Chronopin: upcoming release dates, events and other important dates

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, Sunrise's second-season continuation of the mecha-political thriller, begins airing as exiled prince Lelouch vi Britannia resumes his hidden war against the Britannian Empire.

Soul Eater begins broadcast, Bones' adaptation of Atsushi Ohkubo's manga set at the Death Weapon Meister Academy, where weapon-and-meister pairs collect souls to forge new Death Scythes while defending Death City from monsters.

M.S.C releases Tennis no Ouji-sama: Zenkoku Taikai-hen Final, the concluding OVA arc of the Prince of Tennis National Tournament storyline, as Seigaku faces the tournament's strongest team, Rikkaidai.

Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale on 29 April 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, taking players to Liberty City as Niko Bellic. Take-Two said it sold about 3.6 million copies, worth roughly US$310 million, on its first day.

Hajime Yoneda’s restaurant explores nature, Earth and the universe through a lengthy tasting experience. Current standard and vegetable menus are ¥89,000, plus 15% service.

A Ms 8.0 (Mw 7.9) earthquake hit Sichuan at 14:28 on 12 May 2008, leaving more than 69,000 dead, about 18,000 missing and at least 4.8 million homeless.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is a 2008 high fantasy film, directed by Andrew Adamson, and written by Adamson, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. It is based on the 1951 novel Prince Caspian, the second in the children's book series by C. S. Lewis, and the second installment in The Chronicles of Narnia film series.

At the 43rd Academy of Country Music Awards on 18 May 2008, the first in which fans chose Entertainer of the Year, Kenny Chesney won a fourth straight time at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, with Garth Brooks given the first Crystal Milestone Award.

Russia's first new post-Soviet airliner, the Sukhoi Superjet 100 prototype, took off from Komsomolsk-on-Amur on 19 May 2008 and flew for 1 hour 5 minutes to 1,200 m with test pilots Alexander Yablontsev and Leonid Chikunov.

Hal Film Maker releases Aria the Origination: That Little Secret Place..., a bonus special adapting a bridging chapter of the Aria manga and set between episodes five and six of the Aria the Origination TV series.

Andrew Stanton's WALL-E opened in US theaters on 27 June 2008, following a lone trash-compacting robot on a deserted Earth in 2805. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Jan De Nul's Cristóbal Colón, a 223-metre dredger with a 46,000 cubic metre hopper, was launched at the La Naval shipyard in Sestao, Spain on 4 July 2008, becoming the largest trailing suction hopper dredger ever built.

Yuno, Miyako, Hiro, Sae and the rest of the denizens of the most fascinating piece of surreal estate in Japan are back.

Natsume has always been an outcast because he inherited his grandmother's ability to see yokai.

The first Boeing 777 Freighter took off from Paine Field at 10 a.m. PDT on 14 July 2008, flew for just over three and a half hours and returned to Paine Field after a data-link problem.

Kyoto Animation releases Clannad: Another World, Tomoyo Chapter, a single-episode OVA retelling the anime's finale from an alternate timeline centered on Tomoya and Tomoyo's relationship.

Studio Ghibli's Ponyo opened in Japanese theaters on 19 July 2008 on a then-record 481 screens for a domestic film. Hayao Miyazaki's seaside fantasy follows a goldfish princess who wants to become human.

On 28 July 2008 Emirates received its first A380 at Airbus's Hamburg plant and unveiled a cabin with first-class showers and an onboard lounge. The Gulf carrier, the biggest A380 customer with 58 ordered, flew it Dubai to New York on 1 August.

InuYasha: Kuroi Tessaiga debuts, a 30-minute InuYasha special screened at Rumiko Takahashi manga exhibitions across Japan before it was later folded, slightly re-edited, into an episode of InuYasha: The Final Act.

Studio Rikka begins streaming Time of Eve, a near-future ONA in which high-schooler Rikuo discovers a hidden cafe where humans and the androids he was taught to treat as tools are met as equals.

The Detroit Metal City OVA begins release, a Studio 4°C-animated comedy adapting Kiminori Wakasugi’s manga about a mild-mannered pop musician forced to front an extreme death-metal act.

The 29th Olympic Games opened on 8 August 2008 at Beijing National Stadium with a ceremony directed by Zhang Yimou, watched by a worldwide audience likely above a billion.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 5: Paradox Paradigm, the fifth film in ufotable's adaptation of Kinoko Nasu's novel series, opens in Japanese theaters, following Shiki Ryougi as she shelters a runaway boy convinced he has murdered his own mother.

The Shanghai World Financial Center opened in 2008 after developers were forced to redesign its circular summit opening into a trapezoid when the public read it as a Japanese flag.

The Loro Parque Company opened Siam Park in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, a Thai-themed water park that would go on to be ranked the world's best by TripAdvisor.

Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 protection on Monday 15 September 2008, the largest bankruptcy filing in US history and the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Kyoto Animation releases a standalone Lucky☆Star OVA, six unconnected bonus vignettes starring Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, and the rest of the cast, including an MMORPG story arc and a surreal dream sequence.

MidAmerican Energy, a Berkshire Hathaway unit, agreed on 28 September 2008 to pay US$230 million for 225 million new BYD H-shares at HK$8, about 9.9% of the Chinese battery and car maker; FinanceAsia reports BYD shares closed up 41.7% after trading resumed.

The television anime Toradora! begins airing, a J.C.STAFF-produced romantic comedy adapting Yuyuko Takemiya's light novels about an unlikely alliance between mild-mannered Ryuuji Takasu and the diminutive, fierce Taiga Aisaka.

Kyoto Animation's sequel series Clannad: After Story begins airing, following Tomoya Okazaki and Nagisa Furukawa into adulthood after the events of the first Clannad season.