Following the 30-second CM, Japanese alternative rock band cinema staff posted a full promotional video for their 4th single "great escape" on their official YouTube channel today. The song has been featured as the 2nd ED theme for a TV anime Attack on Titan since the 14th episode aired on July 14. The CD single was released in Japan on August 21 and got a 12th place in the Oricon weekly single sales ranking and sold about 15,000 units in the first week. It was 8 times more than their last single "Seinansei no Niji" which was released in February 2013 and sold about 1,800 units.

 

"great escape" PV

 

TV CM

 

cinema staff

 

"great escape" CD jacket

 

© cinema staff

Daryl and Gerald recount their experiences attending Otakon 2013 and Gerald reviews a title he saw for the first time at Otakon: Midori - Shoujo Tsubaki, also known as Mr. Arashi's Freak Show. Visit www.animeworldorder.com for full show notes and supplemental links.

I'm not anywhere near there, but this happened.



Yes: this is Christians using a fan gathering to proselytize. Again. Do I show up at their churches with a giant banner of Galactus punching Jesus in the gut? No, I don't.

Japan's Lawson convenience stores have launched stage two of their Attack on Titan collaboration. This time, starting next week, they're selling special branded Survey Corps Ration Butter Cookies and Sasha Potato Chips for 105 yen each. Beyond that, they're offering writing tablets for 399yen and mini cases for the same price.

Clearfiles, available with purchase

And, customers can enter to win a poster signed by the anime's voice cast

 

For stage one, between July 23 and August 5, if you bought select Calbee potato chips and snack foods at one of Japan's Lawson convenience stores, you're eligible to pick up an AoT ear phone jack plug/charm and QR code for a downloadable wallpaper.

 

 

The colossal titan is on the back of the Eren, Mikasa, Armin and Levi charms

 

 

 

bonus

 

via Natalie

thumbnail via http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=2519785

 

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

In one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories, CNN's digital editor felt the need to explain that she did not pen a piece for The Onion justifying why they felt Miley Cyrus's twerking at the VMA's last night deserved such prominence on their website. Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning received 15,000 "likes" on Facebook.

It's perhaps a sign of the times that CNN's reputation as a "serious news organization" has fallen so low --perhaps rock bottom-- that so many people evidently thought the "editorial" was a legitimate justification for giving such wide play to Miley Cyrus shaking her ass around at some awards show.

via Epoch Times

A fake CNN opinion piece published by satirical news company The Onion drew a Twitter response from Meredith Artley, the managing director of CNN Digital.

The satirical Onion article in question, “Let Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance Was Our Top Story This Morning,” got more than 15,000 “likes” on Facebook, and was falsely penned by Artley.

“It’s a good question. And the answer is pretty simple. It was an attempt to get you to click on CNN.com so that we could drive up our web traffic, which in turn would allow us to increase our advertising revenue,” the Onion article wrote, in trying to explain why CNN led with a Miley Cyrus article about her controversial performance at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night.

“There was nothing, and I mean nothing, about that story that related to the important news of the day, the chronicling of significant human events, or the idea that journalism itself can be a force for positive change in the world. For Christ’s sake, there was an accompanying story with the headline ‘Miley’s Shocking Moves.’ In fact, putting that story front and center was actually doing, if anything, a disservice to the public,” wrote the Onion article before linking to the CNN piece at the bottom of the page.

You’ve got the Glow, because Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon is the Greatest Movie EVER!

Click on the DVD cover or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring Sean “Hollywood” Hunting.

Review in a Nutshell: The Last Dragon is an uneven movie. Half musical, half martial arts journey, the film suffers from a weakly-written protagonist played by a talented young athlete with no previous acting experience. It falls to the supporting cast – especially Julius J. Carry III as Sho’Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem – to carry the film.

I thought I'd start easy with a warm-up post on a Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi episode that I discovered recently. I've written about this show often, but even after all these years I'm still going through unwatched episodes and discovering gems.

The episode entitled Kakurenbo or Hide and Seek was aired on March 12, 1983. (watch) It's written and directed by Gisaburo Sugii, with animation by longtime Mushi Pro/Tac associate Teruto Kamiguchi and art by Minoru Aoki. Teruto Kamiguchi and Minoru Aoki were the animator/art team behind The 11 Cats three years before.

This is an odd episode. It's not a folk tale like the rest of the series. Gisaburo Sugii may have made the story up himself. An old couple decide to play hide and seek in their old house. That's it. No moral, no story. Atmosphere is paramount. It's all shadowy corners and slow pans.

It seems innocuous and whimsical enough at first, but as the old man seeks his way in the dark, silence envelops him and panic sets in. The quiet of the house is overwhelming and echoes the solitude after one's life partner has died. He sees his wife being taken away by a demon and shouts at her not to go. In the end, he finds her asleep in the cauldron. Reassured, they go on playing hide and seek to while away the time, innocent as bored children on a rainy day once again.

Why is this old couple playing hide and seek? Is the old man in the grips of dementia? Are they ghosts? Or is it all innocent nonsense? In the spirit of Maeterlinck, it comes across as a dark metaphor for death and loss masquerading as a children's story about an eccentric old couple.

The episode has more in common with the shadowy realms of Night on the Galactic Railroad than the dynamic, colorful The 11 Cats. Gisaburo was the master of atmospheric directing, blending silence and minimal animation and camera movement to create a visceral sense of time's ticking clock. Gisaburo never strives to fake reality; he revels in the incongruity of using cartoons to evoke slowly dying time. He has a predilection for wide layouts, in which characters seem dwarfed by their surroundings, and compositions with either a deadpan symmetry or discomfiting obliqueness. The brooding oddity of Gisaburo's directing creates a fascinating contrast between the cartoony characters and the dark subtext.

In 1983, Gisaburo was just coming to the end of a period in his life where he was actually not working in the industry but rather traveling around the country living a wanderer's life. He subsisted mainly on selling paintings, and mailed in the occasional Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi storyboard just to help him get by. The murky, inky backgrounds here hint at his painterly disposition. I traveled around India earlier this year, and found the lifestyle and the separation from everything familiar intoxicating, so I can relate to his wanderlust. I wonder how this extended traveling changed him and led to the distinctive film language on display in his work from this period like Touch, Night and Genji.

Teruto Kamiguchi's animation is deceptively deft. Despite having forms like a cross between Shigeru Sugiura and Sazae-san, his characters move with careful timing, grace, and even elegance. The forms stay firm, with only subtle deformation and minimal expressions, but they communicate their emotions through body language. His lanky characters were distinctive and appealing. He deserves more recognition as having developed a unique style of character animation in Japan of pretty much no school.

Teruto Kamiguchi was in fact the animator (with Higuchi Masakazu) of the very first episode of Manga Nihon Mukashibanashi aired January 7, 1975, Kasajizo. (watch) In later years Kamiguchi tried out different styles, as evidenced by the pleasantly stylized 1992 episode The Sky God and the Sea God, again with art by Minoru Aoki. (watch) A stellar team.

Teekyu manga author Roots tweeted good news and better news for fans of the Mappa adaptation of the goofy tennis series. Not only is there a third anime in the works, it's going to immediately follow the second, with an October premiere planned.

 

Episodes of the anime take their title from western movies.

 

1. Sempai and Forrest Gump
2. Sempai and Pirates of the Carribean
3. Sempai and The Gold Rush
4. Sempai and The Goonies
5. Sempai and Exit Wounds
6. Sempai and Waterworld
7. Sempai and From Russia with Love
8. Sempai and Born on the Fourth of July
9. Sempai and Dinner Rush
10. Sempai and Up the Creek
11. Sempai and Nacho Libre
12. Sempai and The Sixth Sense
13. Sempai and Full Metal Jacket
14. Sempai and We Were Soldiers
15. Sempai and Transformers
16. Sempai and Ping Pong
17. Sempai and Mars Attacks
18. Sempai and Evolution
19. Sempai and Run, Lola Run
20. Sempai and Cider House Rules
21. Sempai and Major League
22. Sempai and Field of Dreams
23. Sempai and E.T.
24. Sempai and Ratatouille

Care to speculate on which flicks might lend their names to the episodes of season 3?

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

Luke Epplin writes convincingly in The Atlantic about the supremacy of the ‘magic-feather syndrome’ in kids’ animated features, which is the idea stemming from Dumbo that a character can do anything as long as they build up their self-esteem. The concept stretches back further, too. For example, The Little Engine That Could. Recent film like Planes and Turbo are both guilty of this phenomenon, according to Epplin:

Following one’s dreams necessarily entails the pursuit of the extraordinary in these films. The protagonists sneer at the mundane, repetitive work performed by their unimaginative peers. Dusty abhors the smell of fertilizer and whines to his flying coach that he’s “been flying day after day over these same fields for years.” Similarly, Turbo performs his duties in the garden poorly, and his insubordination eventually gets him and Chet fired. Their attitudes are all part of an ethos that privileges self-fulfillment over the communal good.

In addition to disparaging routine labor, these films discount the hard work that enables individuals to reach the top of their professions. Turbo and Dusty don’t need to hone their craft for years in minor-league circuits like their racing peers presumably did. It’s enough for them simply to show up with no experience at the world’s most competitive races, dig deep within themselves, and out-believe their opponents. They are, in many ways, the perfect role models for a generation weaned on instant gratification.

