Flayrah's accomplished reviewer Fred Patten has been invited to contribute to cartoon historian Jerry Beck's revitalized blog, Cartoon Research. He's since reviewed his own history, along with that of Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy and Atomcat, and described how home video created anime fandom (including a brief mention of Mark Merlino and the C/FO).

Beck co-founded Cartoon Brew nine years ago, but was 'bought out' last month by co-editor Amid Amidi, who plans to "evolve the site while retaining its candid and authoritative voice". The move was discussed at Deadline Hollywood and Toon Zone; FLIP has a brief interview.

Fred was also recently named Fandom Guest of Honor at Rainfurrest 2013 for his extensive history within furry fandom. Their other guests are Soulscape, Temperance and Fox Amoore.

The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki (trailer 1 - 2) is a 2012 anime film directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Unlike his 2009 Summer Wars, this movie is very slow, introspective, and somewhat tragic. It might appeal to a small subset of furries, but its furry elements are underplayed and it may not have enough animal content to hook us as viewers.

Talking about this movie without spoiling it impossible because the story has no complexity. Basically, a single mom moves to the country and struggles to raise two werewolf kids; one embraces their wolf heritage, the other rejects it, and the family moves apart. That's it. (See Wikipedia for a more complete summary.)

Cuticle Detective Inaba, a new anime series, is scheduled to air in Japan on January 4, and a short promotional video is available for viewing.

The series, adapted from a manga of the same name, revolves around Hiroshi Inaba, a genetically altered part-human, part-wolf hybrid who works as a private detective. Hiroshi gains information by examining and tasting people's hair (and, as a result, he has a major hair fetish). Hiroshi can also transform into a more wolf-like form and can use special powers and attacks from whatever type or colour of hair he eats.

Shirokuma Cafe literally translates from Japanese as Polar Bear Cafe. It’s a manga series created by Aloha Higa, following the story of a little coffee house in Japan — run by a polar bear, and frequented by any number of zoo animals. The three main characters are Polar Bear, lazy young Panda, and lovesick Penguin. (Most of the animal characters in the series are simply naked after their species.) The manga has been running since 2008, but just this year a new anime series based on it came to TV thanks to Studio Pierrot. You can find out more at Anime News Network, or check out an actual episode at Crunchyroll.

image c. 2012 Studio Pierrot

Two new(ish) and currently airing furry anime are being fansubbed into English: Polar Bear's Cafe, and One Stormy Night: Secret Friends.

Did I ever tell you that I once wrote a movie script? It was Furry, too.

This was twenty-five years ago, in 1987. Clearance Papers was only a 9-minute amateur film – an embarrassingly amateurish amateur film – but for a two-man effort, it wasn’t too bad.

Japanese animated feature Ame and Yuki, The Wolf Children (Ookami kodomo no Ame to Yuki), produced by Madhouse and directed by Mamoru Hosoda, was released in Japan on July 21, the same weekend as the Japanese release of Pixar’s Brave. Box office results show that The Wolf Children ranked second, earning $4,592,490 (¥360,372,690), while Brave was in fifth place with $1,858,971 (¥145,873,454). 1st and 4th places were held by live-action features, while #3 went to this year’s annual Pokémon feature, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes 2012.

From an ANN summary derived from the movie’s website:

The theme of the film is the love between parents and children. The story covers 13 years and begins with a 19-year-old college student named Hana who encounters and falls in "fairy tale-like" love with a "wolf man." After marrying the wolf man [named Ookami, Wolf], Hana gives birth and raises two wolf children — an older sister named Yuki [Snow] who was born on a snowy day, and a younger brother named Ame [Rain] who was born on a rainy day. The four quietly lived in a corner of a city to conceal the existence of the "wolf children," but when the wolf man suddenly dies, Hana decides to move to a rural town far removed from the city.

Read on for trailers and a more comprehensive plot summary . . .

The Cartoon Brew has a picture of new “Hello Kitty/KISS” toilet paper, blending the Japanese cartoon character with Gene Simmons’ demonic-image rock-music label.

