This has been a crazy season for new anime. There are so many new shows out there (as I mentioned in an earlier post). Now, after a few weeks, the real winners are starting to make themselves clear. Two in particular that stand out to me are Suzumiya Haruhi no Yutsu and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I'll post more about Haruhi later, since I just got done watching and episode of Higurashi and it is more fresh in my head.

I'm only three episodes in (and about to watch a fourth) and this show has completely sucked me in. Keiichi has recently moved to a small town and started school. At this point the show was seeming a little silly, lots of typical school hi-jinx. After school Keiichi goes off with one of his school friends, Rena, and she shows him a junkyard where she goes to collect things. She runs off to explore and he waits for her. While waiting he runs into a photographer who tells him about a murder that took place right around there a few years ago.

The most striking thing about the show is how it shifts gears. One moment things seem all happy and cute, only to turn around and become quite dark and ominous. Keiichi begins to think someone is out to get him, and I've started to wonder who to trust in all this. Currently Keiichi looks like he's about to snap. I hope he gets some answers soon.

This show also ended up surprising me a lot. For the first fifteen minutes or so I wasn't that impressed. It felt kind of mindless and cutesy. Something which changed just enough by the end of the episode to pull me back to watch the second. And it is going to be a 26 episode series, which means we're still only barely scratching the surface of the story. Here's hoping the rest of the ride is as interesting as the first bit.

(Cross-posted to the anime blog)

It's that time of year where there are lots of new shows starting up in Japan. Here's a quick rundown of my thoughts on a few of them.

• Aria - The Natural - I know this isn't technically a new show, but the second season has started out quite nicely and by the second episode they've already done one of my favorite stories from the manga.

• Simoun - After one episode I rate this interesting w/potential. So far we've just got the slightest introduction to the story. But the animation is quite nice. The music is wonderful (includes some Bach I've heard). Yuri content. I can't wait to see more story.

• xxxHolic - One of my favorite CLAMP mangas finally gets its own series. So far I dig it, but will still wait to see how other characters are portrayed and stories are presented. Hopefully will be better than Reservoir Chronicle was

• Disgaea - Based on a PS2 game of the same name. This looks to be a fairly kid-centric telling of the story. Art and Voices seem to match the game. I'll have to look and see if the voices are the same. Not sure if I'll keep watching for long, but seems decent enough

• Strawberry Panic - Imagine Marimite, now suck out everything that was good about it. I always got a warm happy feeling when I watched it (well, except when it made me cry like a baby). This feels like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of it. There are high school girls, there is a yuri vibe, there is no heart. Next!

• Air Gear - Feels like a typical shounen series. Though I found myself drawn into it quite a bit as I watched. Kids with motorized inline skates who compete against each other for status. A fun looking series. I'll keep checking it out for an episode or two more.

That's it for now. Next time up I'll talk about Ouran High School Host Club, NANA, KIBA, Zegapain, Soul Link, and Utawarerumono.

In some ways he's just arriving. This fall Voltron will be released uncut on DVD starting with the lion episodes (later on the vehicle ones will come out). This and Robotech were the two shows that originally made me notice anime way back when. I'm curious how much of the original was cut/rewritten.

CNN has an article on "Maid Cafes" in Japan, a popular place for some otaku.

Maids rule in Japan's nerd nirvana

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- "Welcome home, Master," says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.

This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a "Maid Cafe" in Tokyo's Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the center of the capital's "nerd culture".

"When they address you as 'Master', the feeling you get is like a high," says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.

"I've never felt that way before." [CNN]

I've been aware of the whole maid thing in Japan for a while just due to the amount of anime shows about maids. They are a whole genre in and of themselves. Everything from victorian romance type stories to action shows with robot maids to catgirl maids. But for some reason the idea of going to a maid cafe just sounds... wrong. It just sounds like too much of a bad joke. I especially like the line in the article about being able to get your ears cleaned (WHAT?). It actually is probably mostly an extremly focused version of what I've heard of called cosplay cafes, where the waitresses are dressed like characters from various anime shows.

