Takashi O'Hashi (aka Jail O'Hashi) is a featured special guest on "Del Otro Galaxia", the latest album by MONSTER ISLAND PLUS, a folk space rock band from US. O'Hashi-san plays guitar in songs "Nasty Little Scar" and "Leaning House."
The album (released in limited and regular edition) is already available for preorder at the band's website.

Also, there's an exclusive interview with O'Hashi-san published in the latest (#8) issue of the Monster Attack Team magazine. Check it out!

Source: official sites of MONSTER ISLAND PLUS & Monster Attack Team

「Trick × Logic」 is an upcoming mystery-novel-like game for Sony Playstation. One of the main characters there is Yama-Raja, ruler of the realm of dead - with Demon-sama being the seiyuu!

Source: H.E.Demon Kakka's Official Website & promo site of 「Trick × Logic」

Japanese music magazine "WeROCK" features a section called "Artist Recommend", where CD&DVD are recommended not by just some reviewers, but by rock stars themselves. Check out what Raiden Yuzawa-san would like you to listen to!

Media-portal BARKS.jp features a special interview and new photos to celebrate His Excellency's new works!

In that interview, His Excellency mentioned that after the release of "GIRLS' ROCK Best" and "Demon's Rock Expo", his main activity will be... Seikima-II!!!

Ace-sama posted a New Year message in face to ace official blog.
Luke-sama also wrote a line in "Messages" at the CANTA web-site.
...And His Excellency was just as busy as usual - well, he has a world to run, after all. =)

Cover art and some details regarding the upcoming releases from His Excellency were revealed lately at the official site.
New songs included in "GIRLS' ROCK Best" are "akai suiitopii" (Matsuda Seiko cover) and "miserarete" (Judy Ong cover).
Slightly bigger cover images for both "GIRLS' ROCK Best" and "DEMON'S ROCK EXPO. -THE LIVE!!-" can be viewed at Mu-Mo.

See links and more detailed info here.

CANTA released the new PV "Bitter Sweet", watch it at their MySpace page!

Source: CANTA official site

US and Canadian iTunes stores had finally included this album into their listings today. Better late than never, huh? =)

Source: iTunes store

"Girls' Rock best" will contain 11 songs in total, 2 of them new. Limited edition bonus DVD will feature all 3 "GIRLS' ROCK" series PV + 1 new one. First press comes with a bonus sticker.
"Demon's Rock Expo" DVD follows the "GIRLS' ROCK" DVD series tradition: live recording from the last show of the "Demon's Rock Expo" tour, D.C.11 09.22 at Zepp Tokyo.

See links and more detailed info here.

CDJapan already offered 2 astonishing new records for preorder: live DVD "Demon's Rock Expo" and compilation "Girls' Rock Best" (in limited and regular edition), both scheduled for release on January 20.

Not much info available yet, but "Girls' Rock Best" is supposed to include 2 new songs, its limited edition comes with DVD, and first press of regular edition will probably have some bonus as well.

Source: CDJapan

CDJapan offers "kannana -Live at SHIBUYA O-EAST-" DVD+2CD for preorder already! Have major stores quit ignoring CANTA video releases at last?

Source: CDJapan

During the video-conference at Oni-Con, His Excellency announced that Seikima-II will play at the A-Kon 21 in Dallas TX.

A-Kon is 'the oldest continually running, anime-based convention in North America, celebrating its 21st year in D.C.12(2010).

Source: Cure Rock

It was announced that Seikima-II world tour is planned for spring and summer of D.C.12 (2010). No particular places or dates were named, only that they are going to visit some of those countries where 'AKUMA NATIVITY "SONGS OF THE SWORD"' album had been released.

Also, Cure Radio has a message from His Excellency Demon Kogure, it will be available on their YouTube channel.

Source: Seikima-II official web-site

「カンナナ -Live at SHIBUYA O-EAST-」 [kannana -Live at SHIBUYA O-EAST-], with footage from CANTA 7th anniversary live, is planned for release on December 16. There's a tiny promo-clip available here (and one for "Green Horn" too).

Since "Green Horn" seems to be making good pre-order sales both at HMV and Amazon Japan, there's a hope those big stores will pick up the DVD too...

Source: CANTA releases list at IronShock label site

Oni-Con is an anime convent that takes place in Houston, Texas. This time one of their panels will feature a video conference with His Excellency himself!

Source: Shattered Tranquility

The album title is "PEAKS": 'because each song stands out, like a summit'. And it will be 'the strongest rock album' face to ace ever released.

