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- 1-12-07
‡ I started watching Eureka Seven and made some entries for it.
From the cover art it sort of looks like a mecha skateboard show. It sounds sort of weak, but they manage to make something pretty interesting out of it with nice visuals, an overall plot and character development. Johnny Yong Bosch has been getting a lot of lead roles, I like his acting and am glad to see him in another show. Crispin Freeman another actor I like is also in this show.
- 12-11-06
‡ I added entries for Bleach.
It's sort of similar to Yu Yu Hakusho in that a young man is
hunting evil spirits, but for the first few episodes it's much
less of a fighting anime. Generally speaking I find the shows
where the characters pontificate about their moves to be much
less enjoyable. More action less talk, so far Bleach is looking
pretty promising.
- 12-10-06
‡ I added entries for Full Metal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa. The movie for Full Metal Alchemist was done well. Much like the series it's action packed, with lots of fight scenes.
- 10-1-06
‡ I have been watching a
little Naruto and
have made a few entries for some of the more prominent characters.
They usually only credit the main characters. I decided to
check it out when they released a dvd 3 pack for it, Naruto
seems to have a large fan base. It's mostly a fighting anime
similar to Yu Yu Hakusho or Dragonball, big on fights short
on plot. Rurouni
Kenshin is my favorite fighting anime, it has well developed
plot that really gets you involved with the characters.
- 9-1-06
‡ I managed to avoid both
anime conventions in Dallas this summer. Perhaps they will
have exciting guests that I have not seen before next year,
and it will motivate me to attend.
- 4-27-06
‡ Long time since I've updated
the site, though I have been watching a bit of anime, a lot
of it was part of series that I already had entries for. I
added entries for the main characters in Steamboy.
It's a pretty entertaining movie. I thought Patrick Stewart
did a pretty good job. I didn't care for Next Generation very
much, so I was pleasantly surprised. When I think of him in
Next Generation I usually think of the episode where he is
captured by the cardassians. His performance is way over the
top, and makes William Shatner look like a great actor by comparison.
- 10-14-05
‡ I added entries for Midori Days and World of Narue. Both shows are pretty good and worth watching if you have the opportunity. I like the way they intigrated the english and japanese voice actors in the same spot in the credits.
- 10-10-05
‡ I added a few entries for Full Metal Alchemist. Which is turning out to be a pretty nice show.
- 9-2-05
‡ Animefest was labor day weekend in Dallas. I attended I got to see and get an autograph from Schinchiro Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop and Samuari Champloo. I got a few other autographs as well. I saw a few episodes of Midori Days which was pretty well done, I bought it and will add it to the database later.
- 7-26-05
‡ I did a little cleaning and moved all the old news items to a new page called old news.
- 6-22-05
‡ I added some data for Heat
Guy J, I got the boxed set. I was really happy with the
show. The animation was high quality, and the dub was excellent.
What I thought was a really nice touch was that they lip synced
to the characters that happened to be there when they were doing
the dialogue for the next episode preview. The actors weren't
credited individually, and a lot of them were using aliases
which is a downer. But since I got the boxed set it's pretty
old and detailed cast information was readily available.
- 6-5-05
‡ Akon was this weekend, I
have really been disappointed with the selection of voice actors
they choose to bring, they seem to be stuck in a rut. It seems
they want to spend their guest dollars on jpop bands or something.
I was still really peeved at last years room arrangements, being
unable to attend a couple conferences due to overcrowding in
small rooms. Perhaps they got it right this year, though I suspect
not. I chose not to attend Akon this year, I doubt they will
notice as it seems to be pretty popular. But, unless I voice
my opinion and don't go when they do not bring new things for
me to see then they will never change their trend. I can easily
see the spot they are in as ADV and Funimation are more or less
local and it's probably pretty inexpensive to bring in the same
voice actors from there. I am thinking Animefest is a better
con for the Dallas Area I was really happy with the guest selection
last year. Animefest does have a large number of 'local' voice
actors as well, but they at least try to bring in new people.
I just wish the anime industry paid it a little more attention,
it seems odd that funimation and ADV do not put up more of a
presence there as they are both located here in Texas.
- 5-28-05
‡ Samurai
Champloo is a title I was staying away from because I thought
it had a silly title, oddly enough I stayed away from Cowboy
Bebop for a while until a friend bought the first DVD and I
saw it. But, I saw a trailer for Samurai Champloo on the Appleseed
DVD and decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised,
it's a good show. After seeing the first disc I went out and
got the second, the third DVD is coming out this next week.
Geneon seems to be on a trend of lumping it's voice actors together
and not crediting them with specific roles. Aliases seem to
be on the rise as well. I dislike both trends as it's not really
doing anime fans any service. Possibly there are reasons related
to members of the Film Actors Guild(FAG) doing work on projects
that do not meet guild requirements, for which they could be
fined or suspended. I realize it's not actually called FAG however,
I've just seen Team America recently and find it amusing to
reference them in a derogatory manner since they are having
a negative impact on my interests. If there's not actually a
reason for a voice actor to use an alias then they really shouldn't
in my book as it makes it difficult to determine what people
are working on. I got Magical
Play, mainly because it was on sale and the voice actor
commentary is by three people not directly credited in the show,
how bizarre is that.
