Category: Anime

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]

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]

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]