Last night while prowling about on the internetz, I came across a video that can even melt the heart of Satan.  Do you know how seriously bad ass such a video would have to be?  Do you? Watch this video.   Be amazed at the cuteness.  BE AMAZED! By the way, I watched and listened to this video for almost an hour.  Over and over and OVER.  Stig-san has seen it a few times himself.  If some of you cold hearted bastards suddenly want to hug puppies, do not blame it on me.  BLAME IT ON CLANNAD AND DANGO DANGO AND POKEMANS!!

Yea, I know. I usually don’t post any anime news, but on this occasion, I have to make an exception.

As you may or may not know, gia and Kuro is at the New York Comic Con hitting it o–, I mean, giving us news from the Con…Uh, yea. The best thing I’ve heard so far aside from the silence of not having to hear Kuro’s whining is that Bandai Entertainment has acquire the license to Gurren Lagann. According to gia’s blog, Bandai will release a sub only release this July and the full goodness early next year.

Really, I don’t wanna take gia’s glory for giving us the news. GO READ HER BLOG HERE!

Btw, don’t ask where I found the picture. For I have no idea at all. If you like it, right click and save it, don’t question.

Just thought I’d let y’all know that my massive Spring 2008 Anime Preview is UP.

IT IS DELICIOUS.

♥

I am the bone of my sword
Steel is my body and fire is my blood
I have created over a thousand blades
Unknown to death…
Nor known to life.
Have withstood pain to create many weapons
Yet those hands will never hold anything
So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works

I’m sure none of you Type-Moon or Fate/Stay Night fans are unfamiliar with Archer’s Noble Phantasm, “Unlimited Blade Works”, but are you familiar with “Yo Quiero Taco Bell”?

Some very awesome members over at the Mirror-Moon forums has made a parody of Archer’s UBW in Mexican style. View original post here.

I am tortilla of my burritos.
Oily is my beef, unwashed is my lettuce.
I have rolled over a thousand taquitos.
Unknown to burgers.
Nor known to fries.
Have withstood pain of diarrhea.
Yet, those hands have never been washed.
So, as I pray “Yo Quiero Taco Bell.”

I’m not sure about you guys, but I think this is even better than the original Unlimited Blade Works…

Just the other day, when I was randomly browsing the Type-Moon website when a single line on their announcements caught my eye.

“■劇場版「空の境界」DVD連続リリース開始！詳しくはINFORMATIONにて”

To be perfectly honest, the only words I can get out of that sentence are “Kara no Kyoukai”, “DVD”, “Release” and “INFORMATION” but that’s really enough to get me interested. This was actually announced on the 13th, but the first DVD for Kara no Kyoukai has been scheduled for release on May the 21st in two packages, one with a whole bunch of special features a box and some other doohickeys, and one with just the first movie on it’s own.

I’m a fan of any Kinoko Nasu work, so I’ve been pretty damn excited about Kara no Kyoukai for a long time now. If I had a credit card of my own I’d snatch up the special edition DVDs right away, regardless of the fact that the DVDs won’t work in my players. Unfortunately I’m not so lucky.

Hopefully when this is released, someone can get it and get on subbing it. Is anyone else here as excited as I am?

In case you can’t quite spot what the above picture is of, the anime you should watch is Medabots. A story of a world where everyone has a Megaman like assistant to do battle with. Guns, swords, breasts, small robots, giant robots; what more could you need?

Read on after the jump as to why this show is awesome as hell. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I was supposed to have a so-called “date” today (today meaning Thursday, March the 6th) as people who frequent the Japanator IRC channel might have heard me saying, but I didn’t go because I simply didn’t feel like it. Instead, I have written the second installment of “Anime I Regret Watching” because I’m cool like that(or not).

Anime I regret watching #4: Shuffle! Memories.

What the heck did they do to Primula’s face!?

The first problem about this anime is, I can’t figure out why they made it. I mean, aside from the reason to rip more money off of anime fans, there is simply no reason to have this 12 episodes “sequel” where 11 are made out of recaps. No, I’m not kidding. If you are a Shuffle! fan and thought, “Oh yay! Sequel to Shuffle!” Hold your horses, because it is definitely not a sequel. There is -some- (Note: Very little.) original content within the recaps, and the only episode out of the 12 that contains 100% original content is the last episode, which just an OVA with the usual crew on a boat and have nothing to do with the plot.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved the original Shuffle! series. However, I don’t love it enough to watch a water-downed version of it. Frankly, if I want to watch Shuffle! again, I’ll just watch Shuffle! again! Why would I go ahead and watch 11 episode of a water downed version of a series that I enjoyed all of the 24 episodes in the original series!? Why!?

The plot had to be trimmed and condensed so that they can fit 24 episodes into 11, which means only the dramatic scenes get left in and as a result, you can’t relate to the character as well as the original series. Aside from that, this series has more or less the same quality of the original. The animation quality was a tad bit higher, but everything else remained the same. After all, this is just a recap. The only major change in this recap version of Shuffle! is the music, and again, why!? The original music was great, but they just had to go around fiddling with the OP and ED, putting in second rate songs that are sung by the seiyuu, it’s just horrible!

