Author: hung

Somewhat Regular Poll: Winter 2006 Anime Supporting Cast!

Post author By hung
Post date February 21, 2006
4 Comments on Somewhat Regular Poll: Winter 2006 Anime Supporting Cast!

Spurred by some comments I left on Samazama about supporting cast in anime, here’s another poll!

For some reason or other, I always end up liking the characters in anime that have no chance with the main character. They’re still there, and still smokin’ hot, but there’s no chance they’ll "win" in the end. In some cases they might not even be interested in the main character; I just think they’re more interesting than whoever’s flaunting it in the foreground.

Here are my picks for best minor (not as in age, although I guess some of them could be minors. uh oh…) character in the current Winter 2006 anime batch:

Blogging

Email Notifications Update! + Fanservice!

Post author By hung
Post date February 20, 2006
No Comments on Email Notifications Update! + Fanservice!

Hey all! There’s just a few administrative things I’d like to tell my readers about. Ok, actually, there’s just one.

I had set up this thing on the sidebar that lets you sign up for email updates. It was powered using feedblitz or some other cool buzzword web 2.0 company. It wasn’t really to my liking, but since pretty much no one signed up for updates anyway, I was like, "meh." The problem with it was that it only sent emails once a day, and pretty much a day after the post was made.

Lo and behold, some people have recently signed up for email notifications! I’ve decided to change the system that I use. I’m now using the wordpress wp-email-notification plugin. This one is instantaneous and quite awesome. So if you’ve signed up for email updates previously, please sign up again (I promise you won’t get duplicate emails). And if you haven’t signed up, well, this is the perfect time*!

Oh, and don’t be worried that I’ll spam you or sell your email to anyone. You’ll only get emailed if I update my blog (and I’ll try to keep the updates to 1 a day at most!). Thanks for reading my rant, and have a nice day! And, uh, here’s some Binchou-tan fanservice for reading through it. (Did I just say Binchou-tan fanservice!?!?!)

*may not actually be the perfect time

First Impressions Manga

Tokyo Boys & Girls (Tokyo Shounen Shoujo) – Manga Preview

Post author By hung
Post date February 19, 2006
5 Comments on Tokyo Boys & Girls (Tokyo Shounen Shoujo) – Manga Preview

Moving right along with my Shojo Beat sampler, today I take a look at "Tokyo Boys & Girls."

Anime Manga

Animal Yokocho Interactive Manga Online

Post author By hung
Post date February 18, 2006
3 Comments on Animal Yokocho Interactive Manga Online

While browsing around looking for Animal Yokocho stuff (I need to get my fix!), I came across the site for the manga. It has little animated flash versions of the manga! I haven’t gone through the whole site yet, but it seems to have 18 chapters of flash manga goodness! Plus furigana! There’s also a flash game where you double click on the characters heads to make them disappear (not as violent as might think, though).

There’s also a bunch of other animated manga on the "Manga Online" website, including Gokusen and a bunch of other ones I haven’t heard of.

If, like me, you’re going through Animal Yokocho anime withdrawal, this might be your best hope. Otherwise, it’s still a pretty cool diversion.

Expenses Manga Music

Kaimono Log – Lots of Manga + J-Pop CD

Post author By hung
Post date February 17, 2006
No Comments on Kaimono Log – Lots of Manga + J-Pop CD

First off, thanks to all who commented on my "Adventures in Manga Importing" post. It’s nice to know that wherever I’m ordering stuff from, I won’t get bamboozled. Last night I finally made an order for some manga and a CD that I’ve wanted for more than a year! Here’s the complete shopping list:

Anime Gaming

Disgaea Anime Promos!

Okay, so being a huge Nippon Ichi fanboy, the Disgaea anime is something of a holy grail for me. The slightest news about the Disgaea anime is enough to send me into a giddy mood. So imagine my surprise when I read on Heisei Democracy that there was a new promo out today!

The first one I saw made me a bit worried that the anime would suffer from talking head syndrome. I didn’t see much action, and the framerates were kinda jerky.

