Bandai Entertainment has announced their release schedule for February 2010, for it's worth that is. Since this is Bandai we're talking about, NOTHING by them ever gets released on time anymore. The latest delays include Toward the Terra, My-Otome, Code Geass R2, Gundam 00, & Hayate the Combat Butler- all of which delayed by at least two weeks if not longer.

The perfect allegory for Bandai's ineptitude comes in the form of their latest news regarding Kurokami. Part 1 of the series was originally supposed to come out this past June in order to time well with the release of the Japanese version, just as they had been doing with their same-day broadcast on TV. But with delay after delay, the first part of the series is now do out on February 9. They also changed the episode count from 8 eps to 6, but at least they lowered the price by $10 to $29.98. But Bandai also confirmed that a Blu-ray version of the series will be coming out the same day. Again, that sounds like a good thing. However, the Blu-ray will only have 4 episodes on it, though will retail for $24.98. But wait, here's the real kicker. The Blu-ray version will be DUB-ONLY.

Bandai has responded to immense outcry by fans upon hearing this news, saying "The license for the Japanese audio was not granted for our Blu-Ray release of Kurokami." If you think about it, Japan's reasoning is somewhat justified. They're obviously afraid of reverse importation. That is to say, anime DVDs from America being imported & bought in Japan. DVDs & Blu-Rays in Japan have always been much more expensive in Japan than in America, & they usually hold less episodes too. The typical American anime DVD has twice the amount of episodes at half the cost of the Japanese ones. & of course, the American ones contain the Japanese version in addition to the English dub. This wasn't quite a big deal for DVDs, since Japan & the US had different region codes. But with Blu-ray, Japan & America share the same region code, meaning our BDs can be played on their players easily.

With this in mind, it's easy to see Japan was worried that if our Blu-ray release of Kurokami had the Japanese version, otaku in Japan would just order our version at a much cheaper price. After all, the Japanese BD version of Kurokami retails for 9240 yen (~$100) for three episodes! But here's the thing- the series has been doing horribly in Japan, it's one of the worst selling series of the year! Another thing is that their Blu-ray version actually includes three different dubbed languages- Japanese, Korean, & our English dub! Basically, this whole situation is screwed up royal. While their is some logic to Japan forcing this, the stupidity far outweighs the logic. I know Bandai had no choice with this, but wouldn't it have been better not to release a Blu-ray version at all?

While we're on the subject of Bandai's February releases, their Blu-ray releases, & how they screw things up, there's another topic that meets all these requirement. They'll also be releasing the Eureka Seven movie on both DVD & Blu-ray in February. The only thing is, only the Blu-ray version will contain the special behind-the-scenes & bloopers featurette that was shown in theaters. As a someone who doesn't own a Blu-ray player, I'm very saddened to not get that bonus material on the DVD. The behind-the-scenes was quite informative, & the bloopers were extraordinarily funny. Just glad I was lucky enough to catch it at the show at least.

Source: http://www.mania.com/bandai-announces-february-titles_article_118788.html

I usually don't read scanslations or anything of the current manga chapters of Naruto in Japan. I just read the English version in Shonen Jump for the most part. But with the big event that happened in the latest chapter, it's hard to ignore stuff like that.

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Today's the big day! It's the final round of Saimoe 2009, & our final two girls wound up being Yui from "K-On" & Taiga from "ToraDora." Both worked really hard to get here, beating out hundreds of other girls to get here. I even correctly predicted last year that Taiga would make it to the finals in 2009. Actually I predicted she would win it all, but back then most people weren't familiar with the then-obscure manga known as "K-On." & living in the now, Yui is who I want to see win the Saimoe crown this year. Luckily even if Taiga does win, I can't really feel bad about that either, since I like Taiga so much as well. So yes I'll be rooting for Yui, but since both finalists are great it wont be the end of the world if Taiga wins instead. It's interesting that our two finalists this year kind of mirror our finalists from last year- one's a tsundere, the other's an airhead. Only difference this time around is I'll be rooting for the tsundere.

