I was going to write a series of impressions on the new shows this season, much like I did last season, but to be honest the sense of mediocrity which pervades the bulk of the season with its putrid stench has made me rethink the whole idea. To be blunt, everything new this season that’s not a sequel, to borrow a phrase from my esteemed colleague, is made of shit-flavoured ass biscuits.
Archive for the 'Anime' CategoryPage 3 of 29
I’ve got a defective copy of Eureka 7 vol 11. Despite the fact that Bandai has made a rather public mea culpa over the fact that their replicators suck shit and have recalled a pile of stuff from their January releases, apparently I am somehow unworthy of having my broken copy replaced, because I’m not in the USA or Canada.
I’ve been a long-time supporter of the idea of paying for anime series I’ve pirated (read: watched fansubbed) and subsequently enjoyed enough that I feel that they’re worth my money. For an industry that’s struggling to find any semblance of meaning in our post-internet world, they sure like to screw us. A lot of people have laughed at my tendency to buy anime DVDs, and perhaps they were right all along. This is absolutely the last straw for me. I intend to complete buying Eureka 7 - only one volume left - and then I will never buy another Bandai DVD, ever, unless they smarten up and realise that if they want us to pay money for the shit they spew out, then it needs to be somehow superior to the fansubs I watched for free two years ago. And also that the world changed while they were asleep and they need to stop being so fucking insular. Where I live should have no bearing on whether I can get a product I’ve paid for replaced in a recall like this.
Fuck you, Bandai. I hope I’m around to dance on your company’s fucking grave when you go bankrupt.
This will be yet another boring entry where I’m going to list off the stuff starting in the January ‘08 that I intend to look into and hopefully watch. Hopefully this won’t end up like last season, where I basically stopped watching anything regularly aside from Gundam due to a high boredom quotient.
Continue reading ‘January 2008 Anime’
I have to admit that in the last couple years, my fondness for the Anime News Network has waned considerably. While I appreciate its editors giving me an opportunity to become a published writer, and remain a big fan of their work with Protoculture Addicts (the only anime magazine I’d willingly read), the website just isn’t what it used to be. However, it’s not without its occasional strokes of genius, and yesterday saw one of those by way of an editorial by ANN founder and former owner, Justin Sevakis. Titled “An Open Letter to the Industry,” the editorial covers a number of topics relating to the struggling anime industry, both domestically and in Japan. With the failure of major player Geneon earlier this year and the recent increased Japanese hostility towards fansubs, the future of anime both here and abroad has been a much discussed topic of late, with many greatly differing opinions. But what makes Sevakis’s analysis stand out so much is that unlike most other industry insiders, he doesn’t engage in an overly defensive and dismissive tirade against the evils of video piracy, and unlike most fans, he doesn’t blindly point fingers at domestic anime distributors for being greedy capitalist pigs. Rather, he fairly points out the broader problem as it concerns all parties involved, and uses his informed position to devise a possible, viable solution.
And if you ask me, he couldn’t be more right.
Just a quickie this time. I promised several people that I would make Ako next on my Negima list (it helps that she’s one of the easiest of the ones left), and I’d actually started on her months ago, but never finished the lineart. So yes, I’m still chipping away at that Negima project. Feel free to request another character - if people want one, I’m much more likely to get around to them. To be honest, I think a lot of my motivation went out the window when Megami started running that series of awesome swimsuit posters with all the girls - in comparison, the eyecatches from the first OVA are kind of flat.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I recoloured her hair. For some reason in the eyecatch it’s steel grey, when it should be light purple. Wierd.
I’ve updated the status page too.