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- 11-4-04
‡ I added Kiddy Grade to the
database. It's a nice little show about a couple of young girls
who are crime fighting detectives for a galactic law enforcement
agency. Supernatural powers, cybernetics and a little fan service.
- 11-3-04
‡ I got the first 3 discs
for Wolf's Rain, I added the show to the database. Steven Blum
and Johnny Bosh were both at Animefest and the show was mentioned
several times as they were both in it. I picked it up because
several people were asking about it, or wanting to get stuff
signed. It's a pretty good show so far.
- 9-3-04
‡ Animefest is labor day weekend
in Dallas. Steve Blum and Beau Billingslea are here this year,
Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite anime series. Johnny Yong
Bosch, Vash the Stanpede is here as well. I am looking forward
to getting signatures on some dvd cover slips. The convention
moved to a much larger hotel downtown much like Akon.
- 8-27-04
‡ I picked up the first DVD
in Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. They have a few
returning voices from the movie, Kusangi is different though.
I added a few entries for it. The series is looking good so
far, I like Shirow's work, we will see.
- 8-23-04
‡ I picked up the three pack
of the first 3 dvd's of Last Exile. The series is looking very
promising and has lots of voice actors that I like in it. The
actors are not credited with specific roles unfortunately.
- 7-26-04
‡ It's been a while since
I've made an update to the database, a very long time. I added
a few entries for Hellsing. I got the boxed set and watched
the entire series and was very happy with it.
- 6-7-04
‡ I went to Akon this year
in Dallas. They changed hotels away from the airport to downtown.
The hotel is much more suitably sized to the convention. They
still had a few problems putting certain events in rooms that
were too small, I was unable to go to the ADV conference, because
the room was simply too small. They are definately headed in
the right direction with handling the increased attendance that
has happened over the years with the growing popularity of anime.
- 9-14-03
‡ I added data for Najica
today. It's been a slow month as far as my data base is concerned,
most of the stuff I've watched were just new episodes in titles
that were already entered.
- 9-1-03
‡ AnimeFest was this weekend
in Dallas. I attended it and got about a dozen dvd slip covers
signed by various voice actors: Tiffany Grant, Scott McNeil,
Chris Patton, Monica Rial, Vic Mignogna and Michael Dobson.
At one of the panels Michael Dobson indicated that Paul and
Brian who also do voice acting are his brothers. Kyle Herbert
and Stephanie Nadolny of DragonBallZ were there but I don't
have any DBZ items so I had nothing to bring to have them sign.
Mike McFarland and Greg Ayers were there as well as, but I didn't
have anything for them to sign either.
- 8-14-03
‡ I've made a few entries
over the last week: Lupin III the Secret of Mamo, Updates for
Full Metal Panic and Noir for the latest dvds, and s-CRY-ed.
Bandai was promoting s-CRY-ed at the last Akon they provided
the lariats for the badges. I mainly picked it up because they
were clearly promoting it, I figured it had to be fairly decent.
The first dvd for s-CRY-ed is pretty entertaining, a nice little
sc-fi mutant powers story. s-CRY-ed has Steven Blum in it the
person who voiced Spike in Cowboy Bebop the movie. It's apparently
a matter of debate as to whether he's the same person as David
Lucas, they sound pretty much the same but Steven Blum denies
being David Lucas. The registration for rating titles on my
web site hasn't been quite as popular as I imagined it would
be. So if you haven't registered and want to vote on some titles
please do.
- 7-6-03
‡ I was thinking of ways to
make my web site a little more interesting, and decided to let
visitors rate the titles and keep a running total. In order
to try an eliminate duplicate voting I do require visitors to
register. Please login and rate the series you've watched. Thanks.
- 7-4-03
‡ I added Read or Die to the
database. Read Or Die is a good show, I liked it a lot. I finished
watching I Me My Strawberry Eggs, and completed the entries
for that series as well. The quality and tone continued throughout
the series, it's a fun series similar to Tenchi and Hand Maid
May, Pioneer has some excellent titles in its anime portfolio.
- 6-21-03
‡ I added data for I Me My
Strawberry Eggs, Real Bout High School and Hand Maid May. Strawberry
Eggs is pretty amusing so far, I've only seen the first two
dvds. Hand Maid May, by the same people as Strawberry Eggs,
is also a fun show. Real Bout is looking kind of average, though
it was a nice surprise to hear Spike, Faye and Jet together
again. I also made a few additional entries to existing titles
and cleaned up some data.
- 6-14-03
‡ After doing some data entry
this afternoon I was curious who had the most entries in my
database. I created a new page to display some of statistics
for the data, you can find the link in the menu on the left
labeled Top Ten.
