American metal band Slipknot is returning this year with their music festival, Knotfest. This festival will be packed with 5 stages, 60 different bands and 20 crazy attractions.

For 2014, they have invited ONE OK ROCK, MAN WITH A MISSION and MAXIMUM THE HORMONE to perform at the event in America. The first leg of the festival will take place on October 24th, 25th and 26th at the San Manuel Amphitheater & Campgrounds in San Bernardino, California. All 3 bands are set to play on the 25th, although their exact time and stages have yet to be specified.

The festival will continue in Japan on November 11th and 12th. The 3 bands, along with SiM and Crossfaith will perform at Knotfest Japan as well. ONE OK ROCK, SiM and Crossfaith will perform on the 11th, while MAN WITH A MISSION and MAXIMUM THE HORMONE will perform on the 12th.

Tickets for both events are currently on sale on their websites: Knotfest America and Knotfest Japan.

Last week, singer Chara and daughter SUMIRE introduced the new fashion brand KOE in their first-ever event together. The two ladies serve as the brand’s ambassadors.

Cross company, which operates Maison de FLEUR and THOM BROWN. New York, describes this new venture as a “music & ecology brand” with accessible ladies, mens, kids, juniors and maternity clothing that uses raw, ethical materials. Within the next three years they plan for global expansion.

Nearly 30 years ago, Laputa: Castle in the Sky was released and there have been plenty replicas of the heroine Sheeta’s levistone pendant. In the Hayao Miyzaki’s animation, Sheeta was the character who knew the “spell of destruction” (don’t say it out loud but it’s “Valuse”) and fans have been saying it to their bootleg necklaces for years to no avail. The last time Laputa was played on television in 2011, Japanese fans on Twitter even managed to break the tweets per second record by tweeting “Valuse!” the same time she says it in the film.

But now, a modern iteration of the pendant actually reacts to your words! Clearly it won’t make your enemies go blind, raise large intherium crystals from the roots of the tree of life, or make the majority of your floating island fall into the ocean, but it glows on command. That’s just as cool!

First of all, let me start off by saying that the situation in regards to ranking digital music sales in Japan is a mess. There hasn’t been an official digital chart in years. The RIAJ said they were going to fix it but never did. They just killed if off instead. Oricon should be counting digital sales like pretty much every other country does, but they don’t.

A lot of press and stanwars between Ayumi Hamasaki and Tomomi Itano fans, but who actually came out on top in this week’s Oricon album and single charts?

On July 8, KAT-TUN kicked off their “KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2014 come Here” by returning to their very first concert stage at the Tokyo International Forum, after 12 years. Back in 2002 during pre- debut, 550,000 fans applied for tickets for their concert at the said venue. Returning to the concert venue has been like re-starting their memories. This is also KAT-TUN’s first tour as a 4 member group . The tour will continue on with 22 more performances in 10 locations, and will end at Kyocera Dome for another year end Countdown Live.

“It feels tense to face the audience at this distance, but it also makes me determined,” Kamenashi Kazuya commented. Ueda Tatsuya also feels uneasy, “but doing first tour here is impressive, I’ll make this a day to remember”. Taguchi Junnosuke hopes that the distance between them and the hyphens (=fan) will be closer, and Nakamaru Yuichi feels emotional because it’s like returning to starting point that it evokes a sense of recklessness. When he watched the members rehearse their solos beside the stage, it made him recall his memories from 12 years ago which almost made him cry.

Tamagotchi was a staple in the 90s and was widely responsible for the digital pet craze. Not only limited to Japan, but Tamagotchi enticed the entire world.

To date over 80 million Tamagotchi units have been sold worldwide. Even though handheld and mobile gaming has begun to increase in popularity each year, Bandai is still making new models. For their newest release Bandi has decided to recruit Rola to promote the device.

The talent recently made an appearance at the product launch for Bandai’s new model “TAMAGOTCHI 4U” by walking out of a huge egg. She was surprised after emerging from the egg: “I thought there would be a lot of kids here since this is a popular game for children, but I was surprised that there’s only adults wearing suits! I wanted to try cute poses in front of children.” But that didn’t stop her from doing it anyway.

Tokyo Sports published an article on the 8th alleging that ex-AKB48 member Tomomi Itano (23) intended to “wage war” against singer Ayumi Hamasaki (35) after dropping her debut album S×W×A×G on the same day as the veteran pop star’s Colours.

“Hamasaki’s album was released the same day as Itano’s, but their respective first-day sales placed Itano in 6th and Hamasaki in 5th [on the Oricon chart], a painful defeat,” an unnamed entertainment industry official claimed in the piece. “When Itano got the news, she wailed, ‘I lost to Ayu! This is awful!'” The same anonymous source added that Itano then went on to message past and current AKB48 members as well as staff, declaring that she would “surpass” Hamasaki.