Source: face to ace official MySpace page

New album from CANTA - "Green Horn" - will go on sale on October 28!
For some reason (have they changed label?) this CD (like their "QUATTRO FORMAGGIO" maxi-single this spring) will be released on Iron Shock record label instead of VAP. This may mean it won't be available through major online record stores... Please, let me be wrong. Please? HMV Japan made this album available for pre-order already, how nice of them.

Source: Iron Shock blog

New Seikima-II album entered the oricon charts right away, peaking at #8 in Daily Ranking on the release day. In Weekly Ranking it peaked at #15 on the release week.

Oricon charts do include sales from CDJapan, HMV Japan and Amazon.jp. Therefore if you bought a copy of "Akuma Nativity..." CD from those shops, you've contributed to its Oricon rank too!

Source: Oricon

There's no official announcement so far, but HMV and Amazon have the yet-untitled CD by face to ace in their listings, and the release date is set for November 6.

Source: HMV description

According to Oricon news, it had been announced that Seikima-II are planning the world tour! 10 concerts outside of Japan, in Asia, North America and Europe!!! And there's a tiny message at the official site that partially confirms it!

Source: Oricon news

In his new post in CANTA blog, Masaki revealed that the new album release is close enough - maybe as close as the band's nationwide tour scheduled for this November.

Source: CANTA official web-site

30-second preview clip of "EL DORADO" music video had been added to Seikima-II MySpace page today!

Another official site update revealed that His Excellency will tell us more about Seikima-II plans during his appearances in various TV-shows in September and November. (Therefore, most probably no real Seikima-II activity is planned for the next two months.)
Web-magazine "beatfreak" #259-02 will feature an interview with Seikima-II. The issue itself is online already, but that particular page is still 'under construction' at this moment...

A small video comment from His Excellency, regarding his DEMON'S ROCK EXPO tour was made available at site called E+. "Akuma Nativity..." album release is also mentioned!

Links: E+ page with video

Usually such things can be obtained only within Japan, but for some reason this issue is available from HMV.co.jp for the rest of the world as well!
2009 4-5 issue of "NHK shiruraku" magazine contains 4 stories about the legendary Yokozuna of the past, as told by His Excellency Demon Kogure on TV this April. It seems those are full transcripts of what was shown on TV.

Links: HMV.co.jp

HMV.co.jp and Amazon.co.jp already have the full tracklists to both editions! And the name of the new song for the regular edition is there as well!!!

Cover-art for CD release of "Akuma Nativity 'Songs Of The Sword'" revealed! It is a bit different from the picture shown at Seikima-II MySpace page. New images have already been uploaded at some major shop sites, including CDJapan, HMV.co.jp and Amazon.

Some more details were published at Seikima-II official site.

Tracklist (in alphabetical order) was revealed - basically the same songs as in iTunes version, and name of the new song isn't disclosed yet.

Differences between regular edition and limited edition CDs will go further than just one new song - 4 songs marked as 'Expo. Ver.' for limited edition are marked as 'Jp. Ver.' for regular edition.

Limited edition bonus DVD will feature "EL DORADO" music Clip and "EL DORADO" 聖飢魔II × Kobun Shizuno. So, a new PV and... a new anime???

Links: Seikima-II Official Web-Site

Ace Shimizu had officially confirmed that he's not participating in Seikima-II 25th anniversary reunion.
In his message, posted to face to ace blog yesterday, Ace-san said that his undivided attention is on face to ace now, and thus he cannot take his place in Seikima-II again - because it's not just a spare-time band, it requires full devotion. At the 20th anniversary reunion he decided that it would be his last time, and he didn't change his mind. He's sure the new reunion will be a huge success anyway, he congratulates the band on reaching another anniversary year and he'll be cheering from the sidelines for them.

Well, good luck to Ace-san and face to ace! Seikima-II won't be the same without him... But we should be grateful for all the wonders he gave us in the glorious past years, and look forward to the next resurrection of the band. Because a statement like this most probably means that Seikima-II are really planning to come back big time!

Links: Ace's message in face to ace blog

The official site and the official myspace of Seikima-II had finally been updated! Updates include: new intro page and band members' profiles at the official site, and for myspace profiles had been translated in English (new translation, much better than previous one) and info about the album with cover image.
But still no info about why Ace Shimizu is missing from the promo clip and photos...

The iTunes release of "Akuma Nativity..." album made news at many review sites, including Blabbermouth.net.

Public reaction is... well, various, because reviewers often don't really know what they're writing about. They mention lots of trivia and miscellaneous small facts (sometimes even getting them incorrect) and that's all. Of course this is not enough to successfully introduce such an uncommon band to the Western audience. You know, cultural differences and all that stuff. It makes things more difficult than most people think, and requires more skills, knowledge and understanding to handle it properly.