- 6-14-03
‡ I added data for three more
titles to the database. I added data for Rupan the Fuma Conspiracy.
The actor that played Lupin didn't match the performance of
the other actors that I have heard play him, it left me disappointed.
I'm kind of offended by the use of Rupan instead of Lupin as
well, a pretty lame attempt at humor. I also added data for
All Purpose Cat Girl Nuku Nuku. It's an OVA so I guess I should
expect less, but there wasn't much explanation of the plot or
general development. The audio was sounding pretty flat like
an old 80's anime, I don't like the sound of a couple of the
actors they used so my perception of it is probably jaded by
that. I also added data for Full Metal Panic, I was really starting
to get into the show when the first disk was over. This is looking
pretty good, I'll be buying the other disks in the series to
fill up the rest of my box.
- 5-31-03
‡ Akon 14 was this weekend.
It's at the Hyatt at the airport (DFW). The hotel was inadequate
for the con last year, I don't know why they held it there again.
Additionally parking is difficult and expensive. On the plus
side they are holding it at a different Hotel next year. I went
to the ADV and Bandai/Pioneer panels. During the ADV panel I
won the Special Collector's Edition Box set of Full Metal Panic
which includes the first disk, a box and a t-shirt. I wasn't
really looking to buy this series so if I fill up the rest of
the box they will be looking to make some money. ADV is releasing
Steel Angel Kurumi 2 this fall, they had a demo there and the
cover is clear plastic set up like a paper doll, it looked pretty
cute. ADV is also releasing a version of Najica that will include
a real pair of panties. I guess ADV will be pushing hard core
Hentai soon. ADV had a big spread in the dealer's room, but
they were sharing it with SunCoast. SunCoast isn't my first
choice in places to buy dvds, they have ok sale prices but their
general everyday prices are simply too high.
- 5-28-03
‡ I made several entries over
the last week. I added data for Noir, Wild Arms, Generator Gawl,
Saiyuki, NeoRanga, Chobits, Ah! My Goddess and Steel Angel Kurumi.
I also updated a few entries on Vandread. I added Generator
Gawl because the webmaster for Jay
Hickman's web site sent me an email requesting additional
entries for Jay. This was my first request to add more information
for a voice actor and I was sent a list of credits for Jay.
It also brought to my attention that I hadn't added Noir yet.
I bought the single dvds for Generator Gawl as they came out,
I think Generator Gawl a great little series and it's now available
in a very economical boxed set. Both Wild Arms and Noir are
very good series so far, I hope they can maintain the quality
to the end.
- 5-7-03
‡ I added voice actor information
for My Neighbor Totoro and Castle In The Sky, I'm glad these
are finally out on dvd. I also fixed my links page.
- 5-5-03
‡ I added voice actor information
for Spirited Away. This was a really good movie.
- 2-8-03
‡ I added voice actor information
for Crusher Joe. This is a movie I remember as being very good
from the 80's. It holds up fairly well against modern animation.
The sound seems a little flat though.
- 1-25-03
‡ Wendee Lee had a question
and answer session on irc. The event was sponsored by animationhq
and sandnet. I have created a page with the questions and answers
in a cleaned up format. Wendee Lee Questions
& Answers.
- 11-30-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for InuYasha and You're Under arrest. Both series look promising
from the first few episodes. The recurring voice actors in InuYasha
from Ranma is kind of amusing, especially since the artist is
the same and the characters look similar to begin with.
- 11-18-02
‡ Gokudo make its entry into
my database. It's a fun series and I'm enjoying it a lot so
far. It's a little on the silly side, so if that bothers you
I would avoid the series.
- 11-17-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for Lupin III (Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure). I keep expecting
new Lupin releases to be as good as Castle Cagliostro, but the
other films never seem to quite match my expectations.
- 11-2-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for the first two discs of Boogiepop Phantom. I'm pretty disappointed
with the series so far, each episode has a nonlinear timeline.
This trick might work out ok for a two hour movie, but just
seems to make a 20 minute episode difficult to watch. They try
to do some nice stuff and mix in bits of other episodes, but
they really needed a little more stable character development
in these first few episodes. I also added a few entries for
Samurai Jack.
- 10-27-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for FLCL (Furi Kuri). Lots of nicely integrated CG in FLCL.
There is also lot of time spent on character development on
this first disc, which is nice. The overall plot is a little
weak so far, but I'm interested in seeing what happens. I also
added data for the Excel Saga. Excel starts out pretty incoherently,
but it works out a standard format and basic plot over the first
few episodes.
- 10-6-02
‡ The data base portion of
the web site is generating errors, and is therefore un useable.
