The morning routine in this house doesn’t get deviated from, even on weekends. This is why I was up at 6:30 am this morning. Mugen must be let out, must have breakfast and must have a play time while I read my forums and drink my coffee.

It will take me 20 or 30 minutes to write this post in between sips of coffee and finding where Mugen’s lost his wubba this time and tossing it for him, but it wears him down so he will take a short nap in his crate while I shower… and then the fun begins.

We come downstairs and make breakfast. Mugen is all over the counters, trying desperately to counter surf and he’s just about tall enough to get his paws up there now. Hubby gets very angry with this, but the trick I used with Reilly will not work here. Shake cans have no effect on Mugen because he’s not gunshy.… [Read More]

The Morning Routine

I was doing my usual perusal of the anime news sites this morning when it occurred to me that anime this last year has changed drastically. The big issue of course, is that Geneon Entertainment’s operations were shut down by their Japanese parent company back in October. Many fans who were buying Karin, Hellsing Ultimate, Black Lagoon and The Story of Saiunkoku were hung out to dry with the news. I was buying two of those shows and had completed each to volume three. It’s enough of an investment in an anime series that to be unable to complete it at this stage is by God annoying.

Not only this, but I have noticed that the good stuff that we used to be able to expect to come from Bandai Entertainment, ya know, stuff like Wolf’s Rain, or Yukikaze… that stuff completely dried up this year. Thankfully, ADV and Funimation are doing a fine job of filling in the gap with anime that I want to buy, but more and more titles lately are so… ensconced in what’s popular in the Japanese market.… [Read More]

2007: The Year in Anime

It’s so sad.

Geneon Entertainment is no longer shipping new anime titles as of last Tuesday. Amazon gave me a brief ray of hope that I would be able to acquire volume four of Karin, a series I started purchasing because my kids think it’s hilarious. But alas, my hopes were dashed. I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to finish buying the series, but I suppose that’s the way of things.

According to more recent reports, many of the major North American distributors of anime are showing a profit loss this year. Anime seems to be on a down turn. As it stands, there are only three companies remaining that will buy licenses for shows that they did not produce in Japan themselves, and one of those three companies is still clawing its way kicking and screaming from the loss it took on what was a really successful series for them.… [Read More]

Geneon and the North American Anime Industry.

I got my hands on a copy of Beck today! I’m so excited I can’t tell you! I couldn’t wait to grab my pocket knife and carefully slice open the plastic covering the disc. Inside is a black guitar pick with the Beck logo inscribed on the front, on the back it says “Music is life!” Which, as any fan of this series knows is the key premise of the show.

The big worry I had was that the opening and closing credits would not be in tact. I checked those out real fast, then sat down to watch a little bit before dinner. So just so everyone knows, I have NOT spent much time with this DVD. What I can tell you is as follows:

The opening credits are in tact! I am very pleased that the music for Beck is still “Hit in America”. I hadn’t seen confirmation of this in any articles on the release of this series so far, so for any readers who’ve happened upon this and were wondering… yes, the Beat Crusaders are still a part of the show.… [Read More]

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad North American Release!

In my Japanese class this quarter, I was introduced to a Japanese television series called Densha Otoko, or Train Man. The story is sweet and wonderful. The main character is an Otaku. Otaku in Japan are loosely what we might think of as a geek, the primary difference between geeks and otaku is that otaku are more socially outcast than geeks are here in America, and they’re geeky to a level that is almost disturbing.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish watching Densha Otoko in class, so I got a copy of the series and finished watching the rest of it today as a way to celebrate the end of my quarter and the completion of finals.

They don’t make television shows like this in North America anymore. It’s a truly wonderful story, sweet, romantic and so purely innocent and beautiful that you find yourself falling in love with the characters.… [Read More]

Densha Otoko

It’s been a busy few weeks for me. I got sucked into reading Plato’s Republic for my philosophy class and now I’m reading Descartes. Or at least… I’m ditching the reading of Descartes that I am supposed to be doing, in order to bring you this post!

The democrats won many seats in congress on November 7th. That was sad. Most disappointing for me is that Maria Cantwell won again, and no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to vote that woman out of office. Even though she is almost single handedly responsible for the increase that we are about to receive in our power bill that may drive several Washingtonians out of their current lifestyles due to their inability to be able to afford expensive wind-power, which power companies are now required by law to use here in our state. I mean… forget the fact that Washington doesn’t get all that much wind in areas where that power would be most useful… forget the fact that we already have hydro out the wahzoo.… [Read More]

We’ve been busy!

It’s anime night again! Tonight’s features are as follows:

Macross 7
Ah My Goddess
Paranoia Agent
Bleach
Death Note

And.. whatever other random things we decide to watch out of boredom.… [Read More]

Anime Night

Just for the sake of random weirdness, I figured I’d post tonight’s anime night lineup. For those who are unfamiliar with this tradition, I head down to the basement to watch anime with the kids on our 100″ home theater screen. Anime night is only in Japanese with subtitles. This was done to give my children no options about reading over the course of the week. Since I began this tradition my children’s reading grades have improved astronomically, I encourage all parents with children that are anime fans to start just such a tradition in their home, though probably not with my choices of titles because my kids are older and are better equipped to handle blood and guts.

1. Trinity Blood episodes 3 and 4
2. Macross 7 episodes 1 and 2.
3. Trigun episodes 9 and 10
4. Gun X Sword episodes 9 and 10.
5. Ah My Goddess episodes… um… I forget *chuckle*
… [Read More]

Anime Night.

Geneon’s releases of Trigun Remix are coming out so fast that I can scarcely keep up with them. I purchased this volume at the end of September and volume 3 of this series is already out!

This will be a short review because I think I covered this release fairly well in my original review of the first volume. If you’re buying this release, it’s because you’ve already seen Trigun and loved it. The 5.1 dub track is nice, but this series really could have benefitted from some video clean up. The only news about this volume really was that there was a slight hiccup with the release that didn’t cause any delays because several shipments that were sent out early had the wrong cover art in the packaging.… [Read More]

Trigun Remix Volume 2

Funimation has finally issued the first DVD of a series that I caught when it was being fansubbed and I am so glad! Trinity Blood is a post-apocalyptic story that follows Father Abel Nightroad as he tries to save the world from an invasion of vampires.

Visuals: This is a Gonzo title, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Gonzo’s visuals and I tend to buy anime simply because they were produced by Gonzo. The only real exception to that has been Speed Grapher. I’m only avoiding Speed Grapher because it’s not a series that I can sit down and watch with the kids. Trinity Blood is a bit graphic in the violence category so I wouldn’t recommend that you let young children watch this series, but it’s great fun with older kids because the violence is just graphic enough for you to realize that something really bad has happened without going over the top.… [Read More]

Trinity Blood Volume 1