The CLANNAD port for the Xbox 360 comes out this Thursday (August 28th) in Japan and there was a trailer for it during Japan’s Inside Xbox segment for Saturday after a countdown of the top 10 Live games for August 4-10. I figured that some people might care about something like this so I captured the whole segment - skip to about 1:50 if you only want to see the trailer.
The bulletpoints for this version include a visual upgrade to 720p resolution, Dolby Digital 5.1 channel sound, and distribution of the drama CD audio from the spin-off short story Official Another Story Clannad: On the Hillside Path that Light Watches Over over Xbox Live. The game will also support custom soundtracks if you want to pipe in different music while playing the visual novel.
I considered composing a long post about Greg Ayres’ panels and how resolving the status of the anime industry may involve ditching dubs and/or , but it was just easier to embed some YouTube videos relating to AnimeNext instead. (OK, here’s my short take on it anyway: general population is growing tired of buying physical media to own and the current economic situation is compounding the problem.)
The dude in the above video is responding to a boring, grainy, crappy video an actual attendee made showing off the Lupin and DBZ figures he bought and I think he makes a good point about spending money on figurines that perhaps some of the figure bloggers can explain to me. Saying Trinity Blood was just “the Japanese not understanding Catholicism” made me laugh but so far the guy has only been doing commentaries through video responses so ‘meh’ to him otherwise. The rest of the videos will be footage filmed by citizen journalists/teenagers/bored people at the con. Read the rest of this entry »
I found this news report on Nico and want to say two things about it:
1) It’s odd but a bit nice that the synthesized-voiced reporter felt the Gurren Lagann/Sci-Fi Monday deal was important enough to pass along to the NicoNico audience (about 700 views worth). Here’s the related story from Anime! Anime!.
2) That was one of the driest news reports I’ve ever seen, but it does get the information across in a straightforward way.
For those who don’t know, Weiß Schwarz is a 2 player trading card game like Project Revolution where you try to beat your opponent by using characters from various series. In the case of the advertised TCG, the series currently involved include Zero no Tsukaima, Little Busters!, Disagea, and Persona 3. [Akibahara Channel]
Last month at AOD, I interviewed Sean McCoy after his Animation Industry Insight panel after about 45 minutes and last night I got around to uploading the video to Vimeo. I would have added subtitles or at least composed a transcript because the convention space was a bit noisy for the first half, and I might append said transcript later when I get the time, but right now I’m pushing this out the door since I have wanted to refer to it for a while in relation to industry trends and fan habits.
I hope you excuse my lack of prepared questions and the trouble I had in formulating them into something I could ask. It’s always odd for me to hear my own voice on tape and the stumbling made it worse during editing. As I gain more experience doing things like this, my delivery should improve as well as the quality of the questions.
I found out from reading the Wikipedia entry on Lucky Star’s characters that “Anime Tenchou” Meito Anizawa was the main character in a 2 minute promo video done by Gainax (date: 2002) for the Animate retail chain. Some quick searching led me to the above video, which has pretty good animation but it’s not that great of a promotional device IMHO. Also, there was apparently a short-form (3 pages per chapter) Anime Tenchou comic that you can read online here with 10 chapters posted.
Someone on NicoNicoDouga last Wednesday posted a MAD for the fifteen-minute long Lucky Star character song medley from ”Motteke Sailor Fuku Re-Mix 002″ and it has already gotten about 240,000 views. I had been waiting for something like the album came out and it looks pretty nice with different colored frames that slide on-screen to introduce each character’s portion and the utilization of a four-videos-at-once method that allows for more character screenage during the shorter segments of the medley. There was even a Densetsu Shoujo A segment paired with “Ore no Wasuremono”. Watching it helped me recognize some of the songs I hadn’t caught onto before (like Minami’s) as well as reminding me of a few moments I had forgotten like Miyuki supervising her younger relatives playing that “find the legend being described” card game, whatever it’s called.
P.S. Is it bad that I forgot that Ayano (pictured above) was a character until I watched this video? I mean, it’s not terrible because she was really a “background” character and didn’t seem to do all that much but that moment of realization still irks me a little.
In yet another “12 Days of Xmas” look at a show currently running in anime club, the eighth anime-related “highlight” for me this year has been the awkward moments that turned into laughs in Bokura Ga Ita. Yes, I know that the two main characters suffer from “missing eye syndrome” (as exhibited above), the music is average, and Nana Takahashi is dumb as a brick. But her naivety and dimness paired with Yano’s latent sex drive and childish aloofness make for some funny moments and save the anime from being brought down by the emotional flashbacks about Yano’s previous (and now deceased) girlfriend Nana, who annoyingly looks like she was Takahashi’s older sister. Srsly, guys.
Anyway, I went and made a bunch of clips (15 in total) from the first third of the series and embedded them below. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the rules in baseball that may not be obvious to casual baseball fans is that a batter can run to first if the catcher drops the third strike (i.e. the ball is not “legally caught”) and fails to tag him out when first base is open or when there are two outs. It still counts as a strikeout for the pitcher and the runner gets to stays on base if he reaches. (This has sometimes led to MLB pitchers getting four strikeouts in an inning.)
Well, during a tournament game between teams from Yokohama and Tokai, the Yokohama catcher dropped what would have been the third strike to close out the inning and the entire defense walked off the field toward the dugout. As the Tokai batter was walking back to the dugout, someone told him to run to first. He did and then went to second, then to third before scoring all the way home. The two other runners on base also scored, making it a three-run strikeout and expanding Tokai’s lead to 6-0.
At least the umpire was nice enough to explain the situation and outcome to the crowd.
So I was kicking around on YouTube’s “Most Viewed” page yesterday and found an interesting video of Japanese street protesters. You’ll never guess who they want to resign from office: JFA (Japan Football Association) president Saburo Kawabuchi. Read the rest of this entry »
Many people have been talking about Japan in this year’s World Cup after their performance in 2002. I saw recaps of the Japan-Australia game and Japan’s goal against Australia probably shouldn’t have counted. The officials didn’t call it and don’t have instant replay like the NFL; instant replay would be impractical anyway in soccer because the clock would keep running while they were checking something. (Reportedly, one of the referees was overheard admitting to the Aussie keeper that it was a mistake.) I was a soccer referee for 3 years and I think that I would have made the same mistake; I would have to have seen the offending player’s momentum to make a definite call. Anyway, Australia scored three goals and beat them so hopefully people will move on to the other two matches. Read the rest of this entry »
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