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Long Overdue Upgrade
2011-07-12 06:27:00
Finally got my old Drupal 5 installed upgraded; I decided to go through version 6 all the way to Drupal 7. Unfortunately, this broke images on alot of old posts; they relied on the Image Assist module, which was not upgraded to Drupal 7 because of the change in how Drupal handled images and files. Looks like I'll have to scan through the database to update those img_assist tags to to link directly to images. Fun. Anyways, an update! Hopefully, I'll get around to fixing up the theme, too. And maybe I'll get around to talking about anime again, too... Articles: Website NewsTags: Website NewsDrupaltechnology
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Global Shinkai Day 2011 Opening
2011-03-12 19:21:00
by Laz Long
More About: Global , Opening

There Are Bigger Things Going On In Japan Now...
2011-03-11 22:14:00
... but that's being covered by others much better than I can ever do it justice. I hope for the best. For now, though, I'll offer the latest trailer for Makoto Shinkai's upcoming movie: {YOUTUBE:T37GhIqsO28} Definitely a different direction setting-wise than his previous movies: a kind of contemporary/fantasy hybrid going on in there. There's definitely some kind of sword-fight sceme, but there's also a quick shot of what looks to be some kind of automatic pistol in a drawer in there too. I can't wait to see it! BTW, be sure to go to youtube itself and watch the high-def versions there if you can! Spectacular-looking like always, Mr. Shinkai! Blogs: AnimeTags: trailerPeople and Companies: Makoto ShinkaiTitle: Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo
More About: Japan , Things

Don't mind me...
2010-11-09 06:12:00
... I'm just fanboying for a bit...1 UPDATE: HD teaser available here! 1. Please don't mind that I didn't even bother to cut out the video from the browser in the screenshots, too...
More About: Anime , Mind

What Ubu Roi doesn't realize...
2010-09-11 01:20:00
... in this post was that otakusphere was created by the artist formerly known as Fledgling Otaku1 as a way to keep updated on the latest posts of the blogs he follows2. Heck, Ubi Roi even commented on it on Twenty Sided!3 As for my own lack of posting, yeah... I'm still watching anime, just haven't been having the motivation to really write about it. Seems to be a slow burn-out from several things going on for a while now.4 1. Now known as Otaku Kun 2. I think. I seem to remember reading a post from way back about it, but my Google-fu is not strong enough... 3. Ok, so that was more than four years ago... 4. BTW, I'd normally post a comment directly on the Mahou Meido Meganekko blog, but I can't seem to reset the password on my old account there and I can't seem to register a new user... Well, good excuse to make a new blog entry here anyways... right?
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OMG! Am I reading this right?
2010-07-03 07:47:00
Did Funimation actually announce that they licensed Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Renmei , and Texhnolyze? Yeah, I already have these from the now defunct Geneon USA, but it's really good to know that these ABe series are being revived! Funimation also announced that they picked up other shows that might interest people like Black Lagoon Season 3, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, Toaru Majutsu no Index, and Hellsing 1. Now if only someone rescues Someday's Dreamers and picks up the second season, Someday's Dreamers: Summer Skies. 1. I'm personally interested in picking up the first three of these
More About: Reading , Anime

Just Came In The Mail!
2010-04-15 03:24:00
Looky looky what I have! You can read me fanboying all over the Promise CD on twitter, if you choose, but yeah, the CD has some very good "reimagings" of some very familiar music. The 5 Centimeters Per Second Blu-ray was something I've planned to get for some time, and the Sora no Woto OST CD was the trigger for me to make the order off of cdjapan.
More About: Mail , Anime , Makoto Shinkai

Music, CDJapan, and First Episode Impressions
2010-04-06 05:21:00
Sora no Woto music I've been making this claim elsewhere, and it might just be me, but parts of the Sora no Woto soundtrack really reminded me of George Gershwin's An American in Paris. I'm no music expert, but compare the following: Sora no Woto OST - Track 2 - Ciel bleu and Sora no Woto OST - Track 3 - Flànerie with Gershwin: American in Paris (I) (Rattle, Berlin Phil) Maybe I'm crazy though. Then again, previewing the Sora no Woto soundtrack convinced me to import the OST from cdjapan1. But I wonder, are these tracks really original to the series? And which orchestra performed them? First Episode Impressions I had watched the first episodes of a few series. Here's some quick impressions of them: Angel Beats! I'm not fully sure what to make of Angel Beats!. So far I get that this is some afterlife where it seems people cannot die, though people can still feel pain and will be out for a spell i...
More About: Music , Anime

