capable of doing good. Aang, like the monks who raised him, is a pacifist at heart, but the series makes it clear that his is not the only way of bringing balance to the world. On the eve of his confrontation with the Fire Lord, one of his past lives -- a warrior named Kyoshi, who has killed would-be conquerors before -- counsels that "only justice will bring peace."

The iconic animated features of Japan's Studio Ghibli will be available in territories outside the U.S., Canada and Japan on Netflix starting in February. From a report: The move is a further change of position for the studio which has repeatedly resisted the idea that its beloved cartoons would be released on digital platforms. Netflix, sales agent Wild Bunch, and Studio Ghibli, which counts Hayao Miyazaki as one of its leading lights, will upload 21 Ghibli features including Academy Award-winner "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," "Arrietty," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "My Neighbor Totoro," and "The Tale of The Princess Kaguya." They will be screened in their native Japanese, with sub-titles, and be available globally on Netflix except in the U.S., Canada, and Japan.

You can almost hear the sigh of relief from the global Sega fan community. The new Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer, which Paramount released this morning, is a giant improvement. From a report: Our spiky hero no longer looks like a nightmarish experiment in avant garde taxidermy. The human teeth have been extracted. He has big doe eyes, not the sinister mini-peepers of the original trailer. The new design genuinely captures a lot of what original character designer Naoto Ohshima set out to achieve -- a cool but cuddly mascot, infusing Japanese kawaii sensibilities with American attitude. His fur is bright, mimicking the famed Sega blue of the company's classic arcade games. He is no longer absolutely terrifying, an important achievement for a family film.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a report about Japan's virtual YouTubers or VTubers that act as live performers, corporate PR officials and even surrogate children. From The Wall Street Journal: Ryosei Takehisa, 24 years old, doesn't have any children -- unless you count an animated character with elfin ears called Mikuriya Kuon. In live appearances on YouTube, the kimono-clad Kuon character, voiced by an actor hired by Mr. Takehisa, dispenses advice about the latest video games and plays rock-paper-scissors with her fans. The creator says he considers Kuon his "real daughter" even though she "resides within pixels." While others may compete for fame or page views, "for me, I'm totally satisfied just with the fact that she was born and is continuing to live life in good health," says Mr. Takehisa. Digital avatars with human traits have long carved out a role on social media, on Instagram in particular. Japan, as it often does, has taken the idea and run with it, with its virtual characters now estimated to number more than 3,000.

Technology allows Kuon and her peers to have more direct engagement with fans -- and sometimes a family-like relationship with their own creators. The characters, known as virtual YouTubers or VTubers because many are active on YouTube, sing and dance at live performances and answer questions on webcasts. VTubers are so embedded in Japanese culture that one of them serves as a face of the Japanese government's tourism campaign. Another presented earnings results for game-site operator Gree Inc. in August last year, informing investors that "we will aggressively invest in strengthening our three earnings pillars." "VTubers are an evolution in Japan's long tradition of manga and anime, giving real-time interactivity to the sort of characters earlier depicted in comic books and on television screens," the report says. "The next step could be artificial intelligence to allow the VTubers to sing, dance and be mischievous without any backstage human help."

Sony is trying to further extend one of their latest pop sensations, a VTuber called Kaguya Luna, by building on its virtual-reality technology. "It has already staged concerts by Luna that fans view through a VR headset," reports The WSJ. "Next the company is looking into haptic technology -- which can convey vibrations and force -- to allow fans to get up close and personal with Luna."

The Japanese anime studio, Khara, is moving to Blender, the the open-source 3D creation software. "It'll begin partially using the software for its current development 'EVANGELION:3.0+1.0' but will make the full switch once that project is finished," reports Neowin. "The current project is expected to end in June next year, so after that point, its employees will start using Blender for the majority of their work." From the report: At the moment, Khara uses 3ds Max from Autodesk on a subscription basis; however, the company found that it had to reach out to small and medium-sized businesses for its projects. Due to the limitations of those companies, it's harder for them to afford 3ds Max. By switching to Blender, Khara says it can work better with external firms.

While Blender will be used for the bulk of the work, Khara does have a backup plan if there's anything Blender struggles with; Hiroyasu Kobayashi, General Manager of Digital Dpt. and Director of Board of Khara, said: "There are currently some areas where Blender cannot take care of our needs, but we can solve it with the combination with Unity. Unity is usually enough to cover 3ds Max and Maya as well. Unity can be a bridge among environments."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Several people have been killed after an apparent arson attack gutted a building at Kyoto Animation, one of Japan's most renowned anime studios. NHK reports that 33 people are confirmed dead and many more have been injured. An explosion was heard around the studio at around 10.30AM local time. Police are questioning a man in his 40s who was seen spreading and lighting a gasoline-like liquid in the 1st Studio building, which is said to be where most of Kyoto Animation's mainline production takes place. The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper reports that the man said he started the fire. Kyoto Animation, also known as KyoAni, is best known for series like K-On! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, and release standalone feature A Silent Voice in 2016. Netflix picked up the streaming rights to KyoAni's Violet Evergarden series and made it available worldwide last year.

UPDATE: Several sources are now reporting that the man who set fire to the building screamed angrily, "they faked it." According to The Daily Beast, "The word he used in Japanese, pakuri, can reference stealing an idea, ripping off a product, or plagiarizing someone else's work."

There's now a new $175 million remake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I loved it, Msmash walked out of it, and BeauHD didn't bother to go see it. The movie performed poorly at the box office, but I'm not the only person who still likes Godzilla. There's also a new anime version on Netflix. And critic Matt Zoller Seitz (once a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism) is calling the new film "a frequently astounding movie... its imperfections are compensated by magnificence."

