The Master Plan

So real life has been deciding to be busy recently killing that ability to really turn out quality posts like I want to. Thats another reason to love anime - its nots real life But I’ve done thinking and after many failed experiments I’ve decided on the direction I see this blog taking.

 

I really started this whole thing so I would be able to speak my mind on what I was thinking about with anime at the time so I’m going to stick with that. I plan to post reviews of anime I like so I can say why I like them, I plan to comment on News that catches my attention, and I plan to write opinions on things that bug/interest me about anything anime. So its mostly going to be a forum for my ideas about anime plus any other random anime things I find along the way. I don’t claim to be on the cutting edge of anime in Japan I leave that to the episode by episode blogs out there - to be honest I can’t keep up with real life in the way sometimes - another reason I’m going to take the approach I am. 

 

One thing that I really like in anime is the series that make you think - you don’t completely get everything the first time through and you may never fully figure everything out but that’s the fun. I’ve always wanted to go through episode by episode and try to analyze some of the series that got me thinking so I’m going to do that here. I plan to take on each series as a project that I will post one part at a time trying to show what I think about each part. Some of the series that are top on my list to start such a project with are: Higurashi no Naka Koro Ni (and Kai), Boogiepop Phantom, and Evangelion. So look for them in the future.

 

There may be other contributors in the works too - you never know so its always a possibility. 

 

I don’t have delusions of grandeur for the blog growing as big as some out there - I just hope to make something I can be be proud of and possibly gain a few readers along the way. We’ll see how it goes - keeping looking here to see it take shape. 

“The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya” - God Knows… English dub

Ok so something has been bugging me for a while. The anime companies mostly do not dub over japanese songs in anime because its too much effort so when they decided to do it for the infamous God Knows… scene in the english dub of Haruhi I was actually kind of impressed. I’m not a dub basher at all and I don’t really have issue with the dub. What I do have issue with is the fact that they completly changed the lyrics when they translated them. I have no idea why they would do that. It just seems so wrong - its like they rewrote the song themselves. Mabey its just because I study Japanese so the word differences sound jarring to me…. However this decision seemed very stange to me. Mabey Im nitpicking but it just bothered me.

 Judge it on your own here.

Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino - First Impressions

I was excited when I heard this series was being subbed because I didn’t really expect a sequel from the first series. I did enjoy the first Gunslinger Girl but I also felt it could have had more. You really grow attached to the girls and there plight – the show did a nice job of showing the hell they had to go through while pulling on your heart-strings by making sure they showed them acting like normal girls after missions. The only problem was that it was slow at times – a little too much time on the characters when you expected a bit more action from a show about gun fights. The ending was kind of just there too – just like life goes on – ok but not great. So I am excited about this second season because I think the show has so much potential to be a great action-drama.  

The first episode was actually a very good introduction to the gunslinger girl world. You see each girl all working on a mission and then back at the welfare society going about daily life. The mission was exciting with enough gunplay to see what the girls were capable of. Showing back home gave that parallel the series is soo good at – reminding you the girls are still normal in their mind after killing sprees. The comments of the girls really get to me sometimes – like Henrietta writing happily in her journal that she killed a man for Jose today. Makes me cry on the inside. We can see that the series so going to follow much the same formula – which is good.  

One thing that was really different was the animation style. Its now kinda of colorful and pastel like – looks more hand-drawn – a big departure from the first series dark kind of realistic look. It shocking at first cause the style only serves to make the girls look more bright and cheerful at times – makes the difference between their normal and work lives more jarring. However it gave the effect of low quality at times. Sometimes – especially during the riot scenes it was painfully obvious they were using still backgrounds and moving pictures in front. I laughed at times when some actions scenes were just shaking a picture in front of a camera. It reminded me of videogame cut scenes where they use still images and show zoomed in frames of what people are looking at in the corner. Other scenes in the ep looked very nice though – its an interesting animation style.  

I like it so far and I’m looking to see how this series differs from the first. So far a good entertaining show if you can be attached to the characters and enjoy the action.

  

The mysterious disappearing ADV Titles - solved? Kind of?

As I mentioned in an earlier post - ADV has removed several titles from all mention on their site - including fan favorites like Gurren Lagann. As so it was left in doubt that they were even going to release several of their planned projects. As I can still see no mention on the site of any of these titles and those that had release dates that have come and gone with online stores listing their status as “waiting for stock from distributor” - I pretty much assumed they were in danger of being scrapped and feared that these were initial symptoms of ADV going the way of Geneon.  

