One feature that I hope will provide me with better reader feedback is a plugin to allows readers to rate posts. That’s right, you can let me and everyone else know on a standard 5-star scale whether a particular entry is great, fine, or just plain sucks. And don’t just rate everything a 1 because if you do, then you’re not a very nice person. I also decided to change the blog’s name to signify the change in setting. Let me first tell you that I’ve put a poll up in the sidebar there.

And now the explanation:
I wasn’t sure what to call it at first. The simple answer would have been “Crumpled Napkin Blog”, after the main domain itself, but that lacks distinctiveness and pep. The next thing that came to mind was “Nandatte!” which fit the header image I made before I decided to change the name. (Now I have to make a banner that better suits the title….) I almost called it “Betsuni…” after listening to a track from DarkMirage’s Oshikari CD post but I ultimately settled on the phrase “nigorimasen” (or “don’t misread [it]“) from Zettai Shonen’s reporter Sukawara.

Borrowed from a Japanese blog:

こんにちは、須河原晶でーす
す・か・わ・ら
濁りません☆

(Konnichiwa, Sukawara Akira desu. Su-ka-wa-ra. Nigorimasen!)

The phrase, aside from being one of the more memorable things from the series, leaves the job of pinning down the referent up to the listener/reader. Ignoring its context, I would initially take it to mean “don’t misread/misunderstand the situation” or “don’t misinterpret my words”. I could also say that you shouldn’t take the Japanese-inspired title to mean I can speak it well when, in fact, I possess almost no fluency.

I hope you enjoy the site as much as I do! And remember to update your feeds because this is the final post I will make on here. It’s been a good seven months here —  a little under 40K hits as of this post — and hopefully I’ll last much longer out there in the wild.

The humor was good throughout and so was the chemistry between the “good guys” in high-pressure situations. The music fit with the time period – a little hard to screw that up - and the action sequences were fast and slick. The characters all spoke in English (albeit with some bursts of vulgarity) with Japanese subtitles at the bottom so I would be interested to finding out any significant differences in meaning between the actual dialogue and what the subtitles conveyed.

Now for a couple of complaints. First, we actually never see Alisha, the sister of Robert (left above) and the girlfriend of Bill (Roberto’s partner, at right), after Bill keeps reminding Robert about his hot date later that night and repeatedly calls him ‘brother’ to his annoyance since they aren’t brothers-in-law yet. I don’t see this as a big problem because it would have distracted too much from the short film’s uninterrupted timeline but they could have fit a short dinner sequence into the epilogue. Second, the whole film seemed a little too short at 40 minutes but it wrapped up most of its loose ends by the end so it was just enough to tell the story Romanov HIGA wanted to present.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and felt it was a great lead-in to the winter seasonal rush of premieres in the coming week.

1) Harima will be given a Hispanic accent in the School Rumble dub.

My initial reasoning for coming up with this one is based on Harima having darker skin than everyone else, sporting a mustache and soul patch, and riding a motorcycle. These characteristics could lead a dubbing director person to cast someone who could voice a Hispanic character but I think this is a long shot. It would be awesome if it does happen, though.

2) At least one anime title will be released on a high-definition format, such as Blu-ray or HD-DVD, in the United States.

The cost of releasing of HD discs would price out many dedicated anime studios and the fear of picking the wrong side of the format war is another deterrent. Therefore most HD anime releases in America, if they do occur, will come from large movie studios like Sony that have the available funds to risk on such a business venture. AIR was recently released on Bluray in Japan so that and Ergo Proxy might be a good candidates for stateside release but I think a self-contained movie like Paprika or GitS: Innocence would be better suited for a company to test the waters.

3) More bookstores in the United States will wrap their shelved manga.

I would classify this one as unlikely but still could happen. Why I think it is possible in the first place is that brick-and-mortars will want to limit the number of “aisle sitters”. Why I don’t think it will happen is that it would send a message to some consumers that non-offensive manga is no different than explicit works because both are wrapped and could lead to a drop in in-store sales.

4) Incidences of overcrowding will become reported more often at anime conventions.

I admit that this isn’t a wild prediction because this has been a complaint of attendees in recent years but hear me out. AX 2006 had over 40,000 attendees and if the average growth rate of 26% continues, AX 2007 would have about 48,000 people. Otakon raised its membership cap from 22,000 to 25,000 this year and while that wasn’t met (22,302 in 2006) it could be reached in the next couple years.

