To continue our trend of cute cosplay, today I have for you Ichigodraw from the land of romance itself, France. She loves to dress up as Miku Hatsune, and I don’t blame her. Having long turquoise hair is what every man, woman, and child dreams about every single night. Her cuteness level is definitely high, almost sickening, she could easily be a real life anime character. If you like those picture check the rest out here.  
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This WTF Wednesday is dedicated to the comedy goldmine known as anime screenshots, but not ordinary screenshots--out of context screenshots, translation error screenshots, or plain old funny screenshots. I mean really, can you think of anything funnier than Suzaku telling you that he is going to pleasure himself with a fish? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. However, this might seem like fun and games now, but if you ever watched a series with horrible Hong Kong subtitles you know that these translations are a reality. Yes, they are funny, but when you are trying to understand a storyline, it is the most irritating thing in the world. The good thing is most Hong Kong subtitles have vanished from this planet, so you do not have to worry, though my memories will be with me forever. Enjoy this enormous gallery while I cry on my bed.    Average Ghost In The Shell episode.
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 KA-MAYA-MAYA!!! While I’m the resident Anime Noob here, I’ve actually been watching anime (on and off) for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Singapore, some of my earliest memories of TV involved watching DORAEMON and CAPTAIN HARLOCK on TV. The series that I actually started following, consciously, when I was 7 or 8 was DRAGONBALL Z. Back then, I didn’t even know what “anime” was… I was just watching a cartoon. Judging from a lot of comments here, it seems that a lot of you lunatics in the Anime Vice community first got interested in all this stuff after watching POKEMON or NARUTO. Well, DBZ was the one for me and I watched a different dub than most Americans encountered on Cartoon Network. That is, the one I watched showed Gohan’s wee-wee. My friends and I watched enough DBZ that we were able to break down the typical DBZ saga… STEP ONE: Gohan and Krillin are doing something innocuous in the woods while Goku’s going through some absurd training exercise. They’re fishing or camping or whatever… STEP TWO: Aliens (could be evil Saiyans, could be Freeza) attack. They toss Gohan away and then beat the hell out of Krillin while Gohan watches, crying about it. STEP THREE: Getting the distress call, Goku arrives and puts the hurt on the aliens. STEP FOUR: The aliens charge up and beat up Goku while Gohan cries. STEP FIVE: Gohan charges up and makes a valiant fight against the aliens to protect Goku, but he’s then tossed away. He then, of course, cries about it. STEP SIX: Vegeta or Piccolo or Yamcha arrive to fight the aliens, only to get their asses kicked, too. STEP SEVEN: Goku reaches some new level of power - - maybe a new Saiya level or a summoned spirit bomb - - and then blows the aliens to Kingdom Come. Let me know if any of that sounds off-base. Speaking just from my perspective, I have to say that DBZ’s something of a guilty pleasure. It is stupid - - senseless fighting stretched over 40 episodes arcs, with so much charging up throughout. But, you know what? Often times, you’re in the mood for stupid, so I’ll always have a soft-spot for DBZ. Hell, anytime I feel like I’m flying high, like I’m doing better than usual, I tell people I’ve gone Super-Saiyan. And I do shout, "It's over NINE THOUSAND!!!!" from time-to-time. So, what I want to know is… where does DBZ fit in the hearts of experienced anime fans. Do you share the same endearment for it that I have? Do you think it has greater complexities that I’m missing? Or do you roll your eyes over the fact that this is the series that so many people pay attention to, the one whose notoriety comes at the expense of possibly better anime? -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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While you're all drinking margaritas (virgin margaritas for you young'uns out there) today in celebration of Cinco de Mayo remember that today also marks an auspicious day in Japan-U.S. history: sixty-five years ago today forces of the Japanese Empire launched their only fatal attack on the lower forty-eight states, claiming six lives in rural southern Oregon. Why attack the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest you ask? Well, the simple answer is that the winds carried the war there, because the attack didn't come from any soldier, but rather from a paper balloon bomb.   Much in the same way that Germany experimented with various long-range terror weapons during WWII, such as the V-series rockets, the Japanese also had their own programs. But whereas the coastlines of Germany and the United Kingdom lie only as much as hundreds of miles away from each other Japan and America had thousands of miles of ocean between them. The balloons, called fuusen bakudan in Japanese, were the brainchild of Teiji Takada, a major in the Ninth Army Technical Research Laboratory who realized that the only way to launch an attack from such a distance given the technology of the 1940s was to utilize the jet stream, a current of swiftly flowing tropospheric air that runs east over Japan to North America. While the Japanese didn't discover the jet stream (that happened during the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883) they were the first to understand its effects thanks to experiments during the 1920s, and with the balloons they were the first to purposefully utilize its effects.  Though it may be crass to say of a device that killed six people, the balloons' design was ingenious. At first made of silk, the hydrogen used to inflate the balloons was found to be leaking through seams so the engineers switched to canopies made entirely of washi, a rough, traditional paper made from mulberry bushes. The paper squares were pasted together using a glue made from konnyaku (a starchy vegetable that you may have eaten if you've ever had lychee jelly cups from an Asian grocery). Altitude was controlled via an electric altimeter that jettisoned sandbags when the balloon dipped below 9,000 meters and vented hydrogen when it climbed above 11,000. After three days the balloon finished its 5,000 mile trip across the Pacific, a timer tripped, and the deadly payload would be released onto...whatever might lie below.  With around 9,000 balloons launched, hundreds shot down over North American airspace and millions of square miles of uninhabited continental land how in the heck did one of these even kill a person? On that fateful day in May one Reverend Archie Mitchell took his wife and five children from his Sunday school class on a picnic to Leonard Creek just outside the town of Bly, Oregon. Shortly after arriving the group found one of the balloon bombs hanging from a nearby tree and, not knowing of its danger due to the press cover-up of the devices, went to investigate, only to have the payload explode and kill the Reverend's wife and all five students. A terrible tragedy caused by one of WWII's strangest weapons programs.
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Welcome to today’s Cosplay Spotlight, this time we come from the depths of El Salvador to bring you cute Kipi-chan. Her cosplay is not drop dead amazing, or filled with extreme detail, but the way she makes it work is what really sells it for me. Right now I proclaim Kipi-chan El Salvador’s ambassador to cute. Who would argue with that? Not to mention Faye Ling cosplay is always win in my book. She has tons of pictures, check them all out here.    Awww she didn't have room for her "E"
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 Is this a fanart? Or is it official? Well, that had to be the most OMINOUS solo game of pick-up basketball ever committed to film. There was just such a serious underscore to Toji shooting some hoops - - it was as if his free throws held the fate of Tokyo-3 entire! He hasn’t even suited up into his Eva yet and the “fourth child” is already got the world in his hands. Ha! And yeah, even though they never come out and say he’s the newest Eva pilot here, it was four kinds of obvious that he is. That’s got to be the biggest slap in the face for Shinji (even bigger than red palm Rei left on his cheek earlier). The kid who bullied you for not piloting your Eva to his satisfaction is now going to be joining your team? Sheesh… that’s a twist I wasn’t expecting. They still haven’t explained what the rhyme or reason is to these kids selection, either. I remember somebody saying that there was some surprise to explain the illogic of entrusting these walking WMD’s to 16-year-olds, but I’ve yet to see it. Going back to what I was saying about the underscore earlier, I have to say that the soundtrack to this series is really growing on me. Keep in mind that my own point of reference for long-form anime shows so far is VISION OF ESCAFLOWNE. While I don’t think this score is necessarily as tuneful as ESCAFLOWNE’s (that is, I can’t really hum along to as I could to, say, Falkan’s theme) it certainly has a muscularity that I appreciate. The drums and highly-strung strings ratchet up the sense of tension and danger when called for - - really making it seem like the world’s about to end. And I suppose that fits the tone of this versus ESCAFLOWNE. EVANGELION feels a lot more aggressive and muscular by comparison. Some discussion regarding dubbing arose over my review of the last episode. I’ll confess that I’ve been watching this dubbed the whole time. That’s really continuing from my watching of FLCL dubbed. I tried to watch it subbed, but the dialogue ran so fast that it was truly too hard to keep up. I switched to the dubbed version out of necessity. But I don’t know - - while I did watch ESCAFLOWNE subbed, I’ve preferred to watch features like AKIRA and PRINCESS MONONOKE dubbed. I think it’s because dialogue frequently runs so fast in these (it’s the realm of speedlines, after all) that having to read the dialogue, rather than hearing it, draws me out of the experience. Anyway, that’s my take… I’m curious to hear all of yours. I know anime fans can be very passionate about their preferences in the dubbed/subbed divide. Where do you lunatics in the Anime Vice community stand?  -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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Rejoice! It appears as if we might be getting some new Avatar sometime in the future, but nothing has officially been announced yet. How do we know this? Well, because Nickelodeon Animation Studio is currently looking to hire specific people for what they call a “Untitled Avatar the Last Airbender Project”. This is fantastic news, for I’m sure the hype for this franchise is going to be high thanks to the live-action film, the perfect opportunity to showcase a new show. But the question on everyone’s mind is what they will do about the story. Will it take place after the original, with all the same characters, or will it feature the next avatar in the avatar cycle? I kind of hope it is a new avatar, but I don’t think they will drop these characters anytime soon.   [Via Topless Robot]
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The ninja kid with the bleach blond hair and the metal headband is just walking on sunshine, ain’t he? Believe it! Just recently, NARUTO surpassed a new sales bracket and, now, we’ve got an announcement from ICv2 letting everybody know about new NARUTO sets rolling out this fall. The biggest of these items is NARUTO CCG SERIES 18: FANGS OF THE SNAKE, which is comprised of one hundred - - count ‘em, ten times ten - - new cards depicting Team Snake’s founding. Sasuke, Jugo, Karin, Suigetsu and the rest of Naruto’s pals will, of course, all be getting cards in this new line, which is dolled out in ten card packs at $3.99 a pop. Three NARUTO collectible tins will be joining this set, as well. Each one includes two boosters from SERIES 18: FANGS OF THE SNAKE, two booster packs from SERIES 17: WILL OF FIRE and a special promo card. Have you got all of that straight? Because, at first, it was a little confusing to keep all the numbers straight for me. I do know that each one rings up to the tune of $14.99. 18 card sets and 48 manga volumes. That’s the sign of a healthy NARUTO.  -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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Next to INCEPTION, I’d say THE LAST AIRBENDER is the movie I’m looking forward to the most this summer. I haven’t had a chance to watch the Nick Toon, but fans have spoken so effusively about its merits, I definitely need to witness it sometime. Either way, I’ve been very impressed by the trailers and I’m looking forward to seeing a kid kicking ass on the big screen. As I’ve said, it’s been far too long since THREE NINJAS. If your mind was blown by the latest trailer, then I’m sure you’re going to get a kick out of these slick character posters that Countingdown’s gotten their hands on just recently (by way of IGN).  You’ve got Noah Ringer as Aang, of course, and Dev Patel as Prince Zuko. Having studied graphic design a bit, myself, I have to say that these are really well done. They’re minimalistic without being bland, there’s a great sense of mood and power in the color schemes and the photo compositing integrates very well graphically. Having seen one too many shoddily-done Photoshop collages that’ve been passed off  as official posters, I think it’s worth noting that these actually look like good illustrations. Anyway, what do you lunatics in the Anime Vice community, fans and haters alike, think of these? -- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Pre-order the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover now on Amazon.com.
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 Princess Tutu cosplay Anime Vice user MetalSnakeZero took a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last weekend for Sakura Matsuri 2010, and lucky for us he brought his camera. Sakura Matsuri is not a traditional anime convention, but more like a festival that celebrates Japanese culture. Love it or hate it, throwing any type of Japanese themed event nowadays is going to attract cosplayers, and Sakura Matsuri is no exception. I have to admit, I’d rather have a convention in beautiful botanic gardens rather than some musty convention hall. Thanks MetalSnakeZero for taking these awesome pictures!    
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