Stan Lee and Heroman
2010-03-29 23:11:00
I'm not seeing much press about this series, but I am personally curious about the upcoming Heroman anime. The original story was created by Stan Lee 1, and I'd like to try out his take on the "Boy discovers/builds a giant robot" genre. I was going to pick up the manga to check it out, but now I'd rather see the anime; BONES' work on it looks pretty slick as usual, as can be seen in the trailer floating around: I'll probably give the first episode a look (as with several of the other anime series coming out this season). UPDATE: Looks like Heroman will be simulcast by Crunchyroll an hour after the Japanese premiere. Too bad there won't be any easy way for me to watch that simulcast on my main TV2; I'd be open to paying for a premium subscription if I could do so. 1. for those that don't know and too lazy to click on Stan Lee's name to go to his Wikipedia page, the one of the original co-creators of Marvel titles like Spiderman or the X-Men 2. Un...
More About: Anime

Anime on Netflix Streaming
2010-03-29 19:56:00
Author, during a post about Netflix halting streaming of several anime titles, recalled that I had watched Kurau on there, and he's right. I had also watched Noein through the Netflix streaming service, and I ended picking up both series and their artboxes during one of Rightstuf's 25 DVDs for 100$ sales. In truth, I had never used my computer to watch Netflix streaming video, but I have a Samsung Blu-ray player that can also do the Netflix streaming straight to my main A/V stack. Much more enjoyable from the couch on my 40" screen1 than cooped up on my computer chair on my 22" screen. That said, of the following: We really need another DTO challenger like BOST (R.I.P.). I agree 100%. 1. which is the Samsung LN40B550 shown in the image above; yes I do need to clean up...
More About: Anime

Inbound purchases from Amazon
2010-02-21 07:11:00
Well, have the following anime and manga inbound or pre-ordered from Amazon : Berserk manga - Volumes 21 and 22. The Twelve Kingdoms Volume 4 - Skies of Dawn novel My Neighbor Totoro (Two-Disc Special Edition) Ponyo (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Evangelion: 1.11 You Are Not Alone [Blu-ray] The Berserk manga are on their way in. Everything else was pre-orders. The main thing I was going for was the Twelve Kingdoms novel, as I've been keeping up with this series every year. I am a big fan of the anime series, so seeing what's different in the novels1 interests me. Plus it lets me revisit that world in a different medium. Ponyo is a "complete our Ghibli collection" buy. It's a cute movie, and you really can't go wrong with a Ghibli studios film. And I got the Blu-ray mainly cause of the opportunity to do so; I doubt I'll be replacing the rest of our Ghibli DVD collections with Blu-rays except as replacements. My Neighbor Totoro was a replacement buy, as our copy of it see...

Global Shinkai Day 2010
2010-02-18 03:33:00
It's been a year, and it's time to hold another one of these: Crunchyroll had released their press release on the event, but the Cherry Blossoms Falling site has their own press release on the event, which I'll copy here: ANIME FANS WORLDWIDE TO CELEBRATE GLOBAL SHINKAI DAY 2010 Fans of the Japanese anime creator Makoto Shinkai are gathering worldwide in cyberspace March 5th-7th for the Second Annual Global Shinkai Day 2010. The Makoto Shinkai fan site Cherry Blossoms Falling, is celebrating the event with contests, forum discussions and a live Shoutcast. Cherry Blossoms Falling is calling upon fans from every part of the globe to show their appreciation and support for the works of this highly acclaimed director. Contests will be held for inspired fan-made works in art, AMV, film and essay. This year?s prizes are Makoto Shinkai autographed movie posters from his most recent film, 5 Centimeters Per Second. Crunchyroll.com will be hosting the films for free, for a 48-hour period ...
More About: Anime

