STARTING TODAY, Burger King is leveling up its kids’ meals with a shinobi twist! This summer, the fast food giant is teaming up with one of anime’s most iconic franchises—Naruto—for a limited-edition King Jr. Meal toy drop that’s sure to stir up nostalgia and excite new fans alike.
Participating Burger King locations across the U.S. will serve up more than just fries and Whoppers—they’ll be dishing out exclusive Naruto toys with every King Jr. Meal. The lineup includes eight collectible figures featuring beloved characters from the Hidden Leaf Village, including Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and Kakashi Hatake.
Whether you’re a longtime fan who grew up watching Naruto chase his dream of becoming Hokage, or you’re just getting into the series (which, by the way, has been the most streamed anime on Hulu and Netflix for three years running), this collab is the perfect way to bring some ninja flair to your next meal.
But wait, there’s a special perk for California-based fans: From July 14 through early October, select locations in the Golden State will be offering King Jr. Meals for just $3.99. Yep—you can grab food and get one step closer to completing your Naruto toy collection without breaking the bank.
So, whether you’re collecting them all or just snagging your favorite shinobi, this is one fast food collab that deserves a dattebayo!
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Miraculous Ladybug currently has 3 seasons and going strong, and with a huge demand for Miraculous Ladybug merchandise, Zag entertainment decided to open a physical store in Santa Monca, California in April of 2019.
Merchandise varies, from action figures and stationery to apparel and accessories. Recently, Zag entertainment added a highly anticipated product!
Miraculous ladybug fans have been pushing for Zag entertainment to produce collectible figures, rather than the basic figurine toy. on March 13th, Zag entertainment released the VERY, first collectible figure; Ladybug & Catnoir Art Figure!
The figure is 100% resin and stands about 16.5” inches tall, and comes with a limited-edition storage box made from real leather.
How much will this limited edition figure set you back? An estimated $260 (before taxes and shipping). If you have $260+ to spare, the figure can be pre-ordered online here, but hurry only 2000 pieces were made.
We’d love to hear from you, What are your opinions on the Miraculous Ladybug figure? Comment below!
Since making her first U.S. debut, Miku has landed in the mainstream media spotlight, even being featured in other U.S. media, such as ‘The late-night show with David Letterman‘ and was also the opening act for Lady Gaga’s 2014 worldwide tour, The Artpop Ball.
Police and firefighters responded to an apparent suicide by hazmat chemicals at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose at 10A.M on Saturday, August 31st. The Fairmount Hotel is located one block away from the San Jose Convention Center, which the annual Crunchyroll Expo was being held. The Fairmont Hotel is one of many hotels in the area that was filled with Crunchyroll Expo attendees.
A female body was found dead in room 1912 by a hotel employee and reported that the room smelled of ‘an odor’, which spread around 3 floors and sent 9 hotel and guests to hospitals. The incident caused the hotel to clear 3 of their floors levels, 18, 19 and 20. Although investigators have identified the chemical substance involved, they have yet to name the substance or release the woman’s name.
Among the body, police dispatchers can be heard mentioning a suicide note that read, “I committed suicide by poisonous gas. One smell and you’ll die.” it is unknown if the last sentence was meant as a threat or a warning, for anyone who discovered the body. The recording can be heard here, by The Mercury News:
Those affected by the substance suffered from faint and lightheadedness, or were experiencing shortness of breath and were transported to local hospitals. The odor was reported to have smelled of rotten eggs which hinted to the involvement of hydrogen sulfide gas although this has not been confirmed as of yet.
“Fairmont Incident is now under control. 9 patients transported following decontamination. Final media briefing to be at 4:30 at the stage in Cesar Chavez Park.” — San Jose Fire Department via Twitter (@SJFD)
Initial reports also mentioned that the woman found dead inside room 1912, was someone else, other than the person who’s registered to the room. Investigators spoke to the registered guest and it is unknown if the registered guest and woman found dead inside knew each other. It is also unclear if this incident is in any way, shape or form related to Crunchyroll Expo.
The hotel was never fully evacuated but its ventilation system was shut down in order to contain the chemical smell and prevent it from spreading round further. They later reopened floors 18 and 20.
This is a developing story that we will continue to keep updated with all of the latest information. If you have any information pertaining to this particular story, you can contact The Kitsune Network at Contact@TheKitsunetwork.net.
The Nisei Week Parade was held in Los Angeles on August 10th, 2019. Originally a 7-day festival celebrating first American born Japanese in Los Angeles.
Although the festival is no longer confined within a week nor is it exclusively targeted to ‘niseis‘, (the first American born Japanese) it is a celebration of Japanese American culture and history in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.
