kate

While we've already debunked Meryl Streep's accusations that Walt Disney was a "gender bigot," let us use her commetns as an opportunity to dig even deeper and find out what actions Disney actually undertook to encourage the advancement of women at his studio.

Ai Shite Knight (1982) by Kaoru Tada

In my 6th Blog Anniversary post, I spoke about how my schedule has made it so that for the next few months my posts will probably be singificantly less refined in terms of content and complexity, and likely sporadic. Currently I need to concentrate myself primarily towards another task, and so I basically can’t afford to expend my concentration and mental energy too extensively on Ogiue Maniax. Thus, I’ve decided to switch to a method of posting in which the act of blogging is more stress relief and patchworks of thought. You may have noticed it already.

The funny thing is, while often times this can be attributed to some kind of burnout (be it for their blog or for anime/manga in general), this is not the case for me, and in fact I’ve felt the opposite in the past. The issue is that this desire for more is something I must mitigate. I have to basically force myself to not blog, because if I spend too much time with anime and manga, it encourages too much thinking, too much analysis, and too much desire to just keep finding more. If I blog based on that, it draws me towards putting in some serious effort into what I’m writing in a desire to present really well-structured posts, which is again something I need to make sure I don’t do.

It’s a really odd situation to be in, but I hope people understand. I’m not trying to rekindle a dying flame, I’m trying to contain an inferno.

I hope you have been enjoying our series on the history of the Disneyland Monorail. I can’t decide whether I’m having more fun searching for these fantastic vintage photos or learning about each of the different models of this iconic attraction. Today the series continues with a look back at the Mark III and its nearly twenty-year run on the rails above Disneyland park.

By 1969, the Disneyland Monorail had become not only an incredibly popular mode of transportation for guests traveling from the Disneyland Hotel, but also quite the E-ticket round-trip attraction. When Walt Disney Imagineering built the Mark III, they knew they needed to increase the capacity of the trains to support their popularity. So the trains increased from the 4-car models introduced in the Mark II to new 5-car trains, reaching a length of 137 feet. Maintaining the traditional colors of past trains, the Mark III featured red, blue and gold monorails, with a fourth color – green – added to the fleet.

The Mark IV Monorail premiered in 1971, but not at Disneyland park. I’m sure you can guess where – leave your answer in the comments!

The History of the Disneyland Monorail: Mark III, 1969-1987 by Erin Glover: Originally posted on the Disney Parks Blog

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1. 1.Odysseus
2. 2.Hermes
3. 3.Athena
4. 4.Poseidon
5. 5.Calypso
6. 6.Zeus
7. 7.Cyclops

Ody-C is an upcoming series from Matt Fraction that retells the story of The Odyssey, in space, with many (if not all) of the genders reversed. Artist Christian Ward posted these character designs from the series on his Tumblr. Here we have our crafty Odysseus, mistress of tricks, with her laser gun and space sword and I hope I have caught your attention by now.

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Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

Joss Whedon's space western Firefly has an absurdly dedicated fanbase... to which I don't belong, having never developed a taste for the show. That said, it's hard not to appreciate an impressive-looking spaceship when you see one and Quantum Mechanix's 1/250 scale cutaway replica of the Serenity (now available for pre-order) is nothing short of spectacular.

Three separate cut-away pieces on the top reveal the cockpit and... a mess of other areas. The actual living quarters don't appear to be part of the cut-away but we still get some tiny, very detailed areas. The cut-away parts are apparently held in place by magnets and the ship is billed as featuring over 200 hand-painted parts.

Unfortunately, the ship will set you back around US$350. It's currently available for per-order and slated for a second quarter release.

[ Pre-order at Big Bad Toy Store ]

Read more...

In time for the kick off of the Dressrosa arc, the One Piece anime is getting a new opening. Mixed gender dance/vocal group AAA, previously featured in the end theme for InuYasha: The Final Act, perform new song "Wake Up!," which debuts in episode 629 on January 19th.

 

AAA will also be acting as 15th anniversary ambassadors for One Piece. Their theme replaces the 16th opening, "Hands Up" by Kota Shinzato, introduced in episode 591.

 

 

via @iMuhammadA and One-Piece.com

 

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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.

6th Blu-ray/DVD to include OVA adapting chapter 124 from Tadatoshi Fujimaki's manga

NIS America has announced that they will be collecting anime kimi ni todoke -From Me to You- Volumes 1 through 3 and Natsume's Book of Friends Season 1 & 2 in new Standard Edition packaging February 4. The affordable option for fans will include the story guide leaflet and bonus clips that were included in the Premium Editions.