As far as who I think will actually win this, Yui has been in the lead with the most votes ever since the end of Round 2 & hasn't lost that lead once. Not counting the poor turnout for her & all the other "K-On" girls in Round 1, & Yui's pretty much dominated this whole tournament. Sure, "Saki" has been the dominating series, but Yui has been the dominating character. So it'd be a true shame for her to lose now after all that. That being said, Taiga has overall faced a higher number of tougher opponents than Yui has. The only truly strong person Yui defeated was Hinagiku, & while that is one major tough opponent to beat, Taiga had to beat several tough gals to get this far.

Each character has their pluses & minuses on winning or losing tomorrow. Tsunderes have pretty much the most popular character type in Japan for the past few years, & that still holds true today. & Taiga is voiced by the queen of tsunderes, Rie Kugimiya, to boot. Kugimiya has had several of her characters come far in past Saimoe tournaments, but she has yet to ever actually win. Tsundere fans might push hard for Taiga to win for that reason, & the fact that this will be Taiga's ONLY chance to compete in Saimoe. She wont be eligible to compete next year, but since a K-On OVA is coming out soon, Yui will be eligible. Since she has another chance to compete again next year & Taiga doesn't, that might be reason enough to let Taiga win. But then again, Saimoe had a tsundere winner last year. Would they really want to have the same thing again? On the other hand, the top 3 placers last year were all KyoAni characters, which Yui is as well. Would voters really want a second KyoAni winner in a row? Either way, this year we'll either have a repeating tsundere winner or a repeating KyoAni winner.

Despite the popularity of tsunderes & Kugimiya, Yui is perceived as the more popular of the two in Japan. Yui also has the advantage of being from a very popular series full of very popular girls, each of which have their own strong fan following. Fans of Azunyan, Ritsu, & Mugi are likely to support their costar Yui, so she'll have a lot of support from them. Taiga on the other hand is pretty much the lone star in her series. Her costars don't have nearly as many fans as she does, & thus she's pretty much on her own here. It's the difference of being popular series & just being a popular character. Though it's hard to say if Mio's fans will really vote for Yui or not. If not for losing in the first round due to low turnout, who knows how far Mio would've made it this year? She might've even made it to the finals instead of Yui. But Mio does have a chance to compete again next year. However, if Yui does win tomorrow, it'll become very unlikely a character from the same series will win again next year. So Mio fans might be looking at the big picture instead of just Yui winning.

Here's the overall vote count for the tournament thus far. Unsurprisingly, Yui is still in the lead:

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The RightStuf Fall 2009 catalog arrived at my doorstep earlier today, & I noticed that as soon as you open the thing up, the first thing you see is a big one-page advertisement for the "new" former ADV company, Section23. I believe this is the first ad I've seen for the new company, & considering that they've only technically been around for a little over a month, they got this out pretty quickly. It appears that the slogan they've chosen to go with is "the Fastest Growing Anime Distributor in America." Uh-huh. You know it's pretty easy to be the fastest growing when you've technically been around for only a month, but in reality have been on the scene for over 15 years.

The ad, which I've scanned above (pardon my crappy scanner), also listed Section23's official website, which is the first I've heard of it. Section23Films.com is pretty barren at the moment though. It's pretty much just a placeholder for now, with their logo (which is nice looking) & the words "Coming Soon." Pardon our dust indeed.

For the first time since I started this blog, my Photobucket account surpassed its monthly bandwidth. In other words, my pictures used for the blog posts were viewed too many times that it surpassed its limit (which is a whopping 10GB per month, mind you). I've gotten close a lot of times over the past few months, but this time I didn't make it. But don't worry, the new month will begin on October 2. So just hold tight for the next day or two & deal with none of the older posts having working pics.

There's lots of things I can do to make sure this doesn't happen again, but ultimately I decided to sign up for a second Photobucket account. Aside from currently using the new one as a backup, I'll use both accounts for different purposes in the future (like use one for image-intensive posts like Megami & Nyantype, & the other account for everything else). That should help to assure that nothing like this will happen again. Again, my apologies if the broken images are an inconvenience for this short amount of time.

