Akihabara or “Akiba” is best known for its clusters of electronics stores and otaku shops, and for decades, it would close its main throughways to vehicular traffic on Sundays and holidays. On those “Pedestrians’ Paradise” (Hokōsha Tengoku) days, shoppers and visitors were allowed to walk on the streets.

It’s good to see that Akiba would be returning to normal, soon :). Days and times of the “Pedestrians Paradise” are still being hammered out at the moment.

Source: ANN

“We hope the cameras will deter crimes. And we want to assure the public that Akihabara has become a safe place,” Chiyoda Ward spokesman Kazuhisa Yamaguchi said. The video feeds will be monitored by members of the neighborhood association.

While none of the 16 cameras covers the site of the rampage, other neighborhood associations are planning to set up an additional 34 surveillance cameras by the end of March to monitor major streets, Yamaguchi said.

The cameras cost nearly 10 million yen to purchase and install – a hefty price to pay in order for security to be restored!

Source: Japan Today, Japan Times

She was personally informed of these threats of about 7 times. She also put off announcements about her events and took time off from her blog as she dealt with the threats and the stress that they caused her.

While I do not know her, I can imagine how it feels to be threatened when you did not commit anything wrong at all. The other recent news of a Seiyuu receiving threats is Mai Kadowaki in September.

Source: ANN Image: [1]

Well it wasn’t going to last anyway – how can you sell illegal stuff in a vending machine?!

Source: Kotaku & Andriasang

Ten people ranging from 23 to 57 years old were arrested and one is under investigation. There is no interaction among them and the police charged the eleven individually. This is the first time Japanese Police made a nationwide act against the illegal file sharing.

List of the anime-related suspects:
57 year old jobless man, arrested for sharing “Hikaru no Go”
37 year old prefectural employee, arrested for sharing “Mobile Suit Gundam 00″
30 year old arcade clerk, arrested for unknown TV anime
23 year old postal clerk, arrested for sharing “Lucky ☆ Star”
23 year old jobless man, arrested for sharing “Ranma ½” and Dragon Quest 9

While the actions by the Japanese Police might reduce uploading to a certain extent, I still believe that anime will still be uploaded onto the net no matter what >_>. What is your take on the actions of the Japanese Police?

Source: NHK via MAL [Image via Danbooru]

“We didn’t release the number”, Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten told VentureBeat. “I cannot explain to you why people would think it was a million people. It wasn’t a million people”.

Either the amount of pirates banned are greater or lesser. Either way, do you think Microsoft has done the wrong thing in banning pirate users from their own hard disks? Meanwhile, a certain nationwide law firm, AbingtonIP reckon that the mass bannings were just an excuse for Microsoft to rack up a few extra Xbox Live subscriptions from those eager to get back onto the service (just in time for Modern Warfare 2 yes?)

Abington are looking to get a class action lawsuit together, believing Microsoft’s actions to be both heavy-handed and suspiciously convenient giving the proximity of the bannings to the release of Modern Warfare 2.

Source: VentureBeat via Kotaku

What is it with upskirt photography?! :(

Source: Japan Probe

Two guys, one with an assault rifle, the other with a pistol, jumped out, drove him to his stepfather’s home in another gated community to steal some jewelry. Then it was off to Walmart with stepdad’s credit card.

There, the victim says one of his captors demanded he buy him a shotgun. But it being past 8:30, the gun counter was closed. So the bandits said they’d settle for a PS3 Slim, which the victim bought. They then set him free, and he went running to the law.

Pretty stupid. Yep, there’s one arrest. The trouble they’re gonna get from the law is not worth it. The PS3 is worth your money, but not worth getting your ass in trouble!

Source: Kotaku

Earlier this year, Nintendo announced that it and 54 software game companies were filing a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against companies that import “R4 Revolution”-type devices, using the Unfair Competition Prevention Law as the legal grounding.

The website Nintendo has set up has an anonymous form that can be filled out. Selectable choices include retail stores, internet shops, online auctions selling R4 devices. Another choice includes “game software uploads” – or those sites or individuals making DS games available online. There’s also spaces for dates and time, a box for details and another box for the shop’s address or home page.

Nintendo has announced that the information collected by this website has been “extremely useful”. Wonder what measures they took to combat these retailers? Hope that the information was useful to them that we won’t see  shops like these around Japan in the future.

But no matter what measures are taken, piracy will exist ><.

Source: Kotaku

According to Mainichi,  Tomohiro Kato wrote an apology letter to one of the victims.

“However much I repent, however much I apologize will never be enough to make things right, and since my crime deserves death 10,000 times I think I will be sentenced to death,” Kato wrote in a six-page letter to Hiroshi Yuasa, 55, who was wounded in the attack.

“I’m sure everyone’s anger that my trial is dragging so slowly knows no bounds, and I decided that I had to apologize as a person. … I have almost no memory of it at all, but I have absolutely no intention of running from what I’ve done.”

He also said that the victims’ pain “must be something like the uncontrollable anger I felt when my online self was killed on the forum I spent all my time on by trolls.”

Yuasa then commented, “From the way he wrote so politely, you wouldn’t have thought someone like that could have done such a thing. I want to hear the whole story at the trial.”

Good that he realises his mistakes. I guess it was him getting killed online that resulted in the rage. ><