Chin Music Press has made a major update to the promotional site for ART SPACE TOKYO, now including a section that will offer the art maps found in the book as downloadable PDFs (a new one every two weeks or so). The maps are absolutely beautiful, and it’s great that they’re offering them for download like this — very useful, even if you own a copy of the book. The new site also features a blog.

Tokyo-based fashion designer Gozi has launched a site for both her Gozi label and UMI-1 label.

The latest episode of Boing Boing TV covers TOKYOLOGY, a documentary that explores a few aspects of contemporary Japanese pop culture. The full documentary can be purchases on online here.

New York Art Beat launches! I really like that dark purple color scheme.

I like the new UNIQLO commercial that has started airing on TV for this spring’s UT lineup. You can also re-arrange the loop over at the UT website.

Very cool promotional site, “Hello World,” for Softbank by THA. I love how you can interact with the people (making them clap, for instance) and quickly zoom in and out. Via Shane Lester.

Zoren Gold & Minori have done a major update to their site. Quite the striking image on the front page!

Regular readers will know that I often make sly comments about Bape, and the fact that their Tokyo stores are usually empty (at least when I go). In the comment thread to this post about the Bape Nintendo DS collaboration, a reader links to this video of people waiting in line on release day. I’m still having trouble believing it’s real, but if so, wow.

Also, notice how they’ve finally updated the Bape website, turning it into, well, an actual website. To access the previous site, you had to download a proprietary piece of software.

From tomorrow (April 12) you can catch the iGoogle Art Cafe in Roppongi Hills. The limited-time cafe (until April 24) is part of W+K Tokyo’s artist campaign for iGoogle. Via Shane Lester’s blog.

Literally (see it yourself). It’s one of the many promotions currently underway to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the company. Via Imprint Talk.

NHK have posted all five shorts for the third season of their ANI-KURI series online (the first two seasons are available as well). The third season has quite the line-up of directors: Shoji Kawamori (MACROSS), Satoshi Kon (PAPRIKA), Mahiro Maeda (BLUE SUBMARINE NO. 6), Michael Arias (TEKKONKINKREET) and Makoto Shikai (VOICES OF A DISTANT STAR). Via Anime News Network.

Following last month’s introduction of downloadable banners for your iGoogle homepage, Japanese online shopping network ZOZO makes it easy, and fun, to browse through all of the available banners in a slick flash interface that simulates a trip to the museum. Via Imprint Talk.

At one of the events I attended last Friday — the Soe store opening in Nakameguro — I met a web designer by the name of Arata Sasaki. Looking at his work, there’s definitely a lot to like, from the website for his company, KOTENHITS (which includes the NO JAPAN JAPAN webzine pictured above), as well as the HITSPAPER design blog to which he’s a contributing editor. He also blogs by himself here.

I’m just stunned. Go here, and move your cursor around. And this is CG/flash? According to Boing Boing, where I got the link, it was created by a Brazilian design firm.

Update
There’s a reason for the face to be Japanese. Following a few links leads to the fact that a Japanese company is behind the technology, called Motion Portrait.

Looks like it’s suddenly going to be that much easier to follow new anime series that air here in Japan. GDH, parent company of Gonzo, are going to start releasing new series online (hosted on YouTube, Crunchyroll, and BOST) simultaneously with their Japanese TV air date, and including English subtitles. The first two series to be released this way are THE TOWER OF DRUAGA: THE AEGIS OF URUK (April 4) and BLASSREITER (April 5). Via Warren Ellis.