Today’s promo looks a lot better. It’s much more fluid than the first one. I did notice my mortal enemy: inappropriate/out of place CGI. Hopefully it won’t be too prominent in the anime…

The Disgaea anime is slated for an April release, so I only have about two more months of languishing until it comes out! I guess I could always pass the time by playing the game. I think I logged like, 40+ hours two Summers ago…

Manga

Adventures in Manga Importing

Post author By hung
Post date February 14, 2006
8 Comments on Adventures in Manga Importing

Lately, I’ve been meaning to pick up some imported Japanese manga, both to boost my literacy and to read some stuff that isn’t available in English yet. As long as it’s got some furigana over the kanji, I should be okay.

I’ve looked at a variety of options, but I thought that others might know more about the import scene than me. Mainly, the shipping costs seem to be pretty high for importing directly, and I’m not sure which domestic importers are "legit." First off, the stores I’ve been looking at:

Amazon.co.jp – Has a pretty awesome selection, but shipping for one manga book is 1,500 yen. I guess I could buy in bulk, but I think buying from a domestic importer would be cheaper.
Yesasia.com – I was stoked because I found a lot of manga that I wanted at pretty reasonable prices. Shipping is free on $40+ orders. Then I realized most of them were the Chinese versions. I can’t read Chinese, so this isn’t an option. On a side note, I’m still thinking of getting a certain Round Table CD there that I’ve wanted for a while.
Sasugabooks.com – I found a link to this book store on a forum. The prices are good and the shipping is cheap too. I don’t know how reputable they are, though.
Animegamersusa.com – This store seems somewhat popular. The prices for manga are really good($5-$7 a volume), and the shipping isn’t that bad either ($5 for USPS media mail). I’d go with this store if I knew it was trustworthy. Their website is also kinda rugged (putting in an order for 10,000 copies of Shakugan no Shana vol. 1 caused an overflow on their side; granted, that’s a lot of Shana, but still).
eBay – Apparently, eBay is pretty good for domestic manga. I’m still kinda scared to buy import stuff there though. Too much bootleg stuff has gone through eBay to my doorstep in the past…

These are mostly all of the places I’ve considered. If you’ve shopped at any of these places before and you know they’re cool, please let me know by writing a comment. Also let me know if you know of a better place to import Japanese manga (to the United States).

Whilst looking for manga deals, I found some deals on domestic stuff too. I thought I’d share it with you.

First off, Amazon.com has a buy 3 get 1 free deal on books under $10. This should include most manga. EDIT: There’s only some manga that this deal is compatible with. I made up a list of the manga that’ll work.
ADV is having one of their many clearance sales (this time it’s called a "Valentine’s Day Sale"). There’s good stuff to be had if you don’t mind getting it a month after you order it with a hole drilled in it.

Last but not least, happy Valentine’s Day.

First Impressions Manga

Ultra Maniac – Manga Preview

Post author By hung
Post date February 14, 2006
1 Comment on Ultra Maniac – Manga Preview

So I wrote a while back that I had acquired a shoujo manga sampler, and that if I could muster the guts to read it, I’d put up some mini-previews. Weeks passed, and it sat on my shelf unread. Today I figured, what better way to spend Valentine’s Day alone than reading manga written for 12 year-old girls? Hmm, maybe there’s a reason I don’t have a girlfriend… Anyway, here’s my thoughts on the first chapter or so of Ultra Maniac:

Anime First Impressions

Ergo Proxy – Anime First Impressions

Post author By hung
Post date February 11, 2006
9 Comments on Ergo Proxy – Anime First Impressions

So Ergo Proxy has gotten a lot of hype, not necessarily because of its content, but because of its resolution: 1280×720! Any anime that requires a hardware update has got to be good! Do the specs make the anime? Read on to find out!

Anime First Impressions

REC – Anime First Impressions

Post author By hung
Post date February 9, 2006
15 Comments on REC – Anime First Impressions

Back when I did my first preview of REC, all I really knew about it was that it involved a seiyuu. A hot seiyuu! Even with that small amount of info, I had a feeling it would be a pretty good anime. Okay, so maybe I just thought the picture was hot… So how does the first episode hold up?