Emergency Server Migration
2010-02-14 19:56:00
The blog was down for the past couple of days as my VPS host was migrating servers to a new location1. Unfortunately, the rsync from the old server to the new resulted in a not very responsive system. Instead of fighting to get this working, I decided to bite the bullet, purchase one of the current plans the host was offering, and move emails, websites, and database from the latest backups. As a result, I am now running with 4 times the CPU cores, 2 times the disk space, and 50 times the potential network speed of the old VPS2 My emails were also out fo the past few days, but now things should be mostly up and running now. In any case, this was something I was wanting to do for a while anyways, and hopefully the new VPS and setup is faster than the old, but we shall see. 1. And they only told me about it on Thursday... Ok, so they *did* send an email in December warning of this... 2. Though I did go from 12 GB of RAM down to 720 MB, but that was a fluke as the old VPS was onl...
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Black Lagoon with Beretta 92FS
2010-02-02 08:30:00
I had finished Black Lagoon last night. Pretty fun action show; though usually I like heavier series, I do like to just sit back and enjoy a show once in a while. It's unfortunate that the finale felt a slight bit underwhelming, but that's also due to the fact that the series was structures more of a series of arcs as the Lagoon Company perform various jobs. As it were, the characters really didn't grow much until the final arc, and even the final arc didn't see much change in the characters1. That said, this is more of an action series than anything; I came for the gunfights (and the occasional sword fight). I do have to give props to the audio engineers for this release: the DTS 5.1 dub sounds excellent on my setup. Yeah, for those watching on 2 speakers or headphones it doesn't make much of a difference, but if you do have a 5.1 (or better) sound system and watching the dub, I highly recommend switching to the DTS 5.1 track2. Oh, as for the pic, I happened to be cleanin...
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Another Anime from The Twelve Kingdoms Fuyumi Ono
2009-12-19 05:00:00
Fuyumi Ono is best known to me as the original writer for The Twelve Kingdoms , the series that really got me seriously watching anime and laid the foundation for me to discover Haibane Renmei and Berserk1 I had discovered the anime adaptation of Ono's Ghost Hunt and enjoyed the heck out of it. It doesn't have the epic scope that The Twelve Kingdoms had2, but Ghost Hunt did feature some great characters and some really memorable scare moments3. In the end, I liked the hell out of it, even if it didn't get "top ten" rating. Well, just got news today that another manga that Fuyumi Ono written the original novel for has been green lit to be adapted into an anime: The official website for the anime adaptation of Fuyumi Ono and Ryu Fujisaki's Shiki horror mystery manga has opened — thus revealing that the anime has been green-lit. The story revolves around an isolated mountain village, steeped in ancient traditions, whose population of 1,300 starts dying in droves due to mysteri...
More About: Anime , Fuyumi Ono

Just to Have an Update of Note
2009-11-12 17:32:00
I have continued to watch anime lately, just haven't been talking about it much1. I could talk about several series I'm watching currently, like Nyan Koi!2 or The Sacred Blacksmith3, but both of those are largely "filler" for me to pass the time. I could rave about Kimi ni Todoke, and yes, I am finding it pretty good. I also could praise the recently ended (hopefully first of many seasons of) Guin Saga, and it deserves it. But no, I am addicted to the series presented in the included image; a contemporary romance with baseball. I mean, there are quite a few of those, but Cross Game has been the only one to have me hooked from the beginning. No other recent series has me rabidly waiting every Sunday night for a new episode to be released. No other series has me so sorely tempted to read the manga behind the series, yet I don't want to be spoiled before I see how the anime treats the material4. No other recent series has me so infatuated with such excellent characters. And ...
More About: Note , Update

Time of Eve Ends
2009-09-20 06:56:00
Just finished Time of Eve, and though I am trying to temper my usual enthusiasm and usually wait a bit before posting about a series I really enjoyed, I just can't resist on this one. Consisting of six episodes clocking in around 15 to 17.5 minutes each (with the finale going 27 minutes and 44 seconds), Yasuhiro Yoshiura delivers a series that is hard to really find faults with1, is very thought-provoking, and features some excellent animation and well though-out camera work. I really want to collect this series on Bluray or DVD2. As it were, I did purchase each episode off of crunchyroll as they became available, mainly to have a copy that I can watch on the main entertainment setup rather than having to watch the stream on the computer. At this point, I consider Yasuhiro Yoshiura as a story-writer and anime director superior to Makoto Shinkai. 1. The biggest one being that it took 1 to 2 months between episodes, but considering the small team, they put out a very high quality...
More About: Anime , Ends