For all its crash-and-bash action, this is a real science fiction movie that goes to the trouble of not merely creating a world, but thinking about the implications of its images and predicaments. It cares what the people in it must feel and think about their situation, and how it might weigh on them every day even when they aren't talking about it amongst themselves. It's also suffused with a spiritual or theological awareness, and takes it all as seriously as recent DC films took their comparisons of caped wonders to figures from the Old Testament and ancient mythology...

[A]t the level of image, sound and music, "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" is a frequently brilliant film that earnestly grapples with the material it presents... It deploys state-of-the-art moviemaking tools to try to return audiences to a stage of childlike terror and delight. Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This movie is magic.
No expense was spared. For fans of the franchise there was even a quick Easter egg about what happened to the Mothra twins when they grew up. And of course the film-makers included Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla" song in the closing credits -- an over-the-top remake featuring a chanting Japanese taiko drum group, members of the band Dethklok from Metalocalypse, and heavy-metal drumming legend Gene Hoglan. The film's composer called it "perhaps the most audacious piece of music I have ever produced, jammed to the breaking point...It is complete musical madness."

But what it all for nothing? Leave your own thoughts in the comments.

Does anyone still like Godzilla?

Slashdot reader Drakster writes: Hollywood producer and writer James Cameron, who is best known for his first two Terminator films, Titanic, Avatar, and Aliens, has released his most recent film this week, Alita: Battle Angel, to mostly mixed to positive reviews. First announced in 2003, based on Yukito Kishiro's Gunnm manga series, it was stuck in development for several years, finally starting production in 2008. Slashdot last discussed this fifteen years ago, so now that it's finally here. For those who have seen it, what did you think? Met or surpassed your expectations, or not worth the wait?

pacopico writes: Every year, DJI hosts a robotics competition called Robomasters. It draws in hundreds of engineering students from around the world for two weeks of all out robotics mayhem. The students build and then control robotic vehicles that blast away at each other with rubber bullets, while drones strafe from overhead. Bloomberg Businessweek did a short documentary on the competition and everything that goes with it, including a reality TV show, an anime series, and final battle attended by thousands of people at a stadium in Shenzhen. The Chinese teams usually do the best, and the winners get some money and sometimes a job offer at DJI -- all part of the country's quest to dominate the robotics industry in the years to come.

Japanese researchers have developed a technique for automatic colorization in anime production. "To promote efficiency and automation in anime production, the research team focused on the possibility of automating the colorization of trace images in the finishing process of anime production," reports Brightsurf. "By integrating the anime production technology and know-how of IMAGICA GROUP and OLM Digital with the machine learning, computer graphics and vision technology of NAIST, the research team succeeded in developing the world's first technique for automatic colorization of Japanese anime production." From the report: After the trace image cleaning in a pre-processing step, automatic colorization is performed according to the color script of the character using a deep learning-based image segmentation algorithm. The colorization result is refined in a post-process step using voting techniques for each closed region. This technique will be presented at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2018, an international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, to be held in Tokyo, Japan on Dec. 4-7. While this technique is still in the preliminary research stage, the research team will further improve its accuracy and validate it in production within the anime production studio. The product of this will be available for commercialization from 2020.

A new proof from the Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan and a 2011 proof anonymously posted online are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years. Erica Klarreich, writing for Quanta Magazine: On September 16, 2011, an anime fan posted a math question to the online bulletin board 4chan about the cult classic television series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya . Season one of the show, which involves time travel, had originally aired in nonchronological order, and a re-broadcast and a DVD version had each further rearranged the episodes. Fans were arguing online about the best order to watch the episodes, and the 4chan poster wondered: If viewers wanted to see the series in every possible order, what is the shortest list of episodes they'd have to watch? In less than an hour, an anonymous person offered an answer -- not a complete solution, but a lower bound on the number of episodes required. The argument, which covered series with any number of episodes, showed that for the 14-episode first season of Haruhi, viewers would have to watch at least 93,884,313,611 episodes to see all possible orderings. "Please look over [the proof] for any loopholes I might have missed," the anonymous poster wrote.

The proof slipped under the radar of the mathematics community for seven years -- apparently only one professional mathematician spotted it at the time, and he didn't check it carefully. But in a plot twist last month, the Australian science fiction novelist Greg Egan proved a new upper bound on the number of episodes required. Egan's discovery renewed interest in the problem and drew attention to the lower bound posted anonymously in 2011. Both proofs are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years. Mathematicians quickly verified Egan's upper bound, which, like the lower bound, applies to series of any length. Then Robin Houston, a mathematician at the data visualization firm Kiln, and Jay Pantone of Marquette University in Milwaukee independently verified the work of the anonymous 4chan poster. Now, Houston and Pantone, joined by Vince Vatter of the University of Florida in Gainesville, have written up the formal argument. In their paper, they list the first author as "Anonymous 4chan Poster."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: The latest country to consider a website blocking proposal is Japan, and EFF has responded to the call for comment by sharing all the reasons that cutting off websites is a terrible solution for copyright violations. In response to infringement of copyrighted material, specifically citing a concern for manga, the government of Japan began work on a proposal that would make certain websites inaccessible in Japan. In response to Japan's proposal, EFF explained that website blocking is not effective at the stated goal of protecting artists and their work. First, it can be easily circumvented. Second, it ends up capturing a lot of lawful expression. Blocking an entire website does not distinguish between legal and illegal content, punishing both equally. According to numerous studies, the best answer to the problem of online infringement is providing easy, lawful alternatives. Doing this also has the benefit of not penalizing legitimate expression the way blocking does. According to The Japan Times, the "emergency measure" would "encourage [ISPs] to restrict access to such 'malicious' websites 'on a voluntary basis' in order to protect the nation's famed manga and anime industries from free-riders."