I know the planners of cons have already thought about this because as numbers keep growing, this will become a serious issue. So I think 2007 might be the year something significant happens. On the other hand, smaller con startups in places near where the big name cons are held could have an effect in offsetting crowd numbers. Or maybe they won’t have an effect, I don’t know.

5) Individual anime episodes will be sold through the iTunes Store for US$2 apiece.

The price point is aggressive compared to the $5 an episode ADV is charging for a dubbed episode but I think it makes sense because the buyer is only getting one dialogue track. If TV shows and music videos at 640×480 cost two bucks, why not anime episodes? In fact, Bandai is already selling episodes of Outlaw Star and My-Hime at that price through Amazon Unbox and anticipated viewers “wanting to buy higher-quality DVDs” after watching a digital-distributed episode. Maybe companies could start out with relatively older titles so as to not cannibalize DVD sales of new releases and add more titles if the first set is successful. Now if the “true” video iPod comes out next month as rumored, anime on the go might become a little easier.

Resolutions:1) Leave reviews for all the videos I have downloaded from AMV.org.

Looking at my hard drive, I have over 170 videos in my AMV folder and I’ve probably left reviews for less than 20 of them. Recalling this fact makes me feel bad for myself so I am determined to write reviews for most if not all of them and also write them sooner for new ones I download during the year. Besides I need to let my inner critic come out and give creators honest feedback so they can improve.

2) Finish at least two AMV’s in 2007.

I have many half-ass ideas for videos and what is keeping me from actually completing them are the inability of my computer to convert properly VOBs into AVIs, RAM, and, oh yeah, FREE TIME. I can solve the memory issue pretty quickly and rip footage into a different format so those two are surmountable. I’m still in the clip capturing process from one video and have two other well-founded plans for my next projects so if I work at it, I think I can accomplish this and get a feeling of self-accomplishment along the way.

3) Attend my first anime convention.

My best bet would probably be Fanime or Anime Expo because my anime club usually tries to get a group discount. Although…if I could somehow make to Sac-Anime in a couple weeks, that would be the first one and maybe a slightly better experience due to its smaller size. Either way, I’ll try to take pictures and blog about my first con experience whenever it happens.

4) Achieve some semblance of being able to read and write in Japanese.

By March, I will have a good grasp on the German language so my next target in my quest to become quadrilingual is Japanese. (The fourth tongue would be either French or Spanish.) However, my next opportunity to take Japanese 1 in college is next fall (unless I choose to take an intensive summer school session) so if I want to achieve this goal satisfactorily by years end, I might have to study on my own and perhaps borrow old textbooks from my Nihongo-speaking friends. I don’t know if I’d be ready for the JLPT level 4 by December so that will likely have to wait for 2008.

4.5) Finish more anime that I have started and abandoned.

This is not a true resolution because this should always be a goal to strive for but I felt it was important enough for me to include it. I am way behind on Death Note, Sumomo, and Night Head and those are just the ones I’ve blogged about. I’m considering marathoning Kanon when that finishes its run and thinking of doing the same with Higurashi soon among others. I’d have probably kept up with most of these with I didn’t “waste” my time reading the newspaper or listening to podcasts. The upcoming winter season won’t make it any easier but I think I can do it if I sit myself down for mini-marathons over the course of the year.

5) Compose more “original” content and stray away from episode summaries.

As I move toward watching anime in batches, doing individual entries for each episode becomes tedious and writing a comprehensive episode summary for each, especially when many others have blogged about that particular episode, is not very creative on my part. So I resolve to focus on quality over quantity and post not because I “have to” but because I want to. If there is something interesting that happened in whatever I’m watching of something that is worth, I will try to make a post about it. One reason I started blogging was to finetune my contemporary writing skills so crafting more editorials, reviews, projects, and general news commentaries, i.e., “original” content, will hopefully keep me from falling into a rut. Rough ideas so far include making unboxing videos or interviewing people about stuff.

