Notes taken with a 0.7mm pencil.
To help with anime tourism, I threw together a custom map on Google, although the success is partial so far. It was easy to find the major landmarks. The trip in ep.13 I mostly figured out, too (enough to find the curry house, I think). But the final shrine gate eludes me. The nearest srine does not quite look right.
No entry in the storied Retrospective series is exactly like the other, and Sunred’s is no different. But without futher ado, behold.
I may have been possibly joking now, but I was gravely serious previously. I really do think this is important.
Everyone would obviously recognize the grand finale of the first season, but what about the sequel? I feel that it does not measure up to the original, even with all faults of the latter. The segment where Red steals Vamp’s bicycle was terrible, and reminded me vividly just why I dropped the Sunred initially.
I saved a few screencaps with promiment buildings as pointers for the future anime tourism. This one is a bit different, because it’s local. BTW, Google failed to find “Curry House Teri”.
An accidential map, with strange mistakes by ANBU. I can understand translating “here too” as “Kawasaki”, but “Kanagawa” translated as “Kawasaki” obviously is a thinko.
Every forumer and his dog recognized Tamaki in ep.24, but what about this in ep.14:
Hint: Hitagi Senjogahara.
There may be more. Zyl is a new fan, maybe I should ask him. {Update: Zyl e-mailed me that he’s taking detailed notes, so presumably we can expect a blog post either at Hontou ni or at Sea Slugs.}
Over at the Golden Waste they are getting excited after finding that Aniplex America registered a domain for Garden of Sinners. Sorry, but it’s not news. The other thing Thomas e-mailed me about was this:
That being said, I’ll be getting [Gurren-Lagann movies] just to try to encourage [Aniplex] to release Kara no Kyoukai in the future. Aniplex had been shopping it around, most visible at Anime Boston last year and I’d really like to see it out on DVD (or what ever format but it’s probably going to be DVD) here.
So yea… ViZ had a license for Nodame Live Action for years, and where is it?
UPDATE: Actually there was an article at Yamagata’s about it, I just forgot, sorry.
Via Mori comes the news that Tiamat’s Disciple is dead. We did not cross often, because I’m not into manga, but he was the man to go for manga stuffs (last time I linked him on the account of the Azumanga’s 10th Anniversary reprint by Yen). So long to a man I never met but knew about.
Bandai Entertainment, which is a Bandai NAMCO Group company just like Bandai Visual, will continue to distribute [sola]. Sentai Filmworks is removing the title from its catalog.
Too bad my experience with sola did not start on the good foot, but then Astro liked it.
Jessi also adds:
On the upside, it does seem to suggest that Bandai isn’t in an out-of-control downward spiral towards bankruptcy, which is certainly good news.
I am in full agreement. Mind, I do not resent any less the way Jessi poisons the Internet and the minds with the hatred of good things in anime, but the broken clock, twice a day, you know.
I was considering a preorder for the 2nd Gurren-Lagann movie, currently available from Bandai, when I noticed that apparently it is a sub-only release. Now I don’t have anything against subtitles, but what is the point of doing it? I already have the whole series subtitled. The difference with the series are miniscule. Sure they threw GLPW into the deal with LE, which is great and all, but I am not persuaded.
Maybe nobody likes to deal with that dumbass who was raging recently, and his studio is probably tanking because it’s way overpriced for the job. But I see a serious opportunity for Bandai and Gurren-Lagann being lost because of the movie format. Dub market is different… I have a unit of that in my own household. Really, Bandai, I expected more.
So, for now, no deal. Maybe they’ll release a BD version eventually, and that better be dubbed or else.
P.S. The “new” (post-ADV) Gurren-Lagann dubbing voicework was great (currently available at Youtube from Manga Ent.). I don’t care how you do it and if you have to pay Sherman, just make it happen.
UPDATE: Thomas e-mailed:
I’d like to point out that the Gurren Lagann movies are licensed by Aniplex of America and the the two movies are their first release, the movies are not licensed by Bandai Ent., they are only distributing it for Aniplex.
Thus is the magic of Kamichu!; a series that could have easily been forgettable and mediocre was immortalized by the impressive production efforts from new animation studio, Brains Base! I think this scene is a great example of that; it’s a mundane moment given life and character well beyond the usual TV-anime standards. More than that, it’s just a great example of animation full stop.
Regretfuly, I have to disagree at least about the big picture. While the production efforts were indeed impressive for newcomers, they fell short of the existing standard in many places (the Mikofrog was especially bad). But the worst about Kamichu can’t be captured in screencaps, because it was in its patchwork storytelling a-la Berserker Base.
In the end, I rewatched ep.12 a few times (the transfer for the convention), each time being ticked off by the off-model, stout characters in the ending welcome. Forgettable? Hardly. Cannot forget such a failure to meet the expectations that Kamichu’s own ep.1 set.
So, I was shopping for foods in a local store when I spied this:
Leaving aside the bizarre circumstances that brought Fresh Precure candy to America, where Fresh Precure is not broadcast, consider this: each Cure has her own flavour, which you can sample by sucking on a designated candy. As Evirus teaches us, each type is appropriately named “peach”, “blueberry”, and “pine” (can’t wait to give her a try).
Characters on the bag look much better than in screencaps. Stupid Toei.
UPDATE: The bag also includes candy for “Chiffon” and “Tarte”, the magical animal sidekicks. Labelling on the back of the bag makes it clear that it was intented to have only two. I don’t know exactly how the 3rd cure transforms… But all 3 carry the usual holster.
Pine tastes like… something long forgotten. But definitely nothing like pinon. Maybe she was supposed to be a pineapple?
For those who are interested in this sort of thing, the keyboard is IBM Ultranav.