Yesterday, the New York Times had an article about some of the anime that is currently showing in the US. It's pretty good, though a little bit simplistic. The one thing I liked about it was that it was explaining a little of how these shows are different than the stereotype of what many people think anime is (Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh). The point where I feel the article falls a little flat is in its examples. While I enjoy Naruto, I think Fullmetal Alchemst might have been a better one to go into detail with. My guess is they were went with a show that was on at a watchable time.

It is nice to see some mainstream media coverage of anime that helps to show a bit of why I enjoy the method of storytelling so much.

ARIA is the story of Akari Mizunashi and her day to day life on Aqua as a Undine (gondolier). This is slice-of-life anime at its best. The series started out as a manga and has been translated into animated form beautifully. The stories tend to be fairly simple glimpses into Akari's life. Wether it is giving a free ride to a young girl and showing her what is special about Aqua or practicing her rowing with her friend Aika. You always find a relaxing bit of story. So far, one I'll be watching.

ICv2 has posted information about a marathon of Miyazaki films on TCM in January 2006.

ICv2 has learned that in January 2006, Turner Classic Movies, a prominent cable and satellite network, will run nine animated features by the great Japanese anime director Hayao Miyazaki.  Miyazaki's movies have received scant exposure on American TV so the showings on Turner Classic Movies should expose a wide audience to these masterworks.

A complete list of the films (and airdates) will be released next week, but ICv2 has learned that TCM will show such Miyazaki-directed classics as: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Porco Rosso, as well as Whisper of the Heart, which was directed by Yoshifumi Kondou, though Miyazaki wrote the screenplay, drew the storyboards and produced the film. [ICv2]

I'm pretty psyched. I've wanted to see Whisper of the Heart for a while. I'm also hoping for Kiki's and The Castle of Cagliostro.

More and more content for the video iPod keeps showing up. This time it's anime from Central Park Media. Their initial offering is a show called Votoms. While I don't have a video iPod it's still stuff I can watch on my computer. But people are already putting out content.

[Via The Unofficial Apple Website]

Last saturday Naruto started airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block of programming. For those of you who aren't anime fans, Naruto is one of the most popular shows to come out of Japan in the last couple of years. Cartoon Network has a really random reputation when it comes to treatment of anime. Sometimes deserved, sometimes not.

Given the above, I was kind nervous tuning in to check it out. I tend not to be a fan of dubbing, but realize that it is the only way that most shows will make it onto TV. In the end, Cartoon Network did a pretty good job. My biggest complaint was 'why bother changing the opening and ending?'. The ones for the show are pretty good as it is (and some of the later ones are great). The voices themselves were okay, I think the VAs may have to grow into them a little, but hopefully that won't take long. Very little editing. One minor thing that bugged me a little was that they edited out nosebleeds. Nosebleeds? They're an anime thing. When a character sees something naughty or has perverted thoughts they tend to get nosebleeds. No, I don't get it either, but I'm used to it.

I've got it programmed into my TiVo as a season pass for now.

Dave Winer just got a mac and has been commenting about things he likes and doesn't like about it. For example, he really doesn't like Safari. Though he is happy with his Airport Express.

He's also been getting a bit of advice about software to use:

This is the kind of advice...
This is the kind of advice I've been getting from Mac users. Good stuff. You know, based on the rah-rah's from developers who are probably too scared of Apple to say what they really think, I thought everyone else thought Apple was the perfect company and the perfect computer. That's the downside of people being too scared to speak up, we get shitty information. How can we change this system, so that people aren't so scared? Or can we get Apple to thicken up their skin a bit, and learn to not punish people who have the nerve to criticize them. Blogs were supposed to fix all this. Frankly I think it hurts Apple to just have rah-rah public discourse and commentary. [via Scripting News]

Most people I know who have macs are more than willing to criticize them. The thing is, I find that the positives for me greatly outweigh the negatives. I've had no real problems with Safari. I think most of their software is designed for the casual computer user. It does the basics and tends not to get too fancy.