P.S. To the bloggers who do episode summaries on a consistent weekly basis, you are doing something that I wish I could do but lack the energy to do so. If someone searches for information on a seemingly obscure series (e.g. Zettai Shonen, Mushishi), finds your impressions of it interesting, and starts watching it as a result, then you’ve done a good job of promoting an anime that wouldn’t have gotten as nearly much attention as a heavily popular series (Bleach, Haruhi). [This is especially the case if the particular anime in question is not being fansubbed at all.] You’re providing a sort of public service to the fan community as I sometimes refer to them myself to remember which episodes I haven’t watched yet. Just be sure to include a piece of your mind with them so they stay fresh and entertaining and keep people returning for more.

I went through some news archives and decided that I would reminiscence on three fronts: the news that actually happened, the fandom scene (as best as I can), and my personal experiences. I wanted to make a video on the theme “it was the {blank}-est year” (e.g. Rockin’est year) but I ran out of time so it got shelved for now. I’ll make some predictions and resolutions for 2007 in my next post so look out for that very soon.

The News Front:
Last January seems so far gone that I had forgotten there had been a minor squabble over other online stores (like Rightstuf) selling ADV’s “exclusive” title, Prefectural Defense Force. I bet you didn’t remember that either until just now. News items I hopefully will recall as occuring this year include:

• Eureka Seven, Trinity Blood, and Bleach all premiering on Adult Swim
• Gainax announcing the “Rebuild of Evangelion” spanning four movies
• Toonami Arsenal launching in mid-July with Hikaru no Go and Prince of Tennis as headliners
• ADV Universe debuting in September with high-quality albeit DRM’d video at five bucks an episode
• Bandai pushing their weight around regarding Solid State Society and fansubbers
• ADV renaming Utawarerumono “Shadow Warrior Chronicles” before reverting to the original title two months later
• Bandai Channel blocking out non-Japanese IP addresses
• Three different manga versions of the Densha Otoko story hitting US bookshelves

This past month featured the long awaited announcement of the Haruhi anime license along with ADV finally setting a release date for Kurau Phantom Memory. We’ll have to wait and see how those work out in the coming months.

Fandom Front:
This was a year of ‘Uguu’s and ‘Nyoro~n’s, killer lolis and hikikomoris. Two different Haruhis hit the fansub circuit in April and played to seperate but not mutually exclusive audiences; Fujioka-san and Suzumiya-san quickly became stars along with their entourages. Anime Nano was born and the site’s podcast was formed as a kind of zeitgeist for the aniblogosphere (I sure hope that’s a word…) as well as a place for listeners to ask strange questions of the hosts.

Kyoto Animation cemented its status as a high production quality studio with Haruhi and Kanon while Churuya-san drooled over smoked cheese, Shana DVD omake exhibited the Flaze Haze in her chibi form, the term ‘tsundere’ gained prominence, and the entertaining Nerima Daikon Brothers interestingly snuck under the noses of the fansubbing community.

Personal Front:
Personally, the past year was a better one regarding my relationship with anime. I started blogging about anime and learning how to write more creatively to avoid becoming repetitive. In the summer, I made an well overdue external hard drive purchase to store media and free up some notebook space. (Just a larger excuse for acculumating a backlog!)

I became an officer of my university’s anime club under some lackluster circumstances but that has spurred me to become more involved in the organization such as creating posters and member cards (gotta get back to work on those…) along with meeting more people and an overall friendlier experience. Oh, and I won an empty artbox from AoD! Score!

I’m sorry if you were expecting a top five or ten anime list from me. I didn’t make one because I don’t think I watched a sufficient number of complete titles for me to feel comfortable compiling such a list. Haruhi, Hachimitsu and NHK would definitely be on it along with Ouran and Love Roma (not an anime), in no particular order of course. I suppose I could tag BECK onto that list because I finished it in early in the year. And what about me taping GitS 2nd Gig and Evangelion off cable and completing those in the spring? Does those count? I’d like to include Chevalier but I only watched 2 episodes of it and then…

*coughs loudly at self* See what I mean? I suppose I could just avoid this internal drama and simply say that there were many good series I watched bits of and haven’t gotten around to finishing yet. Okay, whatever, moving on.

NEXT TIME: predictions and resolutions for 2007!

