On a whim this week, I decided to sign up for Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll is a subscription-based streaming service that specializes in anime. I’ve used it in the past — all the way back in 2009 — and I remember the grainy image quality and awful-looking yellow subtitles. Additionally, I just can’t imagine a subscription-based, non-copyright violating streaming service having a decent selection. The anime selection of Netflix (another service I pay for) comes to mind. Lo and behold, the first thing I’m greeted with when I go to the website is Bleach and Naruto info. Damn you mainstream fags, I’m here to watch YuruYuri. But alas, the temptation of a 15-day free trial was too much for me.

I was ready to be disappointed by whatever gimmick I could latch on to. I consider myself a rather picky anime fan; only the clearest 720p of airing anime could grace my eyes. Oh what’s this? They have 1080. The subtitles are typeset well, and the sound quality is good. The only downer is the video has to buffer a little if you seek around and it’s not as convenient to take screenshots. But that’s nitpicking, and these asks are mostly limited to blogging. I like the feeling of “ownership” from downloading a file, and I usually keep all my shows on my external hard drive collection. Still, streaming is definitely convenient, and the quality was pretty surprising.

I’ve always been super-critical of the anime industry stateside, and I consider this post to be somewhat of an appendix to that piece of writing I did two years ago. The structure of selling expensive, dubbed DVD’s at Best Buy simply doesn’t make any sense — that market is fickle and fragile. I hate to say this, but us purists want our girl-cartoons to be obscure and in Japanese. The answer to that is digital distribution. Crunchyroll is in no way perfect, but it’s a big step in the right direction. Near simultaneous releases, actual profit-sharing, instant gratification, and affordable. I’m not exactly going to uninstall uTorrent right now, but I’m definitely going to look into streaming as a good option if I don’t want to wait 45 seconds for a download.

Behind the scenes of every anime, there are hundreds of people at work. Artists, musicians, writers, voice actors, animators… all these people make the magic of anime happen. As talented professionals, these individuals take pride in their craft — everyone likes to be proud of their accomplishments. However, not everyone can say they would brag about everything they ever worked on. Few in the industry have the privilege of choosing what projects they work on, and some of the most recognizable names in the industry have had less glamorous days as a rookie. Today, we will go over a few of these accomplished staffers and the items they might be leaving off their resumes.

Sagisu Shiro Composing for Garzey’s Wing

Sagisu Shiro is one of the most accomplished composers in anime. His musical scores include anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion; Bleach; Kimagure Orange Road; and Nadia, the Secret of Blue Water. He is a timeless and diverse composer whose works span three decades. Listen to how pensive and heavy this track from Nadia is, and how distinctively 80′s this track from Kimagure Orange Road sounds. Here’s something a bit more contemporary from Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance: a riveting and emotional anthem similar in style to something from Iwasaki Taku or Kajiura Yuki.

So what is someone of Sagisu’s caliber doing on the staff of Garzey’s Wing, an anime that I am surprised has a staff at all. Garzey’s Wing is somewhat of a cult classic “bad” anime due to its nonsensical plot, incredibly shallow characters, and hilarious English dub. In fact, I’m not even sure if I remember the music at all, I was too busy laughing at this:

I can only assume the producers spent all their money for the rights to put his name in the credits and just had volunteers from the street do the rest of the work.

Mars of Destruction: Starring Chihaya Minori

Mars of Destruction is notable for being the lowest rated anime on MyAnimeList, with a measly 2.7/10 average score. The pacing is brutally awful, the action scenes look bad, none of the characters make any sense, and they use public domain classical music as the soundtrack because they can’t afford to have one composed. That being said, everyone should watch this anime — it’s only 20 minutes long and it’s absolutely hilarious. A girl’s head gets blown off in the first five minutes in the most absolutely unconvincing battle sequence known to man.

