Anime Fans Online

I discovered this phenomenon the other day. I went to check out the FUNimation video site to see if it was working yet. It’s not. Then I swung by Hulu to see if they’ve added anything new. They had. I suddenly realized how long it had been since I had watched anything at Hulu. I began to wonder why it’d been so long as I settled in to watch an episode of Negima!?.

Then the commercial started.

I became a bit impatient. After all, I went to watch anime, not ads. Wham! I had an epiphany. I knew why it’d been so long. I’d been spoiled by my Crunchyroll membership.

I haven’t been to Hulu and other ad sponsored streaming sites because I’d been spending my time at Crunchyroll. The reason I’d spent my time at Crunchyroll is because I pay.

I watch more Chrunchyroll because I pay.

I hadn’t even realized that Crunchyroll had become my main source of anime. In fact, the only places I watched video online anymore was Crunchyroll and Netflix. What do they have in common?

1. No Commercials.

2. I Pay.

I don’t mind watching commercials. Well, not much. Not if it supports something I enjoy. So if it isn’t the commercials, then its the money right? Hmmmm…

I’m beginning to think there’s some psychology involved. Six bucks a month isn’t enough to make me avoid other video sites. Not ones I like as much as Hulu anyway. I think some dark corner of my psyche guided me to Crunchyroll in an attempt to get my money’s worth.

If that turns out to be a common behavior, then charging a small fee for membership perks could be a way to surreptitiously encourage people to spend more time on your site and less time on the site belonging to your competition.

Oh yeah… and it’s a good way to make money too.

Story

Four short stories combine to weave a tale from a dark world. Crime, betrayal and revenge are commonplace here. A place where the word underworld has more than one meaning, and both of them are dangerous.

Four characters come together here. Stories of desperation, longing, misfortune and revenge.

My Opinion

Dogs was an impulse choice. I liked the art when I flipped through it and the story description on the back sounded interesting. I’m glad I followed that impulse, Dogs is a good manga.

It reminds me a lot of Black Lagoon in several ways. The stories revolve around people who are part of an illicit world. From brokering information to a life dedicated to murder, these are people that live outside the law.

Each character has their own reasons for being a part of that world. Not everyone is a part of it by choice. Some are living lives profoundly changed by the actions of others. Ripped from a world they once knew.

There’s also a bit of a sci-fi element to it. Genetic engineering has apparently been developed, practiced and is now restricted. I can’t tell how deep the sci-fi will go at the moment. The world seems to be very similar to our own for now. That could change later.

Dogs is rated M for mature. It’s got nudity, language and violence enough to earn that rating.

Is it worth it?

Dogs is worth checking out. Shirow Miwa combines good action, a few laughs and an interesting story with moody art that helps express the characters emotions.

I’d recommend this one to all the mature readers. I’m going to be looking for more volumes myself.

Manga, Reviews, Viz, Shirow Miwa, Dogs, Volume 0, Mature Readers, Rated M

Kamehame blah

With a mixture of excitement and dread I rented Dragonball: Evolution. Going in with low expectations can help sometimes. I’ve been surprised by movies that I thought would be horrible before. I was hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised this time too.

I wasn’t.

It wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. There’s a decent sci-fi martial arts movie in there somewhere. It’s just not a Dragonball movie. It’s like Dragonball, but it’s not Dragonball.

I think it ended up being a Dragonball facsimile in an attempt to make more money. Not content to turn Dragonball into a movie, the makers tweaked it. Not a single character in the movie escaped being adjusted.

It doesn’t matter that Dragonball is one of the most popular manga and anime franchises of all time. Forget that Dragonball is one of the reasons that anime started to become mainstream entertainment. Nah. What we really need is a high school action comedy. We’ll just shove the characters into generic character molds and no one will notice.

Not All Bad

There are moments scattered throughout the movie that give you a glimpse of what a real Dragonball movie would be like. A scene here, a shot there or a line delivered perfectly tease the fandom part of the brain. We’re seduced into believing that the movie is about to correct it’s previous mistakes and become what we all had hoped to see. Dragonball in live action.