The main focus of the series is George’s investigation and the trouble he gets himself into but there are also some slight romantic elements. An interesting relationship are developing in this first volume between George and Miyuki, a girl he is hired to protect by her rich father Tanokura-san. He is 28 and she is 17; she is kind of love with him and he tries to play along without committing to anything. Sanae-san, the owner of the inn George is staying at, also seems be attracted to him (both are the same age) but it is hinted that she is having an affair with Miyuki’s father, something that irks Miyuki. Sanae is also likes to go rifle shooting, which comes off a little suspicious when remembering that George had been shot at from a distance while walking near a swamp in a previous episode.

Episode five had George leaving town for a day to look into what was ruled a suicide but he thinks was a murder. He also thinks it was related to an strange occurrence fifteen years prior in which a train car disappeared into thin air. The next volume will probably have him delving deeper and I’ll be following him along. I’ve enjoyed the series so far and the chemistry between its characters. Hopefully, I can track down the last two volumes for a reasonable price so I won’t have to spring for the entire complete collection set and end up with overlapping episodes.

“Sorry, but I’ll be around for awhile.”

Bandai’s front page has been taken over…BUT BY WHO?!?

Now I am aware that the big story of the day is the announcement of Bandai distributing Haruhi in North America via their “viral” campaign but it ranks as number two here because almost everyone has posted about it already. Early this morning, we found out that the A in ASOS stands for American and that the US is really far away from Japan. I’m looking forward to checking every so often for more information to be doled out in episodic fashion despite no RSS feed. One thing of note is that the embedded “Episode 00″ on the site is being hosted on Revver. (The previous, smaller resolution version was displayed using a generic FLV player.)

Revver, for those who don’t know, is a video sharing service similar to YouTube except that members (like ZeFrank) can make money from their videos through post-roll ads. That Suzumiya-san sure knows how to earn $$$ to pay for her flight to America. Anyway, the uploader’s username on Revver is animevillage, which coincidentally the name of an online store Bandai is about to relaunch soon. A user of the same name has been uploading trailers onto YouTube over the past couple weeks so good job, Bandai — you seem to have passed the Web 2.0 test!

ALSO: Hours after the ASOS Brigade posted their video, a different video with similar production values was posted on code-geass.com, featuring a stuffed penguin and produced by DarkMirage. I haven’t watched an episode of this Code Geass show but I hear it’s being secretly sponsored by Pizza Hut so I’ll have to give it a shot. I guess each time ASOS Brigade makes an update, the Geass campaign will make a parallel posting within a couple hours. Now if the Black Knights were to join forces with the brigade members…hmm…

—————

Finally, you have until the 25th to enter Hung’s karaoke contest and compete for one of three wall calendars. I submitted my entry last night and don’t expect to win although I think I sung better this time than I did in the AnimeSuki competition. Also, I’m probably going to get many desk/wall calendars during Christmas and I’ll use the wall ones but not the desk ones. I think it’s too troublesome for me to remember to tear off a page every day.

Happy holidays whereever you are reading this!

Hitomi gets depressed after her boyfriend Jougasaki tells her he can’t make their planned summer vacation trip so she RSVP’s for an offline meeting due to depart the next day. She stops by Satou’s place to drink the night away and Satou decides to console her in order to rectify his past emotional failings. He attempts to do this through joining her on her trip but he has no clue why she’s actually going there.

It was nice to hear Hitomi talking in such a cheerful tone. Misaki was still down after Satou walked out on their last session. She shows her true passion for him by running and yelling his name as he and Hitomi drove away but to no avail as she trips, falls, and cries on the ground.

Ep 12 (Welcome to the Offline Meeting!):
Satou meets the rest of the “off meeting” group and initially becomes put off by their callous and overall sad demeanor. However, he is so inspired when he arrives at the island by both the beauty of the island and Hitomi’s company that he resolves to make a change in his behavior. He attempts to talk to the others but doesn’t do so well. After remembering how he failed to help the class rep put together the class festival, Satou starts to collect firewood to make a bonfire on the beach. One by one, the other men help him pull out a big log out of the sand. It is only after the island owner makes a comment about how they should enjoy the last days of the lives that Satou finally realizes why Hitomi came here.

Meanwhile, Jougasaki gets the rest of the day off from work and tries to call Hitomi’s cell phone. Unfortunately she had intentionally dropped it overboard a couple hours prior while riding the boat to the deserted island. He thinks something is suspscious when she’s not in her apartment so he goes on her computer and discovers her involvement in the online thread. He then goes to Satou’s apartment where he meets concerned acquaintances Yamazaki and Misaki.