Imagine my surprise when yesterday I was able to purchase and receive shipping confirmation of one of those “removed titles” - 5 Centimeters per Second (from Best Buy even though its way past the ADV release date of March 4th - for some reason Best Buy put the release date as March 24th when one one else did and they are the only ones who had it - do they know something we don’t?). As I love Makoto Shinkai’s films I was overjoyed as I had thought it lost for an American Release. Now I think though does this mean that the other titles on the list will be saved as well? Even though we hear no news from ADV will things like Gurren Lagann and Sergeant Frog still get an under the radar release? Did ADV just make a mistake with the website? I wish I knew what was going on at ADV - they are certainly confusing the hell out of us fans. 

Review - Keroro Gunsou

What can I say about Sgt. Keroro? Its got everything: ninjas, aliens, humor, action, romance, sports, culture, lots of afros… Oh yes, this and so much more. Welcome to the crazy sc-fi humor that is Keroro Gunsou.

 

Our story follows the antics of the Keroro Platoon - a group of aliens resembling frogs bent on taking over the world. One problem tough – as they are scouting for the invasion platoon leader Sergeant Keroro is discovered by Hinata family and he and the rest of the platoon are stranded on earth as their support forces leave. Now living among the humans Keroro is forced to do the family chores and becomes obsessed with earth Otaku culture –

especially Gundam. Will he ever be able to regain his resolve and pull of the invasion with the rest of his team? I really have no idea but its sure fun to watch it happen.

 

When I first started watching this show I wondered if it would ever find an American niche. Sgt. Keroro is one of those shows that use random, crazy humor to carry the day. Also it is extremely heavy with Japanese Culture. Without translation notes at times I would have been at a loss. These two features combined I thought would kill some of the universal humor appeal but I was very wrong. Keroro never fails to make me laugh – the humor is just plain clean randomness. When ever I don’t want to relax and laugh without heavy thinking I put on Keroro. The large amount of stand alone episodes help to make it easy to watch whenever you want to as well. Everything from aliens bent on giving everyone an afro to the armageddon predicted by Nostradamus going horribly wrong. Its so zany that even though its over 100 eps and counting I always want to come back and see what they think of next – which is a complement for me – my friends will confirm that I can never hold my attention on series this long. Plus Keroro’

s obsession over gunpla never fails to make me laugh at myslef and other Otaku type people.

 

I don’t actually know how big the American fan-base is for Keroro Gunsou – it’s kinda out there. I would recommend it to anyone who laughs at completely crazy and random humor. If crazy Japanese only-puns and hot-blooded power ranger parodies are the kinds of things that you can find funny go for it – but if not it might be a bit too random for you. I was really looking to see how they would deal with this in an American dub due to the shear amount of Japanese cultural jokes and puns that only work in Japanese. Alas, we may never know – it was one of the titles included in ADV’s mysterious release removals. So watch Keroro if you think it might be your thing and remember “the passwords are afro and sergeant!”

(Fans know what I mean J ) 

T.M. Revolution at New-York Comic Con

I am so jealous after I read that T.M. Revolution is giving a concert at the NY Comic Con this year and Im in a completely different country and am unable to see it. Ah curse the things that life throws us! 

Anyway you can see their con blurb here. Since his newest band effort abingdon boys school is set now he says he “wishes to return to his roots” and wants to make the US concert a new personal starting point. I hope that only means that we have more awesome music in store from this man.

The American Anime Industry in Trouble

There’s a thought I’ve had for a long time – every time I walk down the store isle to look at anime DVDs I wonder – should I really buy that or just be content with the fan-sub version? Right afterwards I would think – you know if enough people thought that and then decided not to buy any DVDs the industry might hurt. I always worried that one day fan-subbing might hurt the sale of anime DVDs in America and since it was a niche business to begin with the impact would be stronger than in other industries. Well it turns out I might be right.

According to here article sales of anime DVDs in America have dropped from from $550 million to $350 million in 4 years. If this trend continues it could be major trouble. What really surprised me though is what has already happened. Geneon has been forced to make layoffs and has recalled ALL of its anime DVDs - confirmed here on ANN. Also ADV has removed a number of titles from its release list, all of which are listed here. Coupled with the fact that it stopped production of Newtype USA I hypothesize that they are having business trouble as well.

The point of all this is that while I realize that the industry its self has fault as well (being way behind with some releases and some bad dubs to name a few reasons) we as fans contribute to the problem as well. If we stick exclusively to fan-subs and never buy any anime DVDs then in effect we starve the industry. Its not just DVD sales that will stop however if the industry has trouble – anime on TV networks will suffer, industry events at cons, in effect any attempts of making anime more main-stream will disappear because it will be unprofitable. So all I’m saying is if you appreciate the industry at all buy some DVDs. Not everyone has to run out and make a massive collection, but if you have a favorite series that you see – when it comes out on DVD buy it. Even some old series have been put into affordable box sets now. If we all support the business a little bit I think we can convince them that anime is something we want in America. Take it or leave it – just my belief but I hope you all consider it – arigato.