Then the moment fades.

The times when things are right are so few that they only serve to highlight the areas where the movie didn’t live up to it’s potential.

Is it worth it?

I recommend renting Dragonball: Evolution. There are enough good bits to make it worth renting. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you think there are enough of those good bits to purchase a copy of your own.

Live Action, Reviews, Movie, manga, Anime, Dragonball, Dragonball: Evolution

The subscription/ad model seems to be working for anime online. Could the same model work for manga? I think it could, but there are some serious problems to overcome first. Format, copy protection and public perception are all going to be issues that must be addressed. The biggest problem will be content.

Online Manga

Reading manga on a computer isn’t going to be a major barrier. People are already doing that, be it web comics or illegal scanlations.

Easy access to wi-fi hot spots or even wireless data plans means people are connected all the time. If you’re connected to the net and got 5 or 10 minutes to kill, manga is a good way to spend that time. With the arrival of netbooks, I expect it to become even more common. Netbooks are cheap and extremely portable. Parents might not buy their kids a $1,700 laptop, but a $299 netbook is well within the realm of possibility.

Subscription Pricing

If there are enough manga included in the deal, I’d gladly pay $10 a month for an online manga subscription. That’s more than Crunchyroll charges for their anime membership at it’s most expensive. For manga that’s a steal. It’s less than the cost of 1 manga volume.

It’s bound to happen sooner or later. I’m just curious how it going to happen.

Manga, Opinion, Online, Subscription, Scanlation

Click for full size.

I was looking at the offerings on Hulu the other day when a stray thought passed through my head (as most thoughts do). I’ve been trying to understand the implications since then. There’s a lot more to it than I realize, there’s got to be. The thought that ran through my head was simple, but bodes of far greater things…

The amount of legal anime available online is growing.

Beautiful isn’t it?

Take a moment and think about what that means. The legit sources of anime online must be doing something right. Hopefully they’re even successful.

Something is going their way, because more companies are moving towards it themselves. Either by partnering with the current legal anime sources, or finding a way to do it on their own.

I wish them all the luck in the world.

Story

Nozomu Itoshiki views the world in a very negative way. Always looking on the bad side, he always expects the worst. It’s no wonder he’s constantly trying to kill himself. In between suicide attempts he has a job as a teacher to a class of students that are almost as strange as he is.

The girl who always sees the bright side, his polar opposite. The stalker girl, the shut-in, the obsessive compulsive and even the illegal alien all wind up in his class. The only student that really stands out is the ordinary girl.

My Opinion

The story summary can’t do justice to this manga. Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is a wonderfully twisted comedy manga. The first volume starts off with a wonderful splash page of an aborted suicide and just gets stranger from there.

The art work is beautiful. The combination of the wonderfully detailed backgrounds and the bold character design make this manga a joy to read.

The manga’s real strength is in the array of warped characters that make up the class. It seems like all the students have some sort of mental illness that pushes them to enact some fairly bizarre behavior. On top of that, the one person they have for a role model is always telling them how horrible the world is and continues looking for a way to kill himself.

And it’s funny.

This manga is so filled with jokes there are about 10 pages of notes in the back just to list the jokes you probably missed.

Is it worth it?

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei Volume 1 is worth picking up. I loved the humor in this manga. I highly recommend checking this one out.

Manga, Reviews, Comedy, Dark Humor, Del Rey, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, Koji Kumeta

Story

The competition between Uryû and Ichigo intensifies. The number of hollows attracted by the Quincy’s bait just keeps growing. Things could get out of hand very quickly if this keeps up.

Meanwhile Chad and Orihime are learning some surprising secrets from the strange and enigmatic shopkeeper Urahara. They’re going to have to make some tough choices about their newfound powers soon.

Back at the battle things have gone from bad to worse. The gathered hollows have attracted a Menos Grande, a gigantic hollow that can single handedly destroy the balance of the universe. The situation doesn’t look good.

