Fanime 2013 Overall Experience (and the horrors of Yaoi Bingo)

No, we didn’t go to the maid cafe. T_T

Truth be told, I was looking forward to going to Anime Expo 2013 during the earlier parts of the year – going to Fanime again this year was somewhat of a last minute thing. We ended up not having enough funds to afford going to LA and spending our time at the convention as pre-registered members. Fanime’s always fun, so I didn’t mind much. However, it did sour the experience in another way. Since we couldn’t book a room at the Marriott, Hilton, or any other nearby hotels this year (by the time we decided to go to Fanime again, all the reservations were full), we had to book a room at a motel called the “Hotel Elan” (yes, they call themselves a hotel) which was somewhat of a distance away from the San Jose Convention Center. It wasn’t too bad of a place nor was it miles away, but it was still far enough (approximately one mile) that we had to walk over there and take the bus every morning. We never got to the con at the earliest possible time, and since the neighborhood was pretty damn dangerous, we never stayed out too late. From now on, we’re definitely making plans for Fanime every year except when we’re 100% sure we’re going to another con.

Continue reading Fanime 2013 Overall Experience (and the horrors of Yaoi Bingo)…

Criticism vs. Hate

Image Credit: a-ka

“I found the romance somewhat lacking”, “the animation in this scene was horrible”, “good god what were they thinking while making this”, etc.

Sometimes, when you’re listening to a person’s opinion on a particular subject (say, a certain anime or maybe manga/VN), this person seems to go on long tangents about how a certain aspect of the story didn’t meet their expectations and continue by picking apart other qualities that the writers did wrong in their eyes, and seem to have more to say about the negative aspects than the positive aspects of the story. Jesus, this person must FRIGGIN’. HATE. THIS ANIME.

And then you realize: “No, wait… what? This person likes this anime? Not just like, it’s their favorite? Well hell, how the heck was I suppose to know that when they kept on talking down on it!”

Continue reading Criticism vs. Hate…

The funny thing about Kyoto Animation

Image Credit: koba from Pixiv

I realize that I may be beating a dead horse, but I’m still (after all of these years) baffled at KyoAni’s business practices. They’re just so bizarre and simply do not match what your typical business-minded person would think of when you say “making a profit from popularity.”

This is seriously one of the ONLY times where I wished a company would milk their popular products, yet they don’t! They just don’t want my money. Do they like money? Because they don’t like mine.

Continue reading The funny thing about Kyoto Animation…

Wahfuu Rant: The Nukige Effect

How’s it feel knowing that people look at this and Bible Black as the same thing?

Oh boy, have I wanted to do this one.

I’m probably going to offend someone here, and if I do, I at least slightly apologize. I just can’t much take this anymore. I really get more and more annoyed every time this seemingly stupid subject comes up whenever the topic of VNs comes up. It’s driven me to the point of madness here, and this is at least a slight release for something I’ve wanted to say for awhile.

Continue reading Wahfuu Rant: The Nukige Effect…

(Wahfuu) Little Busters! Rant! Seriously, People?

Flippin around doin yo airbenderin shit.

I must say, I typically am one to let things die after I’ve said them once. If people don’t listen, like, appreciate, or agree with whatever someone says the first time, repeating something just becomes annoying and doesn’t really contribute to any sort of productivity. I think I’m going to break my own code of conduct one time here though. Just once. Then I’ll hopefully be able to shut up about this forever.

For about the 100th time this month, this is about Little Busters!, the terribly stupid hatred on J.C staff, the KyoAni gurgling, and just the amazing amounts of stupidity I have seen across the entire board from everything.

Continue reading (Wahfuu) Little Busters! Rant! Seriously, People?…

Dubbies are as simple-minded as subbies

Hm, what’s this now? Did I strike a nerve?

I’m not speaking for everyone who prefers Japanese audio in their Japanese media, but this is how I personally feel about dub fanboys. Fanboys, mind you, not fans. That, or people that think Japanese voice preferences are the qualities of lower lifeforms. I like a handful of dubs myself, so I can’t exactly be classified as a dub-hater, either. Just getting it out there before anyone jumps on me for being a fanboy of subs/raws. Truth is, I also can’t stand people who treat Japanese as the only language that deserves to exist either (it’s an awesome language, mind you, but wording it like that’s just going too far).

However, enough dub fanboys have ranted about such people in recent years, and the way they go about it is getting more and more obnoxious as the years go on. Even more obnoxious than the people who treat Japan as the only country worth existing. I feel the need to step in and give my own thoughts on the matter by picking apart common generalizations regarding people who prefer to watch their anime and play Japanese video games in Japanese. Basically, why these people (who act like it’s a cool thing to call people “weaboos” just because they prefer Japanese voices for certain things) are IDIOTS.

Continue reading Dubbies are as simple-minded as subbies…

Ragging on Japan for no reason – not doing the research

7:19

“…What am I saying to these girls? No matter what I choose they always seem to have sex with me.”

-Gamespot

Yeah. Yeah, this guy is a moron.