- 5-23-05
‡ I added some data for Burst
Angel, it's a neat little show so far we'll see how it develops.
- 5-20-05
‡ It's no secret I suppose
that I am a fan of Masamune Shirow, it's why I really hated
that Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence was not dubbed in English.
Geneon unlike Go Fish can actually make a decent product for
the North American audience. I noticed Go Fish was trying to
unload it's undubbed drek in a double pack, I hope they got
burned sufficiently that they never license another anime title.
Appleseed
is a great movie and has a good English dub as well. It's unfortunate
that not all the cast members are given specific credit though.
The limited edition was advertised as having a metal case, but
in actuality it's a plastic case with a thin metal covering,
quite odd.
- 5-19-05
‡ Like episode II I went and
saw Episode III at the midnight showing. I was originally planning
on avoiding it the first week to lower opening receipts since
the first two were so disappointing, but ended up going with
friends anyway. It is the best out of the prequel trilogy. It's
no surprise that Hayden Christensen is still too short and still
a bad actor, but it's all George's fault that he wastes half
the movie on some stupid robot general instead of properly developing
Anakin's downfall as it should have been portrayed. Are we supposed
to be sympathetic with any of these characters? George Lucas
should have paid someone with some talent to write and direct
these three movies. It's a shame he can't live up to what he
did in Episode IV, but different directors managed adequately
in V and VI. If you were to watch this movie in a void without
having any reference to previous Star Wars movies, you'd be
left sitting there going what is this crap, it's mostly gee
whiz visual effects that will look home made in 20 years. The
original stories are just that stories that develop characters
and make you sympathetic with the people in them. They stand
the test of time because of it and despite the fact that the
visual effects they may have used are dated at this point. It's
really sort of like Lupin, after you see Castle Cagliostro all
the other Lupin stuff will just leave you disappointed.
- 3-15-05
‡ I got the first dvd for
Gantz. I've added the voice actors to the database. The dvd
is quite short, 2 episodes the play time is listed as 50 minutes
for the entire dvd.
There is space in the box for 6 cases, so it's looking like
12 or 13 episodes, much like the Tenchi Muyo OVA. I would say
that the majority of 13 episode series that I have are on 4
dvd's. I am uncertain why ADV is trying to gouge it's customers
by putting so little material on each dvd. The plot is developing
quite slowly, and you're left more or less not knowing what's
going on, nor was there any real character development. Stay
away from this one.
- 3-13-05
‡ I really like the new Ghost
in Shell Stand Alone Complex. I also liked the first Ghost
in The Shell movie a lot. I watched Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence
this weekend. I won't be adding it to my database however, because
it's not dubbed in English. I just wanted to take this opportunity
to complain about Go Fish, the company that bought the license
to distribute this movie in the United States. I did not buy
this dvd nor did I buy Millennium Actress. I imagine if a company
wishes to make a decent return on their investment by selling
movies in the United States, they should dub them. Go Fish has
spectacularly under whelming production values on par with people
from Hong Kong who sell illicit knock offs and do no work on
the product. The subtitles are poorly translated. It's quite
absurd they sub title english background music, which completely
interrupts the ongoing dialogue, but sub title the opening song
as (japanese singing). Initially they sub title the sound effects
as well, which I did not like. But about half way through the
movie I guess the guy got tired of that little extra effort,
and ceased sub title the sound effects. I also noticed on several
occasions that the voices did not match the lips in the animation.
Your average modern english dub is just as good or better at
matching lip flaps than this original japanese version. Sub
title fans are always going on about how accurate and great
subs are, but I just do not see it. More importantly if I want
to read something I'll buy the manga. Please do the anime community
a favor and do not license anything else Go Fish, because you
add nothing to the movies you distribute.
- 1-24-05
‡ My first update of 2005,
I added Final Fantasy Unlimited, I watched the first disc several
months ago and was initially disappointed with the slow pace.
The series starts to be a little more action oriented towards
the end though. Despite the fact I ended up enjoying it, I would
be hesitant to actually recommend it to anyone. I also made
a few entries for Samurai X. I've had Samurai X for a couple
years, and it's a good show. But, I saw it after Rurouni Kenshin,
and Richard Hayworth was so good it leaves me disappointed when
I hear someone else doing Kenshin Himura's voice. Additionally
I will have to put in a strong negative for Wolf's Rain, I got
disc four and there is not one single frame of new animation
on it, as far as I can tell. There are four flash back episodes
that's all that's on the entire disc. I wrote Bandai and complained
in December, but they did not even bother to reply to my complaint.
I was thinking Bandai was a quality company, they published
Cowboy Bebop, Gundam Wing and Witch Hunter Robin. It's clear
that Bandai doesn't really care about it's customers or delivering
a quality product after all though.
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