Quincy or Soul Reaper, it doesn’t matter who wins now. If nothing is done about the menos, everyone will lose.

My Opinion

This volume of Bleach has lots of action, but it also marks a turning point in the direction of the story. Several things happen in volume 6 that changes how the rest of the story plays out. As an example… During the last few pages we meet Renji and Byakuya. They’ve come for you know who.

I’m really enjoying the Bleach manga. It shouldn’t surprise me, since I love the anime. I think the surprise is because I love the anime so much. I’m enjoying the differences between the characters in the anime and manga. Probably because I don’t see it as differences in the characters, but in how they’re presented in the story.

I only wish I’d started seriously reading the manga earlier. I have some catching up to do. On the bright side, I have 20-some-odd volumes just waiting to be read.

Is it worth it?

Bleach Volume 6 is worth picking up. Bleach is always good.

This is an important point in the story. Things are about to get really good.

Manga, Reviews, Bleach, Action, Adventure, Humor, Spirits, Viz, Shonen Jump, Tite Kubo, Bleach, Volume 6, Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Uryû Ishida, Uryu Ishida, Renji Abarai, Byakuya Kuchiki, Soul Reapers

Story

Rino Rando is alone in the world since her mom passed away. Well, alone except for her friend Pucchan, who is a puppet.Then there is her pen-pal and benefactor Mr. Poppit, a very mysterious guy.

Mr Poppit offers to enroll her in the prestigious Miyagami Academy. Since she has nowhere esle to go, she accepts. When she arrives, she finds that she has no place to live.

Lucky for her the Miyagami Academy Maximum Authority-Wielding Best Student Council have an opening. They also get to attend the school and live in the school dormitory for free.

My Opinion

Best Student Council is an odd anime, not bizarre, just odd. it’s also pretty darn good.

The beginning reminds me of a slightly yuri-fied version of Azumanga Daioh. The real storyline kicks in a bit later. It’s probably a good thing that the first few episodes allows you to get used to the odd quirks of some of the characters. By the time you start to piece together the big picture you’ve become accustomed to the eccentricities of the Best Student Council.

Watch It Now

The sub is on Crunchyroll. Dub fans can find Best Student Council streaming on Netflix in English, but you have to sign up for the service.

I’d recommend watching it on Crunchyroll.

Anime, Review, Online, Best Student Council, Comedy, Slice of Life, Yuri, Azumanga Daioh

Just wanted to let you know that I’m gonna try to play some catch up the next couple of days. I know my posting has been irregular, to say the least.

The reason is because I haven’t had much of a chance to read manga or watch anime recently. I’ve had less time to write about it. Oddly enough I’ve missed the writing about it almost as much as the anime and manga.

The good news is that I have some manga waiting to be read and anime ready to be watched. I’m really looking forward to getting into a couple of ‘em. I’ll try to get at least a few of ‘em read and reviewed in the next couple of days. The reviews might be short, but they’ll be as informative as I can make ‘em.

I’d better get to work.

Crunchyroll Now Edits Anime

I was shocked to learn that Crunchyroll is editing anime now. The updated news post even has this statement from Crunchyroll.

Due to the nature of the original AT-X version, Crunchyroll chose to air the censored version of Charger Girl Ju-den Chan to ensure the protection of our younger audiences and allow all audiences to watch and enjoy Charger Girl Ju-den Chan.

All Audiences?

Really?

Even the edited version contains scenes that need a warning at the very least. Scenes of fetishistic behavior, masochism and urination as well as extremely suggestive art and dialog, all present after the edits, make me wonder who thinks this show is now appropriate for “all audiences”.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since I saw the news article about it on Anime News Network. I just can’t see a good reason for Crunchyroll to do this. Even the edited version isn’t really appropriate for younger viewers. Why not add it as an age restricted title? if that’s not possible, why not skip it all together?

Verification

If they really want to show this kind of thing, there are better options. Institute an age verification process and upload the anime unedited. Editing down an anime to make it appropriate for a younger audience is a mistake. I thought it was a mistake of the past, but it looks like I was wrong about that.

