Nigorimasen! Blog

The new year always seems to sneak up on me and I don’t really realize it until I have to start writing the next year on checks, papers, and whatnot. Around this time last year, I made my first annual set of predictions and resolutions and now I’ll see how well or poorly I did. Short answer: I performed averagely on both accounts.
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Last night, I finally got around to signing up for RightStuf’s affiliate program and retroactively inserted links into posts from the past three months. I also submitted something to AnimeNation’s similar program but I haven’t gotten a reply from them yet - I also think I need to include a banner graphic as my link so I’m currently preferring the simpler method of linking to the TRSI listing. So don’t be surprised if I attempt a weekly “this week in releases” segment in the near future and I’ll try not to be a total sellout.

Also: I have begun to grow tired of my current, year-old design, especially since I started using a widescreen monitor. Currently my blog is 800 pixels wide with the sidebar taking up about 230 pixels of that space. I’m tentatively interested in fluid width so it’d fill up the screen but I would definitely like a main base width of 950-1000px including one right column. (I’m also thinking of making some header banners that use “Nigorimasen!” for this new look.) I think both a left and right column would make the actual posts in the middle seem “crunched” and two side columns don’t seem too necessary but I’m not ruling them out. Unfortunately I don’t have a good idea of what kind of color scheme I’d want so I suppose I’ll try out a bunch using Kabitzin’s experimentation method and hopefully develop something over the next couple months I will be satisfied with well into 2009.

The first DVD volume of xxxHolic will finally hit US shelves on March 25th, according to AnimeOnDVD’s listing of new Funimation solications. I’m excited about this not because it’s a great anime but because it’s taken so long for it to come out. The delay might have due to Funimation focusing on finishing its Tsubasa releases first, which they will do on January 8 when Tsubasa Vol. 6 is released. The first volume will feature four episodes, with Colleen Clinkenbeard voicing Yuuko and Todd Haberkorn voicing Watanuki.

Justin Sevakis, ANN’s digger-upper of forgotten anime gems, wrote in his “Buried Treasure” column this week about some bad attempts of companies to dub anime songs including a short video montage that worth checking out alone. It’s an interesting look into a situation that doesn’t come up that often when casting English voice actors since not many series feature scenes where the main characters sing apart from music-based ones like BECK and Full Moon. (Viz didn’t replace the Japanese singing in Full Moon while Greg Ayres sang many times while voicing Koyuki and was pretty good.) A recent instance of it in a non-musical series was Wendee Lee singing “God Knows” and “Lost my music” for MoSH and, after watching that scene, I think they cast the right (or at least appropriate) voice for Haruhi and her character’s energy and passion.

Bet you never thought of this way of giving presents?

Yes, I am aware that today is Boxing Day but I won’t consider this twelfth and final entry in this year’s “12 Days of Christmas” retrospective (sponsored by the Anime Blogging Collective) to be very late since I got some of my presents, including a new wristwatch, today, For this last highlight, I will return to Lucky Star and not focus on any particular moment (e.g. the Inital D parody, Comiket, the cosplay cafe) but rather something that spanned the series and carried it through its twenty-four episodes - the variety of topics that were discussed between Konata, Tsukasa, Kagami, Miyuki, and others.
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Once again I refer to an anime I began watching in anime club for my eleventh anime-related thing I’ll remember from 2007 but then again it’s been that kind of a year for me with regards to watching stuff. The loose reimagining of Romeo and Juliet by Gonzo is better in some parts than the original and worse in others but it has been entertaining to watch so far for the first eight episodes, something that might not last long considering it’s Gonzo. Read the rest of this entry »

This is actually the Pangya panel that was before mine at Fanime

I couldn’t think of something not personal for what was supposed to be the tenth thing for yesterday’s intended “12 Days of Xmas” post so I conceded to write about the experience of putting on a panel at Fanime, the steps I had to go through, and why I am reluctant to devise holding another one at any convention unless I have a really great and structured idea.
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Okay, the ninth anime-related thing that interested me in 2007 is something that actually hasn’t been revealed that much: Akira Kogami’s life before Lucky Channel. The basic fact we find out about Minoru’s co-host is that she was a former idol but not much else. I was interested in the mystery so I rewatched Lucky Channel segments and took note of all the references Akira made to earlier in her career in an attempt to construct a short back story for her.
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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.
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I didn’t make a post yesterday because I had a long day and fell asleep a lot earlier than normal so I’ll make for it up today as well as doing the regular-scheduled “8th day” post later today. What I had intended to talk about yesterday was an interview I did with German manga-ka Nina Brandner in August inside a Mayersche in Cologne.
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