So in my case I tend to praise Apple a lot since in general it's been much less of a hassle than my experiences with Windows in its various forms. It's definitely not perfect, but I've yet to find an OS that is.

SFGate.com has an interesting article about Anime Expo and anime/manga fandom in general:

ASIAN POP Generation O
Meet the otaku -- a global network of anime fans and manga maniacs whose unique tastes and burgeoning consumer clout are reshaping the cultural landscape

While the rest of the nation prepared to mark the Fourth of July by consuming charred lumps of meat and blowing stuff up, a gleeful mob was descending on unsuspecting Anaheim, Calif., for a very different kind of celebration. Called AX, or simply "the Expo" by its organizers and its legion of eager attendees, it too commemorated a declaration of independence . . . in this case, from the dull shackles of reality.

Breach the glass-and-concrete bunker of the Anaheim Convention Center on Expo weekend, and you pass into a parallel dimension populated by pink-haired schoolgirls and DIY 'droids, portly alien invaders and bespectacled ninja assassins. It's a place where little things like race and gender and nationality take a backseat to more important distinctions, like whether you prefer dubs or subtitles. A world where an ordinary guy can be a hero, a king -- or hell, a magical fairy princess. [SFGate.com]

So far things are uneventful. It's mostly just sitting around waiting for the next time to take meds. Luckily I have my Powerbook with me so that I'm online and finally caught up with lots of posts. I also brought some anime DVDs along so I can finally watch the last disk of Azumanga Daioh (YAMAMAYA!) and some other stuff.

Anyone feel like stopping by today/tonight and bringing me a snack? Leave a comment if so and I'll email you back if I see it in time.

I'm still a bit speechless on this one. The images are kind of funky looking. I still can't decide if this will be a good thing or a bad thing.

Powerpuff Girls Anime Announced
Plans for a Powerpuff Girls anime were announced at the Tokyo Animation Fair. A joint venture between Toei Animation, Aniplex, and Cartoon Network, the new project will be tentatively titled "Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z." Posters from the booth can be seen on AV Watch here and here. [via Anime News Network]

Steamboy opens this weekend for a very limited release. For once something is showing in Connecticut. But, why the heck is it New Haven and not Hartford. Once again, Hartford shows how lame it is. It would be nice to someday get something like this when it was released and not 6 months later at the local university.

It opens up in more theaters on the 25th, we'll see if it makes it to Hartford by then.

One of my more favorite shows from the past few years, Scrapped Princess, is finally coming out on DVD on 4/26/2005. From the web page:

Pacifica Cassul is known as the "Scrapped Princess." According to prophecy, she is the poison that will destroy the world on her 16th birthday. In order to avoid being killed, she must secretly wander the lands along with her two siblings who vow to protect the princess every step of the way. But being the Scrapped Princess means you must stay one step ahead of your enemy. Just how long will they journey before time runs out?

They've also got a trailer in Quicktime and Window's media linked to there. Definitely one to check out if you haven't before.

DC comics recently got into the manga biz with their CMX imprint. I'd been kind of excited as they were picking up two titles I was really interested in getting: GALs and Tenjou Tenge. TenTen was just released and already it sounds like a disaster.

TenTen is a fighting manga. It tends to be quite violent and has quite a bit of fanservice. In japan I believe it had a Mature rating. CMX, which uses the slogan "Pure manga -- 100% the way the original Japanese creators wanted you to see it," chose to edit the series and release it as a teen title. Needless to say the manga community isn't thrilled. Many bloggers and comics news sites have already posted about it. It will be interesting to see if DC has any response.