Berserk Rumors Abound
2009-08-20 22:42:00
Quite a bit of news going around about this violent series by Kentarou Miura, which was adapted into an anime series in 1997. First is the news of a possible hollywood adaptation (along with Garefoot Gen and Baki the Grappler). Now there are rumors of a new Berserk anime series made by Studio 4 ?, including leaked images! Sankaku Complex has more information in English, though the site is NSFW. Good days indeed.
More About: Rumors , Anime

Meh
2009-08-19 10:37:00
Not dead, though my posting has been that way for a while. Lots of things I would like to talk about eventually1 but I've just been too burned out to do so. Been doing the microblogging thing on Twitter so I can keep some writing up2, though most of that is entered through the iPhone interface. Doesn't help that I had to turn on moderation as some bot/spammer is somehow getting junk comments in through all of the automated anti-spamming systems I've tried, so if you happen to comment and it doesn't show up immediately, that should be why. I do try to check at least once-a-day, though. 1. Including the Popcorn Hour, Ponyo, Kenshin, Coraline, and many anime series I've been watching... 2. And my Twitter feed is also showing the sidebar, if it wasn't obvious...
More About: Personal

BabelCon 2009 Starts
2009-07-18 01:43:00
Now in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as I am running the Anime Track for Babel Con 2009. I'd say I'd be sparse while here, but really, this post alone means that I've actually increased my posting average lately... Here I am with Tiffany Grant. And Oh my, I forgot to shave this morning! Well, gotta go back to run the schedule.
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Doing My Part for the Economy
2009-06-13 06:15:00
Got quite a few new acquisitions in the past week. First of all, what my girlfriend got me for my birthday1: I've always felt that Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most amazing films to come out of an American studio. The book was one I've been looking forward to read for some time now. Then I had the following come in from Robert's Anime Corner Store: I've talked about Sword of the Stranger before and I've enjoyed it in the theater2; it ended up being my first Blu-ray purchase for myself (My first ever Blu-rays were the Japanese BDs of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and The Place Promised in Our Early Days that Astro gave me. I still need to return the favor somehow!). Continued collecting the excellent Moribito anime series, the Monster manga, and the Berserk manga; And I also completed my Tweeny Witches collection with the OVA3. Looks like I won't be able to buy much for myself for a while now. 1. Not young anymore at 30... Yet I'm still watching cartoons....
More About: Economy , Part

Twitter killed the Blogging Star
2009-06-08 12:17:00
Taking a bit of a break on working overnight on a project1 to post this real quick. I think I'm seeing a pattern the past few years: Star ted posting reviews on AnimeNfo. Started blog to build notes for writing reviews on AnimeNfo. Stop writing reviews on AnimeNfo. Started twittering to build notes for writing blog posts. Stop writing blog posts. Actually, as of this post, that last point isn't quite true. And to get to the point of it, I just been really busy between video games, general computer stuff, anime, work, and attempting to run an Anime track at a small Sci-fi con that blogging's taken a very back seat to the rest of it; my Twitter account has been very helpful at keeping track of where I'm at in different series2. Gotta thank the iPhone for letting me post on twitter quite easily without having to carry a laptop around and the Popcorn Hour A-1103 which allows me to watch all of my anime on my front screen and sound system without having a full HTPC up there. Hope...
More About: Blogging , Killed

Casshern Sins: Impressions
2009-04-26 05:19:00
There's been quite a few series recently that sported rather retro-looking character design styles, and Cashern Sins . And it should be no surprise, as it was originally created by Tatsuo Yoshida, the man behind series such as Gatchaman (A.K.A. Battle of the Planets or G-Force) and Speed Racer. And when I say retro-looking, I present the following as evidence: The Hair! Oh my, such glorious hair! My approval of the (glorious) hair aside, I'm not sure who'd I'd recommend the series to. The series takes place in a far future world1 where robots have largerly supplanted humans. Casshern is a robot, abeit one with no memories of who he was or what he did when we are first introduced to him. You see, he cannot die; any injury to him heals itself2. Other robots attack him with the belief that they will have eternal life if they devour his body; it is revealed early on that before he lost his memories, he had killed someone named Luna, described as the Sun named as the Moon. App...
More About: Anime , Impressions