 

Natsume's Book of Friends sells for $59.99 with 26 episodes on 4 DVDs

 

About Natsume's Book of Friends:
Natsume has always been an outcast because he inherited his grandmother Reiko's ability to see yokai (strange beings that are invisible to most people). After moving to his grandmother's hometown and accidentally releasing a yokai who was imprisoned in a Lucky Cat statue, he learns about one of his grandmother's keepsakes, her "Book of Friends," which contains the names of the yokai she defeated, and allows its wielder to command the yokai named within. Since then, his life has gotten much more hectic, and yokai now visit him on a daily basis, seeking to either get their names back or take possession of the Book of Friends.

 

 

kimi ni todoke collections are $54.99 eacj for 12 episodes on 2 Blu-rays/DVDs

About kimi ni todoke -From Me to You-:
Sawako Kuronuma has had a difficult time fitting in. Some say it's her jet black hair, others say it's her hushed manner of speaking, while still others claim it is due to her name's similarity to Sadako, a character from a popular Japanese horror series. On her first day of high school, Sawako meets the one boy who treats her like a normal girl - Shota Kazehaya. Through his selfless aid, Sawako slowly learns to come out of her shell and even begins to make friends for the first time in her life.

 

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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.

College Humor wonders, "What if Google was a guy?" And by that, it means, an actual person who took your queries, rooted through a filing cabinet, and handed you what you were looking for.

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I already shared this on Twitter, but I decided to ask my two daughters if they knew what a Game Boy was this weekend. My youngest said, "No." and my oldest told me, "It's a boy that loves games." I responded, "Really?!" After my response, she wanted to know what it was. So I showed her a photo of one on Google to which she responded, "OH... That's that thing you have in your office. Can I play it?"

I can understand why she doesn't know what one is. The final installment in the Game Boy lineup was the Game Boy Micro and that came out in 2005. The last year Nintendo offered the Game Boys for retail, was in 2008 and she was way too young to remember that.

At least they knows what a Nintendo Entertainment System is. So I haven't completely failed as a parent.



See more: Game Boy Pocket

If you've seen the 2009 blaxploitation parody Black Dynamite or the Adult Swim cartoon of the same name, then I don't really need to tell you why a new, four-issue IDW Publishing miniseries from writer Brian Ash, artists Ron Wimberly and Sal Buscema, and colorist Dave Wilkins is exciting. The very idea is exciting on its face.

But if somehow you aren't familiar with the explosive franchise, let me just tell you this: Black Dynamite is a love machine who can't stand to see jive-ass suckas dealing smack to the kids and is also not fond of his kung-fu being interrupted.

Continue reading…

Series centers on princess who can control rainfall & her forced marriage to a boy king

The West Virginia chemical spill that left some 300,000 people without access to water has exposed a gaping hole in the country's chemical regulatory system, according to environmental experts.

Much the state remains under a drinking-water advisory after the spill last week into the Elk River near a water treatment facility. As much as 7,500 gallons of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, which is used in the washing of coal, leaked from a tank owned by a company called Freedom Industries.

A rush on bottled water ensued, leading to empty store shelves and emergency water delivery operations. According to news reports, 10 people were hospitalized following the leak, but none in serious condition.

The spill and ensuing drinking water shortage have drawn attention to a very lax system governing the use of chemicals, according to Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who specializes in chemical regulation. "Here we have a situation where we suddenly have a spill of a chemical, and little or no information is available on that chemical," says Denison.

The problem is not necessarily that 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, is highly toxic. Rather, Denison says, the problem is that not a great deal about its toxicity is known. Denison has managed to track down a description of one 1990 study, conducted by manufacturer Eastman Chemical, which identified a highly lethal dose, in rats, of 825 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. But how that applies to humans at much lower doses in water isn't necessarily clear.

In response to the crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency have determined that a level of 1 part per million in water is safe. The drinking water advisory is now slowly being lifted on an area-by-area basis.

So why do we know so little? All of this traces back to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, the law under which the Environmental Protection Agency regulates the production of chemicals. According to EPA spokeswoman Alisha Johnson, MCHM is one of a large group of chemicals that were already in use when the law was passed, and so were "grandfathered" under it. This situation "provided EPA with very limited ability to require testing on those existing chemicals to determine if they are safe," she says.

There are more than 60,000 such grandfathered chemicals, according to Johnson. A leak involving any of them into water could trigger to a similar situation of uncertainty—meaning that this spill has served to underscore a major gap in how we regulate chemicals.

"What we have now is a situation where because our system, our policies, and regulations don't require this information be developed, we're left scrambling when something like this happens," says Denison.

Client: It doesn’t look like you did what I requested.  Wow I can’t believe you f***ed me over!  What the hell was I paying for?

Client: Sorry, I forgot to refresh the page. Thanks!

Very first images I’ve done for the Agito Cosmos project in 2011. Agito cosmos is a french comic book I’m working on with the great Olivier Milhaud !

Client: Can you scan this painting and make 5x7 greeting cards?

Me: Well, it’s a square painting.