(Due to changes in server configuration I had to convert my
mdb into a newer format.)
- 9-5-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka), which I am finding to be pretty
good so far. I added a couple single actor entries as well,
for David Lucas and Wendee Lee.
- 9-2-02
‡ I went to AnimeFest this
weekend. It was a lot less crowded than Akon, but still has
a reasonable amount of activity. I enjoyed it much more than
Akon. I just don't see why people insist on trying to play subtitled
material at these events. It's impossible to read through someone's
head, and there are generally a lot of distractions. On the
plus side there was one room that played dubbed material almost
the whole time. I got to see Great Teacher Onizuka and Betterman
in English. Both of these titles were looking promising, and
I'll probably buy them. I saw a few other anime titles that
were subtitled.
- 8-18-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for another anime title, Armitage III: Dual Matrix. This movie
has a lot of computer generated material. The graphics were
pretty good, the hand drawn stuff was integrated pretty seamlessly
with the computer generated material. The movie in general seemed
to have a weak plot though.
- 8-17-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for two more anime titles, Blue Gender and Escaflowne the movie.
Blue Gender is looking fairly interesting so far. The animation
in Escaflowne was very dramatic, it was a pretty big departure
from the series plot wise though.
- 6-1-02
‡ I went to A-kon 13, Saturday
only. I was only there about 6 hours so I didn't get to do all
that much. I saw the lightwave demo, shopped, got Stan Sakai's
autograph and watched about 2 hours of anime music videos. I
saw a couple really good ones, Stampedian Rhapsody and Dragon
Bebop Z. I got a couple video demo dvd's from GameStop, which
was nice. One of the demo dvd's was the first episode of Berserk,
It seems like a standard fighting anime with very little character
development, I don't think I'll be purchasing it.
- 5-24-02
‡ I added voice actor data
for two anime titles, X and Yu Yu Hakusho. Yu Yu Hakusho is
looking like a fun little series so far. X has very well done
animation, however the sound seems flat and the plot is pretty
shallow and undeveloped.
- 5-16-02
‡ I saw Star Wars Episode
II at the midnight showing. It was a decent movie. None of the
movies after the self titled Star Wars movie are as good in
my opinion because they aren't complete stories. The main things
I didn't like are as follows: Yoda moves way too fast in his
battle scene. I think a twelve year old could have written better
love scene dialog for this movie than George Lucas did. Darth
Vader is about 6 inches too short, and not very buff. The Actor
playing Darth Vader tends to blink to convey emotion. This is
very bad acting in my book, I don't see how this guy was cast
unless George Lucas likes young men who blink at him. Blinking
to convey emotion is also something that really annoys me about
Criton in Farscape. I hope both these actors have short meaningless
careers and I never see them again.
- 5-13-02
‡ I added a menu to the left
hand side of the web site. And enabled a feature of the hosting
company to track useage of the site. I'm planning on advertising
the sites existance in the near future.
- 5-12-02
‡ I made my second update
to the database since going online, I added voice actor data
for Spriggan. Spriggan has some very dramatic animation and
lots of action, but a few unrealistic story elements at the
end.
- 5-11-02
‡ I made my first update to
the database since going online, I added voice actor data for
Jin Roh. A decent movie with some very good animation, a nice
twist to the ending, and everything is consistent throughout
the movie.
- 5-10-02
‡ I had been satisified with
the general size of the database and the functionality of relational
links for a while. I had gradually been adding to the data base
over the course of the intervening months. I decided to register
an additional domain name rather than move my existing domain
name, despite my displeasure with the other hosting company.
The main reason for this is that I wanted the site to be easy
to remember, I'll probably move the other domain name when my
contract with them expires. After looking at hosting companies
off and on for several weeks I had found one sufficiently feature
laden and inexpensive. So, I registered the avadb domain name
and put the database online.
- 9-4-01
‡ I finished the backend for
the database, and was looking for a place to put it online.
Unforntunately the host for my exisiting web site was linux/apache
based and didn't offer support for Active Server Pages. We use
Active Server Pages where I work, so it's what I was familar
with and used to write the backend for my database. I tried
to get my hosting company to enter a sub-domain for me (ava.zathoros.com),
to redirect to a server that provided ASP. But the greedy bastards
wanted more money, even though they would basically be providing
me nothing. The extra fee for a subdomain would practically
buy me space on a different host, which I needed to do anyway
since they wouldn't provide me ASP. Needless to say this pissed
me off. I needed to look for a hosting company that offered
support for Active Server Pages.
- 8-1-01
‡ I created a relational voice
actor database and began populating it with voice actor information.
Populating the database took me several months as I would generally
take notes during the credits of dvd's I purchased after watched
them.
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