Joking about Japan’s perverse media is all in good fun. That is, when it applies. When it doesn’t, you just come across as a giant bigot.

Which is exactly what this is.

Continue reading Ragging on Japan for no reason – not doing the research…

Hiatus manga series are the bane of me

A few days ago, I decided to catch up on D•N•Angel thinking, “It’s been a year already, surely Yukiru Sugisaki picked it back up!”

It shouldn’t be surprising that my expectations were shot down. In typical Sugisaki fashion, the latest chapter of D•N•Angel in 2012 is exactly the same one I left of at during the beginning of 2011. Apparently she is really focusing on Ascribe to Heaven (which hasn’t gotten a translation past the first chapter) or she’s just lazing around and disappointing her fans. I mean, so far I like Ascribe to Heaven and find the art scrumptious, but I don’t have high hopes for it going anywhere seeing as Sugisaki has a track record of not finishing manga. This may sound hypocritical coming from a blog that might as well have been renamed to The Hiatus Spot in the past, but there is truth in what I’m saying here.

Sugisaki may be the worse offender of this, but there have been other manga groups like CLAMP that (despite having a number of completed works) also have quite a few unfinished works that are put on hold. Even then, they at least make an attempt to update sporadically and see it through(picking up Legal Drug again as Drug and Drop is a good example). Sugisaki, not so much. While she did pick up D•N•Angel, is putting it on hold RIGHT AT A CRUCIAL PLOT TWIST (just to focus on a NEW MANGA instead of updating her previous ones) a good strategy? Unlike me, some fans aren’t as faithful and persistent.

This is why I think mangaka should go with Kyoto Animation’s “one series at a time” philosophy, especially since it’s really just one person on the workforce plus a few assistants and editors. An advice to mangaka: Move onto a new project AFTER you’ve finished the one you’re working on now. It doesn’t matter if the art is delicious or if the writing is superb, all of it just becomes a downer if you’re going to deprive fans of it for most of the run… for nearly a decade, only for you to drop it again soon after picking it back up. For fans in places other than Japan, it hurts us even more since licensors will stop being interested in localizating their works because of their reputation of hardly finishing anything.

Do you guys agree with me on this stance? Should manga writers be limited to making one series and see it through before making a new one? If not, if you were to give the writer any suggestions on how to handle more than one series at a time, what would they be? Do you have any other examples other than the one mentioned in the post? Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The Podcast With No Name – Episode 1: Popping the Cherry

On the agenda for our pilot episode, we have the upcoming Little Busters! anime, Spice & Wolf and other light novels, Da Capo III and other untranslated visual novels, Tales of Xillia being localized, and of course, plenty of extra topics because we can’t stop talking.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Wahfuu rant! What the hell, protag?

I’m sorry, but this is all we found inside his head.

What is something that everyone knows about harem-style anime?

• The girls will be cute.
• Bentou lunches will be made.
• Tsuns and deres will be everywhere.
• …Annnnnnd the protags will be fucking denser than stone.

Continue reading Wahfuu rant! What the hell, protag?…

RE: The roots of our fandom

Yumeka of Mainichi Anime Yume wrote an article where she harkened back to her childhood and examined the origins of when her love of anime first began and, of course, why it still persists in her heart today. She asked her readers if they could trace any instances of early “nerdom” within their childhoods that may have contributed to their love for anime today and if there were any obstacles in regards to the indulgence in these hobbies (home environment, parents, peers, etc.)

Instead of sharing my own story as a comment on her blog, I decided to reply to it as a post of my own.

Continue reading WALLS OF NOSTALGIA AND TEXT LOL…

Sword Art Online: Likes and Dislikes (First Impressions)

Now that I’ve finally got around to starting up Sword Art Online (the first three episodes), I finally gathered enough initial feelings about this anime in order to write a thorough impression on it.

I have to be honest here. The only other anime series about “playing an online game” that I ever really liked before this ever came around as an animation was the .hack series, if only for the strong character development, dialogue, and feeling believable as a high-caliber virtual MMO, despite the hazardous sides to it (Morganna, Data Drain, etc.).

So how exactly does Sword Art Online hold up for me in comparison?

Continue reading MIKOTO NITPICKING ABOUT THINGS

A way for studios to avoid bad fillers

It’s common knowledge within the anime fandom that series based off of on-going manga or light novels resort to producing original episodes, which serve as padding, in order for the anime’s story to maintain a certain distance from the original story.

However, there’s somewhat of an inherent problem with fillers or anime-original episodes. Half of the time they’re bad, sometimes they’re decent, and very rarely are they ever as good as the genuine articles. More on this after the jump.

Continue reading A way for studios to avoid bad fillers…

School Days: Review/Rant!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That’s right folks! JAST has released the very infamous School Days visual novel for all the public to see! So grab your blanket and sad-faces, right? Everyone knows how this is going to go! Everyone has seen this damn anime, so naturally, the visual novel is probably going to be equally as disturbing! I bet everyone who is probably avoiding this visual novel, as if it’s been infected with the black plague, is probably wondering who in their damn right minds would play the gore-fest horror-story that is School Days.

…Except, not really.