Disney + Japan = American anime?

In a move sure to reignite the debate over weather American anime can exist Disney Studios announced Thursday that it would begin producing animation specifically in Japan in an attempt to appeal to local tastes and expand their market. Disney has never tried to match its content to other countries before usually just exporting the stuff seen in America. Since the Japanese have been keen on Disney programing it seems a logical move - as Mariko Hisamitsu, a person in charge of Disney TV programs in Japan said: “Disney characters are well recognised in Japan and we believe providing contents catering to consumers is necessary to expand the market.”

The most interesting part of all this is how close Disney will be getting to the Japanese anime industry - they will be working with Toei Animation Co Ltd. - the company that made Dragon Ball Z and the first working place of Hayao Miyazaki - to produce a short TV film. They will then work with Madhouse, which helped produce such series as Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Trigun and Di Gi Charat, to make a “Japanized” version of Lilo and Stitch featuring a Japanese setting and Japanese characters. With this immersion of Japan and America one cant help but wonder if Disney will move more formally into the anime industry and perhaps start producing anime type programing on its own. They may start moving into this area as they made the following statement: “”The main target is Japan but we don’t deny the possibility” of exporting Japan-made products to other Asian countries.” If thats true what is to stop them from becoming their own force? I know that its obvious that Disney has been influenced by Japan in the past but now mabey we’ll see some original material. I’ll be interested to see if influence rubs off either way in a more pronounced format than in the past.

To read some articles check out these:
International Business Times
NDTVmovies.com

R.I.P. Newtype-USA

As you may or may not know the February issue of the U.S. anime magazine Newtype-USA was the last issue of it - period, forever. For those who don’t know Newtype was a model of its Japanese counterpart with large pages in right to left format. The magazine was full of relevant anime news and reviews and for its best point used its large pages to showcase original art from the series in question. It also came with a DVD with amine eps on it every month. It was truly a beautiful magazine - the only of its kind in the USA. After getting over the initial shock of finding this out a short time ago seeing as how I am an extreme fan of what is probably America’s best anime magazine I began to ask why? How is it that this magazine feel through? Mabey anime magazines just can’t sell in the US? No that can’ t be right - so I headed to the website to find a reason. All I found there was a very apologetic but also cryptic post about circumstances beyond their control - read it here. Something did make me feel a bit better however - the mention of a new magazine called PiQ. Surely a magazine by these people would be awesome - so I chose to wait and see.

The PiQ site was launched and I scoured over it here. It was apparent that this would not be the same magazine at all. From what I’ve read on the web its the topics covered that are the big change. According to comics212.net the new break up will be like so:

20% Anime
20% Gaming
20% U.S. Comics / Japanese Manga
20% Genre Movies / TV / Home Video
10% Toys / Collectibles
5% Gadgets / Hi-Tech Gear
5% Lifestyle (fashion, accessories, events)

Certainly not the magazine we are used to. It purports to be “Entertainment for the rest of us”. This drastic change will certainly leave everyone thinking.

I am concerned about how the magazine has changed. It seems to me that the only people who would read the original Newtype are full anime fans considering there wasn’t much that would interest anyone else. It seems that they were happy so why this sudden change to a “jack of all trades” approach? From the posts Newtype left I think left without their magazine the staff is trying to stake their own claim in the market with a new project all together. Also I believe that they are trying to mainstream the anime mag idea a bit by wrapping it up with US entertainment as well as culture and other items in and out of Japan - trying to capture a life style rather than a sub-group. While this has merits I don’t know that it warrants a full scrap of the old mag. After all they are very different ideas - some people just want to read about anime and aren’t interested in the other topics they will cover in PiQ for that reason I don’t agree with the total scrap of Newtype-USA. However I’m not ready to write off PiQ. It has potential as long as they remain loyal to the fans that make there mag - but forget your original audience and its all over.

While I morn the loss of Newtype out of loyalty I will look at the PiQ which is slated to hit stands in a few days on March 14th. We will have to analyze this new magazine - I hope it is a suitable replacement.

Adventure ni yokosou! (Welcome to the adventure!)

Welcome to the site - just wanted to get a quick introduction going to let you feel welcome. I’ll just be known as your host madphoenix. I hope to maintain in this blog just a bit of my thoughts and ramblings about the greatness that is anime in general. Im sure you’ll find me drifting topics a bit too with anything that is related (at least in my mind ) I hope you all can just come and enjoy yourself poking around a bit - my main goal is just to share my passion with other people and hopefully just bring some fellow anime fans together for a bit on the internet. If I’ve given you something to read to pass the time or even something to think about my job is done. Feel free to comment and leave feedback - discussion on topics is fun and feedback is essential for me to correct any shortcomings. So poke around and have a good time. Irrasshaimase!