Last week I wrote a piece about the dark future that lies ahead for the Japanese animation company Gonzo. Now it's time to evaluate the future of an anime company on the other side of the Pacific- Bandai Entertainment.

Bandai announced their DVD plans for December, & it only had one single release on the list- Code Geass R2 Part 3. That's all. There weren't even any re-releases or season sets announced, which is quite surprising considering that anime companies usually like to release boxsets out just in time for the holiday season. Many fans were even expecting to hear news about complete season sets for titles like Lucky Star, Gurren Lagann, & Code Geass season 1. But none of those have even been announced yet, much less coming out in time for Christmas.

With only one title coming out in the final month of the year, what can we expect for 2010? & that's of course assuming that R2 part 3 will even be released on schedule, as Bandai has delayed every title they've released this year by some length of time or another. I'm not even exaggerating here, if you look at their release schedule for 2009 I'm pretty sure every single DVD on the list had at least one release date change, if not more than one.

So what does all this mean for 2010? Well after Bandai finishes up Kannagi this month, that means they currently only have four titles that they're still releasing- Code Geass, Gundam 00, Kurokami, & Hayate the Combat Butler. & what happens when they're done with all of those? It wont be long until they've finished all of Geass & Kurokami, & while they might be able to drag out the releases of Gundam 00 & Hayate for awhile (especially when you add in the inevitable delays), what comes after that? Bandai has no new licenses on the table right now, & even if they did, they'd probably get the sub-only treatment, like so many of their titles have as of late. Let's just hope they get some fresh blood in for next year before things start to look really bad.

Source: http://www.mania.com/bandai-announces-december-releases_article_117546.html

Blu-ray is doing really well in Japan right now. The main reason for its success is because of anime on Blu-ray is selling great. & one of the main reasons anime has been selling so well on Blu-ray is thanks to the K-On releases. The popular moe series from the creators of Haruhi Suzumiya & Lucky Star has been selling like gangbusters on the HD format.

But one thing that's become very noticeable about the release is that its Blu-ray covers keep getting stranger & stranger. Above you'll see the cover for the first Blu-ray release (keep in mind that even though BD holds tons of more data than standard DVDs, Japan still only puts on 2 episodes per disc), & it looks normal enough. But after that is when things start getting a bit odder:

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Things haven't been too rosy over at Gonzo for awhile now, but never more so than right now. For one, Gonzo recently announced that their online webstore will be shutting down at the end of the month. But that's not the main cause for concern here. Currently Gonzo is airing two series in Japan (as well as on Crunchyroll)- Saki & Shangri-la. But once both of those series end this month, for the first time ever Gonzo wont have any other shows lined up to take their place. Gonzo's always had SOMETHING on the air, even if it was just one series, & usually more than that.

They announced last year that starting in 2009 they were changing their annual anime output from 7 series to 4. The four they announced at the time were Tower of Druaga: the Sword of Uruk, Slap Up Party -Arad Senki-, Shangri-La, & Alive- Saishu Shinka teki Shonen. But then shortly after that, they added Saki to the list of 2009 anime, bringing the supposed total to 5. With the exception of Alive, all the above series have already been animated, & the author of Alive has recently confirmed that plans for its animated adaptation have been canceled. So it looks like 4 was the magic number after all.

Strike Witches 2 is confirmed to be in the works, but no solid release date has been announced yet, & it definitely wont be happening this year. On top of that, no other series for 2010 has yet to be announced. That's right, not only does Gonzo have no shows airing in the last quarter of this year, but they only have one single show that's supposed to go up next year, & even that one isn't a sure thing yet. Here's hoping they'll be able to survive these tough times.

Source: http://zepy.momotato.com/2009/09/07/gonzo-style-official-online-shop-is-closing

The latest episode of Haruhi Suzumiya was quite surprising & intense. The drama culminated with Kyon physically attempting to PUNCH Haruhi. Now I had a problem with this scene for three different reasons.