Great moments in anime history

Somewhere in all this, they had the money to hire Chihara Minori, one of the most well-known seiyuu today. I think she’s the main girl (with the red ribbons) because she talked the most and it would seem like a waste otherwise. Less than a year later, Chihara would go and star in some anime called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. You’ve probably never heard of it. (more…)

The Young Animators Training Project is an initiative by the Japanese government designed to help aspiring Japanese animators gain skills and hands on experience. This addresses concerns about the rise in animation outsourcing by the anime industry in recent years, as animation labor is considerably cheaper in Korea and Southeast Asia. This project helps develop native Japanese animators. Four different directors from different animation studios were chosen to create an original anime short, giving animators a chance to hone their craft. The first installment to air was Ojiisan no Lamp, or “Grandpa’s Lamp”, directed by Takiguchi Teiichi. This season’s anime have been slow coming out because of the disaster in Sendai, but anime is finally starting to air. Let’s start the season off on a good note.

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Around four years ago, I was introduced to Touhou Project by my friend. I have heard some of the music and seen some of the characters though Stepmania or other online activities, but that was when I was formally shown the game. To put it quite simply, I was hooked. Playing EoSD over and over again, trying to beat normal mode frazzled more nerves than I could ever imagine — to this day, I would still like to extend a large middle finger to Patchy’s stupid library — but it was some uncanny combination of music, art, and intangible goodness that made Touhou so much more immersible than it seems. Characters are nuanced, but details are kept purposely ambiguous for the reader to populate with his or her own mind. I read doujins (even the non-18+ ones!), I loved all the characters, I listened to all the music, I joined communities; it was the whole nine yards.  But somewhere along the way, sometime between Imperishable Night and the n-th fighting game, something got lost from the franchise. Something that really can’t be assuaged, no matter how many new games there are.

Yeah, there are more pics of Touhou on Danbooru than SHORT HAIR. Or breasts.

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Before you even know it, the fall season is almost here. It seems just like yesterday when we were all talking about how excited we were for Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. I love this time of year, we all get to speculate on how shows will turn out to be and then look back on how far off we were. *waves to Seitokai no Ichizon* (more…)

Aya Hirano, well known for her performances as the Lucky Star‘s Konata, Death Note‘s Misa, and the titular character in  The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, went on a talk show recently and discussed her love life, from past relationships to boys in general. Cool, good for her. In this world where famous people are judged for everything, it’s good for them to go on talk shows once in a while and talk about this stuff. It humanizes them — like Taylor Swift going on Ellen DeGenres to talk about her love life. I’m sure her fans are happy to see her on TV.

Of course, that’s in a world when rabid fans make sense. Instead…

Fans became enraged in front of their TVs and took to 2ch, where they wrote abusive messages towards Hirano and, allegedly, even began planning her death. As Hirano herself had never said in front of her fans that she’d been in a relationship until now, amongst her core zealous fanbase, the majority seemed certain that she’d never had a boyfriend. Therefore, the appearance on this program was the very first time Hirano had ever spoken of any such romance like those she described, and the fans’ rage in response to having watched the program was uncontrollable.

Even though it was merely the ordinary girl’s talk commonly seen on and expected from Gout Temps Nouveau, Hirano’s fans, who had truly believed in her supposed lack of a boyfriend, were full of tearful, anguished comments. Not stopping at just those, however, their outrage spiraled out of control as some users began planning for the assassination of their former idol, one comment reading, “I’m glad I didn’t record [the program]; I’m going to kill Hirano Aya.” Even on the seiyuu’s Wikipedia page, a string of characters reading “die” was written approximately 67,000 times (as of now, the article has been restored to its original form). Meanwhile, in a slightly less extreme reaction, fans in possession of her CDs and posters have been destroying them and uploading pictures of the ruined merchandise to the Internet. This upset towards Hirano seems like it won’t die down for a very long while.

Retrieved from livedoor via arama

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Aa, the last active member of Savage Genius, has announced on her blog that she is pregnant and will be taking an indefinite leave from her singing career. Savage Genius was one of the very first anime music bands that I ever liked. I wish Aa the best!