Client: Yes, I see that, I painted it. Can’t you just make it fit without any cropping?

Me: As magical as you think I may be, I am still bound by the laws of physics.

Client: Then just bend the laws a bit.

“

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

”

- http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue-is  (via albinwonderland)

In short, the free-to-play PS3 Tekken Revolution is a depressing preview of things that just might happen in the fighting game genre. In long, keep reading.

(I don't know the entire Tekken series and didn't really play Tekken Tag 2 for any length, only watched tourney matches and read about it, so I might get some technical stuff wrong here.)

Revolution is a free copy of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 with the tag part (along with other more advanced, overwhelming game systems) removed and with far fewer characters. Its target, boldly, greedily, is the perceived "casual market". The game design screams "Scrubs and cell phones!"

When we look at fighting games, the scene, the people who come out to tournaments, we have to really keep in mind that these are the most dedicated and diehard genre lovers around. They like fighting games so much they're willing to get on a plane and spend a weekend on it. And games following Street Fighter IV, a game designed around (MOSTLY) exactly what the scene wants, have followed its example. Even the boring games, like KI or Injustice, are sophisticated, balanced, and tournament-ready. An idea like RPG stat-leveling-- around which Revolution is based-- is rightfully considered treason against good fighting game design.

But this mindset forgets that the majority of players really doesn't give a shit about that kind of thing and would be perfectly happy to level up their fighter's stats and grind until the game does the work of winning for them. That's what Tekken Revolution is about: a fundamentally unfair and deeply cynical system where the house is selling the advantage.

There are two separate ladders in this game's system: you can win matches or you can keep playing.If you win matches against players at your approximate level, you'll quickly rise in the ranks like in any other competitive game. Whether you win or not, on the other hand, you will always rise in the experience ladder.

Gaining XP, levels, and stats is actually a very clever handicap system; if you lose a lot, the game will have you face players in the same rank but with much lower stats. If you win a lot, you'll see things from the other end as your low-stat character goes up against characters with huge advantages in raw stats, but who are played by people who aren't skilled enough to make anything of them.

No matter how bad you are at the game, the game will keep leveling you up, and somewhere in there your overpowered character has got to start winning already and break out of "Grand Master" rank -- note that in this game a weakling rank is GRAND MASTER.

(The stats are attack power, HP, and the nebulous "vigor", offering miniscule bonuses in each category.)
And you can level faster if you pay for it. The free-to-play bite in the ass comes immediately: Namco will allow you to play five ranked matches and two arcade mode runs in the space of about two hours, but after that you'll have to wait.

What Namco wants you to do is to pay for each individual play, like you would at the arcade, by buying their Premium Coins. $1 for 4 plays, $2 for 10 plays, $5 for 30 plays so obviously that's the only one you'd pick. Benefits? That's easy: you get the coin back if you win (so it's really $5 for 30 losses, incentivizing the strong player), and your prize money and XP are tripled over free play. That's right, not doubled, tripled. So this is the roundabout moment at which we reach "pay to win." Buy Namco Quarters and you'll get an unfair competitive advantage over the plebes in return. At least practice mode is free.

You can't tell whether a player has paid for their stats. You'd be easily able to suss it out if you could see total matches played versus level, but in service to the player's ego, Revolution only shows number of wins. Like I said, it's very clever. Nobody has to know you're paying them for a leg up.

Because this isn't enough, Revolution actually has even more pay items, like the Namco Bandai bosses heard about every possible monetization scheme and decided to put them all in one game. Costumes from TTT2 are $2, hell, hit effects from TTT2 are $2. Additional characters might be unlocked or might cost $7: it depends on how far back in the order they are. If you're a Tekken head and "your character" isn't in the first few to unlock, welp that'll be seven bucks.One day there's going to be a fighting game that works like DOTA 2 or League of Legends; free and supported entirely by purchasing characters, expensive hats, or whatever. It solves the genre's perpetual problem of getting people to pay for game upgrades in a single stroke. It's just a matter of the consoles supporting that infrastructure, and some developer being smart enough to get there. We'd be dumb not to assume everybody is already working on it. It'll probably be Street Fighter V, because from my extensive experience with fighting games I can tell you that most people won't play any game where they can't pick Ryu/Ken and do Shoryukens over and over again.

(Did I mention that Tekken Revolution adds Shoryukens, by the way? To fucking Tekken? Because it makes a complete mess of the game!)Anyway, Tekken Revolution is unlikely to be that game, the one that wins over the tourney people as well as the scrubs, because it's made firmly for the latter group. But you should look at it-- if not play it-- and think about it, because it is one place the future can go.

