The other day I realized something: the Otaku no Podcast Forums have been long neglected.
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Video #0016 – Cool Find: Air Video HD: stream your downloaded anime, with perfect subtitles! ![[Play Now!]](http://media.otakunopodcast.com/images/PlayNow.jpg)
I produce this show out of my own pocket, primarily because of my love of all things anime and Japan. Unfortunately in this down economy, I need as much help as I can get. If you feel so inclined, a small donation to help offset my costs (server, bandwidth, equipment, etc.) would be much appreciated. Either make a purchase through one of our affiliates, bid on our eBay auctions, buy me something on my wish list, or use the handy donation button below.
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This is probably blindingly obvious to most of you, but just in case you only consume Otaku no Podcast in RSS or (gasp!) podcast form: I implemented a major redesign of the site tonight. The old theme was looking a little drab, and while browsing around WordPress.org, I found one that I liked better. It puts the categories listing, navigation bar, and “subscribe to…” links “front and center” which I think http://www.sainokuni-kanko.jp/deep/english/english.html#anime1
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$1500 CDN 1 wk in tokyo airfare 3 star hotel takayama central japan two huge festivals (1 major festival split in 2) spring and fall alps , skiing, onsense, hiking, etc. day trips: 2h bus ride matsumoto (famous for second original castle left in japan) very close by world heritge site Shirakawa-go back to pre feudal era japan kanazawa japan gradens kenroku-en nv 27
For the past few years I have participated in the Reverse Thieves’ Anime Secret Santa project. This group blogging experiment pairs up bloggers who recommend anime for each other to watch and review, only it’s done Secret Santa-style, where you don’t know who your recommendation is coming from. Each year I’ve gotten really good picks that I have enjoyed watching and reviewing; however this year’s Anime Secret Santa choices were particularly hard to choose between – it seemed that my Secret Santa zeroed right in on my brainwaves (which is ironic given the series I chose to review, you’ll see why in a bit) and picked three really good shows that sounded really interesting to me but that I had somehow passed up. The first, Spice and Wolf, was a character-driven fantasy/romance that seemed perfect given my love of other shows with great character chemistry. But since I had recently been watching some more lighter fare I was ready for some hard-hitting action/thrillers. Fortunately my Secret Santa did not disappoint, as they picked two very action-oriented series, Psycho-Pass and Mirai Nikki. I literally could not decide which one to watch and review… so I left it up to chance and flipped a coin. Fortunately, Psycho-Pass won out. Psycho-Pass is set in a near future, in a seemingly perfect world, where citizens are assured a safe environment and a bright future thanks to the Sibyl system. A person’s mental state can be instantly scanned and quantified, and such scanning is done routinely. If a person’s “hue” (mental health) becomes clouded this causes their “crime coefficient” — a measure of how likely they are to commit a violent crime — raises. Individuals with a cloudy Hue and a high crime coefficient are either incarcerated and treated or — if their values are particularly high — eliminated. However some latent criminals choose instead to work with the Ministry of Public Security as “Enforcers,” who work under “Inspectors,” and use their criminal knowledge and tendencies to help track down other criminals. Meanwhile the rest of the citizenry live a seemingly peaceful and secure life, with Sibyl managing every aspect of their lives, including education and career choice. First of all, sorry for not putting a cool image along with this post. All of the blogging how-to sites say you should always put an image with your post, to attract readers’ attention, blah blah blah. But I can’t figure out how to do that with the WordPress mobile app. Unfortunately I’ve been incredibly busy this holiday season, with either work (being stuck at remote job sites with extremely slow Internet isn’t fun) or family/social commitments (in fact I’m stuck at a family Christmas function right now.) So I haven’t had time to finish my Anime Secret Santa review. đ I’ll be working on it the moment I get home today, but I might not be able to post it before Christmas Day ends. Rest assured that it WILL go up sometime over the next few days, probably sometime this weekend, but definitely no later than New Years’ Eve. Gomen nasai…
Yeah, sorry about that… Unfortunately things have been a bit crazier than usual for me this holiday season, and, well, I just didn’t have time to put it all together. But fear not, I’m not going to abandon this fine tradition of ours. The 12 Days of Kurisumasu will continue… it’ll just be a bit late this year. As I’ve explained previously there are actually two interpretations of the “12 Days of Christmas.” One interpretation (the one I’ve been adhering to so far) is that it starts 12 days before Christmas, with the 12th day falling on Christmas Day itself. The second interpretation is that the 12 Days starts on Christmas Day, and ends… well, 12 days after. And this is the interpretation that we’ll be going with this year. So, starting on Friday, December 25, be sure and check our Twitter and Facebook feeds to see what the Otaku no Podcast elves have chosen for you every day. (Of course, our picks can always be found on the 12 Days of Kurisumasu page as well.) Hope everyone out there has a safe, happy and healthy holiday season, and we wish you all the best for the New Year!
