It’s December, and a new year is almost upon us. 2009 was a great year for anime fans, with a great abundance of new shows coming out. With all these great new shows, it’s tough to pick out the really good ones. Thus, I present to you, my list of the ten best anime of [...]
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Ahh such a shame we lost this post… I did rather like it… Anyway I introduced bakuman last time which is a shonen so I thought it would be fair to have a shojo this ... Related posts:Good News for AschInu-Neko Manga Gets Live-Action FilmKurokami -The Animation- Ep1 (Doppeliner); Black God Vol 1 Chapter 1 (Encounter-Inspiration) + Comparison
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Bandai has sent out a mailing announcing their February release dates but before we get into that let’s play our favorite game here on Otaku Review… Which Bandai Title Got Delayed Today? Alright, does everyone playing along at home have their pre-order slips out? A lot of big name releases have been set for the early [...]
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Two little Bandai Visual tidbits: 1. People whines about Kurokami’s reverse-importation schtiks. Do you care about Kurokami? Most people don’t. Which is why this nonsense continues, IMO. If it was a top selling title then I seriously doubt Bandai USA would let the Japanese have their way. Which is to say all this righteous indigination, while [...]
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Those of you who've been fans of anime long enough to remember buying VHS tapes of the stuff (officially) remember that if you were lucky on the show and stock, you could pick between a cassette with subtitles or with English-language dubs. Well, Bandai is bringing those days back with their release of the show. Come this February you can either order a Blu-Ray disc featuring Kurokami 's first four episodes dubbed in English ONLY, or you can order a more typical DVD with six episodes in both the English and Japanese languages along with subtitles. I don't know about you guys, but when I was buying those VHS tapes I would often grab the dubbed or subbed version based on what was available and what was cheaper/on sale, meaning that I would go back and forth between dubs and subs interchangeably. Because of the unusual episode numbering, that won't be possible here-- and at least for the time being, those who want it on Blu-Ray will have to put up with the English dub (or those who want the Japanese dub will have to deal with DVD). It's a very odd release pattern. If you want my speculation, it's this: the Japanese and Korean companies are concerned that since it's such a recent show, the region-free Blu-Ray release may result in reimportation problems, especially at the (for Blu-Ray) lowish price of $24.98 for four episodes (which is, of course, ridiculously low by Japanese standards, where the 3-episode Blu-Ray's SALE price is ¥7319 (about $81.50 USD). Even with shipping, importing the US release would make sense...if it came with the Japanese dub.   I suppose a really interesting piece of information would be whether the Korean Blu-Ray release had Japanese audio. Their BDs are cheaper, too, I believe. But how will that do here? It seems to me that it would make more sense to release a dub-and-sub DVD now and release a dub-and-sub Blu-Ray disc sometime later-- I'm thinking that people who want both high-res AND Japanese audio would prefer to wait than simply not have the product. And maybe a dub-and-sub Blu-Ray WILL be available later, but that would mean dividing the Blu-Ray audience into two separate products. Hmm. Well, we'll see how it goes. Are you planning to buy one of the Kurokami releases? If so, which one?
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So here we go, my first proper blog for Otaku Complex. Now I thought “what should I do?? I could do all those normal ones like update and chat about weekly chapters but oh my ... Related posts:Kurokami -The Animation- Ep1 (Doppeliner); Black God Vol 1 Chapter 1 (Encounter-Inspiration) + ComparisonTMX : Battle RoyaleNaruto 425
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August has come and gone, and with it, the life-size Odaiba Gundam-- which is now being taken down. Will it ever appear again? Maybe, maybe not. But the legend says that if you stare out at the Odaiba theme park on a clear night with a full moon, you can see some green eyes glowing in the darkness...Okay, that's a load of crap. But i can't imagine they'd go to the expense and never display the Gundam again, so hopefully it'll spring back up for other events eventually. In the meantime, a few of us were talking about the 'bot at KumoriCon-- I think it was Toshi (Yoshida, ADR producer on Gurren Lagann and Kurokami for Bandai Entertainment) who said that he'd calculated the rough shipping costs of the Gundam at $3 million-- which doesn't include the purchase of the Gundam itself, or a place to put it. In other words, it'd be cheaper to build our own than to import the one from Odaiba.Just sayin'.
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Hei and Yin are now on the run after betraying the Syndicate in the previous season. After leaving Japan, Hei encounters Suou Pavlichenko, a 13 year old Eurasian girl who becomes embroiled in the war ... Related posts:Black Lagoon OVA Confirmed For 2010Kurokami -The Animation- Ep1 (Doppeliner); Black God Vol 1 Chapter 1 (Encounter-Inspiration) + ComparisonBleach: Fade to Black
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The problem with writing about Sora no Manimani, I’ve noticed, is that it's really hard to not go overboard with screenshots. There’s just so many awesome screen gags (mostly Mii-chan gags) that I’d hate to leave anything out. Of course, this is a much better problem to have than the Kurokami problem, in which a show is so bad I just don’t know what to say about it.
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 What's New: Eureka Seven movie event confirmed to be the dub. Hayate no Gotoku part 2 comes out in September.  The Write-Up:I was told in advance that there wouldn't be any announcements, so rather than liveblogging this one I'm just going to type this one as I go and then post it. We started out with more talk about the Lantis and Bandai Visual iTunes project,  in which they're releasing a variety of anime soundtracks and other Jpop CDs (including Jam Project's concert from last year's Otakon!).  OH GOD technical difficulties! What is it, exactly, that makes those awful pop/explosion sounds come from speakers? It's not the high-pitched squeal of feedback, it's something different. I've never understood what causes it, much less what can prevent it. @_@ But now we're getting the Kannagi trailer.  Who the hell do you think I aaaaaam? We've got a separate trailer for the Eureka Seven movie evvent on September 24th, for which tickets go on sale on August 21st.  He also confirmed that this is the dub release, being done by Bang Zoom, of course.  Kurokami simul-DVD/Blu-Ray release (which was announced at Otakon last week), Code Geass R2, Gundam 00, Gurren Lagann-- always a lot of applause here -- Lucky Star OVA, Hayate the Combat Butler, which is coming out soon (July 21st). I love this trailer. It's all Norio Wakamoto's fault. Part two will be out in September! Glad to hear they're going to pump that one out. You know, I want to take a moment to note, and I wish I could shoot some video of this (damn battery!), but there's a young man who hits up all of the anime and manga panels at Comic-Con who's hearing-impaired, so there's a signer who translates the panels-- and in many cases, the dialogue of the trailers. It's really interesting to watch them translate the trailers. Right now I'm watching him do the Gurren Lagann trailer, and the sign for "Who the hell do you think I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam?!" is really cool. See, in sign language, shouting is approximated by exaggeration of the gestures.  Actually, I'd love to see some people do a full sign performance of an episode, really going all-out...that'd be really neat.  We're on the Ghost in the Shell: Innocence trailer and then True Tears (which just came out in its entirety this week), so I think we're nearing the end of the main part of the panel and we'll move into the Q&A shortly. So get your questions ready if you have any! I'm going to ask about Shigofumi if I can.  Sola is also coming out as a complete series in August. Freedom part 1 and Eureka Seven the complete collection are out this month.  Manga....Code Geass, Code Geass Suzaku of the Counter-Attack, Code Geass Nightmare of Nunnally....Gurren Lagann's first volume came out a while ago, and volume two is out next week. There are four volumes out in Japan so I guess we'll catch up pretty soon. The official manga for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time manga, which includes material not seen in the film, is also out soon, and a second printing of the Lucky Star manga (volume 1) is already in the works. Eureka Seven omnibus one, featuring volumes 1-3, is coming in September, and Witchblade Takeru's first omnibus will be out in November (the full two volumes into one larger volume).   Q&As Let's see how we do this time...
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