This predictable approach to storytelling is juxtaposed against the infinite riches of Charles Schulz’s comic Peanuts, and more specifically, the animated Peanuts feature A Boy Named Charlie Brown, in which Charlie Brown is denied instant gratification at every turn:

A Boy Named Charlie Brown might come across now as harsh and unforgiving–especially to audiences that aren’t familiar with the comic strip’s cruel undercurrents–but its lessons are more enduring than those from movies where characters fulfill their impossible dreams. Charlie Brown learns through Linus’s tough-love speech that failure, no matter how painful, is not permanent, and that the best means of withstanding it is simply to show up the next day to school with the fortitude to try again. Losing also forces Charlie Brown to come to terms with his own limitations. He can’t rely on a miraculous victory to rescue him from his tormented childhood. He followed his dream, it didn’t pan out, and he ends up more or less where he started, only a little more experienced and presumably with a little more respect from his peers. They may no longer be able to refer to him as “failure-face,” but Lucy still yanks away the football when he becomes too hopeful. It’s incremental, rather than life-altering, progress.

Epplin isn’t naive and knows that today’s market-tested, consumer-friendly animated features won’t take the kind of narrative risks that Schulz did in the 1960s. His suggestions for improvement are, nonetheless, quite sensible: “Contemporary animated films would never emulate the tough life lessons of A Boy Named Charlie Brown, but they’d do well to reintroduce the twin notions of failure and humility.”

The entire article is well worth a read, even if the release date of Dumbo is off by a couple years. And with a CGI Peanuts feature currently in the works, one hopes that the writers of the screenplay will stay true to the spirit of Schulz’s universe instead of following the cheap virtueless storytelling tropes of contemporary animation studio features.

The Washington Post's David A. Fahrenthold hyped the size of the federal government out of context, presenting an excellent example of how to construct a misleading statistic.

Writing on the size of the federal workforce, Fahrenhold claims:

Measured another way -- not in dollars, but in people -- the government has about 4.1 million employees today, military and civilian. That's more than the populations of 24 states.

Wow, 24 states. That's almost half the country. Clearly the federal behemoth has grown too big.

Other ways he could have phrased this statement include:

That's less than the population of the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. 

Or:

That's less than half the audience that viewed America's Got Talent last week.

Or more accurately:

That's approximately 1.3 percent of the total U.S. population, handling all government business, including delivering our mail, serving in the military, inspecting our food, fighting terrorism, etc.

Farhenthold's statistic was clearly designed to imply to readers that the federal workforce had grown too large and therefore more spending cuts were necessary. Even more misleading than his statistic was his failure to mention that further cuts could actually harm the economy. According to the International Monetary Fund, "the United States had proved too aggressive in carrying out budget cuts, given its still-sluggish rates of growth and high unemployment levels."

First off, it pains me to say that after forty-plus issues, Venom is cancelled. I’m bummed, not just for the obvious, but because I wanted to see if it could have outlasted the 90′s solo series, which went a full 60 issues. I can’t say I’m too surprised. The whole demon subplot (which is still a dangling thread) really hurt the momentum and the symbiote’s been tossed to the sidelines as a character, always being drugged up and being a mental non-factor. It’s a weapon rather than being a creature.

They did just give him a teenage girl sidekick and that had potential. Ah well. Chances are he’s going to be killed in the big upcoming Spider-Man crossover when Doc Ock Spider-Man goes too far or something. You know, regular Spider-Man never did blow a gasket over Venom being a government agent and member of the Avengers. You’d think he would have had a passionate opinion about that, but all he ever did was make a joke about the Punisher and tell Venom to please not kill Carnage.

Whether Venom’s set to die or not, he currently has another series to call home in Thunderbolts. Recently, Thunderbolts was pretty bad, mainly because it was written by Daniel Way, who wrote 11 issues of… I’m not really sure. It was a bunch of twists and turns and I found myself not caring for a lot of it. Frank Castle strapping a landmine to his chest and jumping onto a guy was pretty sweet, though. That and it gave me one of my favorite Deadpool quotes with, “You may kill me first, but I fucking guarantee I’ll kill you last.”

Charles Soule took over as of issue #12 and already it’s felt like a breath of fresh air. #12 was a Punisher-centric story that turned his “banging on the side” relationship with Elektra into something more dramatic as she’s given him reason to kill her down the line. Then #13 was kind of average because it was an attempt to clean up Way’s mess by explaining who the hell Mercy is and why she’s on the team when she’s yet to do anything of note or interact with anyone other than Red Leader. For any of you who haven’t been paying attention, Leader has been resurrected and he’s red. He’s currently the intelligence of the team, although he’s given limited intellect to work with to keep him from remembering who he was. Right now he’s just a timid follower of General Ross, retaining his personality from before he became an insane supervillain.

The big problem with the series has been that it hasn’t delivered a hook. Sure, I get that it’s taken the Thunderbolts name because of General Ross’ nickname and how they’re a bunch of dark heroes with blood on their hands, but why are they together? The first issue had Ross recruit everyone and it gave the idea that they were going to be a non-mutant version of X-Force. Even though it took fourteen issues, this week’s issue FINALLY gives us an idea of what the series is really all about.

And it’s a pretty awesome idea.

Right there! Why couldn’t they make this clear from the very first issue? Hell, the second issue or even sixth? Why did we have to wait that long to get this great hook for a series about a group of heroic killers working together? I mean, you’re the fucking Thunderbolts! You know what the original Thunderbolts were known for? Telling us why we should be reading it from the end of the first issue! Imagine if Citizen V unmasked in the middle of the 14th issue.

“The Selfish Avengers.” All members of the team (outside of Red Leader and Mercy) get a chance to lead the team into a mission of their choosing. If Deadpool wants them to kill Sabretooth, they will all go off together to kill Sabretooth, go back home and ask Elektra who she wants iced. It kind of has a low-rent Illuminati feel to it.

So far the first choice has gone to Castle, leading to this exchange.

I hate it when comics get so obsessed with decompression that by the time they get to the point, people have stopped reading and it dies. That’s what happened with Chaykin’s Squadron Supreme and I have a feeling it’s going to happen here. I don’t have too much experience reading Soule’s stuff, but so far he’s turned Red Lanterns around and he’s been doing good work on Swamp Thing.

All that I’m saying is to give Thunderbolts a chance. Which is really the opposite of giving peace of a chance.Similar Posts:

• I see how it is, Marvel.
• “Me? I’m magic.”
• Norman Osborn Will Stain His Hands… With Your Blood
• Black History Month ’09 #25: Re-Definition
• The Venom Plus Prop Challenge

After a conversation with Kate I have a revelation. As someone who does fan panels I think I am always a little guilty that I don’t attend enough fan panels. So when I “only” went to seven fan panels this year I felt slightly guilty when all in all that is more than most people attend. But I feel everyone doing a fan panel is always a little worried that not enough people are going to show up. (How many are enough people depends on the presenter.) Therefore every attentive person in a seat is one step closer to fine.

Plus, I can report back on the horrible panels and then savage them like a demon. (Or give constructive criticism which is actually far more valuable.)

With so many guests this year, I found myself at less fan-run panels simply because of time constraints and not due to a lack of fascinating topics.

One of the fan events I was really looking forward to was Mystery Anime Theater Anime 3000. The creators of the event had retired a few years ago content with the fact that they had a good run and left on a high note. But the current Otakon staff convinced them to brush off their old skills and do one more special show. And while they could not get everyone again most of the team was coerced into doing something to celebrate the 20th anniversary.

They chose Origin: Spirits of the Past which is sort of the sweet spot of the balance between awful and watchable that makes for a good MAT3K. Origin was Gonzo’s attempt to make a Studio Ghibli film. While the visual are often lovely the story is nowhere near that same level. The movie is hardly unwatchable but it is just so mediocre that you don’t mind someone ripping it apart. At the same time Origin is not so bad that your constantly checking your watch for the whole affair to be over even while the jokes going on.

One of the biggest mysteries of the universe shall always be the fact that overall the audience just decided to sit back and let the people on stage do the jokes. There was the natural amount of talking in the audience, a few pro-Ragna chants at mostly opportune moments, and the natural nerdy outburst that can’t be avoided but most of the time the audience was either quiet or easily ignorable. Amazing.

Overall with a prepared script the jokes went over pretty well. They referenced a good deal of anime including newer shows like Girls und Panzer but they also maid a fair amount of references outside of anime. They fall back on Baltimore jokes a bit but complaining about that is like being down on a band who shouts that the audience they are in front of is the best audience in the world. They might not be full on Best Brains level but they had a good sense of when to make jokes and when to let things just be quiet. That in many ways is the most important bit of timing to master.

I was disappointed that after they started playing the credits most people started leaving. Don’t they know? They always play a little stinger that has the best scene in the movie. Do they leave during the credits of a Marvel movie as well? It is like these kids don’t understand how MST3Ks work.

I’m really sort of surprised no one else has tried to pick up the torch since the original team retired. It is probably for the best in the end. It is an easy event for people who only think they are funny to do very poorly. And goodness forbid anyone try it on the fly as opposed to have a script.

I also attended the for By Fans, For Fans: 20 Years of Holding On For Dear Life panel. It was a whole slew of older Otakon staffers just reminiscing about their time with the con and how far it has come. That was nice trip down memory lane. It was interesting to see the evolution of the convention as something really small to the juggernaut that it is today. It was also fascinating to see how close it came to blowing up early on and never even making it to 10 years. I get the impressions that the 1995 four-day convention forever traumatized the staff into thinking that it was a bad idea. But they emphasized that year really taught them some serious lessons on how important it is to run a lean but robust convention.

Also the year the sewers in Baltimore were backed up with toxic sludge was sort of spectacular (but horrible for everyone involved).

A fitting panel for the scope of a convention like Otakon was the We Con Therefore We Are: Fandom, Convergence, and a Critical Look at the Modern Otaku hosted by Charles Dunbar with help from Daryl Surat and Doug Wilder. It also happened to be the first fan panel I attended so it was a very introspective way to kick-off the convention.

They really tried to tackle the importance of fans and convention culture. And of course there was some explanation and delving into convergence theory.

Charles loves conventions and loves fandom and it definitely showed at this panel. Doug was similarly minded while Daryl had a more dissenting opinion which balanced everything out and created some good back and forth discussion.

A major topic ended up being cross-pollination of fandoms and how many other groups show up at anime cons (Doctor Who or My Little Pony or Adventure Time fans for example). At one point, Charles even asked the audience who there considered themselves a part of more than one fandom to which a great deal of hands arose.

Daryl continued this discussion by bringing up how other conventions and fandoms are not very welcoming to anime and have even pushed it out. While many anime cons have broadened their scope to these other fandoms resulting in more a mixed media con culture.

The talk went further as everyone agreed that Otakon was a special exception and a general anomaly compared to most anime conventions around. I learned at this time that most other conventions are for-profit. I knew Otakon was not for-profit but I had no idea most cons were.

A lot of ideas and topics were thrown out but there wasn’t much time for the audience to chime in which was a shame in with this type of topic.

I attended two Mike Toole panels with I Love the 80s and Outsider Anime. I almost feel silly reviewing the panels. At this point it almost seems pointless. He has gotten to the point where almost anyone in charge of a convention knows to just auto-accept his panels and most regular panel attendees just know to go to his panels. So please just humor me by pretending like these next few paragraphs matter.

Also if nothing else people who attended the panels want to know if I liked the panels in the CORRECT manner.

The Outsider Anime panels has a distinctly unique topic. It is an attempt to contextualize the outsider art of anime. It was a look at anime made by people don’t normally work in the anime industry or have very unusual background that make their anime very different than what you are used to. The arc of the panel is that he starts with series that general feel like “stereotypical anime” and then gets further and further away from the norm.  He starts with Tezuka and ends with the very “unique” Iseda Katsuyuki and goes through whole worlds in between.

For as much as we say anime and manga is not just your standard Shonen Jump atheistic it is easy to fall into that mindset. This panel is superb about showing you what lies beyond that realm in Japan.

The I Love the 80s was a nostalgia bomb. Mike Toole goes on a whirlwind tour of the decade with everything from Akira to Urusei Yatsura (I always appreciate more Urusei Yatsura talk). It was a nice mix of things most people would recognize with some obscure shows thrown in for a bit of hidden education. And of course he played THAT SCENE from Magical Princess Minky Momo. Also the constant teasing of talking about Dragonball was fairly amusing. Mike kept throwing out description that made you think he was going to talk about the adventures of Goku and then he would play something else. But don’t worry. He eventually got to talking about Krillin.

Actually the most interesting thing to me was something outside of the panel itself. At the end of the I Love the 80s panel Mike said that he was planning a 90s version for next year. That seems like the next logical step especially considering the recent uptick in the number of people to whom 90s anime is this precious part of their formative fandom. What was interesting to me is why was why that I Love the 90s will be really good but the As the Otaku Grows panel I love to hate from AnimeNEXT so wretched.

The answer came to me. Mike Toole’s panels are a celebration. They fondly look back on the decade and invite everyone to see what the shows from the era did right. It lets those who remember the period see why they loved it again and informs those who are new to the period why everyone else in the room has such goofy smiles on their faces. No more and no less.

On the other hand the As the Otaku Grows is a lamentation of a fallen empire. As much as it wants to fondly remember the 90s the most important point of the panel is how everything before the 90s was immature art and everything after that was derivative garbage and moe trash. That panel makes make the 90s the one true anime period and everything else is just a sad time to be fan. That stuck in the past feeling just radiates a sickly tunnel vision that ruins that panel. The I Love the 80s panel is wisely free of that.

A good lesson to remember for anyone doing panels.

I had West to East: Anime Adapations of Western Literature marked with a star in my book, this was one I didn’t want to miss. There was a good range of titles and the host really knew her literature. She warned the audience beforehand that it would be impossible to do the panel without spoilers so beware!

She kicked things off with tackling the many novel-inspired Ghibli films going on a rant at one point about how much she disliked the movie version of Howl’s Moving Castle. I was also a fan of the book before the film came out so I understood her frustrations with it but I also enjoyed the film divorced from the book. The same can’t be said for Tales from Earthsea which really deserved a throughout thrashing but she hadn’t seen it.

She mentioned the many World Masterpiece Theater series which is what one would probably think of most when talking about classic literature adaption into anime. I was a bit taken aback when she said she couldn’t find much of Anne of Green Gables, one of the more renowned of the titles.

I was glad to see plenty of Les Miserables called out and I even learned about a crazy fighting game called Arm Joe. Her discussion about the most recent anime Les Miserables: Shojo Cosette perked my ears up as it is told from a Cosette’s (and later Gavroche’s) childish perspective but is still for the most part faithful.

Nearer the end she tackled Gankutsuou, which is of course amazing and fantastic, and Romeo X Juliet which she really made me curious to see.

A great introductory panel with a host who definitely knew her books, I’d love to see another version of this panel with more obscure titles.

The A Study of Heroines: Compassion and Courage in Revolutionary Girl Utena and Madoka Magica is a “You got peanut butter in my chocolate” situation. I will pretty much attend any panel with Utena in it. But that means you have to bring your A-game as well. I will not accept anything less. Thankfully the panel lived up to my expectations.

The main focus of the panel was how a heroine must balance their personal desires vs a selfless nature. A person with no selflessness can’t be a hero but someone who has no desires is consumed by their task. There was a good deal of linking that to the perception of women and gender roles as well. I will say I far too often see Homura portrayed as a selfless ideal heroine and Sayaka as a selfish monster. It was nice to see them analyzed a bit more towards the center in which I think they both lie.

A very smart panel. I hope to see more work by Katriel in the future.

But that one lady was SALTY that they used the term trap. All in all the term is really sort of stupid and insulting but they clearly meant to offense by saying trap. If anything I chalk it up to a slip of the tongue as that term is so commonly used in fandom. She then proceeded to lay into the presenters for their single use of the term. I’m not saying she could not be upset but she could have done so in a more polite manner. Katriel Paige was clearly a nice person and the content of the panel showed she had some solid background in feminist theory so there was no reason to yell at her like she was the King of the Misogynists.

As a fan of the Ace Attorney series I decided to check out the Ace Attorney All Stars panel. It did not hurt that it was on a generally unremarkable Sunday and just before the Yoko Kanno concert. Let me get this right out-of-the-way. It is really easy to half ass a fan panel about a series and get a decent amount of praise. I have seen far too many panels were someone pretty much puts in no effort and just stand in front of the audience and shouts, “Series X is really great, right guys?” Then everyone cheers and it is a meandering masturbatory conversation beyond that point. This panel was not that.

There was a good deal of panache in the presentation of the materials and the structure was deliberate while still being organic. And more important the panelists were lively and the audience was having a good time. Heck, I had a good time too. The debates over the series were moderated enough to make sure they did not spiral out of control but free enough for people to have a discussion.

BUT, and you know with how I was writing there had to be a but, I sort of hoped it would have been more than that. It was mostly just a run down of what was everyone’s highlights and low lights of the franchise. And that was what it said it was in the panel description so I’m not faulting them for that. I just wish it had been a bit more informative and a little less reveling in the fandom. I would love to see a panel about how the Phoenix Wright court system compares to the real court systems of Japan and America. Or maybe something that dig more into the behind the scenes material.

But that is more a request of what I would want to see in a different panel than a slam against this one. This Ace Attorney panel did what it said it was going to do quite well.

 I attended 45 Years of Shonen Jump: A Visual History since it sounded both informative and fun. It turned out to indeed be both.

Our presenter’s format for the panel was to show openings from some choice Jump shows in chronological order while giving facts and tidbits about said title and others from around the same time. He of course had to show the big ones like Dragon Ball Z (though he did not pick the Cha-la Head-cha-la opening) and Fist of the North Star but he also jumped to lesser known titles as well like Kouya no Shonen Isamu (with a Wild West theme!) and Hareluya II Boy (the first late-night Jump anime).