I’ve always found Savage Genius to be a touch particular. When you’re a two person act with a dominant singer and a composer, are you still called a “group”? Cascada isn’t a “group”, even though it’s a DJ and a really really German lady. Her composer, Takumi, even retired a few years ago, literally making Aa the only member of a one girl band. This is equivalent of Aa being the only person in a Facebook group and quitting the group. Does it vanish now? Also, Aa is already a stage name, why does she need two? Oh you crazy Japanese people…

Anyway, random musings aside, I hope Aa has a successful pregnancy and returns to Savage Genius soon! A quality group since the early 2000′s, they (her, whatever) have performed some of the most famous anime songs of all time, as well as being a great live performer. Aa’s distinct pitch and the tight instrumental arrangements make Savage Genius’s style very recognizable.

Hikari no Yukue (El Cazador de la Bruja OP)

Prometheus

Forever… (Elemental Gelade OP)

And of course their most famous track that no post should be without (though I kinda like the opening theme better),
Itsuka Tokeru Namida (Uta Kata ED)

The American TV production and anime dubbing studio 4Kids Entertainment (NYSE: KDE) announced this week that the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock market by market capitalization, has begun preparations to remove the company from the index. The New York Stock exchange requires all companies that are listed to maintain $15 million in market capitalization. Since early March, 4Kids’ stock price has slipped 27%, and drops this week bought the price under $1.15 and slipped the market capitalization of the firm to $14.7 million.

According to quarterly reports, net revenues for the first three months of 2010 totaled $4.2 million, less than half of the $9.3 million for the first three months of last year. In 2006, net income dropped 75%  from 2005. The company has not posted a profit since then, losing more and more money since 2007. In 2009 they lost $42 million.

This is just the most recent of a series of bullets in the chest for the American anime industry. Earlier in April, Bang Zoom! Entertainment CEO Eric P. Sherman announced that the company will probably cease operations by the end of the year if the industry didn’t look up. Excuse me, but a company doesn’t like the market conditions? It’s in the hands of companies to shape the market conditions, not to complain and give up. (more…)

A few days ago, mangaka Nogami Takeshi responded to CNN’s RapeLay coverage. Posting originally in Japanese, our friends over at tsurupeta kindly translated his words into English. There is a pretty good debate going on over there, and I definitely recommend the letter as a great read.

野上武志先生へ、
すみません、私は日本語が下手ですから、英語で書きます。

I have read your response to CNN’s RapeLay coverage. I just want to tell you that I find your personal involvement in this issue very admirable. Too often lesser figures sit and do nothing and silence themselves in cowardice or laziness. I believe CNN’s RapeLay story was an attack on the profession of you and your colleagues, your fans, and the people of Japan. American media, with all that is going on in our country, have no right to speak of hentai and eroge from the “moral high ground.” The rhetoric in your response is critical, your logic is rational, and your motivation is just. As a fan of Japanese media living in the United States, I wish to personally thank you for you outspokenness in defense of your noble profession. Keep in mind that your supporters reside in the US as well. I hope your response reaches the ears of CNN.
I am sorry I am unable to respond in Japanese. I hope my words are not lost on you.

All the best,
Kevin —–

While I’m posting, I almost forgot to mention this. My friend zzeroparticle kindly allowed me to guest write a post on his blog. Please be sure to check it out!

Let’s face it, CNN has not had a good track record this decade in covering Japanese subculture. To the embarrassingly inane piece a few months ago about Bad Apple to this week’s speechlessly inaccurate, mindlessly sensationalized vitriol on the Japanese eroge industry, I begin to question the journalistic integrity of this news network which I respect deeply.

I have trouble watching the entire video, since I cannot bring myself to sit though some parts. The ignorance of context and blatant sensationalism is too much. The background sounds added in for good measure are a combination of disturbing and funny. (more…)