Picture Perfect Paranoia

Chinese officials continue “Death” crackdown - Asia entertainment news from Variety - varietyasiaonline.com

BEIJING — Chinese officials are continuing their crackdown on the hugely popular Japanese manga “Death Note”, which Beijing authorities believe promotes death fantasies, by shutting down a website which allowed users to watch or post videos based on the banned novel.

I was trying to stop myself while rolling on the floor when I heard about this on the internets. Now why would a manga dealing with the issue on “the philosophy of death” be promoting about “death fantasies”? I seriously wouldn’t consider readers are that stupid. They know the meaning of life.

Seven Seas - Comic-Con International 2007 - Anime News Network

In terms of new acquisitions, Seven Seas will be publishing two new yuri manga titles (Hayate Cross Blade and Akatsuki-iro no Senpuku Majo) and two new yuri novel titles (Girls Life and Girls Revolution).

Well, well. I wasn’t expecting this. So yuri manga and light novels gets the green light? Wonder how this will be treated on American shores, that is, if it ever gets stacked into shelves in bookstores.

Let me tell you guys of an interesting, and quite amusing, memory of mine. This is somewhat related to anime, since it is the focus of this rant of mine. ^^

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Oh noes. D:

Now who was the bastard who suggested that the Lucky Star OP would be the next Hare Hare Yukai, and that this was KyoAni’s intention from the start? Scouring through YouTube, Google Video, and Stage6, I found these to my interests.

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Well, I’m back, and I’m tired as hell. Updates will come shortly.

Next week is Hell Week.

Why is it so?

I have 3 consecutive long exams for 3 consecutive days on 3 major subjects. And that is major pain for my cerebral capacity.

And that means?

I won’t be around the anime blogosphere next week. Just a notice.

Wish me luck!

For anyone out there who’s an avid subscriber, July 16 marks the first anniversary of the Anime Nano Podcast. It boasts to “cover a range of subjects, mostly having to do with anime that is currently airing in Japan.” Also, it tags itself as “the only anime podcast you’ll ever need!!”

Haha. Well those were fun memories. After surviving a couple of hiatus periods, then going into an indeterminate hibernation (it must make good of its comeback), we still wish the crew of Hung and his (now former) co-hosts Hinano and JPMeyer: WE WANT NANO!

Remember this story I carried a few days ago?

Well, Fred himself got “summoned” to The Engine and respond to his comic’s acquisition, “licensing” and adaptation for the Japanese market (presumably it’s the otaku demographic).

Since the reply by the man himself is very long (he admits saying it), so I’m going to capture some snippets of his response. Here: Read the rest of this entry »

trailing from BlogHerald writer Lorelle VanFossen and Liz Strauss of Successful (and Outstanding) Blog(gers)…

I know this is not even remotely related to anime and all, but still, it’s an interesting issue to ponder on. We have anime blogs to maintain, right?

The idea is that you hire and pay this company to find “blogs within your target market” and their hired “commenters” will read the blog post and comment as if they were you, leaving a link to your blog in he comment form and/or comment signature.

I guess the whole issue with this “human comment spam” problem is the fact that “people are paid to spam, and that hurts the integrity of people as responsible sharers of electronic information”.

I agree with Ms. VanFossen that this should be eradicated at the source. Question is, at this point, how are you capable of dealing with the problem that affects a medium of communication that has already raised eyebrows among the “mainstream” crowd?

So far, all I do is hold on comments for moderation and see if the people who leave comments are even “trustworthy” (I guess even that too can be arbitrary) to place their comments on my blog, my personal space on the Web.

How about you, guys? How do you handle this?

So I got myself a copy (free actually) of the Sunday Weekly Magazine. What made me convinced to talk about it here is that its cover story talks about the second wave of “foreign invasion”. No I’m not referring to the invasion of the Japanese in Philippine shores, but to their pop culture invasion. Admittedly, it has seeped through into the psyche of the next generation of Filipinos.

I present to you the Pinoy otaku insignia.

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If anyone’s interested, here are the list of shows this summer season that I’ll be keeping my eyes on (and juggling with my term paper at the same time, lol).
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Megatokyo to Publish in Japan via Kodansha - Anime News Network

This just came to me via my feedreader (thanks Google!).

FredArt Studios and Dark Horse Comics announced that the Japanese publisher Kodansha has licensed the Megatokyo comic series. Kodansha’s Faust magazine will publish a 30-page translated preview and an introduction to manga-influence works in September. The quarterly, square-bound Faust literary magazine features serialized novels, interviews, essays, and manga. The magazine is planning to expand with an English version of itself in 2008.

…

Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston began Megatokyo as an online comic in 2000, and Gallagher continues to release new web installments three times a week on his own. The story tells the misadventures of two foreign otaku stranded in Japan and the unusual characters they meet in and around Tokyo. In addition to the current English releases from DC Comics’ CMX imprint, the title is already published in German, Polish, Italian, and French. According to Gallagher, Kodansha first approached him about a Japanese edition last year.

Guess this is good news for Fred, now that his “manga” gets published, and licensed to boot, by a Japanese publisher.

Wonder if there are any other grassroot OEL’s willing to aim for this so-called “impossible dream”.

Catching up on what I missed in the world of anime and blogging (lovely combo :P), I caught sight of Kurogane’s entry regarding a competition on whose entry gets selected to be the official mascot of the AnimeBlogger community.

This’ll get our community recognized.

See entries here, here, and here for more info.

Sadly, like Kuro, I have 0 pts at art, so it looks like my dream to get recognized and laugh at the people who didn’t get in for their shittty art will be shattered. Oh well, I’ll root for whoever gets picked in the “elimination”, “semi-finals” and the “finals” rounds in the course of the contest.

Contest runs until August 7, so get your creative juices and artistic talents flowing, my acolytes! XD

Hmm. Given the parallel voting results, and seeing that no other action has been taken, it seems I have to step up to the task.

I will be the tie-breaker.

After careful deliberation, helpful suggestion from a fellow blogger, and blogroll listing analysis, I have come to the conclusion that Read the rest of this entry »

Preteens allegedly kidnap baby, demand ransom - CNN.com

“I’ve been doing this 18 1/2 years, and this is the first time I know of when a 10- and a 12-year-old kidnapped a 1-year-old,” said police Capt. Dean Grassino. “It definitely ranks up there with the unusual crimes.”

The siblings, who were not identified because of their ages, are accused of sneaking into Wells’ home at about 5:30 a.m., taking Brandon and leaving a ransom note.

“If you want to see your son again then you won’t call police and report him missing and you will leave $200,000 on the sofa tonight and we will return your son back safe,” the note read, according to police.

The note was signed, “the kidnappers.”Is this how “advanced” the young minds have become? o.O

Hey, why haven’t we thought of these before? XD

Link to post

Oh and there are “gaijin otaku” sightings in the pics.

In other news…

Link to news article

More “giving otaku a bad name” news articles from the other side of the Pacific. :V