Unexpected licensed merchandise of cartoon anthro stars are nothing new. There is the Spongebob Squarepants child’s rectal thermometer, for example. Most of it is for children’s products, though.

Not Hello Kitty. The mouthless one, Kitty White, was created as a little girl’s merchandising icon by Sanrio Ltd. of Japan in 1974, to appear on school notebooks, junk jewelry, coin purses, and the like. Today those little girls have grown up, and want Hello Kitty on adult merchandise.

Enough to include them in anime OH SO VERY OFTEN, and make a considerable number of movies starring them.

This one is an interesting example [site fails sporadically; alternate trailers] – directed by the same person responsible for Night on the Galactic Railroad (IMDB) and based, again, on a work by Kenji Miyazawa. And once again, the director used cats to tell the story. (Most of the character designs were lifted from Galactic Railroad as well.)

The romanized version of the movie's title is Guskô Budori no Denki, or "The Life of Guskô Budori". Set in 1920, Guskô is forced to leave his home in the forests of the Tōhoku region of Japan after a series of natural disasters, joining scientists in the Ihatov Volcano Bureau who are studying them. Meanwhile, Guskô pursues the wintery tomcat who stole away his sister. Released July 7 in Japan.

Gotta love the Japanese sometimes — especially their animation, of course. Kanokon is a direct-to-video animated series from Media Blasters.  It is decidedly adult in nature, though not pornographic. Here, we’ll let them describe it: “Kouta, a country boy who lives with his grandfather, is moving to the city to attend high school. Changes come with his new home and new school, but nothing could have prepared the gentle young man for girls, specifically a bombshell fox spirit named Chizuru! As if her aggressive advances weren’t enough, he also catches the attention of a frosty wolf spirit named Nozomu. Kouta is dragged into supernatural events as a result of his contact with the two girls, and his school life only gets more chaotic by the day. But with a girl who gives ‘foxy’ new meaning and another howling after him, things are looking up for his love life.”  Now Media Blasters have released all the Kanokon episodes in one DVD collection.  RightStuf.com has information on it and other special releases from the series.

image c. 2012 Media Blasters

Unico is a well-known and well-loved anime and manga character created by the late great Osamu Tezuka in 1976. A baby unicorn with the magical ability to make people happy, he draws the wrath of jealous gods who think only they should have such powers. Tezuka was unsuccessful in turning his popular manga into a TV series, but Unico did find his way into a pair of feature films in the early 1980′s.  In The Fantastic Adventures of Unico (from 1981, directed by Toshio Hirata), the West Wind is charged with carrying Unico away to a far-off land when the gods banish him — but she takes pity on him and sets him free.  Now Unico and his friends are on the run, with the angry gods in hot pursuit! Then in 1883 came Unico in the Island of Magic (directed by Moribi Murano) where Unico and his friends join the fight against an evil wizard who plans to turn all living things into his zombie slaves. Both feature films (dubbed into English) were popular VHS tapes in the late 80′s but have long since gone out of print. Now comes the word that Discotek Media are releasing both Unico films on DVD this month, each with both the English and original Japanese soundtracks. You can find out more about all of this (including several Unico fan sites) by checking out Unico on Wikipedia.

Is the new Japanese animated feature Redline Furry? No, but its trailer, just released in the U.S., does show a human racecar driver (with an impossible Pompadour) competing against background Furry bioengineered or alien opponents in the far future.

Redline, directed by Takeshi Koike, produced by Tokyo’s Madhouse animation studio over seven years, and introduced on the international film festival circuit in 2009, comes to the USA for a one-week theatrical run. It is playing in downtown Los Angeles this month and in NYC from January 6, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 17.

The first episode of anime series Cat Shit One is available for free this week. [tip: fritzfox]

Note: This animation includes scenes of graphic violence, as well as cute fluffy rabbits.

A trailer for Solatorobo, the 'spiritual successor' to anime-style action-adventure/platformer Tail Concerto, has been published. [tip: Goldkin]

The Nintendo DS game will be released October 28 in Japan. Import pre-orders are available; the collector's edition includes an artbook and soundtrack.

According to Anime News Network, Wolf's Rain is probibally coming to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim segment in April.