I'm also posting about it because it hits one of my biggest peeves with some manga releases these days. The habit of tweaking art so that they remove things that might be inappropriate for whatever age group they are targeting. One of my favorites is Hikaru no Go. Where at the end of the first volume we have someone putting a blob of gum down on the center of a Go board. In the actual manga, it's a cigarette. Of course this leads to the second volume where someone is upset about the character "putting out his dirty gum on the Go board." Please, just translate, don't start tweaking things like this. If there is content that isn't appropriate for an age group, don't market it to them.

So I've seen anime with giant robots, anime about baseball, anime about playing Go, and anime about tennis (to name a few). But I never thought I'd see one about baking bread. Yakitate!! Japan is about Kazuma and his quest to make a national bread for Japan. He figures that since many other countries have types of bread they are known for, Japan needs one too. He's also blessed with 'Solar Hands', which are abnormally warm and help make the bread rise faster after kneading.

This show is just too much fun. They've compensated for bread not being the most exciting topic by making it insanely over the top. The main character's bread seems to be so good that it makes the people tasting it hallucinate. For instance, when tasting a bread he made with goats milk butter one character hallucinated flying through space to the constellation Capricorn. But mixed in with all the over the top antics are little bits of information about baking bread (I think most of it is fairly accurate).

Now here's a chance for anime to break a bit more into the mainstream. It could be on FoodTV. It was be a perfect match! And finally a show I can share with my mom (who used to teach a bread baking class).

A friend of mine sent me link to a demo of something for the Nintendo DS. It's streaming and using windows media, so you'll need that to watch. It starts out kinda slow, but around halfway through my jaw just dropped. Bonus points go out to anyone who recognizes what is played (I could name it in 4-5 notes). Even more points go to someone who can translate the japanese, since I can't read it (or understand what they are saying).

Roger Catlin of the Hartford Courant writes in today's Eye on TV section:

Japanimation Cute, But Strange; UConn Women Open Season

The super cutesy side of Japanese animation, already adapted in cartoons like "Hamtaro" and "Powerpuff Girls" (Cartoon Network, 8:30 and 11 p.m.) gets even closer to the source on the new "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" (Cartoon Network, 7:30 and 9 p.m.), with its rendering of a popular pop duo as a pair of adorable squibs.

Like a lot of Japanimation, there are some traits that are still tough to figure - chiefly how the mouths inexplicably become two dimensional slabs of baloney when open; and when open very large, routinely exceed the boundaries of the face. [CTnow.com (registration required)]

Um, just because the show is based on people from Japan does not make it Japanese Animation. Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi is a Cartoon Network original series. As is the Powerpuff Girls. They may be anime influenced, but that's it. Hamtaro is anime, but I still think Hamtaro should end up in a wood chipper one of these days.

Oh, and nobody uses the term 'Japanimation' anymore, that's so 80s.

(Cutey Honey after blocking LOTS of bullets with her sword)

So I finally got a chance to see the Cutey Honey live action movie. It was one of the more fun movies I've seen recently. Cutey Honey first came out years and years ago as a TV series by Go Nagi (the individual responsible for many classic shows) and has had numerous other animated versions throughout the years. Finally, someone did enough drugs to decide that the next incarnation really needed to be a live action movie.

What makes this movie great is that instead of going and tweaking the story too much it sticks with the same over the top feel that the anime has. It almost feels like you are watching an animated movie with live actors subbed in. It's cheesy as all hell, but then again Cutey Honey is cheesy to begin with. My only complaint would be that the ending battle where she goes up against Sister Jill left me wanting more, but in the end it works out alright. Now I just think they should do a live action TV series. I mean, if they can do a Sailor Moon one this should be no problem! Oh yeah, and the theme song for the movie, performed by Koda Kumi, rocks.

Excuse the ad, but I'm just doing my part to help promote Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Crisis start on Cartoon Network tonight. In general Cartoon Network has done a pretty crappy job with promoting anime, so I thought I'd help out a little. Yes, I'm a geek.

To folks that are just sitting around tonight doing nothing, I highly recommend checking these out, even though they come on a bit late. They are two of the better shows that Cartoon Network has picked up as far as anime goes. Also, don't be mislead by the beginning of Full Metal Alchemist, it gets pretty intense at times.