Nisei week has over the years diversified giving the surrounding community “[…]the opportunity for people of all backgrounds to celebrate Japanese heritage and culture.“. as stated by Michelle Suzuki, Nisei Week Foundation president in 2006. To learn more about Nisei week and its cultural significance, visit their official website here.
Here some of our highlights from the parade
J-pop band, Bishonen
Band members; Ryuga Sato, Yuto Nasu & Hidaka Ukisho. Represented by Japan’s male idol talent agency, Johnny & Associates (also known as, Johnny’s).
Montebello-Ashiya Sister city program representatives
Montebello-Ashiya Sister city program
Over fifty years after an international agreement between the two distant cities, one in the United States, and one in far-off Japan, the international sister city agreement between Montebello and Ashiya, Japan, continues to be vital and strong. Created to help people understand and implement tolerance of cultural differences and an awareness of people’s qualities and attributes.
Northern California Cherry Blossom Queen and Princesses
Princess Nami Katie Saito, Princess Elena Harumi Nielsen, Princess Stephanie Reiko Gee, First Princess Naomi Leilani Furukawa, Queen Yuki Nishimura.
2019 Nisei Week Queen & Court
Princess Ariel Mei Imamoto, Princess Emily Yuiko Ishida, First Princess Mia Masae Lopez, 2019 Nisei Week Queen Juli Yoshinaga, Miss Tomodachi Kara Chizuru Ito, Princess Marika Kate Gotschall, and Princess Kayla Sachiko Igawa.
Entertainment Hobby Shop Jungle
Osaka based, anime retail store, Anime Jungle! Jungle has everything from Anime and Tokusatsu merchandise include toys, figures, DVDs, Apparels to rare anime figures!
In its 28th year, Anime Expo once again welcomed 115,000* attendees from across the world.
Japanese pop culture fans, both locally and internationally, traveled to the Los Angeles Convention Center for annual Anime Expo (Commonly known as, AX) held from July 4th thru 7th, including a pre-night show on the July 3rd.
Reports that Anime Expo’s contract with the Los Angeles Convention Center had expired, created rumors of Anime Expo moving to another venue by 2020. We can officially confirm that Anime Expo will definitely return to the Los Angeles Convention Center for 29th Anime Expo in 2020, as stated in their website and the back of the Anime Expo 2019 program books.
The Great Anime Expo Earthquake
In an unforeseen turn of events, two earthquakes occurred during Anime Expo 2019, one during Day 2, July 4th at 10:02AM PTD (4.0 magnitude) and the second during Day 3, July 5th at 8:19PM PTD (7.1 magnitude). During the first earthquake on the morning of July 4th, ABC 7 Action News had mistakenly stated that the Los Angeles Convention Center was being evacuated as a precaution. In reality, it was Anime Expo attendees waiting to get insidethe convention, not out. Their statement was later retracted. The earthquake’s epicenter location was Ridgecrest, California.
The following day, July 5th at 8:19PM a second earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.1, struck Ridgecrest, California once more. The earthquake was felt by AX attendees, which some taking to social media to post videos of their terrifying experience while inside the convention center.
Guests of Honor, Faye Mata
This year, Anime Expo featured 22 Guests of Honor, among them, voice actress Faye Mata.
Photo Credit: Ax2D Photography
Mata has voiced numerous characters including, Aqua; Konosuba, Fukaziroh; SAO: Gun Gale Online, Katie Killjoy; Hazbin Hotel, Astolfo; Fate/Apocrypha and most recently Petra in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. We had the pleasure of having an exclusive interview with Faye Mata, Join us we speak about her career, character roles, and other upcoming projects.
This year Anime Expo featured over 400+ vendors among them animator, Vivienne Medrano better known by her pseudonym, Vivziepop.
Vivziepop is famously known for creating the hit series, HAZBIN HOTEL. Following her huge viral success with her YouTube video, which features JayJay, a character from another of Vivzie’s creations titled, Zoophobia, lipsyncing to Ke$ha’s Die Young. This video helped her gain a large audience early in her career as an animator.
Hazbin Hotel official poster
She began her working on Hazbin Hotel during her High school years, designing characters such Alastor, one of many main characters of the series. It wasn’t until 2016, that she initially announced Hazbin Hotel, which was originally titled, People Like Us. We caught up with Vivziepop during the last day of Anime Expo and she gave us an insight into the series’ production and its future.
The series is set to be released sometime during October 2019, although the exact date is yet to be announced. Follow Vivziepop’s Twitter account for more updates and details.