Not only does it not work, it (usually) screws up the anime.

Anime, Online, Opinion, Crunchyroll, Charger Girl Ju-den Chan

Viz’s Online Store Sale

Viz Media is cleaning out the stuff from the Viz Online Store. Pickings are kinda slim, but there’s still some cool stuff on sale. The best part is how much you can save though.

Save Up To 75%

Yep, you could wind up paying 1/4 of what your items would normally go for. That’s quite a bit of money. Any sale that reduces prices by that much is worth looking into. My girlfriend pointed the sale out to me and we spent a while looking around. There were a few things we couldn’t pass up.

My Goodies

My g/f and I bought a few things. We were tempted to buy more, but we resisted.

The picture up top shows her toy Zabuza Sword and our Akatsuki shoes. Her sword was $2.25 and the shoes are $7.50. That’s damn cheap for what we got. The shoes are nice. They wear like brand name shoes of that kind. They remind me of Keds, but I didn’t see anything on the lables that say who made ‘em. All the labels I’ve found are Naruto related.

Bad news is, you might have to settle for something close to your size since there aren’t many sizes left. The shoe boxes were a bit squished, but the shoes were fine.

The sword is the same one you can pick up at Wal-Mart or Toys R’ Us. It has combat sounds, which have been fun. It’s also pretty sturdy, much better constructed than I thought it would be. I haven’t seen one of ‘em out of the packaging before and for some reason I thought they’d be more flimsy.

We also got a few other small things, but I can’t really mention what they are. We might be using them as gift or stocking stuffers come X-mas.

I wouldn’t want to spoil any surprises.

Online, Fun Stuff, Viz, Naruto, Sale

Story

When we last saw Tsukune, Moka and the gang they were on a field trip to the Human world. Things looked pretty bad. They were trying to stop a witch on a rampage of revenge. That witch has her showdown with Moka, but will it be the end of Ruby?

Back in Yokai Academy the newspaper is doing well, but not as well as Tsukune. It seems Tsukune has another girl interested in him. This one is more of the stalker variety, and she has her own baggage.

Someone else is after Tsukune, and this stalker is most definitely not his soulmate. Saizo Komiya attacked Tsukune when school started. Looks like he’s back in school and looking to even the score. if that wasn’t bad enough, Tsukune is having problems staying human.

My Opinion

I think I would have liked this volume of Rosario+Vampire a bit better if the witch storyline had been wrapped up in Volume 4. Volume 5 starts with a little action, then it’s mostly wrapping up the story. The other stories in the volume would have stood better on their own.

We get to meet a new character in volume 5. Mizore Shirayuki shows up to cause a little trouble. Then she just hangs around being cute, and she does it very well. I like Mizore. She’s probably one of my favorite characters in the whole series.

Is it worth it?

Rosario+Vampire Volume 5 is worth it. The leftover cliffhanger story in the beginning is a bit awkward, but the rest of the book makes up for it. We meet new people and we get some hints that things are really gonna get exciting at Yokai Academy. I can’t wait to read the next volume.

Manga, Reviews, Comedy, School Life, Monsters, Supernatural, Rosario Vampire, Rosario+Vampire, Volume 5, Mizore Shirayuki

Story

Soichi Negishi loves indie music. His dream was to be in a Swedish pop band. He worked hard on his music and went to college in Tokyo. His hard work and dedication paid off… sort of. He’s a star, but he’s not playing pop music.

Soichi is better known as Krauser II. He’s the lead guitar and vocalist of the biggest Evil-Core Death Metal band in Japan, Detroit Metal City. Instead of writing songs about frolicking on the beach, now he’s writing songs about murder, rape and all manner of atrocities.

It might not be such a problem if he weren’t so darn good at his job. When he’s on stage the energy of the crowd and the excitement of performing cause him to become Krauser II. When he’s not on stage he gets into trouble with his foul-mouthed manager for not being metal enough.