The first has to do with character portrayal in this second season of the anime. Since when is it in Kyon's personality to do something like that? something so extreme & so wrong? Adding to that, why has Haruhi turned from a tsundere personality in season 1, to a major bitch in season 2? She was really going too far with her treatment of others, especially Mikuru. Viewing the episode as a whole & seeing the big picture, their fight was necessary to show that Haruhi can truly be affected by Kyon's behavior. She may act like she doesn't care about anyone but herself, but Kyon's anger towards her really got to her (& the small ponytail bit at the end speaks volumes too). But with all that in mind, it still felt too out of character to me on both ends. The original novel version of "the Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya" comes out in the US next month. I'll be eagerly waiting to read the book to find out if both Haruhi & Kyon acted that way in the original story, or if the anime exaggerated it.

Secondly, I shouldn't have to tell you how wrong it is for a guy to hit a girl. Just what the hell was Kyon thinking there? It wasn't like he was going slap her or anything (which while still wrong, is much more acceptable in the world of anime). He wanted to full out DECK her! Punch her, seemingly in the face. That's just messed up, regardless of how horrible she was being. I mean, even rapists think its wrong to hit a girl. Granted in his first attempt he just snapped, & was as shocked as anyone to see his hand in a fist. But when Haruhi continue to insult him after that, he kept trying to hit her! He felt horrible about it the next day, & blamed it on calcium deficiency, but still.

Lastly, I was surprised to see how many people online were saying things like "Man, I wish Kyon would've hit her" or "I'd loved it if Kyon had actually punched her." For god's sakes, people. It's one thing to have an animated character attempting to punch a girl. But for so many real life people to actually believe he was in the right well, I find that disturbing. No matter how you look at it, that just isn't right.

(EDIT: A lot of people have brought up subjects like self-defense & double-standards. That's a different- & more complex- issue, but the fact remains that Haruhi wasn't physically attacking Kyon at all. At the very least we should all be able to agree that him throwing a punch without her throwing one first is wrong. Not to mention that a girl of average stature (like Haruhi) could NOT handle a man's punch the same way another man could. That's just a fact of nature. Realistically speaking, who knows how badly Haruhi would've been hurt by a blow like that.)

I have tons more thoughts & rantings about Haruhi season 2, & surprisingly very little of it has to do with Endless Eight. But I'm saving that write-up for after the season comes to an end. & with only one more season 2 episode left, you wont have to wait very long.

It's been discovered that the Kekkaishi anime series is being dubbed by the Los Angeles anime voice acting group, meaning that the title has been licensed for US release. It's unknown at this time who has it, but all signs point to Viz Media. Not only have they been releasing the Kekkaishi manga for some time now, but this times out perfectly with the launch big new Shonen Sunday imprint line.

Viz had said they'd be using Comic Con to make all their Shonen Sunday announcements, & since Kekkaishi is a Shonen Sunday series, what better time to announce a new anime license? Furthermore, Viz stated they'd be using the new imprint line for both manga AND anime titles. Currently, InuYasha is the only Shonen Sunday title that they've released on DVD, & they've already finished that series (there are even older titles like Ranma 1/2, but I don't think Viz is using them for the imprint). So that can only mean they're getting some fresh anime titles for the new line.

It's interesting that Viz has decided once again to start releasing anime that isn't Naruto, Bleach, or Death Note. When they stopped releasing a large number of titles back in early 2008, it was thought that Viz had given up on titles that weren't making money like their "big three." But then they started releasing Nana & Honey & Clover (let's not forget Hunter x Hunter & Buso Renkin as well), & now they've seemingly started on Kekkaishi & perhaps other Shonen Sunday titles. Nice to see Viz back in the game, but now can they resume releasing all those Toonami Jetstream series that they just left to die?

Kekkaishi is a 52 episode shonen action series that ran from 2006-2008 (despite only being 52 episodes long, it took the anime well over a year to air all the episodes), & is based on the still running manga. It's a very by-the-books shonen series, with everything you can expect in your typical shonen series thrown in there. But despite lacking in originality, I found it to be a very enjoyable & entertaining series. Like most shonen anime, it takes a few eps to "get going," but it really is quite good for what it is.

