Archive for December, 2006

One of the tenets of keeping peace within any anime club is making sure people who have previously seen the shows being screened do not talk about future plot points and effectively “spoil” the experience for those yet to watch them. Same rule applies for AMVs of shows being screened that use footage from as-of-yet-unseen episodes. The definitions of what is considered “spoiler” material differs from person to person but there seem to be underlying standards in classifying them. Although this type of jerkish behavior occurs in other media like movies or television, I think it’s due to happen more often with anime because different people watch fansubs/DVDs along a seemingly wider spectrum of time.
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I downloaded the entire AnimeSuki Karaoke Contest zip file last night and listened to it last night and this afternoon. Why? Because I’m an idiot! Actually the better reason is that I wanted to hear how everyone else who participated sang and discover songs I hadn’t heard before. What kinda sucks is that I started rating people on a 5-point scale but then realized before submitting my votes that it is actually based on a 10-point range. Ugh, now I have to go back and fix ‘em. In short: mostly everybody sang better than I did except for the guy who made a nice mess of “Lonely in Gorgeous” and a couple other groaners. On the other hand, the guy who performed “X” was awesome!
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It seems that every month brings another Haruhi-related music release and this week it’s the character singles of two prominent supporting characters. In fact, the next singles due to come out in January 24th will feature Kyon’s sister (#6) and Emiri Kimidori (#7). [The seiyuu for those characters are Sayaka Aoki and Yuri Shiratori, respectively.] Now, they’re starting to get deeper into minor character territory since Emiri was only in one episode I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) - the one where they fought the cockroach in the desert, “Mysterique Sign”. Also, I wonder if Kyon’s sister’s album will have “KYON’S SISTER” on the cover or “KYON NO IMOUTO”. Hopefully Aoki-san will use her everyday voice and not her acting voice when singing. Futhermore, there will be a drama CD with Haruhi and the gang that is also coming out on January 24th. Yep, the Haruhi CD single train ain’t stopping any time soon…
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Yesterday I went with the anime club to visit Japantown and had a pretty good time. The announced departure time was 9 o’clock but that was actually to get people to leave by 9:30. Three cars left from campus and one of them (mine) stopped in Vacaville to pick up someone who was a little late.
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The Borders bookstore in Davis recently put up the above signs along the shelves of their manga section. Apparently there is now a time limit of 10 minutes for reading manga. I didn’t attempt to test the system but I think it’s a “soft” limit. That is, Borders employees wandering around the store helping people might politely ask you to move along if they continually to see you sitting or standing there reading the same volume. I also didn’t bother to ask whether the 10 minutes starts over each time you pick up a different volume or an overall thing but I think it’s an overall period of time.

The timing of it coincides with the Christmas shopping season and the anticipation of more foot traffic, although I’m sure a number of complaints could have been another factor. Unlikely but still plausible. We’ll see if the signs stay up past January…

I want to know if this is an isolated phenomenon or if it’s happening across the country (or around the world). Has anyone else experienced a similar thing in their local bookstores recently? If so, is it limited to manga or do the advisories apply to the other sections as well?