Caught between two worlds, Soichi will play the part of Krauser II and hope for his big break into pop music.

My Opinion

Kiminori Wakasugi’s Detroit Metal City is most definitely for mature readers only. This one is not for kids by any means whatsoever.

Clear?

There will be those who are extremely offended by this manga. Most of the songs are horrible diatribes about murder and rape. people of a sensitive nature, or of strong religious beliefs may want to avoid DMC altogether.

Yes, the songs and persona of the band is extremely offensive. It’s meant to be that way. Listen to a few metal albums. Taken in context the manga isn’t that bad. Get past the foul language and the songs themselves, or at least the English translations thereof, are pretty darn funny by themselves. It’s all about context.

The plight of poor Soichi is freakin’ hilarious. Inside this poor meek little indie poser music nerd lives the spirit of a metal god. The persona of Krauser II lets him express his darker side, and sometimes even do good in the process.

Is it worth it?

Detroit Metal City is not for everybody. It is not for kids. Anyone easily offended should just stay away. This book is not for you.

If you’re a mature reader that won’t faint at the sight of 4 and 5 letter words used in abundance, then DMC might be for you. I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys metal and manga.

Manga, Reviews, Music, Metal, Death Metal, Swedish Pop, Indie, Viz, Detroit Metal City, DMC, Kiminori Wakasugi, Soichi Negishi, Krauser II

The other day my nephew asked me to recommend some good manga. (I’m so proud) He wanted something with action and comedy. Seems simple enough, but I was stumped. Sure there’s plenty of action manga, and tons of comedy manga, but I was having a hard time thinking of something that had action and comedy, but was also appropriate for someone his age.

Reading Tween The Lines

As I thought about what to recommend I found myself rejecting things. Why? They weren’t age appropriate. I began to notice that most of the manga I’ve reviewed has been for older teens. Which makes me wonder where all the Tween manga is hiding.

What I came up with…

• Fairy Tale
• Sgt Frog
• Hollow Fields

I even included one that was for teens with Bleach. Might as well, he’s reading it in Shonen Jump anyway.

We also decided to take him with us the next time we go manga shopping. That way he can find his own darn manga something he likes.

What would you recommend?

If you have any recommendations for younger readers please leave a comment or use the contact form. I’d really love to hear some other opinions on the issue.

Please share your recommendations for tween manga. Even if it’s a recommendation on what to avoid. Anything would help.

I’m sure my nephew would be very grateful.

Manga, Opinion, Age, Tween, Teen, Fairy Tale, Sgt Frog, Hollow Fields, Bleach

Story

Maki Aikawa is a former Olympic gymnast who uses her acrobatic skills in a new sport, street fighting. Her high flying gymnastic fighting style earns her the name “Air Master”. Maki becomes obsessed with pushing herself to her physical limit, taking on stronger and more skilled fighters. As she battles her way through more talented adversaries her skills improve and become more deadly.

My Opinion

I originally thought Air Master was older than it is because of the art style used. It was made in 2003-2004, but it looks like it was made in the 80s. That might turn some people away. That’s a shame because this is a great anime, and the dated look only adds to to it’s charm.

The opening theme really reinforces the dated feel. It looks like an opening that would fit in on television 20 years ago. The ending theme wouldn’t. I’m not sure it’d fit in anywhere. It’s a weird running sequence with some rockin’ music playing. It’s downright strange, but kind of addicting.

Air master is your basic fighting anime with each episode or two featuring a a battle with a different street fighter. Some of the fighters are fairly realistic, using real world fighting styles, but quite a few have strange costumes and outlandish fighting styles.

Is it worth it?

Air Master is worth checking out. The fights are cool and ending rheme will grow on you. I’d recommend this one to anyone. Even if it takes a little while to get used to the old school style, it’s well worth it.

You can find Air Master on Crunchyroll and on Funimation’s streaming video page.

Anime, Reviews, Action, Fighting, Street Fighter, Funimation, Crunchyroll, Air Master, Maki Aikawa