Well, at least there’s one good thing to come out of this holiday madness. (Well, that plus the actual fun parts of the holiday itself — giving (and receiving) gifts, eating delicious foods, catching up with good friends, etc.) Yes, you guessed it, The Anime Secret Santa project is back! I can hear it now, some of you are probably staring at your screens yelling “WHAT YOU SAY !!“. Well obviously you must be new around here, because if youâve been hanging around this blog and podcast for any appreciable length of time, you would know about Anime Secret Santa. After all, Iâve written about it several times before, and weâve even participated in it for the past few years as well. Basically the Anime Secret Santa project involves a bunch of bloggers (and perhaps podcasters too) who get together and put their names into a virtual hat, which the Reverse Thieves then proceed to mix up. They then pair off bloggers, and ask each of them to recommend an anime for the other to watch. The trick is that they donât tell them who the recommendation came from. Once you have your anonymous donorsâ recommendations in hand, you then proceed to pick an anime off their list, watch it and review it. Yes, exactly like that whole Secret Santa thing, which you are undoubtedly familiar with. (After all itâs probably been used as a plot device in at least a few Christmas-themed anime episodesâŚ) The idea is to get people to step outside their comfort zones if you will, and watch and review shows they may not have considered before, and to get to know your fellow anibloggers and maybe even get some cross-blog promotions/interactions going on. Itâs a great way to find out about anime that, maybe you might not have considered before, but ended up liking a lot. (Or maybe you hated it, and then you can write a really scathing review. There have been some pretty hilariously epic ones.) Plus itâs a lot of fun. Want to participate? Itâs pretty simple. First, youâll need to set yourself up on one of those âkeep track of what anime Iâve watchedâ sites, such as Anime-Planet (my personal favorite) or MyAnimeList. They are all free to join, and are pretty useful in their own right. Then, once youâve listed all the anime that youâve seen, e-mail your name, blog/podcastâs URL and the URL to your anime listing site profile page to the Reverse Thieves (secretsanta [dot] rt [at] gmail [dot] com) with the subject line âSecret Santa Participant.â (Also, if for whatever reason you would prefer not to have to watch/review fansubs, be sure and mention that in your email.) All entries are due by Saturday, October 17th (that’s in less than a week!) so you better hurry! Check out the Reverse Thieves blog post for full details and where to send in your entry. Naturally, if the fates allow it, Otaku no Podcast will be participating this year as well. And we hope that you will too!
Update: we’ve finally nailed down a time when we’re all able to get together and record our AX wrap-up of Doom. (Better late than never!) And I think (knock on wood) I’ve gotten to the bottom of my computer problems. So look forward to a new podcast episode soon! By now, hopefully everyone has checked out our latest Cool Find, and are having fun with it. I sure am, as you can probably guess by my Twitter feed. (By the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, please do check it out.) I wanted to throw together a quick list of tips, tricks and techniques that I found helpful, and that I hope will help other new players as well. This guide is meant primarily for beginners, though you might want to glance through it even if you’ve been playing for a while – you might learn something. (Or, at the very least, maybe you’ll spot a glaring error that I made, and you can correct me.) Also, some of these hints may seem obvious, but you never know, maybe there are things that some people find “blindingly obvious” that others don’t. Finally, some of what I say below may be repeats of what people have said in some of the other guides out there. Again I am doing this as a convenience for new players, so that you can get as much information as possible here in one (hopefully) easy to read place. (Plus some of the guides may seem kind of intimidating, especially to newbies.) I would definitely still read the various guides out there, once you’ve gotten into the rhythm of the game, if you’ll forgive the pun. |
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Sorry for the late review – it has been an even busier holiday season than usual, with multiple work and family commitments leading up through New Years even. Really tried to get this posted before the end of 2015, but unfortunately I couldn’t manage that. But here it is at last!
Those of you who’ve been visiting this blog for some time are probably wondering where a certain something is. Namely, the 
It is Monday, October 12 as I write this, which means that we are, theoretically anyway, deep into fall, and will soon be thrust into winter. I say “theoretically” because, at least where I live, it sure as heck doesn’t feel like fall. We’ve been in a seemingly perpetual heat wave for the past few months, and it is showing no signs of letting up. Still, people are going about making preparations for Halloween and the holidays to come. And so are the retailers. Yes folks, I’m starting to see promotions coming up for Thanksgiving and — even worse — 
Update 10/11/2015: A few minor updates toward the end of the post.