Here's some info on both Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Oh yes, there is nothing like watching a new anime and realizing that the theme song was done by Dimitri from Paris. It is quite slick. Neko Mimi Mode (AAC) is a bit of a variation on Love Love Mode, and is a nice little bit of grooviness (and it's even better with the animation (with the cute vampire girl with cat ears on)). Definitely a fun little song that had to be shared.

Of course I now keep having it run through my head and hearing Chiwa Saito say "Neko Mimi Mode" all day long.

Wow. I just watched the trailer for a new anime series titled Gankutsuou. It looks like it will be an anime version of The Count of Monte Cristo. Of all the promos I've seen for the current season in Japan, this is the most stunning (and it's being produced by Gonzo, who have been doing great work lately). I hope it's as good as the animation looks. The story has been a favorite of mine since I read a version of it back in French in High School, I can't wait.

Wired has a nice article about three anime films making their way to the US in the coming months: Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, Steamboy, and Howl's Moving Castle. I'm pretty psyched about all of them. The trailers for Steamboy and Innocence look stunning, and i am hoping to find a copy of one for Howl's soon.

The Giants of Anime are Coming

In coming months, anime's three most prominent directors will release major films in the US. Oshii's Innocence will hit theaters in September. Soon afterward, Katsuhiro Otomo will debut Steamboy, an Indiana Jones-style adventure that takes place in an alternative Victorian age where turbo unicycles and pressure-powered jetpacks battle for supremacy. Then Hayao Miyazaki will deliver Howl's Moving Castle, about a teenage girl who flees a curse by hiding in a gigantic mechanical castle that prowls about on insectlike legs. In addition, Disney will issue three older Miyazaki films on DVD early next year, two of which have never before been released in the US.

The confluence of these films could finally put anime at center stage in a venue where success so far has been elusive: the box office. Even though Miyazaki's Spirited Away won the Oscar for best animated film in 2003, it didn't pack theaters. But unlike most previous US anime releases, these films have the backing of major studios. DreamWorks is distributing Innocence, Sony is handling Steamboy, and Disney is in line for Howl's Moving Castle. Anime enthusiasts have argued for years that the genre's fractured visions represent the most important cinematic movement since sex, lies, and videotape ushered in a new era of American independent film in 1986. Now multiplexers will have a chance to see what these fans have been talking about. [Wired News]

Of course Innocence doesn't even have viewing dates in CT yet. I hate this state at times, I'll be sure to be watching it up in Boston.

Two interesting articles on anime related things.

• An article on The strange but familiar world of a Japanese TV cartoon over at reason online. It's from May and is about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (One of my personal favorites of the last year or so). The author has some interesting notes on the subject.

  "Depictions of shapely, scantily clad women are standard in Japanese comics and animations, and this series gladly provides them. But the message is subtly subversive: These bodies are literal commodities, shells their inhabitants can exchange if they feel like it. Kusanagi is female only in the sense that she wears female bodies, apparently to complement her favorite watch. No longer the key to identity, gender becomes a convention."

• An article from Forbes.com about John Ledford, the creator of ADV Films. It tells of how the company got started and is a pretty amazing read. I especially like how Ledford got started by importing Japanese video game systems that weren't available here yet and selling them with an obscene markup.

Relaxation Combat Team Valerian, at your service! That seems to be the battle cry of these superheros in a new creation by CLAMP called Sweet Valerian. I personally think this is just further evidence of drug use on the part of people producing anime. This show is like the Powerpuff Girls on Acid and E at the same time. In the second episode they fight a cell phone monster and defeat it by drowning it in water. My brain hurts.

I decided to play around with iCal today and found myself entering all the upcoming anime DVD releases into it (through 9/7/2004) based on the information at AnimeonDVD.com. I published it so that it can be viewed via the web or subscribed to in iCal (I think Mozilla Calendar lets you do this also, but I'm not sure).