RGP Games, anyone?
We decided to cover a few things from this year’s Entertainment Hall booth, beginning with Fate/Grand Order 2019 Tour. As you may remember, the Fate/Grand Order 2019 Tour began back in February of this year…
…and continued throughout Anime Expo 2019. Their booth featured an interactive photo-op station and the opportunity to play the tabletop game, Fate/Grand Order duel. Type-Moon representatives also handed out Fate/Grand Order 2019 player guides.
The Fate/Grand Order tour continues with its next stop being at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2019 in October, for more information visit their official here.
Staying inside the Entertainment Hall, we stopped by Auragon Games’ booth as they promoted their newest game, Hiraethia!
Hiraethia is a new RPG puzzle game developed by Auragon Games, a new independent game developing company based off Texas. Auragon Games founder, Sunny Chai and Hiraethia character designer, Tin Liu spoke to us gave us an overview on Hiraethia.
“A story of adventure, mystery, and tragedy. Follow a brave group of heroes as they try to save the world.” as the game’s Kickstarter states.
We got to play the game during its promotion demo at Anime Expo and although we did not explore much of the storyline, we can see it becoming quite popular among mobile RPG fans. As Chai stated in our interview, what sets the game apart is the fully animated character scenes. It’s one of the few games out there, that features hand-drawn, fully animated attack sequences. As you may know, most games go with the traditional visual novel animation. In addition, the game also features a puzzle mini-game within the main game itself, in which, the player must strategically match ‘tiles‘ accordingly to create stronger and more powerful attack combos. It is when these attacks are performed that the fully animated sequences appear.
Furthermore, the game also features a collaboration with YouTube gamer, LilyPichu as a playable character in the game. Auragon games have not released much about their character’s background, therefore not much is known about lily nor the role she’ll play in the game, storywise.
There is currently no date set for the game’s release, other than ‘it’ll be out on the market before the end of 2019.‘ Want to know more,? head over to their official website to learn more about the game and merchandise.
Anime Expo 2020
Anime Expo ended with an unusually finish. It’s a well-known fact that Anime Expo sale badges for the coming year, hours before the current year convention is over. Things were a bit different this year, with Anime Expo announcing that badges for Anime Expo 2020 would not be sold on-site and instead, sold online.
A limited number of early bird 4-day badges will go on sale beginning on August 16th 2019. Early bird price is $75 (not including fees) for a 4-day badge. Once all the early bird badges sell out, 4-day badges will be available for $85 (not including fees) and continue rising monthly as Anime Expo 2020 gets closer. In another surprising move, Anime Expo has also stated they will no longer hold a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales.
For more information regarding Anime Expo 2020 badge please go to their official website here. Now that Anime Expo 2019 has long been over, its time to prepare for Anime Expo 2020. Will you be there?
Ever wondered how the Los Angeles Convention Center looks like without thousands of Anime Expo attendees? We went to the convention center early during the week of Anime Expo 2019 and captured some of the empty rooms and corridors.
Outside the convention center during Day -1, No lines. Day -1 was dedicated to setting up AX and badge pick up for exhibitors and guests.
As seen in the photos, AX staff were still setting up in preparation for Day 0. Empty, the convention center’s size and beauty really stand out.
Fans may recognize him for his work as the voice director on B: The Beginning, The Sky Crawlers, and recently, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. He’s also provided the voices of Kaname Kuran (Vampire Knight), Junketsu (Kill La Kill) & Yylfordt Granz (Bleach).
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
BTS – Ezra Weisz Interview | Photos by: Vincent Reyes
Ezra Weizs
Ladies & gentlemen, its Ezra Weisz!
We had the honor of interviewing Ezra Weisz during Anime Los Angeles 2019! Intrigued by his involvement in the Miraculous Ladybug series, we asked Ezra on some insight on what goes on behind the scenes of Miraculous Ladybug! All this and more on our interview:
ZAG studios open its door in 2015 in Glendale, California and since then, the studio kept on expanding. Much like their beloved hit TV series, Miraculous Ladybug, they’ve branched out to various forms of media, such as comics, magazines, TV series, Youtube shorts, and even an upcoming motion picture.
Now they’re opening their very own store in Santa Monica, California
STOP! Don’t run out the door yet, the store has yet to release their grand opening date, although ZAG did make an announcement stating that their store would be open by winter 2018, it never came to fruition. The Zag Store team has recently updated their site, stated that the store is “Opening April 7th 2019“!
We stopped by to learn that building is, in fact, closed to the public and under construction.
