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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.
More About: Personal

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

NHK Clips Floating Around
2008-04-23 00:05:00
Looks like Don and Author have noticed NHK's AniKuri 15 shorts that have been floating around on Youtube lately. I have Makoto Shinkai's contribution, "Neko no Shuukai", linked to in an earlier post before I realized it was part of the AniKuri 15 collection. Someone else has contributions by Satoshi Kon, Micheal Arias, and Kazuto Nakazawa up. I do have 1080p versions of 12 of the shorts that I have acquired a while back, but I do concur with Author: Dear NHK, please sell us a DVD. Please do, NHK! UPDATE: Author responds: This is the first time when I think that anime on Blu-ray might not be such a bad idea after all. I wonder by what means he ?acquired? them. For me, Makoto Shinkai's The Place Promised in Our Early Days was when I really started considered getting anime on Blu-ray. As for what "acquired" mean, I'm pleading the fifth...
More About: Anime , Clips , Floating

A Kirin's Life
2008-04-19 09:06:00
Demon ChildI had finished The Twelve Kingdoms Volume Two: Sea of Wind novel a while back, and I have to say that I've enjoyed it1. Like most books, it goes further into Taiki's thoughts and experiences than the anime does. Too bad it doesn't have Takasato's experiences in modern Japan, which is told in Demon Child, the actual first book by Fuyumi Ono in the Twelve Kingdoms world before Ono was encouraged to build a fantasy world. Unfortunately, it looks like Demon Child was released by a different publisher than her other Twelve Kingdom novels, so it's likely Tokyopop was unable to license it. Fortunately, there are always fan translations2. In other news, I did stumble on what would be a very good t-shirt... 1. As expected 2. Hey! That Prologue is very familiar after reading Sea of Wind.
More About: Life , Books

New Game Trailer Directed By Makoto Shinkai
2008-04-18 05:55:00
Here's the new trailer directed by Makoto Shinkai for the game "ef - the latter tale", Music was composed by Tenmon. I haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet. My internet connection is being very obtuse right now. Hopefully, it will clear up in the morning so I can actually watch the entire video. (Heads up via Daike. He also has links to where you can download higher-quality WMVs, which is probably the route I'll try to watch this.) UPDATE: Finally got to watch the higher-quality WMV video. It seemed to be missing a certain punch that the trailer of "ef -a fairy tale of the two-"1 had. The first thing that comes to mind is that the music in this one lacks the climactic punch that was in the earlier game trailer. As usual, the visuals are very, very pretty... 1. This trailer can be seen on an earlier blog post.
More About: Trailer , Anime , Game

Snow Monster Trees (alternate title: Ice Ice Baby)
2008-04-08 17:47:00
This would normally be in my other blog, but since this pertains to a part of Japan , I guess it's ok to put here, and the images are just too cool not to show. The picture shows off Juhyo (monster trees) that forms on Mount Za? on Honsh?, where cold Siberian winds meet warm and moist Pacific air to create record snowfalls in the middle of winter. You can read more about these "Japanese Monster Trees " and see more pictures of them from David Webber. (via Eugene Woodbury)
More About: Baby , Snow

The Evolution of Chobi the Cat
2008-04-04 08:07:00
One thing that has struck me about Makoto Shinkai is how his style had evolved over the years, and watching through all of his short films emphasized that point. He?s always been an expert at the little details, and the background scenery was gorgeous from the start. Paying proper homage to Chobi the cat seemed to be seemed to be the hard part, though. Here's four shots that have little to do with that point. Here's one from She and Her Cat, circa 1999. Here we see Chobi chilling out on a bench waiting for his honeys. You should notice the lack of features on the poor cat outside of eyes, a mouth, and pads on his feet. I don't think there's a specific point in mind for avoiding giving him any real detail -- making him so generic looking didn't add anything to the story. I suspect that it might have distracted, though, which is why he was shown this way. Though She and Her Cat centers its story around the almighty Chobi, he was left out of Voices of a Distant Star all tog...
More About: Evolution , Anime

A Collection of Makoto Shinkai Shorts And an English Fan Site
2008-03-30 08:06:00
Well, I'm quite flattered that Fledge thinks my obsessions are working looking into. So, I will return with even more Makoto Shinkai visuals! But first, I need to announce the Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum And Site . It's not super active yet, and there hasn't been any major discussion of Shinkai's work yet, but hopefully, I can get some time to resolve that issue. It's been open for several months now, and I only found it from Daike's Shinkai Fan Site a couple of months ago. Now let's go back in time for what I would call his pre-breakout days. These were the shorts Shinkai made before he quit his then day job to work on Voices of a Distant Star: Other Worlds This is the first of Shinkai's work that I know of. Featuring "Gymnopédie No. 1" by French composer and pianist Erik Satie, this is Shinkai before he had sound effects, voice acting, or color. Clocking in at less than 90 seconds, Other Worlds (Also Tooi Sekai or ????) contains several themes and motifs that wou...
More About: Anime , Shorts

Fixed Some Website Issues
2008-03-27 00:04:00
For some reason, the YouTube tags I've been using were only working for me when I was logged into the site as an administrator. That should be fixed. Should teach me to check this site logged out more often. I wonder when the hell that setting had changed?
More About: Website , Issues , Fixed

Anime News Network with 5 Centimeter Per Second Theme
2008-03-26 18:39:00
Anime News Network is back at it with a website theme based on another favorite anime of mine. They have done this in the past with other anime that I like.
More About: Anime , Byousoku 5 Centimeter , Theme

Neko no Shuukai - A Shinkai Short?
2008-03-26 13:46:00
I know Shinkai's visual tendencies lately has been to not focus too much on realism in his films1 but the preview of his supposed latest short named Neko no Shuukai is something different: If this is truly Makoto Shinkai 's work, then I'd have to say that I'm quite pleased that he's actually branching out. I'm just having a hard time believing that it's his, even if the character designs and background match his style. UPDATE: Looks like a few other bloggers say that it's his work. Huh. If he does more work like this, then he is really becoming the next Miyazaki, despite what I've said before.... UPDATE 2: Look! Subtitles! Ok, not real subtitles. But they are amusing subtitles, nonetheless. 1. He mentions this on an interview on the Five Centimeters Per Second DVD. This actually might be why I found 5 CM Per Second so much more visually striking than The Place Promised in Our Early Days
More About: Anime , Short

New Someday's Dreamers anime
2008-03-25 16:16:00
I got wind that a new series of Someday's Dreamers has been greenlit for production and showed later in the summer season (via the Anime Nfo forums). Seems like one new anime series to definitely put on my watch list. Hopefully, it'll be as good as the first series.

Recent Twelve Kingdoms Interest?
2008-03-09 16:18:00
Looks like there's been some recent resurge of interest in The Twelve Kingdoms recently. Maybe it's the new volume of the novel series coming out or the 90 page story released in a Japanese magazine that sparking it, but the attention still being put on this series isn't too bad for a now 6-years-old TV series. I don't blame Author for dropping the series after 5 episodes the last time he tried watching The Twelve Kingdoms. [See UPDATE, Below] The series didn't seem to promise much at that point other than handful of irritating main characters. Yes, there are loads of information and foreshadowing in those first five episodes, but those are extremely hard to catch without at least watching the entire series once to see how it all ties together. Fortunately, the end of episode 5 is the absolute low point1; the series really didn't pick up until a bit later, and I didn't proclaim it to be my most favorite anime of all time until I finished the third arc. Still, I'd like...
More About: Anime , Fuyumi Ono , Interest , Recent

"One More Time, One More Chance" Guitar Tab
2008-03-09 15:15:00
Well, time to sharpen those guitar playing skills. Found this on Youtube looking for the guitar tab for the main theme used for Byousoku 5 Centimeter: {YOUTUBE:sbmZu5ExzdI} Pretty unusual to put a guitar tab in this format, but it is quite useful at making you play at the original song's speed. Unfortunately, at my skill level, it's nothing to do but repetition combined with getting some finger blisters as I don't play as often as I should1. 1. And I should play guitar more often. It's free to do when I already have the equipment unlike shooting guns or playing hockey and, even if I'm not skilled, it's just as therapeutic.
More About: Guitar , Anime , Time , Chance

New Twelve Kingdoms News: Book 2 and a Surprise!
2008-02-29 20:29:00
Well, I've been holding on to some good news when it came to this franchise, but I'll get to that later... For now, look at this: The second volume of the Twelve Kingdoms novel, titled "Sea of Wind", is due on March 11, 2008, only a few weeks away! Here's some links on where to get it: Amazon Barnes & Noble Book s AMillion This is going to be able Taiki's journey in the land of Tai. Should be interesting to read, as his story didn't get a big chunk of the anime series to get told. Now for the big news, it's this blurb on that I found on livejournal: New 12K story on the way Big news via the Juuni Kokki Database: A new Juuni Kokki story by Ono Fuyumi is scheduled to appear in the upcoming (2/27) issue of yom yom, a Japanese fiction magazine. Title:?????? (Hisho no Tori)Length: 90 pages No further info as yet. Edit: Mainichi News reports that the story will be set in Kei. (Thanks, nachte.) Very good news! It's sounding like Fuyumi Ono might be starting to wri...
More About: The Twelve Kingdoms

Quick Impressions: Denno Coil
2008-02-04 03:12:00
Sometimes, I wonder how the Japanese are able to show what are considered "children's anime" which can deal with very serious topics. How do they allow shows that put their viewers through such an emotional roller coaster that are said to be aimed at elementary school students? And why don't I see or hear about this in many modern American animations, unlike the American classics (recall something like Bambi, for example)? I don't hear of anything that runs like Full Moon wo Sagashite in America today, but I have found another example of an emotionally tiring series in Denno Coil I have basically marathoned the last half of Denno Coil over the weekend after not watching it for several months. I really stopped reading other people's blogs during that time, as I didn't want to spoil myself for this series as of yet1. I found the ending to be very well handled, though I seem to comparing it to the likes of how Gainax ends things2. In any case, it really doesn't matter; I to...
More About: Anime , Quick , Impressions

Just so I have a post in November...
2007-12-01 05:44:00
No, my new hobby hasn't taken up all of my time that I haven't watched anime. I'm still watching, just not having enough time dedicated to blogging it as much as I used to. Hopefully, I can get an update out this weekend.
More About: Post , November

re: Fledge on blogrolling
2007-10-31 07:45:00
Fledge posts about his blogroll and triggered a few thoughts on my end1. To admit, Fledge's Haibane.info was the first anime blog that I really started reading on a regular basis. I can honestly say that I was introduced to several other anime bloggers, including Steven, and Author, either from comments or Fledge directly linking to them. I don't fully remember how I first started reading his blog2, but I do remember that I started reading it regularly about when I started up this blog3. When I started up this blog, I used the blogroll on it as my gateway into the anime blogging circles. Basically, my morning consisted of waking up, pulling up my site, and clicking on every link in the "Anime Fans" section to search for new content. I did realize that this is inherently inefficient, so, like Fledge, I ended up using Google Reader to keep track of the bloggers I read4. I will still leave the blogroll as it is, as I still recommend all of those bloggers for several reasons5, ...
More About: Other