All photos courtesy of Avex Entertainment Inc.

Very rarely will you catch an anime fan that hasn’t seen or heard of the year 2000 series FLCL (Fooly Cooly). Aside from the healthy dose of absurdity and weird humor that production studio Gainax graced its viewers with, it’s also noted for having a killer soundtrack, featuring a number of songs from Japanese rock outfit The Pillows and garnering a huge amount of international attention for the veteran group, which formed in 1989.

The Pillows’ international success has since moved beyond the popularity of the anime, and they have already made several trips to the US to perform their albums and promote their band. Featuring catchy songs with a strong rock rhythm and foregoing the visual flair that a lot of Japanese rock bands often turn to, The Pillows are definitely an interesting group.

This year’s Delicious Bump tour was exactly that, delicious. New York - Tokyo had the opportunity to interview them during their tour this past March. More after the jump.

So it’s been hinted at for a while now that the opening cinematic to Hideo Kojima’s magnum opus Metal Gear Solid 4 would be a mixture of gameplay, CGI and 2D animation. Well, thanks to some intrepid spies, it seems that the animation part of it has been leaked!

OK, so maybe it’s not the real MGS4 opening, but, hey, it oughta keep you chuckling as you count down the hours to the midnight release of the game on June 11, right?

MGS4 +Lupin III = So Awesome (via Kotaku)

By Stewart Smith

I guess appointing Doraemon as Japan’s “anime ambassador” has worked out well enough that the country has decided to assign yet another fictional character to help attract new visitors. Hello Kitty was recently named Japan’s tourism ambassador to China. It seems that the character’s popularity in Hong Kong has hit an all-time high and Japan’s tourism ministry his hoping Ms. Kitty will be able to tap into that popularity. There’s no word yet on what precisely her duties as tourism ambassador will be, though I’m sure Keroppi is hoping for some sort of assistant position. I suppose at this rate we can expect Lupin to be named a UN ambassador soon.

Hello Kitty Named Japan’s Tourism Ambassador (via The Associated Press)

By Stewart Smith

© Rumiko Takahashi / Gosho Aoyama / Mitsuru Adachi / Shogakukan

New York-Tokyo wants to give you, our lovely readers, a chance to win one of seven LIMITED EDITION UNIQLO Manga T-Shirts! These shirts are not for sale in stores, and are VERY limited run! There are three gorgeous designs, which feature classic manga characters Detective Conan from Case Closed, Lum from Urusei Yatsura, and Minami from Touch.

To enter in our contest, just correctly answer our three trivia questions, testing your manga knowledge. Contest questions and more details after the jump.

The experience of watching Maywa Denki perform is more than difficult to explain. Perhaps it’s because the strange, dreamlike combination of man, machine and music transcends language, expands our imaginations and sends us to an almost transcendental level of stomach-knotting laughter. I’d say that watching Maywa Denki reminds me of being young, but that would be a lie: I certainly wasn’t this imaginative in my youth. But, were I the chairman of a quasi-fictional Japanese electronics company, maybe I too would create a dazzling display of superfluous mechanical instruments (”products,” if you will).

The trio of musical engineers of Maywa Denki create a dazzling spectacle with overworked combinations of moving electronic and mechanical parts. Somehow, the haphazard collection of these “instruments” manages to create a sound — a sound that the entire audience can dig. It’s incredibly Japanese, and yet, so utterly understandable by all. Speaking to Maywa Denki about their creative process doesn’t reveal much: it does however, confirm our sneaking suspicions that maybe, just maybe, there’s an incredible method to this relentless madness.

Interview and more after the jump.

Photo by Kevin Jennings

With over 100 live performances, international tours, and a progressively retrospective sound, Joshua Davis, aka Bit Shifter, twists and binds 8bit blips into shamelessly fun sonic experiences. Bit Shifter has been making sounds for years, and has been showcased on numerous occasions, including his recent stint at BlipFest 2007 in NYC. Bit Shifter is part of a new sound, often referred to as ChipTune or simply “8-bit”. Generally, integrated sound chips or whole gaming consoles, such as the classic GameBoy and Nintendo Famicom, are modified and then augmented with homebrew software apps that allow music makers to alter the usually familiar low-fi sounds. The result: an indulgently nostalgic mash-up of old school sounds into something completely new. Currently, the sound is gaining momentum too, as live performances often serve tightly packed crowds and increasingly impressive venues. Moreover, the ChipTune genre has influenced the visual arts, graphic arts, and engineering arts spaces through the re-purposing of the 8bit format in both an aesthetic and cultural ways. Thus illustrating, that this form of artistic expression goes far beyond gimmick and style.

We caught up with Bit Shifter recently, and he was gracious enough to give us some insight on his current projects, the chiptune scene, and more. Interview after the jump.