Front entrance
Queen Bee sculpture in front of the store. We’re sure that belongs on window, it figure after all.
Sneak peak of their merchandise. Notice their ‘Season 4 & 5’ light up advertisement
Office space…Another mini studio?
Here’s logo we’re all familiar with.
Although the store is not yet opened, there’s no doubt Miraculers (Miraculous Ladybug fans) are already saving up in order to prepare for what awaits for them inside ‘The Miraculous Ladybug store’.
Actual Design
A real life Adrien Agreste poster
A real life Adrien Agreste poster!
Rena Rouge Sculpture
But if you don’t want to wait, their online store is open and accepting orders!
Keep your eye for more exciting and exclusive Miraculous Ladybug updates here on The Kitsune Network, we already have another Miraculous Ladybug guest interview in the work, stay tuned!
This is a developing story that we will continue to keep updated with all of the latest information. If you have any information pertaining to this particular story, you can contact The Kitsune Network at Kitsunenetworkproductions@gmail.com.
Anime conventions are no stranger to unexpected events, but early Sunday morning at approximately 1:30 AM, attendees of Anime Los Angeles, along with other guests at the Folk Inn Hotel in Ontario, CA, were startled awake by what was initially believed to be an active shooter situation.
However, it was later confirmed that the disturbance was not due to an active shooter but rather a deliberate act of arson, destroying seven vehicles.
Both the Folk Inn Hotel and its neighboring Azure Hotel & Suites were evacuated. According to eyewitness Nora Moto, who was staying at the Azure Hotel, hotel staff and residents knocked on doors, urging people to evacuate immediately. “People were panicking because they thought it was an active shooter,” Moto told The Kitsune Network. “The fire burst the tires, and people thought someone was shooting up the place.”
The false reports of an active shooter caused further panic, leading guests in the Azure Hotel lobby to flee into the streets. Some rushed toward the nearby Gateway Hotel, adjacent to the Ontario Convention Center, in an effort to escape what they believed was a life-threatening situation.
Suspect Arrested in Connection with the Fire
After the fire was extinguished, law enforcement detained a person of interest. According to a police officer at the scene, a witness saw an individual pouring gasoline on a vehicle before setting it on fire. The flames quickly spread to adjacent cars. The suspect then fled the scene in an unidentified vehicle, but not before a witness recorded the license plate number.
The suspect, identified as 27-year-old Matt Masumi Toyotome, an Anime Los Angeles attendee, was later arrested at his Riverside home without incident. He is currently being held at the West Valley Detention Center on suspicion of arson, with bail set at $250,000.
Motive: A Years-Long Obsession
Sources indicate that Toyotome deliberately targeted a 2015 Subaru Outback belonging to fellow convention attendee Julia Moreno Jenkins, with whom he had been obsessed for years.
Jenkins’ Facebook profile photo
A friend of the victim, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed that Toyotome had been harassing Jenkins for over three years. The two initially met while collaborating on a fan-made YouTube series called Armored Rangers, a project created by a group of Power Rangers fans.
During the production, Toyotome became infatuated with Jenkins, despite the fact that she had been in a long-term relationship since 2013. After the series ended, the group went their separate ways, but Jenkins remained active in the YouTube community and gained notable recognition within the Power Rangers fandom.
Escalating Harassment and a Disturbing Attack
Over time, Toyotome’s obsession escalated into jealousy and harassment. He allegedly repeatedly visited Jenkins’ home uninvited, left unsolicited gifts, and followed her at conventions.
While the specific trigger for the arson remains unclear, speculation suggests that Toyotome’s advances were firmly rejected by Jenkins during Anime Los Angeles 2019, potentially leading to the attack.
What’s left of Jenkins’ 2015 Subaru Outback; Although an eyewitness did see Matt pour gasoline to the car, Matt possibly bought gasoline from the adjacent, Quick Gasoline gas station.
Other Victims of the Fire
Jenkins was not the only victim of this incident. Several of the destroyed vehicles belonged to other Anime Los Angeles attendees, including Sabrina Snowdon, whose 2017 Nissan Rogue Sport was completely burned.
Photo provided to us by Sabrina
VIDEO FOOTAGE:
“I only had liability insurance, so my insurance will not cover me and I got it for $27,000. It was a really good working 2015 Subaru Outback. [. . .]I appreciate everyone who has helped be here for me during this ordeal, and thank you all for encouraging me to go through with starting a go fund me. I can’t say thank you enough for the cosplay community being so supportive and helpful to me in just every way.”
– Julia Jenkins via Go-FundMe
This shocking event serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked obsession and harassment within fan communities.