I'll try and keep this updated with around a month's worth of information.

I'd been looking to pick up a new DVD player recently, since my old one croaked on me recently. After doing some hunting around online I decided on the Philips DVP642. I decided on this one for a few reasons. First, it supports DivX. This was a big deal for me because I watch a lot of anime that is encoded in this format. Second, the price was right. At $69.99 it wasn't too expensive a risk. Some of the reviews indicated that the DVD playback wasn't that great, but I figured at $70 even if it was good I'd be happy.

Today I picked up my player at a local CompUSA (the only place locally that had them in stock). Initial setup was easy, as was updating the firmware to the latest version. This entailed downloading two files from the philips.com website and burning them to CD and starting up the dvd player letting it read the CD. I haven't tested a DVD yet, but I did test with a DVD-RW that had a few files on it. The good: it read the DVD-R and could play some of the files. The bad: it couldn't play them all. I'm trying to figure out what the differences were in the files it wouldn't play, but so far nothing is jumping out at me.

I've also set up a page on my wiki about this player so that I can keep notes on what works and what doesn't. If anyone has anything they think would be useful to add, please let me know.

There's a new online DVD rental service called rentanime.com that I've decided to give a try for their two week free trial. It's a neat idea, but I have a feeling Greencine will still have them beat (at least for me). Some issues I already see with the site. There are some very noticeable holes in their selection. No original Bubblegum Crisis. And they've only got the second OVA of Fushigi Yugi (I'd thought this might be a good chance to check out the series since I've never seen it).

So, the first marks against them are for selection, but I'm willing to cut them some slack since they first opened. Beyond that, the site itself feels like it needs a bit of work. the design feels a little rushed. And it' is missing features that other sites have. For example: Can I queue up a full series and get them in order? Doesn't look like it. Can I easily request things they don't have? The don't say. There are lots of little details that I think they need to look at if they are going to survive. Especially when there are services like Greencine that have a kickass anime selection and a great site overall.

I'll report back more when I've got my first selections from them.

Crossposted to An Unnamed Anime Blog.

Anime Expo is going on this weekend and there's some cool anime coming our way. Ones I'm most happy about: Midori no Hibi, Bakuretsu Tenshi, and Popotan. I'm most happy about Midori no Hibi, because it's one of my recent favorites. Also, it appears that TOKYOPOP will be releasing CLAMP no Kiseki: The Ultimate Collection. CLAMP's 15th anniversary, 12 issue collection. With each issue coming with pieces for a CLAMP chess set (with some interesting choices for the pieces).

AnimeonDVD.com is reporting that CLAMP will be working on some sort of project with Marvel Comics due out in 2005. The character it involves was not named but was said to be someone you wouldn't think of as typical CLAMP material. Hmm. I'm trying to think of who I might want to see a CLAMP version of. Almost anyone I think of leaves me with a bit of a disturbed feeling. Just think of Spidey, X-Men, or maybe Ghost Rider as done by CLAMP.

The wonderful folks at TRSI just delivered my copy of the LE of ROD TV. The case for the series is like an actual book with plastic 'pages' for the DVDs. It's definitely the coolest of the DVD cases I have. I took a picture with my crappy little phone cam since I can't seem to find my digital camera at the moment. Click on the image to the left for a bigger picture.

Funimation has announced that there will be an uncut Shaman King release. I guess they are working with 4Kids on this. It will be a dub and sub release. Yay! I was so worried that we'd only get a saturday morning cartoon-ized version of this. Thank you Funimation!

The New York Times Magazine had an article on manga last sunday that's a pretty cool read.

Gainax has announced a life sized, poseable Hikari doll from Konomini. I'm not sure what frightens me more. The idea that things like this exist, or that there are people out there who are probably anxious to own them. The dolls are made by Paper Moon, who offer a number of other dolls (including Sakura and Ryoko). Words cannot begin to describe how wrong I find this. What's next? Real Anime Doll?