Author Archives: InTheSky

Chisa Yokoyama (Sakura Shinguji) to Participate in a Sakura Wars Concert in October

InTheSky August 14, 2015 4 Replies

Chisa Yokoyama is a voice talent who’s contributed much to Japanese video games. Most notably to Sega fans, she is Sakura Shinguji, the de facto face of the Sakura Wars series. She not only has voiced Sakura in video games and animation projects, but also performed for stage shows as Sakura Shinguji and even appeared in a Sega commercial (with the Segata Sanshiro of legend) as Sakura Shinguji.

She’s been busy as of late – in 2014 she gave birth to her first child (congrats to her!) But she seems to be more active, with her lines for Project X Zone 2 likely already recorded and a couple of Sakura Wars concerts planned for the end of October in Japan. These concerts exclusively feature music from the Sakura Wars franchise. There is one concert on the 30th (featuring Michie Tomizawa, a.k.a. Sumire Kanzaki, a.k.a. The Greatest) and two concerts on the 31st; the first of which features Urara Takano (Maria Tachibana, who is also cool) and the second featuring Yuriko Fuchizaki (Li Kohran.) The poster image below is being used to promote the concerts.

EVO 2015 Catherine Event Archive Now on YouTube

InTheSky August 12, 2015 Leave a reply

John L. Hardin of Atlus recently archived the EVO 2015 competitive Catherine event and uploaded it to AtlusUSA’s YouTube account. We appreciate his and Atlus’ attention to this event at EVO 2015! After the break, we’ve attached the archived footage for your viewing. There will be two videos – one full video (a little under five and a half hours) that captures the whole event, and another (lasting about 45 minutes) that starts with Loser’s Bracket Finals. The latter video is closer to the very end of the tournament, and is where we can expect the caliber of play to be ramped up considerably. Though considering the diehard fan favorite status of the event itself, surely this was event that attracted the most dedicated of players.

Some of you competitive Catherine folk have some crazy tags. It’s almost like the funny stuff that shows up at horseraces. I love it, though.

Phantasy Star Online 2 Cast and Staff Announced, PSO Anniversary Projects Rollout

InTheSky August 8, 2015 Leave a reply

AnimeNewsNetwork translated a production staff and voice actor list for Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation, set to air in 2016. Some key production roles are shown below:

Director: Keiichiro Kawaguchi
Writer: Mitsutaka Hirota
Character Design: Minoko Takasu

Some of the voice talent attached to this project include Shouta Aoi, Ayaka Suwa, and M.A.O.. The studio doing the animation work is Telecom Animation Film, a studio that has been in the business for a long time and coincidentally is a subsidiary of Sega-Sammy Holdings. Telecom Animation Film has done Sega-related productions in the past, including the Hero Bank anime that aired in Japan.

Interestingly, the article that AnimeNewsNetwork sourced for their writeup also happens to display some of the other projects celebrating 15 years of Phantasy Star Online. One of those items is a Phantasy Star Online 2 Fashion Catalog, covering Scratch costumes from 2012-2015. There’s even an Amazon.jp page for it here. It’s set to release in a couple of days: August 11th!

Featured image is a scan of a print publication, and the scan was originally found on the otakumu article sourced above.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night – English Yosuke and Kanji Trailers

InTheSky August 7, 2015 Leave a reply

AtlusUSA released two more character trailers for Persona 4: Dancing All Night. These two trailers feature Yosuke (arguably the protagonist’s right-hand-man) and Kanji, a man of hidden depths. They’re both pretty enthusiastic and passionate characters and it’s pretty apparent in their trailers.

Persona 4: Dancing All Night is set for September 29, 2015 in North America, and later this year for Europe and Australia. Continue reading to check out the trailers! They offer a chance to check out the voice acting work for the characters in this game, so be sure to get a preview of how the Persona 4 cast will sound.

Project X Zone 2: Pai Chan Returns, Nightshade’s Hibana Makes an Entrance

InTheSky August 6, 2015 Leave a reply

Famitsu published an article recently showcasing a new round of character reveals for Project X Zone 2. As with the round of San Diego Comic Con 2015 reveals it’s not really a substantial lot, but there are some noticeable changes. To begin with, the Capcom/Bandai Namco team is confirmed to be Chun-Li and Xiaoyu from Street Fighter and Tekken respectively, while Chun-Li’s former partner Morrigan Aensland now teams with Demitri to form a dedicated Darkstalkers team.

This time around, Sega was only represented in solo unit news. Akira’s former teammate Pai is now present as a solo unit, kind of an unfortunate demotion (unless you really like Kage-Maru?) but it’s nice that the Virtua Fighter series gets a solo unit. Continuing off of the Shinobi PS2 series love is the appearance of Hibana from Nightshade, the sequel to Shinobi for the PS2. Hibana is a ninja and the protagonist of Nightshade. The PS2 Shinobi games were 3D action games developed by Overworks (Sakura Wars 3 and 4, Skies of Arcadia.) The last solo unit was Bandai Namco’s Alisa from God Eater, who is pretty clearly the most popular God Eater character at this point.