So overall, if you haven’t seen the original Shuffle! series, go watch that instead of this. If you watched Shuffle! and want more of it, only get the last episode of Shuffle! Memories.

More bad anime after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I had this dream last night, and I’m going to share it with you.

I was apparently back in high school, and I had this teacher who I think now was actually a hybrid of various teachers I didn’t like, including my 2nd-8th grade science teacher, my college advisor, and one of my current Japanese teachers.

Anyway, our class was going to be playing Jeopardy against this other class. I don’t know what the classes were in seeing as the topics ranged pretty broadly, but whatever!

The other class got asked a test question, and a bunch of clips from Gurren Lagann were played. I don’t know what the question (or, since it’s Jeopardy, the ‘answer’) actually was, but two guys– one of whom was a friend of mine in high school –got up and did a little hip hop dance number to the “Ro, Ro, Fight the Power” bit.

And then I got up and pointed out that they didn’t answer in the form of a question. And made fun of them for overdoing it and showing off. Because that’s how we rolled in high school.

♥

I can only assume that yesterday’s trifecta of awesome anime news– a new season of Slayers, news on the long-in-development Trigun movie, and an anime adaptation of Fumi Yoshinaga’s phenomenal 1999 character study Antique Bakery –is the sign of GOOD THINGS TO COME.

Namely, that perhaps Japanese companies are realizing that they really need to stop populating every season with a half-dozen or so shounen romance/moe drama series.

Relatively few of these shows are actually what I’d call *bad*. But after a while, shows like KimiKiss, sola, KimiAru, True Tears, H2O, Nagasarete Airantou, Seto no Hanayome, Umisho, Sumomomo Momomo, Happiness!, OtoBoku, etc…they just tend to all blur together. (And for the record, I’ve enjoyed a handful of those shows, so don’t think I’m just picking on the genre as a whole.)

Obviously it would be better if Japanese companies were coming up with more new and original stuff, but a return to some awesome shows– especially the fourth Slayers season and the Trigun movie, both of which are fulfilling promises made to fans about a decade ago –isn’t a bad way to go, especially for the US where moe shows don’t sell as easily as they do in Japan.

So, I for one think that all three of these pieces of news are a Good Sign. We don’t have to ditch moe entirely, we just need to be a little pickier about how many get anime’d. Ya?

I’ve been meaning to do this post even before I did the “anime you’ll (or at least, I did,) regret watching” post, but I just never got around to it. So I guess I’ll finally do this post.

Just thought I should mention before I get on to the real topic that I have withdrawn from my high school to do home (internet) schooling because of my health issues that keeps me from attending school. So until March 31st (which is when the internet school semester starts.) I’ll have a bit more time than normal.

Now that I’ve finish briefing the world up about my life, let’s get on with the main topic.

Anime I enjoyed watching #1: The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

I really don’t think I have to describe this one, but since I did say I would put a small review of all anime I found worth watching, I guess I have to do this one too.

To start off, I can ASSURE you that you will be enjoying this anime A LOT. Though…When I was thinking how I should nail down what makes this anime so special…I really couldn’t. So I tried to put down a list of what this anime did right, and guess what? Everything that this anime did is done right, let me be more specific…

Music: This is probably first and the ONLY anime I will think that all the songs (including character CDs) are worth buying. Every last darn one of these CDs are worth buying, and I do mean every last one of them.

Animation: This anime is done by Kyoto Anime, who are also responsible for Full Metal Panic (Second Raid and Fumoffu), Kanon 2006, and a heck load of other anime jewels. So no need to worry about the animation quality.

Plot: The gist of the plot is this. Our male protagonist, Kyon, is your VERY VERY average high school guy. Up until the point he meets Suzumiya Haruhi. Suzumiya Haruhi is a very eccentric girl, she is weird in every single way and if you look up the word “weird” in the dictionary, you are pretty sure to find her picture. With the appearance of Suzumiya Haruhi in Kyon’s life, Kyon quickly finds his normal life gets thrown out of the ordinary. He finds himself situated beside Aliens, Espers, and Time travellers. Even yet more weird, all of them gathered because of Haruhi. The reason: Suzumiya Haruhi is a god, only…she doesn’t know that she is.

Characters:Every one of the characters has been created with the utmost care to present the most entertaining personality possible. From sarcastic optimism to cynical apathy. From silent book worm to clumsy maid. Everything you name it, they have it.

Voice Acting: Depending on how well you know me, you probably know that I’m not that into dubs. So I’ll talk about the original Japanese voices, and I can only give you one word: SUPERB. Every last seiyuu (Japanese voice actors) fit their characters perfectly, it’s just flawless.

Result: One very damn amazing anime that every anime watcher should watch. Plus, it’s pretty short. 13 episodes, so even if you think it’s a meh-ish anime (which you WON’T), it’s not that much of a waste of time.

More of anime that I really enjoyed after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »