COMMENTS!

Folks, as of, like, fifteen minutes ago, the Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 review has a comment box at the bottom of the page. This is exciting, and important. Future reviews (as I said in the front page news post) will all have a comment box, as will, most likely, some older reviews people might want to comment on! So, let us hear your takes! On the reviews, on the shows, on my horrible web design!

Excuses, Excuses

Naysayers... Just shut up and enjoy the glory of Akira's Johnny.

Saturday at Otakon, Funimation announced license acquisitions Casshern: Sins and Eden of the East, two titles that many people, including myself, have been anticipating. I immediately went into celebratory mode, but then made the poor decision to go read the ANN forum thread in connection with the news. It began innocently enough, with people being happy for the acquisition, and some people being happy that they could finally watch these shows (some people have much stricter ethics than I do regarding fansubs, which is fine - it just means they get to miss a lot of the cool stuff >:) ).

Of course, someone always has to piss on my parade.

There seems to be a small-but-vocal contingent of people who are more than willing to act like big fans of something, but when it comes time to pony up the cash, there's always some excuse as to why the American company ruined the release and they won't spend any money on it. This time around, the controversy is in regards to the opening theme, which is the song "Falling Down" by the British band Oasis. There are rumblings (not based on anything factual, mind you, just worried whispers based on a couple of past situations) that Funimation might not be able to secure rights to the opening song. I'm thinking to myself, "big deal, right?" I really like the opening song, but a minute-and-a-half of artful design elements coupled with an excerpt from a popular song is not enough to sway me one way or another in regards to a series that I already like. When I'm watching multiple episodes of a series at one time, I usually skip the theme songs anyway, no matter how much I like it.


Wow, they were right! Now that I've read this I totally understand the series! /sarcasm

Well, of course the thread blew up with people in agreement, with a few more rational people in between telling these people that they were being childish. One argument that really irritated me was that the opening theme was somehow integral to understanding the series itself. Hogwash, I say. While the opening pays lip service to a lot of the terms, concepts and ideas around which the series revolves, all of these things are explained within the context of the series itself. The opening is basically someone's very awesome graphic design project, but there's no reason anyone would need to watch it, and if these whiners were real fans of the series they would know better.

In case you were curious, here's a video of the show's opening:

Two other noteworthy new anime not mentioned at the panel.

The second Rebuild of Evangelion movie was released June 27, called Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance. Trailer. Wiki.

The re-aired first season of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is featuring 14 new episodes interspersed in chronological order. Wiki.

Those are the two big notables I didn't have time to mention on the panel.

Anime Expo 2009 - Reactions

Most of you, including those of you who were at CONvergence this past weekend, know that the anime world was also experiencing one of its biggest events of the year, Anime Expo in Los Angeles, CA. It attracts both industry reps and fans from all over, and it's where many announcements regarding licensing and releases are made. I thought that I would post some brief reactions to the various press conferences. I'm pretty much ganking most of the info from ANN, so credit should go to them for their hard work.

Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment
Aside from some re-releases of their previous acquisitions, the biggest surprise to me was the licensing announcement of the Antique Bakery series from last year. Honestly, I had considered the series to be too niche to warrant an American release, but I personally consider the show a guilty pleasure so I can't say that I'm upset.

As for the other announcements, Rental Magica seemed like a pretty lousy show when I first reviewed it (wow, I've certainly learned to polish my reviews since then, haven't I?) so I'm not really interested in this release. And I care even less about the fourth season of Maria-sama ga Miteru, a series which has continually managed to bore me.

Bandai Entertainment
Mostly a lot of "blah" stuff.

Probably the biggest upcoming release of interest (for most fans) is season 2 of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, as well as the second season of Gundam OO.

I might have been interested to hear about the release of the Lucky Star OVA if it hadn't been so darned disappointing compared to the TV series.

Along with some manga and light-novel acquisitions related to Code Geass and The Girl who Leapt Through Time, Bandai announced their acquisition of the Eureka Seven movie, as well as the streaming of the series on ANN, which has already begun.

Viz Media
I'm sort of amused by there being a release date for the first NANA boxed-set (September 8th!) because I recently lamented to a friend how Viz seemed to just be sitting on the license. Honey and Clover also has a solid release date, September 22nd, which makes me very happy.

Funimation
The only announcement of a newly-acquired series was Sengoku Basara, which just finished broadcast in Japan. I can't say that I'm surprised because it's both action-packed and pretty, with lots of dudes beating up on each-other and a heavy dose of subtext.

I'm sort of disappointed that Funimation didn't announce any other new goodies, since they recently had that survey up that included tons of great choices, but perhaps they're saving their announcements for another day or they're still in negotiations. I'll have my eyes peeled for future press-releases.

And that's about all the releases that personally concern me. Not a huge crop of goodies this time around, but I've been noticing that licensing announcements tend to trickle in throughout the year rather than at these big conventions lately, so it's not a huge surprise.

Shiny New Anime - CONvergence 2009

Thanks to everyone who attended the Shiny New Anime panel at CONvergence 2009! Even though it was directly opposite one of the big Mystery Science Theater panels, there was still a great turnout and we got some great comments/feedback. Props to the nice lady out in Forest Lake - I hope you can get high-speed internet soon and you and your daughter can enjoy all these great shows more easily.

In any case, I have uploaded the handout for the panel to my webspace for those who are interested but didn't receive one (I have a constant problem with not making enough of them - I printed at least ten more than last year and there still weren't enough).

Anyway, the handout is here. It's in RTF format, which should be compatible for most people.

A friend requested that I upload clips to Youtube; we'll see if that's feasible. If so, I'll update this post later on with more links.

ETA: Okay, I uploaded both the CONvergence clips and the Anime Detour clips to Youtube. I have no idea whether or not they'll get taken down, but here are links to them until they disappear:

Antique Bakery
Astro Fighter Sunred
Basquash
Casshern Sins
Chi's New Address
Detroit Metal City
Dragon Ball Kai
Eden of the East
Eve no Jikan
Kaiba
Kemono no Souja Erin
Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora
Michiko to Hatchin
Natsume Yuujinchou
Nodame Cantabile: Paris
One Outs
Rideback
Ristorante Paradiso
Sengoku Basara
The Daughter of Twenty Faces
Toshokan Sensou

CONvergence 2009

Hi, all. Just as a note, I will be attending CONvergence, a Science-Fiction and Fantasy convention, this weekend, Thursday-Sunday. I'll be a presenter in one panel, Shiny New Anime which is Friday from 3:30-4:30pm in the multimedia room. Stop by and say hi if you're around. If you attended the same panel at Anime Detour this year, the presentation will be about the same, though I'm aiming to have some new clips this time around. After I get home I'll post the handout for those of you who are interested but didn't get to attend.

Hope to see you there!