Archive for February, 2007

In 2035, the student population of Japan’s school system is much lower than in the past due to the declining birth rate and enthusiasm is at about the same level. Apparently this takes place after the Examination War Era and many young people just eschew school and take up part-time jobs to get a jump start on their futures. It is this dreary educational climate that Manami Amamiya (just call her Manabi) transfers into Seioh High School and her genki nature is just the catalyst the school needs to make school exciting again.
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UPDATE (3/2/07 6:30PM PST): I posted some corrections regarding the streaming issue and gave some impressions after watching it.

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I was watching the Oscars last night and thought of the American Anime Awards that were awarded the night before on Saturday at New York Comic-Con. While I am glad that the presentation is more tasteful than other genre-based award shows like the Spike Video Game Awards, I have four suggestions on how to improve the AAA’s (the Anidubs?) for next year.

Suggestion 1: Limit the Eligibility Period
The seemingly only criteria for eligibility is that an anime or manga must be available in the US during the previous year (e.g. 2006). This means that an anime could be nominated in multiple years if it gets a thinpack release in a different calendar year than its debut on the US market. This multi-year nomination problem also affects manga because something like Fruits Basket (the winner for best manga) with more than 10 volumes will likely have its volumes released over a number of years. In an interview with ANN, Milton Griepp from ICv2 was asked about this. Below are both the question and Griepp’s response: Read the rest of this entry »

OK, this hopefully will be the final set of reviews for Haruhi character singles I will write because I’ve started to look back at how I rated previous songs in aiding me with scoring future ones and I shouldn’t really doing that. Anyway, volumes 8 and 9 of Koizumi and Kyon, respectively, finished off the ennead (group of nine) on a good note albeit with one thing that annoyed me. Also: I changed the poll question to “which MoSH character had the best single?” because the Kickoff ‘07 one has been up for about a month. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my 2007 predictions came true last week when Funimation launched its Funimation Channel on iTunes last Tuesday. That day I decided to plunk down 2 bucks to see what kind of quality the episodes are. Yes, I know they are dubbed only and I’m fine with that. I picked the first episode of Samurai 7 because I hadn’t seen it before. Now, I would have posted about this last week when it was actually news but my attempts to record a screencast came up not so good so I’ll have to settle for something more pictorial.
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I finally got around to finishing the second season of Honey and Clover last night after about four months of forgetting about it and I’m glad it’s finally over. The second half was made more dramatic with Hagu’s injury and the Morita family taking back the company they lost in their childhood and seemed more morose and more introspective than the first season or the first half of the second season. Also, this is the first series I have managed to complete blogging. (Haruhi doesn’t count because I started blogging it with episode 10.) Although it was a shorter series, I still feel it’s a notable accomplishment for me to get something from my backlog done with. My next target is NHK ni Youkoso, and then maybe I’ll marathon some anime I passed up on in previous years.
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I was just catching up on a couple days of unread AnimeNano RSS feed backlog and read about Hinano’s situation with YouTube taking down her “Otaku Idol Haruhi Dance” video. After going through the comments of that post, I’d like to add some things regarding the topic and attempting to use my rudimentary legal knowledge to complain about media companies’ throwing their weight around, distressing licit creators in the process, and YouTube’s inability to tell those companies “That’s enough!” Read the rest of this entry »

OK, on Friday I turned into the Education Abroad Office at my college my enrollment packet for a summer abroad program (Japanese Culture in Film) to take place in Kyoto, Japan, from June 29 to July 28. I was told I am fourth on the waiting list since it filled up quickly so I’m hoping people drop in the next couple months. Not damn likely but I can still hope.

So my backup plan for overseas learning this summer is Düsseldorf, Germany, during the month of August and taking a course called “Germany under Hitler’s Third Reich”. And I know a good amount of German so that might help me get around there better than not knowing kanji and walking around Japan. Still, I know a friend who was the first one to sign up for the Kyoto trip so I’d prefer to go there than Deutschland, at least for this summer.

Anyway, I set up a separate blog to document my attempts and experiences with the study abroad program. There’s only one post there now but it should pick up around mid-April as more stuff happens. Wish me luck, guys (and gals)!

Maybe the pure power of the aniblogsphere can influence the situation…or not…

That’s right, I’m bringing back “This Week in Akiba” and this edition covers stuff from February 5th to the 11th.

First off, cake boxes were spotted featuring a caricature of failed prime minister candidate Taro Aso, Rozen Maiden characters, and the Engrish sentence “It is a sponge cake that used fresh milk and the egg enough”.
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Every time a Haruhi character single comes out, I feel the need to review it. It’s almost like a tradition, one that I’m slowly starting to dislike. That said, I hope that the eighth and ninth volumes, Kyon and Itsuki respectively, will be the last ones because (i) the character pool is starting to look VERY thin if Lantis decides to publish a tenth volume (would Shimasen sing old samurai songs?) and (ii) Kyon’s sister underwhelmed me. Also, I enjoyed the Haruhi drama CD even though I couldn’t understand much of the spoken dialogue. Read the rest of this entry »

I was browsing the local Borders yesterday afternoon after a busy day on campus and looking through the magazines, music, and movies. (Don’t ask me if “that” policy has changed because I didn’t look.) Anyway there was a DVD dedicated to music-related stuff like concerts and, I guess, operas? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying that much attention to what other stuff was in that area. But as I was walking away, my eyes caught a glimpse of the word “Animusic” and I had to back up to look at it a little more. It turns out to be a collection of computer-animated instruments playing virtual concerts. For some strange reason, my mind jumped from that to anime music videos and how anyone could try to monetize them. I immediately found several flaws with the concept but I think it’s still an interesting idea to muse upon and make a post out of it.
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