The game releases in Japan on November 12. Expect the last of the character reveals probably in October (worst case scenario, September,) and since Tokyo Game Show is coming up in September there will be news for sure then. Western release is set for early in 2016.

The character profile art can be seen below, albeit with Famitsu’s watermark.

English Etrian Odyssey II Untold Trailer for Chloe

InTheSky August 1, 2015 Leave a reply

AtlusUSA uploaded a character trailer for Chloe, the War Magus. She often seems to have food on her mind – specifically, meat. Chloe also doesn’t appear to be easily intimidated by monsters and generally keeps a cool image. As a War Magus, she excels in afflicting enemies with powerful debuffs, which can be further bolstered by certain setups.

I’ll also note that AtlusUSA has put up a full promotional website for Etrian Odyssey II Untold, which you can see here. It’s nice to see the game being supported in such a manner.

Etrian Odyssey II Untold is coming to North America on August 4th – next Tuesday! Continue reading to check out the trailer.

Wonder Festival 2015 Sega and Atlus Figures/Garage Kits – Goro Majima Announced, and Much More

InTheSky July 30, 2015 1 Reply

This past weekend, the Summer Wonder Festival 2015 (second Wonder Festival of the year) showed off a variety of garage kits. Sega and Atlus properties were well represented at this event. Shockingly, there are figures for 7th Dragon III Code: VFD! Also, besides the previously announced figma for Kazuma Kiryu, a figma was also announced for Goro Majima to be in production at this event, as shown above.

Find a list below of Sega and Atlus related figures, with links to teaser images courtesy of myfigurecollection.net. Please keep in mind that some of the material is NSFW (as noted), and some of the images are promotional/serve as teasers for the art that is later to come. Some links will not display near-final renders of a figure.

Interestingly, it seems Sega is listed as manufacturing a handful of anime-related figures. None are so important as this one below:

Yahari Ore no Seishun LoveCome wa Machigatteiru. Zoku’s Yui Yuigahama

Only making a figure of Yui, of all characters from that series? Sega solidifies themselves as arbiters of taste by choosing the best character. After all, she was brought to us to bring justice to this world. If you are a fan of Iroha Isshiki, you are probably pretty cool, but if you are a fan of Yukino Yukinoshita, I am beyond disgusted.

Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax – Launch Edition for North and South America, October 6 Release Date

InTheSky July 30, 2015 1 Reply

Pictured above is a tentative mockup of the packaging for the newly-announced “Launch Edition” for Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax for North and South America. The Launch Edition includes only copies that are preordered or otherwise part of the game’s first print run. Notably, it includes an OST CD for the game, which features compositions from a handful of in-house Sega music talent including Jun Senoue, Naofumi Hataya, Kenichi Tokoi, and Teruhiko Nakagawa.

The game will release on October 6th for all regions. The Playstation 3 version will be valued at $39.99, and the Vita version for $29.99. Pricing schedule hasn’t been announced for regions outside of the US, as of yet.

European gamers should take note that the game will only be available digitally in their region. The Americas will have both a physical and a digital option.

This is perhaps old news to some of you, but in any case I’d like to put it out there that there is a Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax subforum at the official Sega forums. Be sure to make use of it!

Legend of Legacy Coming to Europe Early 2016

InTheSky July 29, 2015 Leave a reply

NISAmerica announced that they’ll be localizing FuRyu’s the Nintendo 3DS title Legend of Legacy for Europe. This is in keeping with their pattern of assisting with the distribution of such titles as Lost Dimension and the Etrian Odyssey games. They’re also maintaining their consistency in providing a physical and digital release.

You may remember our article on the announcement of Legend of Legacy’s North American localization. Everything between the North American and the European localization seems to be the same – down to the “balance adjustments” previously teased by Atlus. It’ll be interesting to see just what those balance adjustments will be.

The game is tentatively set to come out for Europe early in 2016. (While there seems to be some confusion based on stricter interpretations of NISAmerica’s press release, it’s been apparently confirmed that “winter 2016” means “early 2016.”) Keep in mind that Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Fafnir Knight is set for February 12 of next year. So perhaps Europe might get Legend of Legacy in March or April? March wouldn’t be too wild of a guess; Legend of Legacy and the Etrian Odyssey series, while both “niche” titles, do not play the same at all.

Meanwhile, Atlus is planning to release Legend of Legacy in North America later this year.

Lost Dimension Launch Trailer

InTheSky July 29, 2015 Leave a reply

AtlusUSA uploaded a new trailer for the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita title Lost Dimension in conjunction with the game’s July 28 release in North America (Europe will be getting this game in a month.) The trailer is a little under a minute and a half, and touches all of the major bases in the game: the battle system, the basic story concept, the voting process. It’s a good recap for all of the information thus far on Lost Dimension and it also serves as a good introduction for those who don’t know what the game is about.

Continue reading to check out the trailer!