Even though Jougasaki was introduced only last episode, I’m starting to feel for him and the situation he’s been put in by Hitomi’s actions. He had told Hitomi that he’d make up for the cancelled vacation and it seems that he truly loves her because he’s worried about her safety. Satou’s innocent enthusiasm was a strange contrast to the others’ lack of it to the point of being funny but his (unconscious) inability to put two and two together still comes off to me as a slight character flaw.

Ep 13 (Welcome to Heaven!):
Jougasaki drives Yamazaki, Misaki, and himself to the harbor in order to stop Saito and Hitomi form killing themselves. Yamazaki thinks that the signs were there and asks Misaki about his behavior but she doesn’t respond because she’s afraid for Satou’s life. Before they get on a boat and race over to the island, Misaki admits to Yamazaki she “found the one” in Satou.

On the island, Satou volunteers to pour the remaining boat fuel on the bonfire but then wonders what he’s doing. The group talks for a bit around the fire but then it is put out and the long walk begins up the mountainside toward a cliff that lies above the rocky ocean shore. Just before they jump off together the medical student, Hidehito, stops because he can’t get his mother’s face out of his head. The kid, Yuu, also gets cold feet as he admits he only stole money from his parents’ wallet to get out of trouble with mobsters.

Hitomi is still determined to jump but is stopped by Jougasaki’s marriage proposal from the bullhorn below them. Upon hearing her acceptance, Satou really wants to jump and the ex-suicide people try to hold him back. Misaki hops on the loudspeaker and tells him in a strangely loving fashion that he is a worse piece of human garbage than she is and that she needs to help him. Yamazaki tells him that a dramatic death does not befit them and both Satou and Misaki are heard crying loudly at the end.

One major plot deference from the manga is how the group planned to off themselves. Originally it was via carbon monoxide poisoning but I think the change to cliffjumping was essential to the anime writers’ intention to further the relationship between Misaki and Satou. The setting also provided more dramatic effect than sitting around in a steamhouse.

This episode featured a new opening and ending set although the former is not a big change as it is a sonic tweaking of the original. “Puzzle -extra hot mix-” adds a pipe organ and drops a saxophone but still has the same vocals and lyrics. The ending “Modokashii Sekai no Ue de” is softer and better than the old ending IMO but still so-so as a song.

Ep 14 (Welcome to Reality!):
Everyone is on the beach recovering from the drama on the cliff and Misaki tries to approach Satou. He scares her by only raising his fist in annoyance and seems to evoke bad memories of violence from her past. After they return to the mainland, Jougasaki offers the attempted people rooms and onsen privileges to help them relax. While the guys are sitting in the hot tub, the pool cleaner comes in and tells them they were fools to attempt suicide, including that he was one of them himself.

Some of the families come to the hotel to meet their missing sons. Hidehito gets slapped by his crying mother while Yuu’s father gets angry at the organizer before Yuu puts the blame on himself. Yuu later gives Satou a month-long trial code for Ultimate Fantasy, a MMORPG similar to FF XI. Satou asks where his companions went and it turns out Yamazaki quickly went back for the last day of Natsucomi and failed to sell many trial copies of their game. Misaki on the other hand simply went home but Satou expresses his disinterest in her. Satou gets a lift to the train station by the organizer and who should happen to meet him in the parking lot but the organizer’s young son Makoto!

Back at his apartment, Satou drinks with a complaining Yamazaki but soon gets bored and runs off to attend Misaki’s counselling session. Misaki cites a “breach of contract” because he missed the past two days but concedes that she had been keeping her house’s location a secret. Therefore, the fine of 1 million yen is temporarily offset. Satou gets called by his mother when he comes back and is told something he doesn’t want to hear her tell him.

This was a decompressing episode that resolved the off meeting mess and set the stage for Satou’s upcoming game addiction. The mini-arc as a whole lent a look into Misaki’s true feelings for Satou and her motivations for setting up the hikikomori project. Although her kind feelings are not entirely returned by Satou, she feels the situation is becoming better between them and holds hope for the future. The writers also presented the subject of suicide in a way that showed some people’s motivations and involved appropriate comedy via Satou’s role as the “straight man”.