I learned about quite a few titles for the first time and I learned more about anything I already did know. My only real complaint was that he wasn’t able to get to current titles due to timing. I’m not really sure how to fix that since openings are a set length but it was a shame not to hear about things like Toriko or Kuroko’s Basketball.

I will end with talking about myself. I did one panel this year with a very special version of  my Kill ‘em All and Let Sunrise Sort ‘em Out: A Yoshiyuki Tomino Panel. This time instead of going solo I did the panel with Patz from the Cockpit podcast. I think all my panels are a bit more fun when I have someone else to bounce off of. (That reminds me I need to trick sweet talk someone else in doing my Hayate panel with me one day.)

First and foremost having a second panelist meant that the panel ended EXACTLY on time. We started early with silly clips, went through the panel at a controlled rate, and finished with just a few minutes left over for Q&A. When there is someone else talking I can take some time and glance at a clock. If I’m the only person on stage I tend to worry so much that I forgot to do a time check. That alone is a godsend.

Also Patz is very knowledgeable about Tomino himself so many of the holes in my knowledge are balanced out by his addition to the lineup. He has seen some of the series I only having passing knowledge of and his mecha knowledge is untouchable. Also he loves Zeta whereas I tend to be … “Yeah Zeta. Hugely influential on Tomino’s career and the history and future of the Gundam franchise. Anyway. Moving on.”

Overall I think I do a very good job on my own but I can only do a great job with someone else (as long as they are talented like Patz or Kate). Still I hope everyone who attended the panel had a good time and maybe learned something.

I really wish I could have attend more panels if the few I did were any indication of the quality at Otakon this year. Otakon was firing on all cylinders this year and is really proving itself to be a well-round convention for every type of anime fan.

In retrospect I have one simple but powerful piece of praise for Otakon 2013. I did not attend one bad or mediocre panel this year. If anything I have a whole list of panels I wish I had seen but did not get to see. There is no better experience to have at a convention.

More Otakon 2013 posts:

Otakon 2013: Tweets
Otakon 2013: Our 6 Favorite Announcements
Otakon 2013: General Impressions
Otakon 2013: Shinichiro Watanabe
Otakon 2013: Artist Alley
All Points Bulletin: Leaving Baltimore, Heading To Las Vegas
Otakon 2013: 10-minutes with Yuzuru Tachikawa and Michihiko Suwa
Otakon 2013: Concerts
Otakon 2013: Guests
Otakon 2013: Shingo Adachi and Tetsuya Kawakami
All Points Bulletin: The Gamification of Otakon
The Speakeasy #044: Baltimore Zoo, Otakon 2013

Filed under: Conventions, Events, Otakon Tagged: Otakon

I’ve been busy lately.  FREAKISHLY busy with conventions and other “hobby gone horribly wrong” type things.  One of my recent projects with Green Mustard was a convention called Florida Comics Experience.  The event was a hit thanks to the local fan support of Melbourne, Florida and an amazing comic book store called Famous Faces & Funnies.

Thing is, I don’t read comic books.

Well, not really.

Joey Snackpants usually forces me to buy/buys for me the occasional collection of things I “HAVE to know about” in the comic book universe.  On my shelf I have copies of Flashpoint and New Frontier and other random bits of comic-y goodness – all to stay in the know about a part of geek culture that I never really got that deep into.

It hit me, though, as I started working on Florida Comics Experience (and spending so much time at Famous Faces and Funnies) that I should really become proficient in at least ONE comic title.  Walking around the comic store, I decided to make Green Arrow my “thing” and bought up all the back issues the store had of the New 52 run.

NOW – before you play the “you only like it because of the TV show” bit – NOT TRUE.  I was interested in Green Arrow predating the CW program.  I tried on occasion to read the book (dating back to Kevin Smith’s Quiver run of it) but time in my silly little geek universe is limited.  I dig the idea of Green Arrow… a sarcastic pseudo Bruce Wayne and (duh) his trademark color is green.

BACK TO THE NERD RAGE.

So I decided to “get into” comics.  I bought all I could from my local comic book store and went looking for the rest online.  I discovered a website called MyComicShop.com and used it to order the missing New 52 issues I needed.  The website was easy to use.  They shipped everything nicely and the order arrived in a timely fashion.

Volume 4 complete.

I decided to get ambitious and go back to the 80s and find Volume 1 (four issues) and Volume 2 (one hundred and something issues.)  It was all going to start with this:

TOTALLY CHEESEBALL LOOKING… and probably awesome in some bad way.

Thus, I went to MyComicShop.com and placed an order for 1-4 of Volume 1 and 0-20 of Volume 2 (aka “1st Series”).  Same simple process as last time.  I figured if I did this every month or so, I’d be caught up (within reason) by Florida Comics Experience 2014.

Then things went bad.

I got an email the next day with the following note:

Your order has been checked in by our staff and will be shipping soon. Unfortunately, 1 item was found to be unavailable, either due to an error in our inventory or because further inspection revealed that the item(s) did not meet the appropriate condition standard. Please accept our apology for our failing to fully fill your order. Here is the unavailable item:

1   $4.00  VF       Green Arrow (1983 Mini-Series) 1 VF

No big deal.  Someone listed the inventory on the website wrong.  It happens.  I scrolled down to the bottom of the email and found this:

If you have any questions, you can:

* email customerservice@mycomicshop.com

* call (817) 860-7827 (Monday through Friday 9AM to 6PM Central Time)

SCORE.  I’ll just call them and see if there’s a lesser/better condition copy of the book since, you know, it IS the FIRST ISSUE.  I called the number (which apparently goes to a Lone Star Comics location in Texas) and got a guy by the name of Skylar.

According to Skyler they were out of the $4 version of the book, BUT there was a $5 version of the same book available instead.

A $1 difference.

Being the BIG spender i was, I told him to go ahead and add that one to the order.

<NERD RAGE BUILDING>

Skylar told me he couldn’t do that.  He said the order was already pulled and packed so there was nothing that could do.

“Has it shipped yet?” I asked.

He replied no.

“So it hasn’t shipped, you still have it, and I can’t add to the order?”

He replied no… a glowing BEACON of customer service.

My issue here is that, in a perfect world, SOMEONE should have contacted me to say, “Hey, we don’t have that issue in the condition listed on our site… our mistake! We do have a better one for only $1 more. Should we add that one?”

Another option would been to hold off fulfilling the order so it could be modified BEFORE setting it up to be shipped.  Something like “Please notify us if you would still like to fulfill this order in 48 hours since it has been modified.” Nothing to fancy… just a CHOICE.

The punchline? The limited options offered to by Skyler:

• OPTION 1: Cancel the order. Even though it HADN’T SHIPPED, I would be hit with a 25% service charge.
• OPTION 2: Order the issue in a separate order. Instead of paying $1 more and adding it into my existing order, though, I would have paid $10 ($5 + $4.95 shipping.)

What. The. Fuck.

I told him I would research for other options and get back to him.

Scroll up in this blog post and you’ll note that the email from MyComicShop offered a phone number AND an email address for customer service.  Since one failed, I decided to try for option two.  Here’s the opening of my email…

---

To Whom It May Concern:

Greetings! I’m a professional geek who recently started down the road of comic books (mainly due to my wife’s newfound fascination with Green Arrow.) I just got off the phone with Skyler in your office who’s only answer to my problem/concern was: “It’s an automated system. There’s nothing I can do.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

Single. Worst. Answer. Ever. (When it comes to customer service.)

I’m hoping whoever reads this email has better service skills. Here’s my problem…

---

I go on to spell out the situation similar to this blog post.

<NERD RAGE GROWING>

Soon after, I got an email from Beth Abbott (lonestar@lonestarcomics.com).  Here it is:

Hello Tom,

We’re sorry, but due to our automated system we are not able to change an order once it has been submitted. This means we are unable to add, combine, remove, or substitute items in a different grade. If we are unable to supply an item due to an error in our inventory, we will promptly issue a refund to your credit card or PayPal account.

Please understand, our fill rate is 99.5%; good, but not perfect. We work hard to keep our inventory accurate, but with millions of collectible comics in stock and thousands coming in and going out each day, some mistakes are inevitable. We ask that you do not order from us if you require a guaranteed 100% fill rate.

Let’s look at that last line again, shall we?

“We ask that you do not order from us if you require a guaranteed 100% fill rate.”

Seriously.  This reads as “WE DON’T WANT MONEY.  MONEY BAD.  DON’T GIVE US YOUR MONIES.”

My reply email…

---

Beth,

Thanks for the response. No one should ever expect perfection in retail due to a number of variables and, as I mentioned in my email to you, mistakes can and will happen… BUT some of us do expect a better grade of service. Offering discounted shipping on the missing issue from the order or a discount on the issue that wasn’t fulfilled would have been a step in the right direction (since prior communication didn’t happen when regarding failure to fulfill the order.)

All in all, we’re really only talking about $9 and inconvenience. Simple fixes to keep an ongoing and satisfied customer around.

Instead, you’ve replied with:

“We ask that you do not order from us if you require a guaranteed 100% fill rate.”

I don’t expect a 100% fill rate (as I noted.) I do, though, expect 100% satisfaction as a paying customer for a service.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Tom Croom
www.tomcroom.com

---

My order arrived a couple of weeks ago and (SHOCKER!) no Issue #1. No reply to the email. Nothing.

According to Wikipedia,  ”Lone Star Comics is a chain of seven stores located in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in north central Texas. Started in 1961 by Jake ‘Buddy’ Saunders as a quaint mail order company, Lone Star Comics debuted as a brick-and-mortar retailer in 1977. The chain’s offerings include comic books, action figures, gaming supplies, videos, and many other pop culture items.”

Well, if Mr. Saunders ever stumbles on this blog post, I hope realizes that his employees helped turn away someone trying to get into comics AND turned down more money.  Now, I’m no rocket science, buy I’m pretty sure that bad customer service + turning down money = poor business.

</END NERD RAGE>

3rd season of boxing anime to premiere this fall

When I was at AnimeNEXT this year I noticed that the Japanese guests were doing more to engage with the American guests during their panels and this Otakon continued that trend. I did not go to a panel were the guest did not have some amazingly wonderful tidbit to share with the audience that would make anyone who did not attend the panel green with envy. The guest brought with them everything from exclusive trailers and never seen before videos to original art that was on display for the attendees. That was a wonderful set of treats that went above and beyond. It made the already special panels extremely memorable.

 I don’t know how many more Otakon introductions I can write where I say they pulled out all the stops for the guest list this year. But here I am once again because it can’t be stated enough. My hat is off and has been off ever since they started their announcements and I couldn’t put it back on again until now.

We’ve covered many of the Japanese guests in other posts. In this one we call out new additions to the Otakon line-up Kaoru Kurosaki and Yuzuru Tachikawa; returning vets Michihiko Suwa and Tomokazu Seki; and Masao Maruyama old friend to Otakon now.

My quick comment about the Nobuhiro Watsuki art exhibit. It was interesting to see how much Makimachi Misao has changed from when she was originally drawn in Kenshin to how she looks in any of the updated material. All the other characters clearly have been updated to his current style but I don’t think anyone else looked anywhere nearly as different.  But Misao is my favorite character so I notice that perhaps more than other people.

The Kenshin panel was like a magical rainbow unicorn. As much as promise I saw it people do not believe me. But I swear it is true. There was a Japanese guest panel were they had to turn people away because the room was packed. And the panel did not even have Nobuhiro Watsuki physically present (although it was all about him.)

Believe it or not!

But sadly due to scheduling issues Nobuhiro Watsuki was not able to attend Otakon. But rather than canceling completely he sent an incredible  amount of material with his wife, Kaoru Kurosaki.  She has personal emails with stories from Shonen Jump editors and artists who had worked with Watsuki in the past. It was quite a line up with everyone from the current big three like Oda, Kubo, and Kishimoto to people like Shimabukuro, Inagaki, and Sasaki Hisashi.

Unknowingly or not Kaoru Kurosaki started winning over the audience with a simple statement. Her husband’s biggest regret with not being able to attend Otakon was the fact that he could not go to Toys R Us. He wanted to see how much Pacific Rim merchandise he could buy.

One: Way to have great taste. Two: I think this is a sign someone clever would set up some sort of toys exchange program with the man. He mentioned that this favorite American comic is the X-Men. Send him some primo X-men figures and get all the best Japanese toys in exchange. It is a win/win plan.

I was infinitely amused when Kaoru Kurosaki mentioned that her and her husband are into German board games and play them all the time with Inugaki and his wife. Apparently the game they are recently playing all the time is Dominion. It was another simple and clear “This guy is one of us” moments.

After the personal note section she then presented the audience with his work schedule.  It was a brutal affair with 15 hour work days that are also 7 days a week with only 4 days off a month. And he only gets those days off if he was lucky and everything went smoothly. (Apparently August was not a month were everything ran smoothly.) The scariest part was that is his schedule when he is working on a “leisurely” monthly manga. Apparently his weekly schedule was a nightmare in comparison.

Interesting note: Kaoru Kurosaki said that she first met Nobuhiro Watsuki at a party celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Shonen Jump. That means that party was held sometime in 1993. The Kenshin manga started on April 11, 1994. The main female lead in that series is named Kamiya Kaoru. I think I just learned who Karou is based on.

Of course when we got to the Q&A some of the worst of fandom came out. We got the standard person who tried to get an autograph at the Q&A. You could see Kaoru Kurosaki about to cave in when her handler popped up and laid down the BUSINESS on the offending party. But that lady was a bit rude but at least it was easy to see where she was coming from.

She was nothing compared to the real creep that was the last guy in the line. When everyone was told there was only time for three more questions he stayed in line despite being the fourth person. So when he did not leave they line they were nice enough to answer his question anyway. Well he actually never asked a question. He mainly just started talking about how she had lovely eyes and delicate bone structure. I’m not sure there are too many ways to say that to a stranger without coming off as extremely awkward but the way he did it certainly made it seem like he had a collection of masks made of human skin in his basement. You could see that the more he talked the more security was closing in on him … just in case. Thankfully nothing happened other than a few cringe worthy moments.

Despite all of that it was a great panel. I really hope that Nobuhiro Watsuki can come in the future to Otakon in person. If the turn out for this panel was any indication he would get a great reception.

 There was an extra treat of artistic exhibition at Otakon 2013′s Artist Alley: a gallery of original art from Nobuhiro Watsuki best known for Rurouni Kenshin. There were interior pages, concept sketches, and full-color covers and splash pages on display. Many were from Rurouni Kenshin, the original as well as the recent revival, and a few more from Embalming, Gun Blaze West, and Buso Renkin. There were also early pieces from series that never made it past concept.

It is quite rare to have a chance to see actual manga pages in person. They are larger than the printed page so you can see a lot more detail, the tone and shading, and even pasted in art corrections as well as text. I would love to see more exhibits like this; it makes you appreciate the artform more. Anyone who says that manga is easy or too simple should see some original drawings.

The gallery admitted only 10 people at a time giving this exhibit a continuous, and well-deserved, line all weekend long.

Masao Maruyama’s MAPPA was extremely personal. He did the standard amount of Q&A and discussion of previous and upcoming projects. But that part of simply the filler. The real deal was the videos that he brought specifically for Otakon. They were powerful, personal, and beautiful. If at least one of them did not move you then you have a pretty thick heart.

The first was the animation they made for Satoshi Kon’s wake directed by Rintaro. It had not been played ANYWHERE else since then. It was a touching tribute to someone clearly everyone involved respected and would miss. He simply could have played that and then walked out of the room and I would have still considered the panel 100% successful.

He then played a short film called Hana wa Saku by Katabuchi Sunao. It was specifically made to try to lift people’s spirits after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. He played it partially because the music was by Yoko Kanno and partially just because it was a touching piece of work.

He also played a third video that we promised we would not share the content of outside of the room. And I think that was a fair deal. Consider it an object lesson in why you should always attend his panels if you can. There are somethings you just have to see in person.

In many ways Masao Maruyama seemed a bit tired. He was still very enthusiastic for his work and for idea of creating and promoting great animated projects. But you could also tell that he was getting on in years and many of his old friends were disappearing one by one. His video selections alone showed that without him saying a word. If you have a chance see him at the next Otakon you attend. You might not get that chance again.

 Some of my most vivid memories of Otakon are centered around Tomokazu Seki’s Q&A and autograph session the last time he graced the halls of the BCC. Needless to say it was very exciting to see him back.

Tomokazu Seki is a prolific voice actor who absolutely exudes a love for his job. His manly voices are just as excellent as his high-pitched ones; this diversity pretty much ensures that he is at least one of every fan’s favorite characters. Thus he wasted no time on introductions urging everyone to get those questions (and quote requests) going!

I’d say maybe a third of the people asked something about Domon Kasshu and most of those were requests for different lines from G Gundam. One fan told Mr. Seki that Domon was his guidance for being a man. And still another did a scene with Mr. Seki yelling lines back and forth from a conversation between Domon and Master Asia! The fan was pretty good too once he got over his stage fright. Mr. Seki admitted to liking playing Domon best of all to cheers from the crowd. And when confronted with the question of which Gundam he liked best besides G Gundam, Mr. Seki flippantly replied he didn’t know there was any Gundam besides G Gundam.

Another great line of questioning came from those asking about Gilgamesh from Type-Moon. At one point a fan asked if some of Gilgamesh’s lines everyone made Mr. Seki uncomfortable. Everyone had a good laugh when Mr. Seki said no because everything Gilgamesh says he was already thinking it anyway.

Mr. Seki even sang a bit for the audience! More good memories from Otakon were made this year though I avoided the autograph madness this time around.

 The Anime Mirai panel while far less personal it was still amazingly informative. While the Q&A was going on they passed out binders filled with original storyboards, character design sheets, and reference charts for Death Billiards and Attack on Titan. The only real problem was you only tended to get to see one of the books because once one section of the audience got one of the binders it moved around very slowly because everyone wanted to see as much of each book as possible. But if nothing else that speaks to how much people loved flipping through the artwork.

The Anime Mirai panel was an interesting insight into the project. I did not know that people working on the project are forbidden from working on anything else while they participate in the project. But in return they usually get a higher salary than anything the would normally make in the industry. I do wish I could have learned a bit more about the selection process for pitches and how they decided what gets government grant money and what gets passed over. I also wish I had asked Michihiko Suwa about his podcast. But que sara, sara. We did get a sneak peek at the upcoming Lupin III vs. Detective Conan movie. I then got some promotional material from Suwa as well. That was great.

Thank you Otakon for knowing the guests we want to see and thank you to all the guests for being so open and engaging with us American fans.

I know some people are mad that more people don’t attend Japanese guest panels. They should not be. It is a waste of time and passion. You should feel bad for them. They don’t know what they are missing out on.

More Otakon 2013 posts:

Otakon 2013: Tweets
Otakon 2013: Our 6 Favorite Announcements
Otakon 2013: General Impressions
Otakon 2013: Shinichiro Watanabe
Otakon 2013: Artist Alley
All Points Bulletin: Leaving Baltimore, Heading To Las Vegas
Otakon 2013: 10-minutes with Yuzuru Tachikawa and Michihiko Suwa
Otakon 2013: Concerts
Otakon 2013: Shingo Adachi and Tetsuya Kawakami
Otakon 2013: Fan Panels
All Points Bulletin: The Gamification of Otakon
The Speakeasy #044: Baltimore Zoo, Otakon 2013

Filed under: Conventions, Events, Otakon Tagged: Otakon

Japanese anime portal AnimeOne is closing in a few days, but many big poll results are now coming in before then! Here is the result of a user-generated Attack On Titan character ranking that closed on the 19th in Japan. It collected 62,375 votes and it's suprising to know so many people pay attention to many different characters in the world of Attack On Titan.

 

 

 

#1 Levi  7308 votes

 

 

 

#2 Jean Kirstein  6814 votes

 

 

#3 Eren Jaeger  5577 votes

 

 

#4 Armin Arlert  3831 votes

 

 

 

 

#5 Erwin Smith  3725 votes

 

 

 

#6 Bertholdt Hoover  3166 votes

 

 

 

#7 Mikasa Ackerman  3026 votes

 

 

 

#8 Sasha Blouse  2409 votes

 

 

 

#9 Zoë Hange 2203 votes

 

 

 

#10 Reiner Braun  2035 votes

 

 

 

 

#11 Krista Lenz  1658 votes

 

 

 

 

#12 Annie Leonhart  1584 votes

 

 

 

#13 Petra Ral  1531 votes

 

 

 

#14 Marco Bott  1484 votes

 

 

 

 

#15 Oluo Bossard  1448 votes

 

 

 

 

#16 Ymir  1424 votes

 

 

 

#17 Connie Springer  1297 votes

 

#18 Nanaba  1168 votes

 

 

 

#19 Titan Eren  1004 votes

 

 

 

#20 Mike Zacharias 930 votes

 

 

 

#21 Rico Brzenska  835 votes

 

#22 Ian Dietrich  660 votes

 

#23 Eld Shin  612 votes

 

#24 Hannes  598 votes

 

#25 Mina Carolina  556 votes

 

#26 Nile Dok  545 votes

 

#27 Dot Pixis  503 votes

 

#28 Günther Schultz  465 votes

 

 

 

#29 Survey Corps Horse  449 votes

 

 

 

#30 Horses  442 votes

 

 

 

#31 Colossal Titan  404 votes

 

 

 

#32  Armored Titan  403 votes

 

 

 

 

#33 Female Titan  391 votes

 

 

 

#34 Ness 385 votes

 

#35 Grisha Jeager  312 votes

 

#36 Daz  256 votes

 

 

 

#37 Sharette (the horse) 192 votes

 

#38 Thomas Wagner  190 votes

 

#39 Luke Cis  164 votes

 

#40 Samuel  139 votes

 

#41 Anka Rheinberger  88 votes

 

#42 Gustav  85 votes

 

#43 Kitz Weilman  79 votes

I'm just honored to have penned an article with a title like this. Why DOES Japan love giant robots so much? Find out in my feature for the Japan Times. Illustration by Hideo Okamoto.

So now that I have a new writing job, you’d think that I’d dedicate more of my time strictly to writing. You’d be right, but yet these days I’m finding my attention being dragged away by something incredibly stupid that can’t help but captivate me.

It’s the phenomenon that’s sweeping the internet. I bring you, Salty Bet!

So what is Salty Bet? Salty Bet is a 24/7 site that streams MUGEN matches and allows its users to bet fake money. The odds and payout are calculated based on how much people have collectively bet on which character.

I think I might be getting a little ahead of myself. First I should explain MUGEN. MUGEN is a program that’s been around since 1999 that lets you custom make your own fighting games. You get to put together your own roster of characters from Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Mortal Kombat and really anywhere. Like I said, it’s completely custom. You can have anyone from Rolento from Street Fighter Alpha 3 to a terrible series of MS Paint frames turned into something halfway playable. Programmers from all over made thousands of characters of varying quality.

I paid a good amount of attention to MUGEN back in the early 00′s. What I found was that a lot of the enthusiasts and detractors both took it way too seriously most of the time. This was during the time when fighting games were still 2D and easy to rip onto your computer, so there were a lot of faithful depictions of mainstream fighters. I’ve seen people looked down upon for basically having fun with MUGEN. Like, say, making a version of Sagat with two eyes and crazy attacks that he never had. Or maybe Ken with angel wings.

Things got looser as the years progressed, mainly because MUGENgineers had to find new ground. 2D fighters were dying out and they were running out of characters to rip. I stopped paying attention for a while, but I always saw some kind of “Marvel vs. DC” or “Marvel Superheroes 2″ type project. As a whole, more people tried to make either original characters based on preexisting sprites, upgraded characters or flat-out new guys. And it’s awesome.

Detractors of MUGEN mainly point out that the whole thing is pretty worthless because it’s the most unbalanced garbage in the fighting game universe. And they’re right! But that was never what MUGEN was about to me. I think I actually played MUGEN once. The rest of the time, I played around in CPU vs. CPU mode. I mean, what’s the point of having Sub-Zero and Ryu in the same game if you can’t just sit back and watch them duke it out?

That’s what Salty Bet is all about. Just showing random AI-based exhibitions isn’t really enough, even with the people in the chat going nuts over it. Salty Bets includes the ability to bet fake money. You start off with $400 and you can bet however much on each match. Based on the bets, the odds and potential payouts are tabulated and the fights begin. Sometimes it’ll be obvious. If one character has over a million salty bucks gambled on them while the other has maybe ten thousand, it’s going to be a slaughter. Like clockwork, one of the people who bet on the underdog will announce in the chat, “I have made a terrible mistake!”

They also say a bunch of sexist shit, but we don’t have to talk about that right now.

If you bet away all your money, luckily there’s a bailout system that doesn’t let you go under a certain amount. I heard it was $10, but these days I’m finding myself at $28 an awful lot. They also refer to this place as the “salt mines”. If you donate money to Salty Bet, you’ll always have a minimum of $666 and can go all-in on your heart’s content.

So how do you know who to bet on? It can be hard. Sometimes you might see two guys from the same game who aren’t even comparable. One will dominate while the other just stands around and gets killed. It’s a pile of different things to take in mind, such as move set, speed, hit points, hit box, damage and AI. For instance, Takuma Sakazaki from the latest King of Fighters game looks really well-animated and all, but he will just stand around and punch every now and then when he isn’t getting his ass handed to him.

There’s also an influx of Dragonball Z characters. Those guys are a crapshoot. They’re mostly very small, which gives them a tiny hit box. In other words, if their opponent keeps punching most of the time, they aren’t going to land most of their attacks. The DBZ folks also tend to have super attacks where not only do they shoot laser beams, but they kill their opponents in one hit. The drawback is that the AI in these guys are usually terrible, so even if they have three bars, they’ll still just take a beating and abstain from trying to go for the easy win.

It’s also important not to listen to the advice of the chat. They might be telling you that Kabal is “real”, but they’re just trying to convince you to bet everything on him. That in turn increases their winnings when Kabal turns out to be totally shitty and eats it in five seconds.

Watching Salty Bet can be a fun showcase of the original/edited characters, especially in the superhero sense. I’ve seen Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Black Adam, the Atom, Plastic Man, Flash, Jean Grey, Mongul, Mr. Fantastic, Darkseid, Thanoseid, Astonishing-style Cyclops, Iron Lantern, Wonder Woman, Thor, Carnage, Scream, Agony, Sandman, Kitty Pryde and Mole Man. Some of them are really expertly done (ESPECIALLY Sandman). There’s also an Ash from Evil Dead who pops up a lot and some really cool Mega Man characters redrawn from the Mega Man from Marvel vs. Capcom.

It will eat up your hours if you let it, but just remember one piece of advice: NEVER bet against Rare Akuma, Ronald McDonald or Silversamurai. Betting against Silver Samurai is fine, though.Similar Posts:

• Great Unlicensed Comic Book Games
• I Have the Power! …for one last time
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Board cites depiction of violence by Imperial Japanese Army

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This show also known as: Gettin’ Stabbed, Huh? Pretty Suspicious.

There’s a lot of drama in this anime game, son. Hope it was worth the 2 week wait! Daryl, Joel, and I are back for another round of Crying Freeman. In this very special episode we discuss racism, size… ism?, spy plans, and, as if you couldn’t guess, Crying Freeman Babiez.

Music Selection:

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I mean… BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ.

Crowdfunding campaign for 13-episode set opened today

There's not much out there that's generated as much bubbling anticipation as the new  Sailor Moon  anime, and some more information surfaced during Sunday evening's Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary Event #2 in Japan. The biggest news came from idol group Momoiro Clover Z, who confirmed that the anime will stream worldwide this winter. The series is currently set to stream on Niconico, and Momoiro Clover Z will sing the opening and ending themes. The new Sailor Moon anime was previously set for a s...

Proving that no anime is too small in terms of impact to be rescued, Discotek Media has announced on its Facebook page that it has acquired the 1994 Fatal Fury: The Movie feature film. The film is based around the Fatal Fury fighting game franchise developed by the former SNK for the Neo-Geo video game system.

 

The film is also notable for featuring character designs from the always polarizing Masami Obari. Additionally, Discotek also confirmed that the company is seeking to create a new 16:9 anamorphic transfer done from the negative film print, as no such master of the film currently exists in Japan.

 

 

With the film being a relic of late 90's to mid-2000's cable channel filler and seeing two previous releases by Viz Communications (nee Viz Media) one on VHS and the other on DVD with help from Pioneer, this release will likely only appeal to those older fans that have already seen it, but the promise of a new video transfer may get even those who barely remember it to buy it. Any of you remember this example of 90's anime?

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Humberto Saabedra is the Owner of AnimeNews.biz, Editor-in-Chief of PhoneNews.com and an occasional columnist for Ani.me. He can also be found musing on things (and Nico Robin) at @AnimeNewsdotbiz

After years and years of monitoring the Sunday news shows, I can't even begin to tell you what a breath of fresh air MSNBC's "UP with Chris Hayes" was. It wasn't the same old guests recycled from other shows. The two hour, limited issue format allowed for meaningful discussions not seen anywhere else. There was nothing better than curling up on the sofa with a hot cup of coffee and "UP" on weekend mornings. I felt smarter by the discussions.

And clearly I wasn't the only one, because the success realized by Hayes led ultimately to his promotion to a primetime weekly show on MSNBC (not necessarily a success to date, lending credit to the notion that if it ain't broke, don't fix it) and the choice of Steve Kornacki as the new host of "UP".

At first, I was willing to give Kornacki the benefit of the doubt and let him settle into the host's chair. But I've found in the last couple of months, "UP" has become less and less of a must-see show for me. I couldn't really put my finger on why until Tommy Christopher named it on Mediaite this Sunday:

In what is becoming a disturbing trend, Up With Steve Kornacki host Steve Kornacki and a panel comprised of The Cycle co-host Krystal Ball, Buzzfeed reporter Evan McMorris-Santoro, and WaPo‘s Nia-Malika Henderson allowed Republican strategist Rick Wilson to repeat an egregious lie about President Obama and the stimulus, which Wilson took as an invitation to say it again. The show needs to either book sharper panelists, or more honest conservatives.

In backstopping for Republican obstructionism, Wilson argued that there’s skepticism about infrastructure spending, “and that is largely the fault of the Obama administration,” adding that “they promised by now, if we passed that stimulus bill, we would have 5% unemployment.”

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against having a variety of point of views on a show I watch. But at least when Hayes was helming the show, talking points would get slapped down, sometimes vociferously. If I wanted to watch conservatives pull facts from their posteriors without being challenged, I can go to "Meet the Press" or "This Week" or the king of them all, "Fox News Sunday" and get lied to. I used to seek out "UP" as a respite from those shows but lately, it seems like Kornacki is slipping.

Fanart Friday returns, appreciating and respecting the fact that haters will hate. Don't take this so seriously, guys, it's bad for your blood pressure. Last week, we capped off July's unofficial look at "specialist genres" with a seedy trip through the backstreets of the noir genre, but this week we're running full-speed in the opposite direction, revisiting the curvy goddesses of Brick House Edition! Ease up, folks, I'm keeping this installment pretty tame, just like the last one!

 

 

Ladies (and gentlemen who like gentlemen), don't fret--we're also going to revisit our other "sexy" installment, Total Studmuffin Edition, in two weeks' time. Funny how both of those got like a bajillion pageviews and a nice handful of comments, but nobody liked or shared them on Facebook. It's okay, I understand--I don't think I'd want to have to explain who Matsumoto Rangiku is to my elderly relatives either. Now, let's get started!

 

DISCLAIMER:  None of the art presented is the property of myself or Crunchyroll.  All characters and series are ^tm and © their respective creators and corporate owners.  All art is the creative property of their respective artists.  Any artists who wish to have their work removed from this article may contact me, and appropriate action will be immediately taken.

 

by 田口ケンジ

I learned a valuable lesson playing Project X Zone: Monolith loves Selvaria Bles. Seriously, the Valkyria Chronicles villain is ice-cold, kinda racist, and just a little genocidal, but that did not stop them from animating the hell out of her every movement during her special attacks.

 

by 津田晶@C84日曜 ウ-01b

To be honest, I haven't followed a lot of the newer harem/comedy-type series lately, so I've passed on The Devil is a Part-Timer. Last week, a reader made a joke about "Chiho's quarter-pounders," so I decided to find out how much the average (large-ish) bust weighs, and came across this. Important phrase? "A pair of D-cup breasts weighs between 15 and 23 pounds--the equivalent of carrying around two small turkeys." God damn.

 

by ahugni

Let's take the conversation elsewhere for a bit, and discuss Lucy's pretty slick magic in Fairy Tail. Whatever misgivings I may have with her as a character (Erza and Elfman are my favorites), I always loved how Lucy has to work out specific contracts with her summoned spirits, and often has to break the rules when a bad guy's about to murder her. Can't Aquarius go on one date without being called in to work?

 

by 六条一間

About a year ago, I was at a friend's house, and they were on the PS3 trying to figure out what to leave on for a party. They ended up choosing Queen's Blade for some reason, and I got to hear a very strange story about how it was on their queue because the dad of Guy Whose Account it Was just watched through the entire show from start to finish. It was... unexpected.

 

by くくあ＠進撃のアルミン

I haven't watched Sekirei, so I can't give any informative or amusing commentary. But it was one that I missed on the last go-around (sorry, probably never going to include Heaven's Lost Property--that goes into weird Seikon no Qwaser territory, if I recall right), and I can tell you for a certainty that robes don't work like that.

 

by TOTOT

Whoa, who the hell is this? I watched through most of A Certain Magical Index and enjoyed it pretty well, but further research tells me that Shokuhou Misaki here gets introduced in the follow-up series, A Certain Scientific Railgun. Dude, Misaka's all right, but I love Touma as a main character--does he appear all that often in Railgun?

 

by ブッチャーU(2東F-12b)

Aside from a few throwaway jokes at Black Widow's expense, Marvel doesn't really have a character quite like DC's Power Girl. Sure, she exists for the obvious "cleavage window" joke, but she's also a very fun character when she's in the hands of the right creators.

 

by トシ

I say it every time the series comes up, but I should get back to watching Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari. My real question, though--didn't Tsubasa Hanekawa have white hair? Or is that just some kind of Yoko Kurama-type alternate mode?

 

by 八咫マキ

Going from badass resistance marksman to prim-and-proper schoolteacher to incredibly-badass mecha pilot sounds pretty difficult, but Yoko Littner didn't have too tough a time in Gurren-Lagann. I love the episode where they all take a break at the beach, and Yoko's beachwear is, well... not what everybody expects.

 

by 森岡＠ついった

Kagura normally wouldn't show up in an installment like this, but in the latest movie (and that one hilarious "two years later" arc that started Gintama's fifth season) we find that Kagura will grow up to have quite the figure. Maybe. I mean, those are alternate realities (or crazy alien wart infections).

by EU03

Now, I'm not gonna knock anybody for having a wandering eye (it happens, sometimes it's hard not to), but there's a big difference between "sneaking a peek" and "having a conversation with a woman's cleavage." In Maoyu, the Hero is actually pretty bad about this, constantly getting distracted by the Demon King's neckline. C'mon, dude, you've been around her for how long now?

 

by 古賀れじに

I'm wondering at what point Medaka Box makes the straight-up change from "school comedy with action" to "straight-up battle series." I mean, it took REBORN! the better part of like forty episodes, so I'm pretty curious.

 

by 日ロ

There are times when a series' honesty is refreshing. Mushibugyo doesn't pretend it's anything but a monster-of-the-week series, but for all I know it could quickly change into a more standard battle series with more human-like enemies controlling the bugs. Or Oharu here could turn evil. Or any number of shocking plot twists!

 

by mizuki

Although on that same note, saying Senran Kagura is about warring ninja clans is like saying that Queen's Blade is about a tournament for succession in a matriarchal government. You never see news about this series any more--did Japan just fall out of love with it or something?

 

b

by みじか

On my first viewing, Majestic Prince struck me as kinda kiddy. It's not an insult to the series, but there's just something about it (along with my personal dislike of Hisashi Hirai's samey character designs) that pulls me away from it. I'm not sure why, either, because I actually like a lot of the characters, not just limited to Tamaki here.