A Manga about... Ubuntu?!?
2009-04-03 01:18:00
So, I was going through my Linux RSS feeds when I stumble on this post of a translation of a "Ubuntu romantic school comedy"... I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Printing it out now to read it...
More About: Manga , Other

Five Centimeters Per Second GDM Login screen
2009-03-23 05:11:00
Being inspired, I ended making a GDM login theme from a 1080p Blu-ray rip of Five Centimeters Per Second: It is designed for my 1920x1200 resolution laptop running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid. Modified it off of this Serial Experiments Lain theme. Source GIMP XCF file is available inside the tar.gz if you want to modify it. It's not the greatest, but it really didn't take much work. I added some sharpening and adjusted the colors and saturation from the source video screenshot, but that's about it. I'll probably make more from the various 5CM screenshots I have. I'll also want to get a few themes based off of The Place Promised in Our Early Days, too1. UPDATE: Found the SVG versions of the Ubuntu logo and name here, so I've modified the background to use those. Also touched up the colors and a few other details on the image. UPDATE 2: Further tweaks to the theme. Also made two more themes I'm including here. 1. Either from the a rip of the Blu-ray disc that Astro got me or ...
More About: Screen , Anime

Another cool person
2009-03-11 02:14:00
I have to add another person to the coolest people in the world list1 list: I have to thank Laz, owner of Cherry Blossoms Falling, for the following2: Laz sent it to me for my work on the Ventrilo chat server I ran for Global Shinkai Day 2009. I still think it was too generous, but how could I refuse? Thank you, Laz. I hope we can pull off a bigger GSD 2010 next yer. This year has been a good one for receiving free stuff. 1. Astro is on there for seeding my Blu-ray collection (which hasn't grown any, yet) 2. Of course, frame not included with the gift. Went out and bought it for the poster. Now to figure out where to hang it...
More About: Anime , Cool , Person

Criticism of Modern Fansubbing
2008-06-08 18:07:00
I just watched this documentory titled THE RISE AND FALL OF ANIME FANSUBS. Here go you: PART 1 More parts and my opinions after the cut. PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 The narrator makes some very good points; I especially agree with the points about keeping honorifics, not translating words, and putting excessive liner notes on screen. I less agree about translating signs, but I do think putting the translation seamlessly into the animation is over-doing it. I do agree with the over-use of colors, karaoke, and other special effects, especially for opening and ending pieces. Well, at least the fansubbers are doing this for free and I do get to see alot of anime that I'd normally wouldn't get to see otherwise, but I do prefer buying R1 DVDs for the reason that I think the translations for the subtitles tend to be much better.
More About: Modern , Criticism

The Film That Leapt Over Oceans
2008-06-07 00:46:00
Well, this is very promising: And so is this.
More About: Film , Anime , Oceans

Pale Birthday
2008-06-04 08:05:00
Wabi Sabi's post on the trailer of Yasuhiro Yoshiura's Time of Eve reminded me to search for a DVD of Yoshiura's earlier works. And found it I did on CDJapan. The R2 DVD does come with English subtitles (and Aquatic Language on the DVD comes with English dubbing) and I have a region-free DVD player, so no worries there. So for a birthday present to myself (getting to the ancient age of 29 this Sunday), I decided to order the R2 DVD. Besides, I've liked Pale Cocoon enough that I feel I should at least own a real copy of it. Martin has said everything I probably would have said about Pale Cocoon, so go there to read about it. Here's the trailer of Yoshiura's new film, Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve; I've also seen it titled Are you enjoying the time of EVE?): I do agree with Wabi Sabi; the visuals and atmosphere in this trailer energize the Makoto Shinkai fanboy in me. I do hope the film delivers on that, too. I see info that it's been released, but ...
More About: Anime , Birthday

Attack of the Spam
2008-06-02 20:51:00
Looks like the spammers are breaking through Askimet on a regular basis now, making me have to not be so lazy and manually dealing with them. Might have to look for some stronger spam repellant... Hopefully, I'll be able to get some thoughts up on ef - a tale of memories, Kaiba, Ghost Hound, Allison & Lillia, Mnemosyne, and Megas XLR some point soon.
More About: Spam , Attack