What is known is that the domain was created on December 14 and updated on the 15th, which means that a deal was struck recently. Whoever licensed the anime (if anyone) is sure to have paid a pretty penny for it and will probably make much of it back based on the popularity this title has. I can imagine the first pack-in extra being an red-orange armband…

Oh, and the Japanese SOS Dan website is giving me a 404, apparently following the “Disappearance” part of the novel series (AnimeSuki forum link). So gather ye fansubs while ye may and prepare for the internets to explode on Friday.

Here is the main problem:

Fewer Japanese are marrying today than ever, and those who do largely shun traditional white wedding kimonos in favor of Western-style dresses. A declining birthrate, meanwhile, has meant fewer babies, which in turn has meant fewer sales of kimonos for children’s coming-of-age rites. Nationwide, kimono sales have more than halved in the past decade.

The reporter uses 102-year-old Yasujiro Yamaguchi, one of the last master weavers in Nishijin, as a narrative focal point through the article. He is one of only three left who can create a kimono from scratch, which means planning and weaving it with his own hands to “infuse the intended wearer’s personality”. All three are over 70 and none have any apprentices.

The kimono is one of the few things that I can think of as distinctly Japanese alongside Shintoism and samurai. If one looks at the kanji for the word (着物), kimono literally means ‘something worn’. It’s a symbol of traditional Japan and subtle beauty. I think this quote from Yamaguchi says it best:

“The kimono is not just about our country,” [Yamaguchi] added. “It is about the Japanese race — our daily rituals, our history, our religion, about who we are as a people. We have to do anything we can to protect the kimono, even if that means making them overseas.”

When I started this blog on WordPress.com, I knew there were limitations in terms of customizing the look of it with themes and plugins but I was fine with that. I didn’t need to be able to do fancy things like have a rotating header or put a music jukebox in the sidebar. All I wanted to do was post images and write text.

Gradually the more subtle restrictions became more realized to me. The only things I could upload were images. The interface lagged a little at times and the categories of links are arranged alphabetically (minor setbacks). Then the final straw came a couple weeks ago when I received a warning saying the maximum free upload quota of 50 MB had been reached. I knew I shouldn’t have linked so many screenshots in my earlier Haruhi entries…

Anyway, since then I’ve been using Photobucket to host my images, which is fine but it’s a bit more legwork and also spreads my imagelinks into multiple locations. Sure I could pay the 20 credits ($20) to upgrade my WordPress quota to 1GB but the only increments one can purchase credits in are $15, $25, and $50. I can’t buy squat with the remaining five bucks and wasn’t the point of having WP host my blog in the first place that I wouldn’t have to pay for storage or bandwidth costs?

The one significant caveat of moving the blog somewhere is that there are a number of incoming links to particular posts on my blog, most recently the one about Borders’ manga section. (Why the hell did that one get popular? It was just a throwaway post!) If I change my address, I’d have to tell RSS subscribers to adjust their feeds in order. This won’t be a problem if I properly export my posts and stuff to the new site but it’s still a hassle.

It also seems a little too soon for me to emigrate away from where I am right now. I’ve only been blogging for the past 6 months and although I do feel that I have gotten somewhat better at writing from constructing and planning posts, I still have room to improve. I don’t know a lot about PHP or CSS but I suppose I could quickly tweak and learn more from there. Besides I should really learn those two if I want to get serious about designing stuff online.

After talking about the negative things that led me this decision, let me focus on the positives for a minute. I will be able to better customize my site through themes and plugins. I will have spacious storage for music, images, and maybe video. And I won’t be hit with the full yearly rate until a year from now, when I will likely have a steady job. ^L^

I’ll try working on setting up the site this coming week when I’m done with finals so expect it to be finished a little after Christmas And what about the sideblog? Well, I could create a subdomain for it but right now I am more inclined. I am also planning on launching a wiki with a specific focus in the weeks after that in an ambitious attempt to harness the collective knowledge of anime bloggers and non-bloggers alike. I would like to talk more about it but I want to keep it a surprise for some reason. More exciting that way, I suppose.

In the meantime, I’ll be wrapping up some unfinished drafts and reviews. Earlier this week, I went through my anime folder and found I had many shows I’ve downloaded the first episodes of (Asatte no Houkou, the newer Negima, et al.) but never got around to watching yet so I guess I will also be sifting through those over vacation.