It's such a pity to see all this publicity making way less positive impact that it should... And good luck to some active shinjas that are trying to change situation by posting comments and explaining things.

His Excellency was so magnanimous to post an official statement about the upcoming Seikima-II album in his own blog.

Seikima-II album "Akuma Nativity 'Songs Of The Sword'" will be released in 22 countries around the world, in three steps:

• July 15 (yes, that's kinda in the past) - iTunes release for Austria, Australia, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland
• August - iTunes release for USA and Canada
• September 16 - CD release in Japan

Even if your country is not on the list, you can see the (unbelievable wonderful) tracklist and listen to 30-seconds previews of the songs in the iTunes store for one those countries mentioned.

Official sites keep their silence, so we have no choice but to chase rumors...

Neowing (the Japanese twin-sister site of CDJapan) says that the album is planned for distribution not only in Japan, but also in America, Oceania and Europe.

Japanese Amazon says that there are plans to release it in July on iTunes for Europe and America, prior to the actual CD release.

Amazon, Barks and some other sites also name 3 songs from the still-unrevealed tracklist. One of them is titled "THE AKUMA SYMPHONY SUITE Number 666 in C# minor(悪魔組曲)" (the canonical version is in D minor, so that's either a typo or...?).

Links: updated album info here, Neowing, Amazon.co.jp.

No press-releases on official sites yet, but there's a short promo-clip on the official MySpace with "EL DORADO" sung half in English. And new album titled "Akuma Nativity 'Songs Of The Sword'" is already listed by CDJapan for preorder, with scheduled release date of September 16. The album is said to consist of 13 re-recorded songs with lyrics in English! There will be a limited edition with DVD (featuring the music video "EL DORADO") .

Links: limited edition, regular edition, "EL DORADO" promo clip.

The 11th episode of Bajune Tobeta's INTERFACE program is a pretty long 3-part interview with Demon Kogure. It is available for viewing online at StudioVoice web-site.

His Excellency will appear on JCI Japan meeting in Tokyo on July 13, as a talkshow guest. Since belief in God is an integral part of JCI credo, I bet there will be a very interesting discussion...

To Shunsuke "Xenon" Ishikawa, bassist, calligrapher, composer and wise man - banzai!!!
And his current band N/Y Funk Shot!! recently made their album "Out Of Border" available through iTunes and monstar.fm.

According to MASAKI's message at the official site, they've started recording material for a new album today.

His Excellency will go on a short tour this September, with his usual support crew: Raiden Yuzawa (drums), Matsuzaki Yuuichi (keyboards), Ohmomo Toshiki (bass), Harada Kenta (guitar), Ishigaki Ai (guitar).
Only 3 lives are planned - in Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo.

Their official site is down right now, but email from the organisators clearly states that the planned event won't happen. The reasons are "the financial change in world economy, severe competition from other festivals/concerts as well as poor ticket sale". Good ticket sales would've probably kept the Expo alive - so shame on all fans of featured artists who could afford the ticket but decided against it.

NHK runs a 4-programme series of short documentaries on the legendary Yokozunas of the past, with His Excellency Demon Kogure as a presenter/storyteller. Not worldwide-available this time, though, but 4 30-min programmes would fit nicely into a DVD, so maybe there's still a chance for us...
The featured Yokozunas are: Tochinishiki, Tanikaze, Hitachiyama and Futabayama.
See the official NHK website for more details.

CANTA celebrated their 7th anniversary at Shibuya O-EAST. Banzai!!!
...1 new song in each of their best-of compilation last year, and recent 4-song promo-CD "Quattro Formaggio" - could this mean that new album is near?

Demon Kogure will appear in one of educational programs of Japanese TV, which will later be re-broadcasted by the NHK World Premium channel, available worldwide!
知る楽 ("Enjoy Learning" series) on NHK World Premium, 10:35 - 11:00 (Japan time), April 11, 18, 25 and May 2.

Talented guitarist and songwriter Ace Shimizu celebrates his birthday on this day! Banzai!

There's a nice new banner at the main page of His Excellency's official web-site which tells us that Demon Kogure will appear in 三文オペラ [sanmon opera], a Japanese rendition of "the Threepenny Opera" (Die Dreigroschenoper). It will be performed in April (Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon, Tokyo) and first days of May (Osaka Kouseinenkinkaikan Hall).

A short video-comment from His Excellency on "atsuku nare" and "GIRLS' ROCK 'Tiara'" is available at some major online shops & portals, including BARKS.jp (there are more, but all vids are the same and BARKS offers a better-quality video for fast connections).
Also, cover images for "Tiara" album had already been revealed.

• D.C.10
• D.C.09