Want to know how this went? Long story short, it went fine. No, I’m serious. It went fine. And I’m sure a ton of people reading this is going to call me a liar, but I promise! No shenanigans. Seriously. This was honestly the most anti-climactic experience I think I ever had. So, if it went fine, I bet you’re wondering what this post is about then? Well, it’s honestly half a review, half a rant. So, let’s get this started!

Continue reading School Days: Review/Rant!…

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 01 (Manga Comparison) – INJURED BY A CHILDREN’S CARD GAME LAWL

So, after Toei’s anime was cancelled after adapting the first seven volumes like total spazzes, Konami and Nihon Ad Systems decided to make their own Yu-Gi-Oh! adaptation two years later. Only this adaptation was made to be a pure advertisement for their card game. This was their plan: skip the first seven volumes of the manga, remove everything unrelated to Duel Monsters before and after (or make them related), and go straight to the first story arc where Duel Monsters take center stage as the main game – Duelist Kingdom. King of “Games”, my ass.

Problem is, it doesn’t completely skip the first seven volumes, per se. They decided to mesh up elements from the early manga and re-imagine them in their Duel Monsters-centric anime (such as characters), creating one of the worst introduction sagas in an anime to ever hit television. Ever. To name one, Seto Kaiba, the #1 gamer in Japan and poster boy for Magic & Wizards (as the card game is called in the Japanese manga), had his whole arc rewritten as the first episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.

Basically, the whole first episode is a “kitbash” of his two introduction chapters from the manga and the Death-T saga, a story revolving around his “amusement” park of deadly games – all designed to kill Yuugi and his friends in the name of vengeance. Needless to say, skipping seven volume’s worth of details and rewriting one volume’s worth of events into one anime episode will always result in one thing:

Total. BS.

Continue reading Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 01 (Manga Comparison) – INJURED BY A CHILDREN’S CARD GAME LAWL…

Yu-Gi-Oh! (1998 Toei Animation) 01 Manga Comparison

This episode was Yu-Gi-Oh!‘s official anime debut, based on chapter one of the manga, “The Puzzle of the Gods.” As you can guess, it shows Yuugi completing the Sennen Puzzle and awakening his other half “Dark Yuugi”, befriending Jonouchi, and starting his spree of mindraping just about anyone that messes with him or his friends/family through Games of Darkness.

Appropriately, the first episode is one of the more faithful episodes of this anime, despite some characterization changes and the Game of Darkness between Yuugi and Ushio (no, not the cute one from CLANNAD xD) being completely different, as well as his Penalty Game.

Continue reading Yu-Gi-Oh! (1998 Toei Animation) 01 Manga Comparison…

Visual Novels vs. Dating Simulation Games

A widely skewed image of the visual novel genre. and a commonly incorrect usage of the term “dating simulation,” keeps people from trying out an otherwise excellent method of storytelling.

Take the rather recent “Katawa Shoujo,” for instance. Many people went in thinking it was a “dating sim” about disabled girls. While the story is about disabled girls, it is not a dating simulation game. It’s an emotional visual novel that will break even the most wicked of souls. Calling it a dating simulation game is as correct as calling Half-Life 2 an RPG. Or Eiken a “good anime” (ha ha). Which is why I felt like making this post, “Visual Novels vs. Dating Simulation Games.” For all you savvy folks out there, this post isn’t to put down one or the other, but to educate.

Within this post, I will post both the similarities and differences between visual novels and dating sims, and hope to take down any misconceptions about the former by forming a clear description of what the latter really is.

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“Why do the Japanese draw themselves as Caucasians?”

Funny thing is, they don’t. The belief that anime characters “look white” is all based on a narrow perception that people tend to have when they are brought up in countries that have a large European influence.

Continue reading “Why do the Japanese draw themselves as Caucasians?”…

My thoughts on One Manga and Manga Fox getting shut down

Oh well. They were pretty convenient sites whenever I was on a budget or in a hurry for some good manga reading. Not that big of a loss, at least for me. Granted, it was fun browsing through random titles and reading whatever looked interesting immediately.

As long as they don’t purge the whole internet of scanlation sites, I’m cool with this. That kind of move would be one of the most retarded moves the manga industry could ever make. I know a good amount of people (including me) that like to read unlicensed titles before they hit the United States, to make sure we like it or not, before buying (in extreme cases, some titles don’t get licensed at all). Nothing beats holding the actual manga books!

I can understand the Japanese manga industry intervening, since a good amount of bastard-fans over there like to pirate raw scans and scanlations despite having access to those products.

Manga isn’t even that expensive in Japan, compared to the DVDs and video games. It’s not even expensive at all. They’re cheaper than manga books in the United States. Way to potentially screw some of us over. ):<

Top 10 Xenophobic/Ignorant Attitudes Aimed Towards Japanese Media

I’ll give you a cookie if you can name all three characters and where they originated.

The list is in no specific order. #5 may apply to other countries, as well. Also note that I’m against these opinions, not siding with them.

Continue reading Top 10 Xenophobic/Ignorant Attitudes Aimed Towards Japanese Media…