 

by まんじ（谷崎）

I always make jokes that Nami is the second coming of the Devil, but her defining moment in One Piece (at least to me) was making it look like she killed Usopp in order to save him. At that point, I still thought she was a bad guy--I was pissed at her!--but seeing that she still cared enough about the Straw Hats and her town showed that she was still a hero. Oda hasn't been having her do as much lately, though, which is strange...

 

by nabe

Good news, everybody--Dragon's Crown comes out this coming Tuesday! Then I'm going to do a review on it later in the week and then I'll finally shut up about it! Victoria's called dibs on the Tales of Xillia review, for those who were wondering. That's all right--between Pikmin 3 and Dragon's Crown, I'm gonna be kinda busy.

 

by 森鰤

Lucy (abbreviated) Yamagami, we may have to talk about appropriate workplace attire. Oh, and appropriate workplace discipline--we do not use flying binder strikes on fellow employees. Yeah, Servant X Service is pretty darn fun.

 

by 蛆 雪

It was honestly a tough call between Gargantia's Bellows (seen here) and Ridget and Pirate Empress Lukkage, but I ended up going with Bellows. Did anybody else notice that she just kind of disappeared from the series after the first handful of episodes?

 

by うん吉

Samurai Girls (and its sequel Samurai Bride) make no bones about what they are--silly, sexy action romps set within a thinly-veiled pseudo-historical context. But damn, do I love the thick-outlined art style for both of them! And I don't even normally like these kinds of shows!

 

And that's everything for this week! There's no way I could have included everybody--and I tried avoiding characters I used in the original Brick House Edition--so sound off in the comments with your favorites who didn't make the cut!

 

I say it every week, and I mean it--your art is always welcome here on Fanart Friday, regardless of your skill level or experience. Just PM me a link to your work, and I'll be sure to include it in a future installment, as well as answer any questions you might have. Just so you guys can get together pieces you're proud of, here are the next three upcoming themes for Fanart Friday!

 

-Next week, on AUGUST 9th, we're searching every inch of the crime scene with our favorite DETECTIVES! Which super (and not-so-super) sleuths will show up next week? THIS IS THE ONLY THEME I'M TAKING REQUESTS FOR THIS WEEK!

-Then, on AUGUST 16th, we're following up on this week's theme with a return to TOTAL STUDMUFFIN EDITION! How messed-up would it be if I left Free! out of this installment?

-Warm up, stretch out, and be sure to wear your mouthguard and cup--on AUGUST 23rd, we'll be taking a look at our favorite MARTIAL ARTISTS! I'm aiming more for specific styles and forms, with less of the "generic fighting ability" that so many characters have.

 

Thanks again for dropping by to check out Fanart Friday! Have a great weekend, and we hope to see you next time!

In an effort to downplay the necessity of increasing the minimum wage, right-wing media figures have forwarded the notion that minimum wage jobs are primarily for teenagers and are a "stepping stone" to higher paying future employment. However, the prospects for upward mobility among minimum wage workers remain grim.

Fox Claims Minimum Wage Intended For Teens, Meant As Stepping Stone For Higher Paid Work

Bill O'Reilly:  You Get A Job, You Get A Reference, You Get A Better Job. On the July 31 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly recalled his time spent working for minimum wage at Carvel Ice Cream. O'Reilly offered a standard critique of minimum wage jobs as a stepping stone to higher paying work stating, "you do that to get a couple of years' experience, or whatever, and then you move into a better job." [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 7/31/13]

Charles Payne: "You've Got An Opportunity To Work Your Way Up Within The Organization." On the July 29 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto and Fox Business contributor Charles Payne discussed ongoing fast food worker demands for higher wages. Payne claimed that employees need to "work [their] way up while [they're] within the organization" and that higher wages would reward "mediocrity" and encourage social degradation. [Fox News, Your World, 7/29/13]

Neil Cavuto: Minimum Wage Opened Opportunities. On the July 30 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto recalled his time spent working for minimum wage at Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips, claiming that he was willing to work for a fraction of what minimum wage workers make today and was quickly promoted to higher paying positions, stating, "It all started at two bucks an hour." [Fox News, Your World, 7/30/13]

Rick Berman: Employees Should Find Higher Wages "Someplace Else." On the July 29 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co., host Stuart Varney and Richard Berman of the Employment Policies Institute -- a front group for fast food lobbyists -- discussed fast food worker demands for higher wages. Berman claimed that employees who desired better pay simply need to "find a job someplace else, where the business model pays higher wages." [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 7/29/13]

Minimum Wage Work Is Not Designed As A Stepping Stone For Teens

Half Of Minimum Wage Workers Are Over 25. Contrary to the conservative talking point that minimum wage jobs are ideally suited for teenagers and entry-level workers, Department of Labor data show roughly half of all minimum wage workers are over 25 years old. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, accessed 7/18/13]

CEPR: Minimum Wage Workers "Older And Better Educated Than Ever." In an April 2012 report, the Center for Economic and Policy Research revealed that from 1979 to 2011 the share of low-wage workers with some college education increased from 19.5 to 33.3 percent. An additional 9.9 percent of low-wage workers had also completed a college degree, up from just 5.7 percent in 1979. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2012]

CEPR: U.S. Minimum Wage "Too Low" To Reduce Low-Wage Work. In a January 2012 report, the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the United States led all wealthy member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in low wage work. CEPR went on to conclude that the U.S. minimum wage was "too low to reduce the share of low-wage work". [Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 2012]

Socio-Economic Mobility Is Not Guaranteed For Low-Wage Workers

NELP: Entry-Level Workers "Going Nowhere Fast." In a July 2013 review of low-wage positions in the fast food industry titled "Going Nowhere Fast," the National Employment Law Project found that entry-level positions offered very little room for promotion or advancement. The study also concluded the fast food industry purposely engages in misinformation promoting a "mobility myth" to employees:

Despite what the data make clear about the barriers to upward mobility in the fast food industry, spokespersons for the industry and representatives from the major chains have collectively promoted a "mobility myth" that characterizes low-wage fast food jobs as springboards for advancement to managerial positions or opportunities to open a franchise [National Employment Law Project, July 2013]

BLS: Many Low-Wage Workers Experience Stagnant, Negative Earnings Potential Over Time. According to a July 2006 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the period 1995 to 2001, some permanently employed individuals were able to escape poverty through income gains in low-wage work, but significant numbers saw no income gains or experienced income losses. From the report:

These comparisons document the fact that, among low-income earners, many see significant gains in income that, if continued, will result in their escaping poverty. However, there is also a sizable component of this population for whom no, or even highly negative, earnings growth is evident, worsening over the long term. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2006]

CEPR: Emphasis Must Be On Improving Low-Wage Conditions. Citing the expanding scale of low-wage jobs in the American workforce, the Center for Economic and Policy Research concluded in 2007 that policies should be directed toward improving that employment profile:

Given the prevalence of low-wage jobs without benefits in our labor market, and the likelihood that these sectors will grow rather than decline, some attention to the strategy of improving the jobs is critical to strengthening our economy and communities. Unless these jobs are improved, our nation will permanently consign a large portion of workers in the United States to bad jobs. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, August 2007]

For more on right-wing media myths on the minimum wage, click here.

On March 17th, Toonami celebrated the programming block's return by airing Evangelion 1.11. It pulled   959,000 viewers and Toonami responded to a Tumblr question as to whether they were satisfied with Eva with "We were. It was a solid showing that gives us something to build off of as we think about what our NEXT movie might be…" Now, the time has come for the follow-up.

 

Toonami will be closing out the summer with an August 31st airing of 2.22.

 

Toonami remarked

Hmm maybe at some point! But since you asked about movies, now is as good a time as any to announce our NEXT MOVIE- on August 31st, we’re proud to announce that we’ll be airing NEON GENESIS EVANGELION 2.22, YOU CAN [NOT] ADVANCE, along with a special little goodie that you’ll have to wait to find out about! How ‘bout THEM apples??

 

Meanwhile, Star Wars The Clone Wars joins Toonami August 17th replacing Eureka 7.

Again, Tonami remarked

On August 17th, Eureka 7 will be going away, never to return. We’ll be sorry to see it go. Replacing it will be STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, which we’re very happy about because we always felt it was a Toonami show. FYI: We’ll be skipping some of the non-continuity (read: Jar Jar) eps, but they’ll generally run in order. AMERICAN CARTOONS BELONG ON TOONAMI!  xoxoxoxo”

what’s replacing Eureka 7?? Are you guys going to get “Eureka 7: AO” when it gets dubbed???

We’re of course looking at Eureka 7: AO.”

On the subjects of shows not picked up...

We haven’t “rejected” anything. We have two very successful Viz shows on the air at present, and until/unless one of them is removed from the block, we don’t have any availability for more. We’ll see what the future holds.”

 

Panty And Stocking (1 of 2):

At this time, we felt One Piece and Soul Eater were a better fit for the block.”

Panty And Stocking (2 of 2):

It’s unlikely we’ll be showing Panty & Stocking.”

 

via @ToonamiNews

thumbnail via http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=279153

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.