Archive for June, 2008

Pictures courtesy of Akibablog

The August 2008 issue of Dengeki Daioh hit stores in Japan yesterday and the 900-page, 35-work copies are so thick that a stack inside the Akihabara Gamers reached the roof. (Those interested in what’s inside the issue can read this post on Akihabara Channel.)

There were even some attached to the side of a sidewalk kiosk.
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You may have heard about ICANN — the internet’s governing body — approving a plan to allow an almost infinite amount of TLDs on top of the handful that already existed. They are hailing this as opening up new opportunities for non-English language internet users and businesses but I belong to the camp of dissenters that believe a majority of the possible TLDS will be too underpopulated to make their registration worthwhile. and cause confusion among non-tech people who have become accustomed to .com/.net/.org. Josh beat me to bringing up the possibility of a .anime TLD and the costs involved in establishing one - $100,000 to $500,000 according to Ars Technica.

The potential uses for a .anime and a .manga TLD seem initially beneficial with each series potentially able to have their own domain name, e.g. shaman-king.anime, berserk.manga, and give each an information space regarding its status in Japan, Europe, America, and other places. Digital downloads could also be served from each show’s individual page. The caveat, however, is who would be willing to front the funds to establish the TLD and manage registrations and who SHOULD be in charge of them. They could be handled by a consortium of publishers with a board of directors but there has to be some rules established to prevent any potential “bad blood” stir-ups or selfish business interests from disrupting any registration attempts.

Many would hope that whoever does step up and found such a TLD will allow for public registration but there will have be restrictions on what could be registered by non-copyright holders since most, if not all, publishers would want to protect their trademarks and brands from gaining a poor reputation from an amateurishly designed fansite. I doubt a slew of people would want their own .anime domain if they have an existing domain that serves them well but there may be a market of interested takers.

Bandai’s blog has a Anime Expo page pimping all the events possibly connected with them as well as teasing secret guests like the new English Gurren Lagann dub cast and a person (Mr. X) from BONES who will be signing autographs. They gave enough references about Mr. X’s previous work - Ghost Slayers Ayashi, Eureka Seven, Wolf’s Rain, Scrapped Princess - to narrow the possibilities down to three men: Toshihiro Kawamoto, Takahiro Komori, and Masahiko Minami. Both Kawamoto and Komori were involved in various animation capacties including key animation, animation directing, and character design whereas Minami has produced and/or planned all four aforementioned titles as BONES president.

My educated guess would be Toshiro Kawamoto since he has visited American cons before including Sakura-Con 2008 in March. But wait, then his appearance wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? Perhaps it will instead be the other animator, Komori, since he might have more to do with the items being signed than the producer would. I suppose we’ll just have to see who shows up that afternoon to put his John Hancock jisho on free posters and other stuff.

(UPDATE 7/2: It turned out to be president Masahiko Minami.)

Also: I found this press release from four years ago where Bandai gave anyone who cosplayed as a Bandai character (e.g. Duo from Gundam Wing, Spike from Cowboy Bebop, Lime from Saber Marionette J) a chance to spin “The Wheel” to win prizes. Four years later, they have members of American Cosplay Paradise putting on Lucky Star dances and TTGL heaven-piercing. How far they’ve advanced…

As a preface to the upcoming announcement of the main English dub cast, I figured people might be interested in how another country’s dub of Ouran sounds. Someone videotaped a portion of episode 6 from an Anime-Virtual DVD with Polish subtitles and it provides a sample of voices from each main character, which sound pretty good IMO.
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So I was looking through the revised, more fleshed out schedule for Anime Expo 2008 and found something interesting Friday night at 9PM in West Hall B (Live Panel 1) - something called “Geneon Premiers”. One might first think this is a typo and assume it will be a screening of Rondo Robe titles like ef - a tale of memories and Kamen no Maid Guy but I would take it more literally and think that corporate executives from the Japanese company might talk about titles they distribute (e.g. Hayate no Gotoku!, To Love-Ru, Allison & Lillia) among other stuff during those two hours.

Unfortunately, Justin Sevakis says in a post on the AOD forums that nothing will be happening at that time - he has seen an updated schedule of events and the live panels and most of the related screenings have been removed. I guess we’ll see in a few weeks and since I’m not really planning on going to AX Idol, I might try to emulate Geraldo in his Al Capone special with the hope there will actually be something in the metaphorical vault. If there really isn’t anything there, then there’s always fireworks displays.

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.
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FACT: There are still six months left in 2008. FACT: Still no Keroro.

The last six months have seemed like doom-and-gloom for ADV Films with their glossy magazine folding (and the rebirthed version also shutting down) and a license financing dispute that forced them to presumably sell Gurren Lagann to Bandai. But they are still releasing shiny discs and their Kanon releases have been getting praise like volume 3 sweeping AOD’s ADR awards for March 2008 and each release regularly getting voted Pick of the Week by the AOD forumites. Pretty much the only undeveloped titles they have are Kiba and Sgt. Frog, and I think the latter has the capability to bolster the company if it is publicized the right way…and if ADV still has the rights.
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Funimation announced their license of Ookiku Furikabutte today but they changed the name to ‘Big Windup!’ WHAT!?! I can understand changing an anime’s name to make it more accessible to American audiences as ADV did with The Ugly and Beautiful World (Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai) and even Rumbling Hearts (instead of The Eternity You Desire/Wish For) is something fans would be able to get used to over time. But renaming can also make things confusing, like what I thought happened with Shattered Angels (instead of Kyoshiro and the Eternal Sky), which actually isn’t as bad as I first thought. I credit part of my frustration to being a baseball fan and when I see ‘Big Windup!’, I think of an announcer saying the title of a baseball video game marketed toward kids that could have broader appeal (e.g. MLB Power Pros, very good game but not so good announcer) or a in-game powerup that also sounds cheesy when spoken. I am NOT looking for the trailer Funimation puts together whenever this gets released in late 2009 (self-speculation) but am sort of anticipating its actual release.

In the meantime, I will be watching fansubs of the show to see if it’s good. (I saw the first episode a few weeks back and, though it was slow, I saw some potential in it so, like a minor league scout, I’m going to give it a chance and hope it improves.)

*sigh* OK, I did find it clever that they parodied the MLB logo to make the series’ logo but I’m still not pleased about the name. I would have been fine with Pitch Like You Mean It! or a less cheesy name I can’t think of right now.

While flipping through some of my older issues of Newtype USA recently, I found a feature story on Bee Train within the March 2005 issue. Written by Amos Wong, the story was well-timed as the first DVD volume of Madlax was to come out in America soon after on April 12th of that year. I enjoyed reading the feature when I originally bought the magazine and again when re-reading for this episode because it gave me a look into the origin and development methods of the studio that was deeper than I had obtained through the inserts packaged with Noir DVD’s.
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One of the main differences between covering anime and covering films or video games is that there is a relatively short lead time - usually 1-3 months - between a title’s production announcement and its airing. Very little information surfaces about the development cycles except for the cast and the basic plot, which hampers the hype potential for most titles with the absence of previews but is likely a result of the quickness with which an anime is produced in Japan.

It takes a bit longer to get things produced for the aftermarket that is America and it has become more important to remind people about which anime are being released and why the purchasing public should care about them. That’s why I was looking forward to the debut of the Funimation Update, a monthly promotional podcast. I don’t listen to many anime podcasts and only occasionally check out Anime Today for the interviews so I figured I would check out this shorter-form, monthly video show. I actually enjoyed watching it as it reminded me of On The Spot (Gamespot’s weekly broadcast show) since the Update alternated between clearly-defined segments and related trailers.
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