Source: http://www.fanboyreview.net/2009/07/22/license-alert-kekkaishi

Spoilers:

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The idea of Crunchyroll simulcasting "Fight Ippatsu! Juden-chan," or as they're calling it "Charger Girl," seemed laughable when it was first announced. But then I heard that they were actually working with Avex to make the series a little more "family friendly." Now I'm flat out against censorship & probably wont be watching any more of the series on Crunchyroll because of it, but I guess this was the only way they could show it. So what's done had to be done.

So when I first heard that Juden-chan would be censored, I thought "there goes all the peeing scenes." But then I watched the first episode, which premiered today on Crunchyroll, all of the peeing scenes were left intact! There were other edits, mind you (basically mild nudity), but it seemed weird that the erotic peeing was untouched. So then I watched episode 2, which also went up at the same time on CR, & this time ALL of the peeing scenes were edited out. Granted, two of the urination scenes were accompanied by nudity, so those scenes probably had to edited because of that. But the third peeing scene had no visible nudity in the shot. This is really quite odd.

(EDIT: Just remembered that both Code Geass & Kigurumikku have uncensored nudity on Crunchyroll. Can someone explain this mess to me?)

Not only were all three peeing scenes left in episode 1, but there were very few other edits. Episode 2, however, is another story. Besides all three peeing scenes (will every episode have three peeing scenes?) being removed, there tons of other edits as well. I've taken screenshots of all the major changes. Check out the comparisons below. This is totally NSFW, by the way:

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For the third week in a row, "the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" aired an episode titled "Endless Eight" where the characters are stuck in an endless loop, replaying the same last two weeks of summer vacation for thousands of times. & once again, Kyon was unable to determine what it is that'll make time move forward again, meaning that next week's episode will also be "Endless Eight."

No one's really sure why the hell Kadokawa is doing this. In a way it's kinda cool & interesting how they're displaying this story. Just saying time is repeating in a loop is one thing. Actually showing it repeating time & time again is another. On the other hand, what's really the point? Is Kadokawa doing this to once again troll us Haruhi fans? Lord knows that they love messing with us. But that's just stupid & pointless. It's not like they're so short on stories that they're forced to stretch "Endless Eight" out to four episodes (at least). "Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya" & "Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" are both very long & important stories that fans truly expected to air as part of the new season, each expected to take about 5 episodes to cover. "Snowy Mountain Syndrome" was another story expected to air this season & would take a few eps to tell. So again, it's not like they needed to pad the season out.

In the novels, "Endless Eight" was only one chapter long. Fans were a little surprised that the first EE ended without it even being established as a loop, but figured that the second EE would explain this & solve the case. Well it was established in the second one, but it ended without Kyon being able to fix it. So fans figured he'd get right the next time. He HAD to. But, as we now know, he didn't, leaving us praying he does for the fourth EE episode. At the very least, the previously assumed airing order can be totally thrown out the window now.

While all three (soon to be four) "Endless Eight" episodes are all essentially the same (though to Kadokawa's credit, each episode does include completely original animation with nothing being reused or recycled), there were some key differences between the first & second times. Namely, the gang discovering that they're in a loop. But the third episode truly is pretty much EXACTLY the same as the second. There's just no reason for it to even exist. Now the question is, how long will this go on for? Are they taking the title literally & will be doing it eight times? Will ALL of the remaining season 2 episodes be "Endless Eight?" It shouldn't have even gotten to four, but hopefully that'll be the end of it. Guess we'll find out next week.

Originally scheduled to come out in May, Bandai's English release of the Lucky Star manga finally hit American stores just last week. I got my hands on the first volume earlier this week, & have been greatly enjoying it. It's taller & larger than your average manga book, probably to be better present the 4-koma style that Lucky Star is. The down side to this is that it's a bit more expensive than your average manga as well, retailing at $10.99. There is a nice four page color section as well:

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