Category: anime

I’ve been thinking for some time that (legal) digital downloads of anime would be a great idea. The episodes are relatively short, and there are lots of them. There’s a relatively small but very dedicated fanbase. Animation compresses well, compared to live-action. It just seems to me that anime is a much better fit for the iTunes treatment than most of the stuff that’s already up there on the iTunes store. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any sign that Apple is interested in this.

ADV has just opened their own store for digital downloads. I’m a bit disappointed in their model though. They’re charging $5 per episode, which seems a bit high; I think $2 or $3 would make more sense. They’re using Windows DRM, too, so you can’t play the files on a Mac. Nor can you burn them to (watchable) DVDs.

I guess I’ll stick with watching whatever shows up on Cartoon Network, and buying the occasional DVD.

Right Stuf International has a bunch of Geneon DVDs on sale, 10 for $50 or 25 for $100. I have to admit I got sucked in on the latter deal. They had a bunch of stuff listed that I’ve been meaning to pick up, plus some stuff I was just curious about. I should be buried in anime DVDs in a week or two. Anything I don’t like can get traded off on Peerflix.

I was browsing through AMVs on Google Video today and found this FLCL AMV to the tune of “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus. I’d forgotten how much I like that song.

I decided to try and catch up on Fullmetal Alchemist a bit today, wattching a few episodes off my Tivo. I was glad to see that I had the first few episodes in the queue. I had originally started watching it near the end of the series, then I stopped watching it, then a few episodes got deleted off my Tivo because I ran out of space. So, basically, I wasn’t too sure where I was going to be. I enjoyed the first episode, but I was really puzzled with the second. Not long into it, I started hearing a bunch of random farting noises. I thought maybe there was some plot-based reason for this, but I couldn’t think of one. After a few minutes, it became obvious that something was very wrong. I checked the original air date, and realized that the episode had aired on April Fool’s day. This Wikipedia article confirms that Cartoon Network stuck a bunch of random fart noises in some of their programs on April 1. Way to go, guys. You made a perfectly good episode of FMA unwatchable. Now I’m going to have to go out and buy the DVD or something.

I finished watching Samurai Champloo a couple of days ago. It’s a great series; nearly as good as Cowboy Bebop. I’m re-watching some of the episodes now, catching some stuff I didn’t get on the first run-through.

AMALGAM is a pretty good Samurai Champloo fansite. I stumbled across it looking for info on some of the music from the show.

Got a lot of spare time on your hands? Amazon has a few Gundam model kits marked down, including this one, with over 400 parts, marked down from $70 to $10. I’ve never built a Gundam, but it’s fun to read about them, at least.

Beatbox Bandits is the Mushroom Samba of Samurai Champloo. Great stuff.

Nice write-up on Otakon from THE BEAT. And a bunch of random pictures on Flickr. I thought about going this year. Maybe next time.

I started watching Paranoia Agent yesterday. I watched the first four episodes. So far, so good. It definitely feels like a Satoshi Kon creation. (That’s a good thing.) The structure of the show reminds me a bit of David Lapham’s Stray Bullets. Interconnected stories with a bunch of interconnected characters, with the focus shifting from episode to episode, while maintaining certain common threads throughout.

Looks like Puffy AmiYumi will be playing in NYC on 8/18.