“Why is it that the people on CSI can enhance an image and cut out the crap in seconds WHILE SOLVING A MURDER, and you need almost an HOUR to do it!?”

de-maupin:

tsukikage no

Glass Mask (1984 anime)

Disney’s Animal Kingdom was originally envisioned as a full day park. Designers had included a large section of the park devoted to imaginary animals of the beastly kingdom. This land would have giant coasters, flying beasts, family friendly attractions, and really allow the Imagineers imaginations to go wild with the possibilities. Sadly, the budget for that area was cut and left to the dustbin of history.

But Disney has always known it would need to add to DAK eventually. If you look at the details for Avatarland, we are getting something close to the original idea for a land of fantasy creatures (just without the giant coaster, which ended up at Islands of Adventure when some Imagineers let go by Disney took their ideas to Universal). Just not the fantasy creatures you were expecting.

What’s clear is that DAK needs to expand its offerings into the night and that Pandora: The Worlds of Avatar (or whatever the name is these days) can be a big part of that. Just look at that concept art above. The potential of bio-luminescence is amazing. I don’t think Imagineers would release that art if they didn’t know they could pull it off. I urge fans who still have questions about Disney’s decision to partner with James Cameron and his Avatar movies to give Disney’s team a chance to add something amazing to DAK.

You really don’t have a choice anyway, as Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion makes it all as official as it gets in the world of Disney anyway.

Using Na’vi-inspired shovels and assisted by Jake Sully in this photo illustration are (left to right) George A. Kalogridis, president of Walt Disney World Resort; Meg Crofton, president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Operations, United States and France; Tom Staggs, chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts; a Na’vi; Jon Landau, AVATAR producer; Bruce Vaughn, chief creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering; and Joe Rohde, creative executive, Walt Disney Imagineering, at the ceremonial groundbreaking for the largest expansion in Disney’s Animal Kingdom history.

Here are a few of the above talking about the expansion.

It’s very early in the process, but word is this new expansion will open late 2016 or early 2017. I hope they’re able to pull it off faster than that. There’s also the first Avatar sequel, which will hit theaters in 2016, Disney will want to capitalize on the publicity and excitement for that film, so my guess is they’ll shoot for a 2016 opening.

Be honest, what are your feelings about Avatar coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdom now that construction has begun?

Construction Begins on Avatar-Land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom originally posted on
The Disney Blog - Disney News and Information -- by fans, for fans . If you're reading this on a different site, please click the above link to read the original story. Thank you.

If you haven’t seen Twin Peaks – the greatest TV show in the history of TV, don’t you know? – your best chance yet is coming along with a new, shiny Blu-ray release, expected to happen this March but, right now, not officially announced.

A casting call recently rolled by, revealing that David Lynch was looking for a very specifically-defined actress to take place in a new promo for the release. Since then, Ray Wise has gone out to do interviews in support of Big Ass Spider! and, of course, was asked if he knows anything about the promo or the filming.

He may have been bending the rules a little, but Wise told Fangoria:

Yeah, we [shot the promo for the Blu-ray] two days ago. It’s been done. I don’t know if I was supposed to leak that to anybody, but yeah, we did it and I’m not at liberty to say what was done. I can say that it’s going to be a big surprise.

So if Leland Palmer is coming back one might wonder which other characters will be along too. The shortest odds would go to Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer, I think, not least because she promised they’d meet again in 25 years and, lo and behold, it’s been 25 years.

I promise you that the promo will turn up here at Bleeding Cool as soon as it becomes available.

Twin Peaks Blu-Ray Promo Will Be “A Big Surprise,” Ray Wise Says He Makes An Appearance

Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of Akira, and director of Steam Boy and the live-action Mushisi has a rich history of design work, promoting his own projects as well as other commercial and artistic endeavors. A new POSTERS : OTOMO KATSUHIRO × GRAPHIC DESIGN art book collection this material will be released by Pie International on February 28th.

 

the 176 page collection goes for  5,040yen

 

 

via Catsuka

 

If you're interested in the subject, be sure to check out ChronOtomo: Otomo Katsuhiro Chronology | Facebook

 

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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.

Ai Yazawa's 1999 fashion school manga Paradise Kiss, adapted into a 2005 anime and 2011, is getting a new release in Japan. Volumes 1 and 2 will be release January 17th and 3 and 3 will be released February 18th.

 

Yazawa has returned to illustrate new covers for the series, which has been released in North America by Tokyopop and Vertical.

 

 

via Natalie

 

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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.

pastelmorgue:

♔プリンセス♡

I must resist urge to make these. I just barely finished off my xmas cookies!

The AbleGamers Charity said today that it was able to raise over $100,000 for the first time in its history, in 2013. The charity said that these donations were made possible with the help of a lot of companies and community based fundraising effort. Community-based fundraisers such as Minethon and PAX-E, corporate donations from Paradox and IndieGala, dozens of individual streamers, and an increasing awareness in the gaming and disability communities have helped propel the charity to a new level coming into 2014, according to AbleGamers.

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App allows users to create their own manga with screentones, color, speech bubbles