Month: May 2006

Say Hello To AnimeNano.com!

Post author By hung
Post date May 31, 2006
29 Comments on Say Hello To AnimeNano.com!

So I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy this Summer. ‘Doing what?,’ you ask? Rolling my own blog feed aggregator and forums, that’s what! Yep, Anime Nano is yet another blog feed aggregator for, you guessed it, anime.

Now, I have nothing against either Animeblogger.net antenna or Blogsuki. To me, they’re on two weird polar extremes. Animeblogger.net Antenna has a lot of blogs. Like, 100! There’s a lot of good blogs on there, but not all of them interest me. On the other hand, Blogsuki has less blogs, and a lot of good ones were kicked off. I really like Blogsuki, but I think I should be able to choose which blogs I want to read. That’s where Anime Nano comes in.

Anime Music

Anime Seiyuu Showdown: Kashimashi Karaoke Battle!

Post author By hung
Post date May 31, 2006
7 Comments on Anime Seiyuu Showdown: Kashimashi Karaoke Battle!

While watching Kashimashi, I noticed that the ED song kept changing. At the time, I thought “wow, this song is really good, plus they have a billion versions of it!” It turns out that episodes 8-11 of the anime all have different seiyuu singing it! The different characters all have unique lyrics so the song fits their character too. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yep, it’s time for a Seiyuu Showdown: Karaoke Battle!

Anime

ADV Films Offers Anime for Download! On ZVUE!?

Post author By hung
Post date May 30, 2006
1 Comment on ADV Films Offers Anime for Download! On ZVUE!?

I find it kinda funny that a couple of days after Jason writes a post on DRM and payed anime downloads, ADV announces that they’ll be offering anime available to download on zvue.com. From the press release:

“Anime has become big business, and it’s getting bigger every day,” said ADV Films co-founder and chief executive officer John Ledford. “The popularity of anime continues to grow in the U.S., and our alliance with HandHeld and its ZVUE.com download website means that more fans will have more access to the anime they love.”

Okay, so that sounds great! The companies are finally taking distribution online and offering anime downloads, right? I dunno…

The ZVUE is a handheld personal video player, so I assume the video quality for the downloads will be fairly low. Also, I’ve never heard of the ZVUE until today when I read the press release. Browsing their online store, it seems they sell a lot of puppet and genie videos (WTF!?). The content that’s on there now looks worse than most stuff on YouTube. I don’t think I need to remind you that YouTube is free…

I’ll have to commend ADV for trying something different, but haven’t they ever heard of iTunes music store? Google Video also offers payed content, too. I have a feeling that fans would totally be willing to buy anime on either service, and then buy them again when they hit DVD. Heck, I’d be happy with them offering a DRM-free PSP sized download directly from their site!

It seems to me that by going with this virtually unknown company, ADV is dooming themselves from the start. Is anyone going to buy a ZVUE player for $100 just so they can pay to watch anime on a really small screen? Hopefully they prove me wrong by selling a billion downloads of Azumanga, but right now, I have a bad feeling about this…

Expenses Manga

New Manga Purchases – School Rumble, Death Note, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Ouran High School Host Club, Yotsuba&!

Post author By hung
Post date May 30, 2006
4 Comments on New Manga Purchases – School Rumble, Death Note, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Ouran High School Host Club, Yotsuba&!

So my sister had me buy her some stuff at Amazon.com that resulted in a $30 gift certificate rebate. She told me to keep it as my birthday present. At first I was gonna use it to help buy a Macbook, but I think I’ll wait on that. I Remembered that Amazon.com had a buy 3 get 1 free book promotion thing going on ages ago. Apparently it’s still going on! So Instead, I used the credit to buy manga! Manga manga manga!

School Rumble Vol. 1

Expenses Figures

Disgaea Figures Gotto!

As I posted in the original, I gave in and bought the figures plus a prinny plush. So was it worth the $60? Will this purchase somehow make the Disgaea anime better!?

First thing I noticed was that Japanese people really love their packaging. The first box I ran into (besides the one that the figures shipped in) was this discreet white box. Pretty cool! Since I’m a packrat, I’ll have to keep the box in perfect shape, or at least near-mint…

Anime Music

Top 5 Anime EDs of Spring 2006!

Post author By hung
Post date May 25, 2006
7 Comments on Top 5 Anime EDs of Spring 2006!

For every to there is a fro, and for every stop there is a go. Likewise, for every OP there is an ED (except for, y’know, weird anime that don’t have an ED), so here’s my picks for the top 5 anime EDs for Spring 2006:

Anime

Genshiken 2 Turns Out To Be Kujibiki Unbalance Anime…

Post author By hung
Post date May 24, 2006
9 Comments on Genshiken 2 Turns Out To Be Kujibiki Unbalance Anime…

Following the news of the Genshiken manga ending, it seems that the highly anticipated second season of the Genshiken anime is actually Kujibiki Unbalance.

ANN Reports:

While initial reports from Comiket were that there would be a second season of Genshiken, Moonphase now reports that the project is actually a new, independant Kujibiki Unbalance TV series and a serialised manga.

That’s too bad, because I was really looking forward to a second season of the Genshiken anime. I have a feeling fans would rather have Genshiken 2 then Kujian. While I thought the OVAs were kinda interesting in that anime within an anime sorta way, I dunno if it could stand on its own… I do remember it having a pretty catchy theme song, though.

I’m also not sure if this means there will definitely be no Genshiken 2, or if it’ll happen in the future…

Anime First Impressions

Rakugo Tennyo Oyui – Anime First Impressions

Post author By hung
Post date May 23, 2006
1 Comment on Rakugo Tennyo Oyui – Anime First Impressions

Rakugo Tennyo Oyui actually came out in the Winter anime season, but LIME anime finally decided to sub it. I can’t honestly say that I was waiting to watch this one, but hey, it’s out, so check out my first impressions!

Anime First Impressions

Kishin Houkou Demonbane – Anime First Impressions

Post author By hung
Post date May 21, 2006
8 Comments on Kishin Houkou Demonbane – Anime First Impressions

Demonbane is the second and last anime to premiere this month. It attempts to combine nearly every genre there is into one anime. There’s hints of sci-fi, magic, comedy, romance, ecchi, and even mecha! But does it work?

Anime First Impressions

Kamisama Kazoku – Anime First Impressions

Post author By hung
Post date May 20, 2006
14 Comments on Kamisama Kazoku – Anime First Impressions

Kamisama Kazoku is one of two anime making their debut this month. The other is Demonbane. So is the anime scene saturated with the school kids god genre, or can we take one more?